The School of Greatness - 23 How to Get Unstuck and Turn Average into Awesome with Jon Acuff

Episode Date: July 4, 2013

Facing your fears can be one the hardest thing to do. It's that fear that holds us back from taking massive action to go after our dreams. For many, it's easier to sit on the couch and do what the world tells you to do. However, this podcast is for those seeking to make a dent, […]

This is episode number 23 with New York Times bestseller, John Acob. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, greats? Thanks so much for tuning in this week. It's going to be a very powerful message today.

And I want you to pay attention to something very closely. You are more powerful than you know it. You have amazing talents and a mind that can achieve any dream you want to dream. It's your fears that hold you back from achieving greatness. But great leaders feel the fear and do it anyways. They don't let other views hold them back from their vision and attacking their goals. So live with the passion and energy that's available to you at all times and let your talents shine. It's your time to shine, guys. And I want you guys to step up today and start taking action. It's time to start. And that's what this episode is all about. It's with New York Times bestseller, John Acuff, and his book is called Start,

Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, Do Work That Matters. For me, that resonates. And I don't know if that resonates for you, but if you're listening to this show, I'm assuming it does. And if you've been listening to this for weeks and weeks, then I'm assuming it does. And now is the time to start stepping up. There are so many things that you could be doing, but you've got to be creating something awesome because we've only got one chance of this life, and I want you guys to make the most of this.

So we've got a powerful message today with a powerful man, John, who's about to jump on here in a second, who's joining me for this interview, and I can't be more excited to share it with you guys. It's been a powerful week for me, a lot of breakthroughs, some amazing things in my business, some amazing things in athletics, some amazing things in my relationships with my family, with my friends. And I am excited to continue breaking through each and every day and all the barriers that I have put on myself and breaking through those bad boys and making epic things happen. And I want you guys to join me. And I know that's why you're here.

So thanks so much for joining me today. It's going to be a powerful one. I want to share the fan of the week before we jump into this. And the fan of the week is from Hip and Healthy UK on Instagram. And they posted a picture that is gorgeous somewhere in the southeast of France. I think it says province. Never been there, but province in France. Beautiful hilltop. They just ran a marathon, and they're up on the top of this hill looking over. It's amazing countryside in France.

So, Hip and Healthy UK, thanks for posting the picture that you were listening to this during your marathon. I appreciate you guys. And I just have to say, I really appreciate each and every one of you listening right now. I received over a hundred messages last week from people on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and my personal email from the site from people telling me how much they appreciate the episodes and specific messages from specific guests. So I'm telling you that those messages and you guys sharing this with your friends and family and on your blogs and on social media, you guys are really inspiring me to continue

to make this even better for you each and every week, bring you more inspiring guests and share with you content that really helps and that really matters. So please keep posting pictures where you're listening to this on Instagram. Share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, wherever you want to post it. And I really appreciate you guys and love you so much for tuning in each and every week. I am pumped to bring you the one and only New York Times bestseller, John Acuff. What is up, everyone? Thanks again for tuning in.

And I've got a special guest on here today who we just connected. We actually connected via Twitter a couple months ago, or about six weeks ago, during his book launch. And now we're first time connecting via the phone. And it's good to be here with John Acuff. How are you doing, man? I'm great. Thanks for having me. And you just launched, I believe it was your third or fourth book, but it's called Start.

And it just hit the New York Times bestseller list. So congratulations. Thanks. I appreciate that. You have an amazing blog at johnacuff.com and a lot of inspiring content. And I want to get into your book really quick before we go into your backstory. So your book is called Start. It's called Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters.

And for me, that's very inspiring. And I think for a lot of people, especially in America, they want to do things that matter. And a lot of the things that they're afraid to do things, and that's what holds themselves back, I think, from really doing the things that matter because they're so stuck in doing what other people think they should do or doing what they think society tells them to do or doing something that's secure and safe. So I want to talk about fear really quick. I just want to jump right into the fear. And do you think people are more afraid of fear of success or failure? Well, I think the one that gets all the attention, kind of the sexy one, if you will, is failure.

But I think deep down, fear of success is grossly, grossly underrated. Now, why is that? I think that a lot of us don't think we deserve it. In our culture, we like to see people win, and then we like to tear them down. In our culture, we like to see people win, and then we like to tear them down. It was funny. We went to the Lorax, the Dr. Seuss movie, and the bad guy was a capitalist that made money and was successful. My wife was kind of like, who hates trees?

What are we arguing? The whole thing, green was the evil color. I think sometimes culturally, people that win, we have a hard time with, you know, we, and then you kind of become the villain. And so I think a lot of people don't think they deserve it. I think the other thing you have to remember is that when you fail, there's no expectations. Your only expectation is the mess up is that you mess up. But when you succeed, even a little, suddenly there's this sense of expectation and this sense of you've got to do more and go to the next level. And I always say that the hero's clothes are heavier than the villains. And so, yeah, you know, I'm totally in line with that. It's definitely one of my, you know, my fears. And when things go well, I want to sink my own ship right down to the bottom. And my wife will

be like, I feel like you're drilling holes in your sink and your ship. And I'll be like, I know, grab a drill. We'll get there faster. Yeah, it's certainly one that I've bumped into. Right, right. Now, tell me about yourself. Now, let's dive back into you for a second. I want to go back into the stuff you talk about in the book. What have you been up to in the last few years and what inspired you to really start sharing this message? Because you speak all over the world, all the country, and you're working with Dave Ramsey. So you're sharing this message, but what were you doing before this? I had, you know, day jobs. I had eight jobs in eight years, and I was what you call a serial quitter.

And I was like a lot of Americans. I thought the next one would be the one that kind of fixed me and it made me happy, and then I'd get there and have a six-month honeymoon period, but then I'd get bored and bitter, and lo and behold, the same problems from the last job showed up the next job. And so finally, Lewis, I had to be honest and admit that the common denominator in every bad job I ever had was me. What was I going to do about that? You know, 80% of Americans right now, according to statistics, want to change their job. And so I got to a place where I thought, okay, enough is enough already. You know,

I don't want to get to 60 or 70 or 80 and realize I've missed my life. We've all been there. We've all said these same five powerful words, the words, how did I get here? And for some of your listeners, it was a relationship that should have lasted one awkward date at Olive Garden that turned into three years of dating. You know, for some of them, it was that job that was supposed to be a six-month, you know, stop-gap job that turned into six years. And so I started a blog. I started hustling. I started booking my own speaking and got a one

book book deal. Nothing crazy. I mean, it wasn't like this lottery moment. I tell people, when I got my book deal, people were like, are you going to quit? Are you going to quit now? And I got, at the end of the day, after taxes, like 13 grand. If you won a $13,000 lottery, nobody would be like, Louis, you moving to Mexico? What up? 13 grand. Like, you can't get a nice Civic for that. Like, you're getting base model Civic for that.

Right. Nobody would be like, it's balling time. Louis, woo. Medially rolling up the windows, yeah. Yeah, our culture is so backwards on that. And so, yeah, I started to grind and do the grind. And the great thing is so many people are lazy so that the bar is pretty low for you and I right now. And customer service is so bad that the bar is pretty low there too.

So I started to learn and still have a tremendous way to go. But about three years ago, I partnered with a guy named Dave Ramsey. And he kind of has been like this greenhouse effect for me. And the growth has been larger, much larger than it would have been on my own. Wow. Now, what was your biggest fear in getting started or turning average into awesome, as you like to call it? I mean, definitely success was on there. Definitely making the wrong decision.

Having people go, why did you join Dave if you could have done this on your own? Some of that language, I guess. Right. Fear of offending people. You know, fear of looking foolish. You know, all those fears. And then the one that drove me and a lot of people is, who are you to do that? Whenever you try something new, this voice will say, who are you to do that?

You know, and I see it across the country. You're a stay-at-home mom. You don't get to start a business. Who are you to do that? Or you're an accountant. You don't get to be a painter. Who are you to do that? And so that's one of the loudest voices of fear people deal with. Interesting. Now, why did it take eight years and eight jobs? And why that moment? And what was it that actually made you switch? Why not a year earlier or four years earlier? Yeah, I'd say it took eight to ten years because I just didn't know. The problem with average, I always say there's two roads on life,

the map of life. The road to awesome, the road to average. And the problem with average is all you have to do is nothing. You don't have to do anything. You just wake up there one day. And so, you know, it happened the same way it happened for everybody, one day at a time. You know, and there's so many lies.

Like one of the worst lies is it's just a job. It's just a job. Nothing you do for 40 hours of waking time a week is just a job. That's your life, dude. Like, you know, you better recognize it's not just a job. And then, you know, our culture believes that not just the job and then you know our culture

believes that you can be multiple people and here's what i mean by that so many people were shocked that tiger woods wasn't amazing at golf again as if maybe he was tiger golfer and tiger dad and tiger husband and tiger businessman like he could blow up like just blow up one area of life and still be amazing at golf but you can't like nobody would ever say hey don't drink from that top of the bottle of water. It's poison. You can drink from the bottom. No, when you're messed up, you're messed up.

For me, I had some okay jobs, some bad jobs, and that was what I did day after day after day. Then what changed it for me is I did a blog. When the blog went viral and I started to see, wow, some of the things I feel talented at, I could use online. There's a lot of people out there and I could really do something with this. That's when I started to go, let's give it a try. Right. Interesting. Now you talk about a life list and the power, the power it has to exposing our fears. And what is, tell me more about that. What is a life list and how do we make one and how can it impact our lives

well yeah well i always kind of had that that fantasy of you know like being the guy that survived a plane crash because like when you meet somebody who survived a plane crash or cancer or whatever they're like my whole life has changed like strawberries taste different now like i know i have clarity i don't watch reality tv because i'm just, I just live in the moment. Um, and I thought, I started to think about that because you can't just get in a plane crash. It's really complicated. And so I thought, I asked myself the question, what if I died today, would I regret not doing? And I wrote down the three answers where I wouldn't get to write a book, wouldn't get to hang out with my wife. I wouldn't get to play with my kids. And then, and you know, that's an

honest answer. Cause I mean, I, I bronze medal my own kids. I wouldn't get to play with my kids. And then, and you know, that's an honest answer. Cause I mean, I, I bronze medal my own kids. Like I put them below, write a book. So that's just the honest answer. And then I asked the second harder question,

which is, are those the things you're investing time and energy doing right now? And the truth is I wasn't. And so that's why I'm not, you know, the book before start was called quitter, closing the gap between your day job and your dream job. I think a lot of us have a gap between who we are and who we want to be or where we are and where we want to be.

And so for me, the gap was I, like a lot of people you talk to, you and I will meet a million people, especially as your next book come out, they go, I want to write a book, I want to write a book. And if you sit down, they'll go, okay, tell me about how much writing you're doing before your day job in the morning. Tell me about how much writing you're doing at night. Tell me about the writing conferences you're going to. Tell me about the writer's group you're part of. Tell me about reading writer's books. They're going to go, I don't, I don't do any of that. Well, then you don't want to be a writer. You like the word writer, which is not the action. And unfortunately, the action is what changes things. And so that's, for me, what that lifeless exposed was, okay, these three

things, I better get busy doing them. And what does it look like for me to actually do them? So that's, you know, it's a simple question. It's not complicated. I mean, I don't, I love when people criticize my book and they'll say it's common sense. I've never read a book and been like, it was too easy to understand and to do in my life. I wanted it to be more complicated and more like esoteric. That's funny.

Well, you talk about also with Dave Ramsey, you did an interview where you said that everyone from 22 to 50 has a dream. And what do you think that keeps our dreams in our head from not coming into reality in life? You mentioned just before about someone says they want to write a book, but they don't want to put the hustle or the action in. What is it actually that's holding us back from doing exactly what we want?

I think fear is definitely a lot of it. But I think also I meet a lot of people, and you meet the same people I do, that go, I've got 10 passions. I don't know where to start. And what they do is they never start on any. And when you don't start on any, Lewis, you fail at every. And so like, I may, I used to give out horrible advice. You should say, write down what you want to do and then prioritize the list. And then people would get paralyzed and prioritizing it and would spend a year organizing their list perfectly.

So now what I just say is write it down and start working on the first one. And it might not be until you get to the fifth one that you really get into your zone, but you'll be better at the fifth one having gone through one, two, three, four. And so I think a lot of times people don't know where to start. I think we have this mistaken belief in a perfect purpose. Like, I meet a lot of people that go, if I just knew what my calling was or my dream or whatever, I would really get started. I would work so hard on it,

but I don't know yet. So I'm going to sit on my couch and hope it's delivered to my door like a pizza. And like, you know what purpose is attracted to motion. You can't steer a boat from the shore. Like it's just, it's just impossible. So there's a lot of times where I'll tell people, let's just get started. The only line you control in life is the starting line. You have no power over the finish line. Nobody honest will tell you when they're 75 that, yeah, 25, I knew exactly where life was going to go. What a boring, miserable life. I mean, Dave Ramsey, when Dave Ramsey went bankrupt, he didn't sit at the table and go, you know, sweetheart, I know we're yelling and mad at each other and we're, oh, we're so hurt, but I see a building full of 350 people and I see, you know, a New York Times bestseller. No, he was like, I want to help other people not

go through this alone. I'm going to start a small thing, you know, in my community. And then it grew. So you've just got to start. But I think what holds a lot of people down is they wait and they wait and they wait. Right. Yeah. You know, it's interesting you say that because I'm meeting with a lot of people right now who are just starting out. There are a lot of former football players who play in the NFL who have retired are asking me, you know, how do I go? What do I do next in my life? This is my dream my entire life. Now it's over.

I got injured or I got let go of the NFL. And they're asking, what do I do next? I'm really interested in these three things. And I love health and fitness and coaching and all these different things. And they're paralyzed because they have all these different loves and different passions, but they have no clue where to go. And one of the things that I did after I got injured playing football is I just started taking a lot of action, just like you said. And I wasn't like, I want to be the ultimate LinkedIn teacher for the rest of my life. I was

just like, this is something I'm interested in right now. And this is something I can help people with. So I'm going to try to become and this is something I can help people with, so I'm going to try to become the best at this and see where it goes. And by taking a lot of action, other opportunities came to me that were able to help me grow in my personal and professional life.

But again, like you said, you just got to take action and do something and get the ball rolling because that momentum is really going to help shift your mindset and the opportunities that come to you. So I like what you said there. Oh, definitely. Now tell me about the five different lands that everyone needs to go through on the road to mastery, and why do we need to understand that it's a process and not about arriving?

I think you just kind of touched on that for a second. Yeah, it definitely is an experience, not an event. So the way you look at it, and I really, I tell people, I don't feel like I created these. If anything, I labeled them in my own way. But I don't, like once you hear them, nobody argues with them because they're just so simple. So it used to be based on your age. It's no longer based on your age, but it used to be that in your 20s, you didn't know who you were. You didn't really know what you're all about. So you tried a hundred different things. You moved cities. You did all this stuff because you're trying to figure out

who you were. And your brain wasn't formed completely until you're like in your mid-20s anyway. So science was even on your side. You hit your 30s and you go through this time of editing, which is about subtraction. You go, I did these 10 things. These are the three that work the best. It's the first time in your life that you edit friendships. You go, I can't be best friends with everybody. Like some people are going to be surface friends. That's all right. I have a limited amount of relational equity. You hit your 40s and you go through this time of mastering where you say, okay, I get the deepest relationships. I go the furthest in my career. I start to make the most money in my career and you get good at whatever craft you've chosen. You hit your 50s, you go through this time of harvesting.

All those decisions you've made start to come home. You hit your 60s, and it's this time of guiding, where you get to help other people down their own path to awesome. Now, the good news is it's no longer about your age. I mean, that'd be like if this was a financial seminar, and I was like, if you'll just start investing money when you're a fetus, you'll be a millionaire by the time you're 42, and you go,

oh, I don't have access to the womb. Like this is killing me. And so what's good is that right now, it's not about when you were born. It's about when you decided to live. That's why I don't like the term young leader. I like the term emerging leader because I meet a lot of great 60 year olds that are just emerging. And so once you kind of see that and see that anybody gets to be 20, it changes your whole view. And you get to start wherever you are with whatever you have. And once you realize the land, you see that simple rules, like you can't skip stages, but you can shorten them. I mean, nobody accidents their way to mastery. Like none of your friends never played chess and then woke up one day and were like, I feel Russian.

Like I own a lot of tweed coats. I'm amazing at chess. And then you start to see it in life. You'll see it everywhere. I mean a lot of tweed coats. I'm amazing at chess. And then you start to see it in life. You'll see it everywhere. I mean, Michael Jordan, for instance. Let's talk about athletics for a second. Wins three NBA championships. Goes to play baseball.

Hits 201. Never makes the big leagues. Why? Because he didn't learn and edit and master. He didn't get to skip those stages. He was Michael Jordan. And a lot of people think he was done athletically. He wasn't. He goes back to basketball, wins three more championships. I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow, same thing. Master level actress, won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love,

decides, I'm going to be a musician. Signs a $900,000 record contract. Stars in a movie called Country Strong, where she's a musician. Movie bombs. Record never comes out. Why? Because it doesn't matter if you're married to the lead singer of Coldplay. You don't get to skip learning and editing. And so once you see this, it creates all this freedom to go, it's okay for me to need some time. Our generation thinks that things are going to happen instantly because everything else in our life does.

If you use an instant phone for 10 hours a day, a smartphone that gives you instant everything, of course you think everything else should be instant. We practice instant a thousand hours. Of course we think that. So that's what the five lands are. Gotcha. Interesting. Now, there are a lot of entrepreneurs that are listening here, a lot of people that are dreaming big, who are taking tons of action, who are succeeding all the time. And with that success, and I'm sure you're aware of this, eating all the time. And with that success, and I'm sure you're aware of this, tends to invite haters or people, little crabs that just want to bring you down in the bucket, right? Sure.

And why is that? And what advice would you give for the entrepreneurs that's beginning, just starting to feel this experience of these haters and who might want to try to please everyone? What type of advice would you give for them? Yeah, it's a weird thing. And part of what's weird is that friends even become haters. Because what happens is when you chase your dream, it reminds people in your life they're not chasing theirs. And it stirs up this shame that you had nothing to do with. Like you didn't chase your dream to insult theirs, but people receive it that way and they hear it that way. So that's the hard thing, is friends become that. The problem with entrepreneurs is this, though.

When an entrepreneur hears a compliment, the first thing they usually do is try to shot block it. They go, oh, that was nothing. It was a team effort. It was easier than it looked. It's just something I like to do in my free time. When they hear an insult or hate, they immediately focus on it. They read it 50 times. They research that person.

They go, this person gets me. I better memorize this. They read it 50 times. They research that person. They go, this person gets me. I better memorize this. And I see so many young entrepreneurs that spend hundreds of hours to fix one unhappy customer while they ignore every happy customer that loves what they do. And I call this critics math, which is one insult plus 1,000 compliments equals one insult.

We have the ability as entrepreneurs to get 1,000 compliments and one insult and define our day or our week or our life against that one insult. And I'm the same way. I mean, I have 10 one-star reviews for Twitter on Amazon and 200 five-star, but you know which one that I memorized, not the five-star, where are those people now? It's the one-star, it's Lori Ann, who said, I wouldn't even donate this book for fear that somebody else would waste their time. Oh, my gosh. And then, like, I read another review. The guy said, I'd rather count bathroom Kyle than read John Acuff's book. So I clicked on his other reviews. He gave bathroom Kyle a five-star review.

He doesn't hate my writing. He loves bathroom Kyle. Wow. And so the three things I suggest to do with that, because inspiration without instruction is useless. Like, the challenge for you and I, I think sometimes when you tell somebody you write a motivational book, they think you write like the Pinterest version of a book where you're like, get a Ron Swanson beard and live in a cabin and run through a field of

unicorns and lavender and ribbons. And they don't like the grind side of it, the action side of it. But the three things I say are number one, be like Herb Kelleher. And Herb Kelleher founded Southwest, and in the 1990s, they got complaint letters from this one lady over and over again. And they wrote everyone back, but finally they got one that they couldn't respond to, and it made it all the way up to Herb's desk. And Herb took out his own personal stationery, and he wrote her a four-word response. And what he wrote was, we will miss you. And then he sent the letter.

And you've got to do that to some haters. There's people listening right now that have somebody they need to set free to ruin somebody else's life. Oh, yeah. And go, hey, you know, like, go fly Delta. They have biscotti cookies. They're delightful. Go ruin their airline. The second thing is you have to do the math the right way.

And here's what I mean. So for me, 10 once I reviewed it of all the books I've sold represents 0.008% of the population. So for me to obsess about that would be like, if your son or daughter came home with a 99.992 on a test and he said, what happened, dude? Like, I felt good about this one. Do you feel like this is a 99.992 family? Like you'd never do that. So there's a lot of your listeners that are letting the 0.008% of people control their business, control their families, control their life. And the last thing I'd say is that I think as an entrepreneur,

you should always focus. You should never focus on turning haters into likers. Turn it, focus on turning people who like what you do into people who love what you do. That's the group to focus on. And then, then on top of that, I'd say don't confuse hate with feedback. Feedback, sometimes painful, can be helpful.

Yes. And the difference is this. Feedback's goal is to cause improvement. Hate's goal is to cause a wound. They're not the same thing. So you have to have the ability to see, okay, this stranger who wrote something really ugly about my product was not trying to help me get better at the product. They're trying to make sure that other people didn't buy it. I'm not going to listen to that. This customer that took

the time to write me a private email about a feature that could have been better. It's okay. Does it, you know, as a owner, do I wish everything was perfect? You know what I do, but I want it to be better. And this person took the time, not in a public forum, but just took the time to let me know. So I'm going to, I'm going to respond to that. Yeah, that's great. Feedback's definitely important. I used to have a hard time receiving feedback, especially if it was critical and I would get very defensive. And I've learned over the years that this is all just stuff I need to learn and how to improve. And you don't have to take all the feedback in and try to apply everything, but just be more aware of it and conscious of it for stuff you're doing in the future, I think. Because

everyone's going to give you an opinion. And if you change your product or your service or your message based on everyone else's opinion, then you're not going to have your own. Now, tell me about the danger of the word enough and why this word is a crutch for not going after our goals. Well, enough is fictional. It doesn't really exist. You've seen this, too. If your goals are fuzzy, you'll never accomplish them. You need some clarity.

And so what happens is that people go, when I get this amount of money, it'll be enough. And then they get there, and they never stop because enough moves. Enough is really slippery. And you go, if I work this many hours in my dream, it'll be enough. And you get there, and it moves. And so you've got to be really careful that you don't let fuzzy, shapeless words like enough dominate your goal. I'd much rather you say, here's the amount and this is the amount, or here's the weight I want to get to, or here's the, whatever the goal is for you

and be specific. Yeah. A lot of people, you know, they say, if once I get this house or get this money or whatever it may be, then I'll, uh, then I'll be happy or then it'll be enough. Like you said, but really people need to be shifting from a place of happiness or that they are enough already. And then those things are going to start happening and they're never gonna have to be shifting from a place of happiness or that they are enough already and then those things are going to start happening and they're never going to have to be waiting you know they're already living you got to enjoy the process too not just the results the result lasts like a day right you know the process is to grind like you can't hate the process i don't want you to hate doing music for 10 years till one day get a grammy right that's a grammy

night that's called the grammy night because it's one night. Exactly. It's one moment. Tell me about the difference between viral and vital. Yeah. I always joke with clients, the best way to make sure something doesn't go viral is to sit in a meeting and say, we want it to go viral. There's still so many companies that don't understand and are befuddled by that process and so what i always tell people is viral is a huge firework explosion viral is like you put mentos and diet cokes viral is the double rainbow guy but you know what you're never going to see a triple rainbow you know uh you're not going to see a part two to hide your wife hide your kid like those were viral videos what i try to help people figure out is what's vital.

What's something that maybe it's slow burn. You know, maybe it's something that over time builds bigger and bigger and bigger, but it's not just this one big neon explosion that dissipates instantly, but it's actually something that you work on that you figure out. I mean, we did a fundraiser on my site and the readers helped raise $30 in 18 hours to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. And the headlines in the newspaper was, blogger raises $30,000 in 18 hours. And technically that's true, but it should have said, blogger raises $30,000 in 18 months. Because it took 18 months of relationship building and content and content and content for me to establish that. I didn't show up one day and go, Hey, I'm a stranger. Give me some money. I've built relationships.

So that's what I mean by vital. How do we figure out something vital for you and not just viral and shiny and cool? Cause that stuff happens too. Like getting the New York times is awesome. Like that was a lot of fun, but I can't write books just to get that. Cause when I get it, I stop. Right, exactly. Interesting. I like that approach. Now, what was your dream as a kid?

To write books. I knew in the third grade that I wanted to write books. I mean, I didn't. I'd be lying if I said from that moment on I started seriously writing. I rode my bike. I didn't care. But a teacher named Mrs. Harris at Doyon Elementary School in Ipswich, Massachusetts, published what I felt like was published.

She just laminated it. Something I wrote. It was a bunch of poems. And she bound it with like string. And I was like, I did it. I wrote a book. And that was kind of my first time bumping into that idea of like, what if I wrote a book? That'd be pretty amazing.

And so that was when I first kind of had that idea of, I think I might do this. Right. Interesting. And what's your vision for the world now? Uh, well, I mean, my, my long-term goal would be, I want to have a house in, you know, the town I live in Franklin. Um, that's a place where people come and get ideas. My, my greatest strength is I'm able to create a lot of ideas for a lot of different people. And my purpose is to help people get unstuck because I believe the unstuck are unstoppable. I don't know what you're going to do, but I know that when you're unstuck, there's really nothing you can't do. And so, yeah, so I'd love to have a house where people got to do that.

I still believe in 3D geography and the power of that. I mean, as fun as social media is to me, there's still a real benefit to sitting down over coffee. And I'd love the house to have a crazy tree house and be delightful and completely accidental. There's a guy named Bob Goff that you would love out of San Diego, and he has thousands of acres on an island in British Columbia. And he brings world leaders from around the world to this house. And he's just a lawyer, but he does

things, he says it's strategic whimsy. And he'll say, John, if you get two dictators who hate each other on the back of a boat and pull them fast enough together, they become best friends. That's true. And so he, after 9-11, he wrote, he and his kids wrote letters to all the, all the world leaders and said, can we come visit you and invite you to a sleepover? And they got like 30 yeses. And so he took his kids out of school and they would travel the world to try to figure out how do we help the world and just delightful stuff like that. So I'd love to do my own kind of version of that long-term.

That's very cool. And I want to get two definitions from you. And the one is on the word leadership. What does that mean to lead? And what does it require to become an effective leader? To lead is to go first, to be one step ahead and be honest. So you don't have to be 50 years ahead of me. You just have to be one step ahead of me and be honest about what you've learned and where you failed and where you succeeded and whatnot. So I think it takes bravery. I always tell leaders, your job is to give, like your job is to go first, because when you go first, you give everyone in your blog or your company the gift of going second. And it's a lot easier to go second than it is first. First, there's no boundaries. There's no precedent. You

don't know it's TMI. And so it's better to go, it's better to easier to go second than it is first. First, there's no boundaries. There's no precedent. You don't know what's TMI. And so it's better to go first and allow somebody to go second. So that's what I'd say leadership is. And that's what it takes is honesty and bravery. Interesting. I like that. And what is your definition of greatness? I guess I would say greatness is what uh, greatness is what happens when you're completely

emptied. Um, when you haven't held anything back, um, you know, when a hammer hits a nail, it's great. You know, somebody asked me that the other day, like, are you nervous about speaking? And I still get nervous, excited, but I'm not nervous about speaking in the same way a hammer isn't nervous about a nail. Like if you're doing what you're supposed to do, you know, like, I'm sure nervous about speaking in the same way a hammer isn't nervous about a nail. If you're doing what you're supposed to do, I'm sure if you ask Tom Brady, are you nervous?

He'd go, no. Everything I've ever done in my life was geared toward this moment. This is what I was designed to do. So I think greatness is the act of getting empty in an unselfish way. I really believe that life change leads to world change. It never goes the opposite way. It's always one life gets inspired, and that impacts two lives and three lives. And so I think the idea of using your gifts, using your talents, using your skills, using your connections to the point that you get empty is what I'd say is greatness.

I love it. Well, you're definitely doing an amazing job to inspire hundreds of thousands of people and soon to be millions and hundreds of millions. So I appreciate your hustle, your work, and your leadership to allow a lot of us to go second. So I really appreciate you. And your new book, Start, man. I'm excited to check this out, and I encourage everyone to go check this out. Go to JohnAkoff.com. That's A-C-U-F-F.com.

And go check this book out. Again, hit the New York Times list. Inspiring message. Again, simple like you said, John, but very necessary for all of us to get unstuck, do work that matters, punch fear in the face, and escape being average. So with that, any final words, John? No, I appreciate the interview, and I'd invite any of your listeners to check out Start Conference 2013. We're going to have a two-day event in Nashville, September 13th and 14th, and it's just an amazing time to come kind of really fast-forward your dream because it's a desire-based event. You go to a lot of conferences, and somebody's boss sent them there. Nobody's boss is sending them to this conference. It's all people that want to be there. And so it'd be me and a handful of other amazing

people who've done amazing things. And it's going to be a fun time to really, I like to say, turn what if into what is. Ooh, I like that. I'm excited already. Well, I appreciate it. And you have all the info is on your site, right? Yeah. J-O-N-O-H. So J-O-N-A-C-U-F.com. on your site, right? Yeah, J-O-N, no H. So J-O-N-A-Cuff.com. J-O-N-A-Cuff.com. I appreciate it, man.

Thanks so much for coming on and we will talk to you soon. All right, thanks, Lewis. And there you have it, all the greats. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Make sure to go to schoolofgreatness.com to check out the awesome show notes. There's some cool videos.

You're also going to get a discount code from John's conference if you want to check that out. And you can learn more about his book and all the other stuff that John is doing. Again, please keep posting and sharing these podcasts online with your friends. Post it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on Stitcher. Every time you subscribe, you'll get notified when there's a new episode. You can't go wrong there. So check that out.

And with that, I hope you guys have a fantastic, amazing week. Keep living the dream and make sure to do something great. I'm out. Outro Music