The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 222: Jon Acuff - How To Finish (Give Yourself The Gift Of Done)

Episode Date: September 10, 2017

Jon Acuff is back for a second time on The Learning Leader Show! JON ACUFF is the author of five books, including the New York Times Bestseller Do Over. For nineteen years he's helped companies like the Home Depot, Bose, Staples, and AutoTrader.com tell their stories. He's a well-known public speaker, and his blogs have been read by millions of fans. His most recent book is: Finish - Give Yourself The Gift of Done. If you'd like to listen to the first conversation Jon and I had on January 27, 2016, CLICK HERE. Episode 222: Jon Acuff Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show Want to write a book? "What question are you willing to spend two years answering?" Show Notes: Why Jon dedicated this new book to his parents and their belief in him as a writer His Dad was a pastor, a communicator. Have to learn how to shape ideas and be a speaker What took so long for Jon to believe he was a writer? "I'm a writer. When you do it enough, it becomes possible. I've written six books." Why this book? "People say, I like your book Start, but I never finish, how do I finish?" Like Jim Collins, Jon says, "What is a question I'm willing to spend two years answering?" 91% of Americans want to write a book and less than 1% of them do it "I want this thing to be part of my life... This has multiple applications." James Clear says it's the friction at the start... Lacing up the shoes and beginning the run. Jon reply "Is it harder to buy a treadmill or use the treadmill?" This is built on research. 900 participants. It is a data driven book How to mix in humor... Why to study stand up comedians? "I've watched 100 stand up comedians for every 1 business leader" "If you want to enjoy the internet more, you must know it's not about you. It never is." -- People are thinking about themselves (Tracy McGrady & JR Smith) Goal Setting: Cut them in half, make the goals smaller Test principles -- Look to be 5%-10% better "Before I set a goal, I make sure it is the right size" How this relates to setting sales goals/quotas in a big company Need a culture of honesty and realistic goals in order to thrive, grow, and survive "A goal is a promise to yourself" "Make it fun if you want it done" Satisfaction goes up Performance goes up How to get something done? Reward Fear Which one do you better respond to? You need to know. How about the people that work for you? You need to know How Jon will read 156 books this year What is the story you want to tell your kids?  Are you proud of what you do everyday? "The old rules don't apply anymore... The faucet of freelance money can turn on." Why do some have "the fear of success?" Fear of money Fear of high expectations Self sabotage Fear of "what's next?"  

What happens when you make something fun? And what we found was that there's two things you study. You study satisfaction and you study performance. Now, satisfaction is how you felt. Performance is how you did. And if you want to do something well with excellence, the principle has to raise both of those. Because let's say I raise your satisfaction but not your performance, you're smiling all the way to last place. Say I raise your performance but not your satisfaction.

You're a rich, miserable jerk. Like you're every successful person you've ever met who has all the success and none of the joy. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. I loved having my featured leader, John Acuff on again. If you remember longtime listeners, he was on episode number 93, January 28, 2016, discussing speaking, writing, making the move from the corporate life to being an entrepreneur. It was a great talk.

And this one's even better discussing his. most recent book titled Finish. Give yourself the gift of Don. A few of the topics we got into. A new goal setting technique that if you implement it, people are 46% more likely to reach their goal. John has empirical evidence data to back this up. He did a bunch of research for this book,

which we'll talk about. And then the two different methods of motivation and how to implement the one for you into your life that will create results. And then he closes with a really thought-provoking research on the fear of success and expectations that come along with it. I would have never thought we would go here, but we did. And it was a great way to end the conversation and get ready for the next one.

Ladies and gentlemen, so good with John Acuff. All right, John, thanks so much, man, for coming back on The Learning Leader Show. Last time you were on, it was, uh, January 28th, 2016, episode 93. So it's really cool to have you back, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Especially with the work that you're doing now,

you have this great series, and it's been fun to see your career as both a speaker and a writer and someone who has a great sense of humor on social media. So I've really enjoyed it, and I appreciate your team sending me your latest book called Finish. And one of the first things I noticed,

and I always like to learn about, the upbringing of people, both them as parents as well as when they were a kid. And I noticed that you dedicated this book to your parents, Mark and Libby, because they believed you were a writer long before you did. Can you share a little bit about them, your upbringing, and how they impacted you, and influenced you, and believed in you as a writer even before you did? Sure, yeah. I mean, a big part of it is my dad's communicator.

You know, he's a pastor. and so I grew up seeing communication or sharing ideas as a normal thing you could do. So I think that really gave me a head start on being a speaker and shaping ideas. And they, you know, they would, I remember I think it was in high school, they ordered a like write a book kit that came in the mail, like how to be a writer. And so I just always felt like they were supportive of it. even at times when I was like I don't know if what's what I want to do

it was always super helpful so yeah they're they're you know they're both very creative people they're both kind of in touch with ideas and the sharing of them and I think that that helped a lot why did you not believe though that you said they believe it long before you did

what took you so long to believe that well I mean I think it's like anything I think Jeff Goins writes about that a lot about the idea of like you are a writer you know Like he's very, he's very deliberate while saying like, hey, it's not just, if it was all how and it was all just sit down and write, then everybody would write. But there's a lot more that goes into it than just the physical act of writing. So I think like any artist, there's a part of you at some point that goes, eh, I'm not going to be good at this.

Like, this isn't what I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not qualified. I'm not a real writer. I think everybody has that. Yeah, I understand that. I get it. And so was there a specific moment that you felt that your mind had changed in your life to where you thought, wait a second, I'm a writer. This is what I am, what I do. I speak about what's written, what I've put on pen to paper.

I'm curious if there was a story or a moment behind that. No, I mean, I don't think so. Although I guess it's more of like the general sense that when you do it enough, you figure out how to do it. It's like anything. It's not that it makes it easy, but it's not as impossible as it used to be. So, like, having written six books, like, I know, like, it's not an easy process, but I know it's possible because I have six examples of proof that it's possible. So, like, for my perspective, I wasn't, I don't know, I guess I look at it that way. I go, yeah, is it hard?

Yeah, it's hard. Of course it's hard. It's, you know, a book is a kind of big endeavor and it was challenging, but it's definitely not impossible. because I've clearly already done it. I can, you know, if I've done it that many times, I can probably do it again. So leading into the current one that's coming out here, September 12th, it's called Finish. Give yourself the gift of Don. What made you want to write this one?

Well, you know, you've been around, like, we've interacted a bunch, so you kind of understand where I'm coming from. I wrote this book called Stark that people said, like, and it did fine. Like, people liked it. But people started to come up to me over the years and would say, and that book's been out four years, so it certainly happened a bunch. They would say, I like your book start. No offense. I've just never had a problem starting.

Like, starting is the easiest thing in the world. I never actually finished, though. How do I finish? And that was a great question. And I kept getting people to say that. And I kept realizing in my own life that finishing is the hardest part. You know, our culture, the way it's structured, we like to. glamorize the start and ignore the finish. So we have popular phrases like, well begun is half done

or the hardest part of any journey is the first step. But that's not even a little true. Like, I'd say it in the book, if a surgeon told you after, you know, as soon as I make the first incision, I'm half done with your surgery, you'd be like, no, you're not. And the first part is never the hardest part. The middle is way harder than the beginning. And so I realized in my own life, I wanted to figure out how to finish, then I also realized, like, with nonfiction, you're trying to find a need and fill the need and serve people. And I felt there was legitimate, there was legitimate need around the issue of finishing that made this a really interesting topic to me. I recently spoke with Jim Collins on this podcast, John. It was a great talk. And he had told me,

I mean, sometimes it's the simplicity in the way people say things that really makes it click, but he said that the magic is in the questions. And his question was, how do you take something from good to great, a person or a company or a leader? Is that how you formulate your writing process, the books that you write? You mentioned that people said they don't have a problem with starting, but they kept asking about how to finish. Is that part of your process for writing? Yeah, I mean, I guess I look at it, like the way I look at it is I say, what's a question I'm willing to spend two years answering? Yeah.

And then a long portion of my life talking about. You know, I've, you know, I still get questions about my first book eight, nine years later. So you just have to know, okay, do I care enough about this thing to deal with it for a while? And is it a big enough question? Some questions are small and you find a finite answer and you go, okay. But the idea of, like, I was doing the math the other day. So, for instance, right now, if you look up at studies, different studies say 81 to 90% of Americans want to write a book. Like in surveys, that's what they say.

I got a book in me. I want to do it. You have, you and I both have millions of friends that have said that. So the population of America is 323 million, which means 267 to 290 million people. say they want to write a book. But there's only 600,000 to one million published every year. 99% of people don't. So that's like that's obviously indicative of a big question where you've got a large group of people going, we want this thing to be true of our life. And then you go, well, are you living that way? And they go, we sure aren't. And that's where you go, wait a second. Like,

that doesn't make sense. There's something at odds here. That's the kind of question that for me. And then I guess the other thing is a question that has multiple applications. So finishing is not just a book thing. Like, it's not like writing a book is hard, but dieting is easy. Every aspect of your, like, finishing is consistently difficult across every goal, every form of life, every, you know, it's hard to be a good parent. It's hard to stay consistent with your kids. It's hard to exercise. It's hard to stay focused at work when you maybe feel like they don't recognize what you're good at.

There's a lot of areas where it's difficult to finish. So I felt like the question was definitely big enough and then didn't have a niche application. This book, I've had a better response to this book from corporations than any other book I've ever written because they recognize, yeah, it's not a book about dieting. It's a book about finishing. And we want every employee to be better at finishing. I have yet to meet a company. I was like, no, are people hit all their goals?

Like, they almost hit too many goals. They say the opposite. The one thing I found interesting when I was reading this, John, and I love it, by the way, It was really well done, like all of your work. Though I try to find parts that I'm not going to say I disagree with, but that we can at least have constructive dialogue. So for example, you're getting this question about finishing. And I had James Clear.

You know James Clear? Yeah, sure. I talked them the other day. Yeah. So James, a great guy, really smart, research-based. Habit guy. Habit guy. So one of the things James said to me on this podcast was that the friction of getting started

from what he's found is the hardest. So putting on the running shoes that once they get the marathon started, that, and I think you've written about, like, what happens in mile 25, but once they get started, it's easier than, that's,

the toughest part for him is the friction at the beginning point. So when you hear a habit-forming researcher like James write about and talk about that, maybe you guys have talked about this. It would be cool to hear if you have. What do you think in regards to that, because you've written about starting and finishing now.

Yeah, I mean, I guess, I think that's not to say that there's not friction at the start. I just, if you, let's talk about it this way. Is it harder to buy a treadmill or is it harder to use a treadmill? Because the buying is the starting dude. Like, is it harder? Was it harder in the 80s and 90s for people to buy a Bowflex or to finish it? Or if I said this to you, was it harder to buy P90X or to, could do P90X. You would go do like it's a million times harder. So I think there is friction like 100

but it's it'd be like ask ask somebody who's tried to quit smoking cigarettes. Is it easier to start that that process or is it easier to actually make it a habit that you live? And you like everyone would say oh yeah, you're right. Like just again like think of the half written books, the half started diets, the sneakers people bought the the businesses. Like, is it easier to register a URL at GoDaddy because you've got an idea than it is to launch the site, to finish the launch? And you go, oh, yeah. So I get the pushback. I don't want to say starting as a breeze because I think there is some fear and some trepidation.

But I think on cross any category, if you say, if you compare the start to the finish, nobody's going to pick the start as the most difficult thing. They're going to say, oh, yeah, actually, like doing. the thing was a lot harder than I anticipated. I know one of the things you are proud of in regard to this book from us talking prior to recording is the fact that this book is drawn from a lot of research. So I believe it was 900 participants in your goal reaching video course called 30 Days of Hustle, which we talked about last time on episode 93. And so can you talk to me a little bit about the research that went into doing this book

since that's not always the case with books like these. Yeah, I just, I wanted to get away from what people call narrative bias, which is when an individual has an experience in their own life, and then they go back and they kind of add steps that they really didn't take, like they look for a pattern, and then they teach that pattern. So they go, if it works for me, it'll work for you. And their whole focus group is based on one person. And I think that's really disingenuous because the reality is,

like if you're a tall good-looking person that has certain skills and it's charismatic and lives in New York City, you have different opportunities than I do in Oklahoma if I'm shy. Like that's not an insult to Oklahoma. That's just reality. And I think we have a hard time kind of admitting that sometimes. So a researcher from a university in Tennessee actually approached me and said, hey, I want to study what you do and see if it works, which was exciting because I wanted to know, you know, I had theories, but I'd never tested them. And so he, he, he, He put together a research project. It was a six-month period, and it was nearly 900 people.

And it was people of all ages, people of all goals. And so for me, it's given me a lot more confidence in the strength of the idea because I can say, hey, that's fine if you disagree with it. Here's my research. Show me yours. And 99% of people are going to go, well, I don't. You know, I can say, that's fine. Like, show me the 900 people you talk to.

And most research reviews are less than 100 people. So we really went above and beyond to go. This is what we found. And again, like the team aspect, when I go to a company, it gives them great comfort knowing this isn't because I'm a funny guy that has interesting ideas. This is data driven. Now, it's presented in a fun way. Like the problem is there's books that do good data, but they're boring. There's books that are exciting, but they have no data. And so I tried to do one that was you're laughing as you read it, but you're also going, okay, that makes sense. And there's research. Like that's what was so fun to me about this book. You just brought up an interesting point. I wasn't necessarily thinking of. But, I mean, I follow you on social media and find that you have this,

I don't know, lack of a better word, just a nonstop, really quality sense of humor. I mean, it's a compliment. And I'm curious because you make it look easy, but it's not. It's not that easy. I try to sit there on Instagram or Twitter, Facebook, and be funny. and it's a lot harder than it looks.

Where does that come from? Do you study that or is this a natural part of your personality when it comes to mixing in humor with some work that can really change people's lives? Yeah, I mean, I think a big part of it comes from my parents. My dad's really funny. He used to take me to see comedians when I was in high school, which not every kid got to do that to go downtown Boston and go to a comedy club. Like, that was awesome.

And so, and then my family's funny. Like my brothers are funny. My youngest brother is the funniest in our family. Like my, he's asked, he's a lawyer. He's absolutely hilarious. I mean, my dad will call me and say, hey, did you see that line from that comedian last night? And we'll kind of analyze it.

And then, yeah, I watched 100 comedians for every business speaker I watch. I think the good ones are social commentators. And then, but like you also have to like, a lot of it is practice. And a lot of it is like being willing to get it wrong. Like yesterday, I tweeted something. I saw this popcorn bag that had like 17 things. It had like a resume, it had a resume longer than me. And like it just was mentioning things that like I don't like the whole gluten free thing,

which is legit and there are definitely a lot of people that have that. But I just think I keep seeing it on meat or like products that like on rocks. And you're like, I know there's not gluten in that. You're just using it as marketing. And so I don't like when companies will be like, hey, there's no tree nuts in this water. And you're like, oh, thank goodness. because a lot of my waters had tree nuts in it. I've been like, wait a second.

And so I did a joke about that. And of course, there are people who have, it's their issue. And so then they take their, like, but adults do that. Like, there's a basketball player, J.R. Smith, who plays for the Cavs. And Tracy McGrady, this retired player who just got into the Hall of Fame, came out and said, anybody can win a championship. It's a lot harder to get into the Hall of Fame. And J.R. Smith got really mad and won this Twitter rant.

And I wanted to be like, he didn't mention you. J.R. Smith. Like he was, like, people say just like, he was making a speech, which he's not good at at the Hall of Fame. Like, he probably cried too, but J.R. Smith was like, how dare you? And so I tell people, like, and I need to write a post about this. I think I have. I just haven't published it. If you want to enjoy the internet 100,000 times better, or just life, remember, it's not about you. So when I post, when I post a picture of me running and I say, hey, had a good run today, the time was a little slow and people go, how dare you, that's a faster time than me. I want to say, Carol, I don't know you exist. And I certainly wasn't writing that to insult you in Ohio. Like I just, this is a time that was

slow for me on my social media platform. And so I think that's where we get a little kind of twisted. My dad gave me that advice at a really young age when I think I was worried about maybe what I was going to wear to a certain event. And he said, they don't care. They care about what they're wearing. and it always kind of stuck with me. Yeah, they're looking at themselves, not even. Exactly. So I think about that a lot. It's not meant to be mean or harsh or selfish.

It just meant to kind of teach me about the world that you're all worried about yourself all the time, what you write, or some people believe that every social media post is about them when really it's not. It's just about them. And if you're worried about what other people are going to think, they're probably just thinking about themselves. And I don't mean that in a cynical way. that's just kind of human nature, I think. Oh, yeah. I think it's, you know, and it's just part of who we are.

I just think the more you're able to restrain that, the better you'll enjoy things and not go, oh, that was about me. And like, I mean, there's, and just take into account, like, we've, we recently moved. And so I haven't been able to hang out with some of my friends as much. And I know, like, there's definitely a friend of two that's like, oh, man, he's ignoring me. And I'm not. It's just that like we're getting a new roof. Like we're moving. Like it's not,

it's not that I'm choosing not to hang out with people. It's just I don't have the bandwidth right now. And if you take it personally, you're always insulted. Yeah, let's dive into some of the topics of the book. So I'll just, I'll pull out a few examples that have been highlighted by both your team

and what I found interesting as well. I mean, goal setting is a huge topic. It's talked about it. People are listening to this podcast are probably the type of people that write down their goals. and they track them and they try to complete them. And you talk about one of the ways to be a better finisher is to cut them in half.

Can you share more about that? Yeah, that was an interesting kind of result. So a lot of people, the goal set too big. And part of it is, again, like part of my goal with this book was to kind of pick apart our goal, kind of urban legends. And one of them is like that idea of like, go big or go home or aim for the moon. even if you fail, you'll lane amongst the stars. But I just didn't think that was true. And so I had a theory, and my theory was,

if your goal is to lose 10 pounds and you lost 8, you would have failed by 2 and you'd quit. See, most people judge their goals on an all-or-nothing process. Either I did it all or none of it matters. But I knew if I got you to cut your goal to 5, and you lost the same 8, you would have won by 3 and continued to try. And so we tested that.

And what we found, because, you know, when you test principles, you're looking for a 5% or a 10% boost. Like, 5 to 10 is awesome. And so we tested it. We asked people to cut their goal in half. And the people that did were 63% more successful, which is unheard of. And so I think what's interesting about that, there's two ways you can take that. You can certainly take it as it's prescriptive.

I need to cut my goal in half. But an even more powerful way to take it is before I set a goal, make sure it's the right size. I don't want you to have to cut it in half. I think that's indicative of, hey, you shouldn't do that. That'd be like saying, hey, smoke half the cigarettes. Like, I'd rather you just not smoke from the beginning. And so what I tell people is, okay, out of the gate, make sure it's the right size. Out of the gate, make sure, like, I don't want to have to fix the problem later.

I'd rather just address it now and have it not be a problem. Do you work with companies when they set revenue targets, goals, things like this. I've worked in sales the bulk of my professional life. And if you've, you've probably been around sales guys when you hear, they get their goal or their quota for the year. And they're like, you've got to be kidding me. It's 25% higher than last year. And I crushed it last year. And they almost are defeated before it starts. So I'm thinking of that from a biased perspective of what I've grown up in. How would you, if you worked with a company or they brought you and it said, John, here's our goals.

Everyone thinks they're insanely too high. Most people feel defeated before they even start. How would you react in that situation? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple of things. One, I say, show me the data that's telling you that's the right decision. So I worked with a company the other day and they've got a new woman who's going to be CEO in a year. So they've kind of groomed her. She's going to be CEO.

And so she came out with a goal to like double income. and the old CEO called her coach and said, hey, that's going to be trouble. Like, that's trouble. Like, she's already shot herself in the foot before she's even been the CEO for a day. But for her, she's trying to prove, like, I got to make my mark. I want them to know they've made the right choice in me. And so there's a couple things that say is one, show me why you think this is, like, this is reasonable. And I always tell companies like, if in order for your goal to succeed, a miracle must occur,

it's a terrible goal. Like if you go, and then if there's one stage, like, a miracle will happen, then that's not going to go well. Like, you shouldn't, I'm a big fan of miracles. Don't get me wrong. I just don't like them in a plan. And so that's one thing I'd say. And the second thing is a lot of this is about having a culture of honesty. If you work at a company where if you ask a question, it's seen as negativity, like if you work at a company where you're either with us or you're against us. And if you ask questions and what data, you have a bad attitude. You don't believe in the mission. Like, you're in a lot of trouble. You want a culture where people can raise their hand in a meeting in front of people and go, hey, I think our product's amazing. I do. And I think we're going to grow. I do. But where did

that number come from? And they should be able to say that without consequences. Like, that to me, I've worked with companies where the leader sets the wrong size goal and everyone collapse in the boardroom. laughs in the break room. And it does such damage to a team because you waste time and energy. And part of why I wrote this book is that when you make a goal, it's not just a goal, it's a promise. It's a promise to yourself. When you break that promise, you start doubting yourself.

It's the same, you know, if your parents said they'd pick you up after soccer 10 times in a row and they never came, like you wouldn't trust your parents. And one of the worst things a leader can do is set goals that can't be hit because it creates this culture of doubt and mistrust. So like the next time that the leader sets a goal, they go, everybody kind of secretly goes, oh yeah, sure, we're totally going to do that. You mean like last time when we missed it by like a thousand million percent? Sure, I bet we'll do that.

And kind of an offshoot from that is the thought and the science and research behind this to make it fun if you want it done. what are ways we could you know both individuals leaders companies all that what are ways we can make it fun if we want to get it done yeah i mean i think the first thing like i wanted to study fun because when you ask somebody to say like tell me the words you think of when you think of goal they think discipline persistence blood so like all these very difficult negative words and then culturally speaking we think something has to be difficult for it to count so a great example of this is people tell me I'm going to lose weight and I'll go that's great how are you going to do it and I'll say I'm going to run and I'll go do you like running and they go no I hate it that's how I know it's good for me and you go well that's not like you're going to quit because you hate it and so we wanted to study like what happens when you make something fun and what we found was that there's two things you study you study satisfaction and you study performance now satisfaction is how you felt performance is how you did and if you want to do something well with excellent

the principle has to raise both of those. Because let's say I raise your satisfaction but not your performance, you're smiling all the way to last place. Say I raise your performance but not your satisfaction. You're a rich, miserable jerk. Like you're every successful person you've ever met who has all the success and none of the joy. And so I knew, okay, I want to raise both.

And what we found was if you make your goal fun, you're 31% more satisfied, which makes sense. Fund increases satisfaction, like big surprise. But what's crazy is if you make it fun, you're 43% higher performance. And so I now have the ability to say to a company, an individual, a mom, whatever, hey, if you want better results, make it fun. Now, the challenge is not everything we have to do is fun. It's not.

I'm not one of these motivational guys. It's like, find a job you love 100% or are you in the wrong career? That's stupid. There's a lot of stuff that's not fun. Like, I'll travel for business this week. Business travel isn't necessarily fun. Getting to speak at a company and interact with people, that's awesome. So the principle is you have to make it fun.

It's not have fun. Have fun is a cheerleader saying, put a frown, turn a frown upside down. Make it fun is an adult making a deliberate decision to add joy to something that might naturally not be fun. How would somebody do that in their day-to-day life? The average listeners, let's say they're 37 years old, three kids, mortgage, car payments, you know, the usual. Very successful from all, I don't know, depending on the type of way you'd measure that, which is very hard. But let's just look for a lack of diving deep there. Pretty successful, but they're not having that much fun. They're, they have a good job, but they don't love it.

They have a good family, but they don't spend enough time with them because of work, whatever may be. What are some like practical tips that you could implement right away to make your goals, your life, all that. I know this is kind of broad, but I'm curious if maybe you have some words of wisdom here to make it more fun. Yeah, I mean, I think a big part, there's two forms of main motivation that people react to. One is reward and one is fear. They kind of psychologists call it approach and avoidance. So approach is, if I do really well, I'll approach this goal, this reward. Avoidance is if I don't do well, or like, or if I do well, I'll avoid a bad consequence. So an example would be you go into the doctor and the doctor says, hey, if you lose weight, you'll be able to go on all the water slides this summer with your son at Great Wolf Lodge.

And that's a reward and that's you trying to approach that. Or if you're motivated the opposite way, the doctor says, hey, if you don't lose weight, you won't be able to walk your daughter down the aisle at a wedding. You'll develop diabetes. And so a big part of it is figuring out what's your form and then doing that. And if you've ever, you know, leaders, leaders know how frustrating this is because if they get the wrong form, it doesn't motivate the person. Every leader's had an employee that they said, hey, look, you got to get your act together. Like, if you don't, we're going to have to fire you. And it's like they can't even hear that.

Or they've said, hey, you've got to, you know, like if you hit your numbers, you'll get this reward and it'll be awesome. And they're not motivated by that. So a big part of it as an individual is figuring out, am I reward motivated? If so, what are rewards? Am I fear motivated? Like what are the things I want to avoid? So for me, I practice my speeches harder knowing I'm fear motivated for speeches in that I want to avoid bombing. Like I love clapping.

I love the applause, all that. It's fun. But my biggest motivator is I never want to be doing an hour-long speech and be done in 10 minutes and have 50 minutes of like just me up there standing. So I work harder to avoid that negative situation. So that's the first thing is just figuring out. What form of motivation gets me going? Oh, that's, it's interesting.

I had a mentor ask me one day, are you more motivated by the brutal losses? I mean, from athletics, played football growing up and in college and afterwards. Are you more motivated or do you think more about the terrible losses or the great wins and avoiding those losses or striving for those wins? And for whatever reason, I have really sharp memory about some of the terrible losses, is maybe throwing an interception that got return for a touchdown as the clock expired to lose a playoff game when we were favored to win. I mean, I vividly remember that.

Some of the brutal sacks. And I remember that more than some of the touchdowns. How do you take some of that, whether it's from a different aspect of your life, like for me, it would be athletics. Other people could be something else. And then it relates to your life as a dad or a mom or a business leader where that seems to be where I understand my motivation. Yours is in bombing a speech, you prepare like crazy to make sure you don't have that happen.

It seems from a psychological perspective, there's a lot here to talk about. Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on the situation. You know, definitely with speeches, it's that way. You know, but I know, okay, I want finish. I think finish would be really helpful to people. And I need to be brave about it if I want people to know about it. and I want to have a great meeting with, you know, I want to have a great meeting with my publisher about it. So in order to prepare for a great meeting, that means, like, the more I sell, the better that meeting is.

Like, it'd be really fun, you know, and that's what you have to remember is different things take different forms of motivation. I'm not always fear motivated. There's some things where, you know, like, for instance, I'm going to read probably 156 books this year. So, like, three a week. And I love seeing that. add up. Like, I'm a numbers guy that way. Like, I love seeing stuff add up. And so knowing that, like, when I get a bike, I need to get a computer. Like, I love to see the miles. Like, when I read books, I need to number them and say, hey, today's number 85 and here's what I'm.

And so figuring out those little things. And then applying them to other areas is fun to me. I noticed that you're sharing those via Instagram too. I think the 85th book is about parenting. Yep. And so I'm curious, I noticed that you seem to be raising some creative kids, much like it sounds like your parents did for you. How do you balance this light? Because you used to work for Dave Ramsey, I believe, for a while. And we talked about that briefly last time. And you decided to leave and do this on your own. So I'm curious that if you had a good job that was probably more comfortable, I'm guessing. I don't know. I don't want to speak for you, but more comfortable. Anytime you have a job with a steady paycheck, there's there's some probably a little bit of comfort in that verse going on your own

and saying, I'm going to write and speak and teach and do courses for a living. How do you think that impacts your children when they see you make a leap like that? Yeah, I mean, I think a friend said, like, what's the story you want to be able to tell them? Like, is the story that you played it safe and you did the easier thing or is a story that you took a chance and you did a risk and here's what you learn. And so, and they, you know, they're listening more than you know, and they're paying attention more than you know. And so I think for me, as a parent, one of my, one of my goals is I want them to know the old rules don't apply anymore. Like, it took me years to understand that there's the freelance, like, faucet of money you can figure out how to turn on.

Like, that's awesome. Like, I don't care what my kids do. Like, stay at home mom, work full time. Like, it's their life. That's awesome. I'll support. it. But I told my oldest daughter yesterday, I hope that regardless she'll have a side hustle that she's kind of having fun with, but also making money on. Because I just think, I know, we talk, sometimes people act like the internet has kind of run its course, like, oh, I miss my opportunity. I just, there's so much money still out there. And so I want, I want my kids to go, oh, I don't have to have a job. I don't like for a period of time. Like, I can do something different. And that's great. And, you know, a big part of it is we live in a town that's creative.

So Nashville fosters an entrepreneur spirit because that, you know, musicians are essentially entrepreneurs. The good ones are anyway, the ones that get to continue to be musicians are. And so that's what I want them. I don't, I'm not trying to make them into entrepreneurs because I don't think I control that, but I am trying to give them that entrepreneurial spirit and kind of fun of, like now I think back about it, there's definitely joy in the stability of having a steady paycheck. And I think there's definitely joy in having something on the side.

there's a lot of entrepreneurs like me that criticize like regular jobs and that's just not my thing I really I think I work for some great companies and do great stuff and it always just cracks me up when they're like somebody will say like build your own dream or somebody will hire you to work for theirs and because I want to be like oh so you're not going to hire anyone you you just insult at everybody that works for you like you just told anyone who works you that they're an idiot. I just think that's the dumbest thing ever. But yeah, I want them to have that entrepreneurial spirit. But if my daughter said, hey, dad, I want to work at Home Depot corporate, I'd be like awesome, like have fun, like great company, you know? Yeah. What was it that

made you take that leap? There's a lot of people listening that write emails about this, John, that's why I ask. And I ask this to multiple people that have had similar paths to you. No one's path is the same. But was there a specific reason? Or was it back to that, you know, what story do you want to tell your kids. Was that part of that decision-making process? No, I think part of it was I wanted to do different things. I worked at a place called Financial Peace Plaza, and I wasn't a finance guy. Yeah.

And so I had learned a ton, but I, you know, I knew that the role I was in was to carry on Dave's brand, and I knew I wanted to build my own brand. And that doesn't make his brand wrong and mine right or vice versa. Just I knew for me to be able to do this stuff I want to do. it to do required me to be on my own. And so eventually it was like, okay, well, that, you know, that makes sense. And let's, let's figure it out. And the timing felt right. And I felt good about it. And it's, it's definitely been, it's never easy, but it's not something I've, you know, in four years, it hasn't been something I regretted once. And so that's been fun. The other part, one of the ways

you end this book is talking about the day before done. And I'm curious, why, why is the science say that the day before done, I think you used the example of Meredith Bray, six years undergrad, changed majors, attended different schools, and then ended up failing her last final, I believe, on purpose and didn't graduate because she was scared of the day before done. I think this is an interesting part of the book. I'm curious, why is that terrifying? Well, I mean, I think there's a bunch of issues. One of them is definitely the fear of success.

There's a lot of people that are afraid of success, especially in the South. And part of that, like, there's people that are afraid of money of, like, having money and that it would separate them. I mean, a friend of mine said, oh, that CEO makes $20 million a year. How do you think he sleeps at night? And I wouldn't say, probably on, like, Hungarian goose feathers. Like, I think he's fine. So I think there's that.

There's the fear that if you do it, that sets an expectation and that you have to recreate that performance next time. I have a friend who's an amazing speaker and she says, I like to surprise people. I don't want them to expect that I'm good because then I feel pressure. And so, yeah, I think a lot of it deals as self-sabotage. Some of it deals with what's next. You know, they talk about it's lonely at the top. I think they're referring to the loneliness of you've always wanted this thing and now you got it.

And now it's like, well, what am I going to do with my life now? I mean, think about an NFL player who reached the pinnacle of their career and they're 28 and they're already out of the league. Like even if they won a Super Bowl, there's definitely a sense of, wow, what do I, what do I do do next? And so, and then the last thing is just plain old distractions. We talked about it. It'll always be easier to start than it is to finish. And so you'll always find a new book you can work on, a new business idea. I mean, when I talk to people and they're like, I have 10 businesses I want to start. I don't know which one. I know, well, you're not going to start any. You know, like that because you're just, you're not the way you're structured. It's not going to work.

And so I think there's a whole host of, and the funny thing is, I use the marathon example as the opposite in that you and I have never seen somebody stop a marathon, you know, at the very last second. Like nobody stops at mile 25. I was like, no, I'm good. But that happens with so, I mean, like one of the best books ever written, in my opinion, was the Confederacy of Dunces. And they found it under the author's bed. Like, he never published it. and his mom published it after his suicide. And it's one of America's best novels.

And it was, you know, the challenge of, okay, I've got this complete thing, but I don't want to finish it. Yeah, I mean, this is a, there's so much here. And I encourage people to get a finish. Give yourself the gift of Don. John, I really appreciate you joining me here again for round two. I look forward to continuing our dialogue. Is there a specific place you want to point everyone listening to go either get this book, learn more about you or other things that you're doing?

Yeah, I mean, the book is, you know, available anywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all that. And then Acuff.me, which is just A-C-U-F-F-Me, has everything I do. And once a week I write about writing, speaking, parenting, health, being an entrepreneur. I have five different kind of email lists that I send out an idea. So those are kind of one of the best ways to connect with me is if you're a writer to go, oh, wow, that's exactly, you know, I might say, here's how much I made on my first book deal. Here's why that's not a bunch of money. Here's what I had to do instead.

And so I try to write really, I'm just having fun with email right now more than I have with blogging in a while. Yeah, it's really good. I'm subscribed to them. I encourage people to do that as well because they're to the point. They're funny, but they're also practical. You can implement what you're writing about to your game, and it could improve it immediately.

And any time you have a resource that can do that quickly, it's obviously useful. So, John, thanks again, man. For being here. Love talking to you and look forward to the next time, man. Awesome. Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it.

Yep. All right, man. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.

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