RPF0150-Scott_Ginsberg_Interview
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00:00:14.000 | So at some point in your life, I would be willing to bet that you have gone to an event at which you have donned a name tag.
00:00:24.000 | You know, one of those little white things that says "Hello, my name is..." and you scribble on it with a permanent marker and write down what your name is.
00:00:31.000 | Well, have you ever forgotten to take it off when you left the room?
00:00:36.000 | Or, more importantly, have you ever forgotten to take it off when you left the room and then realized you could build a business on that idea?
00:00:46.000 | The idea of not taking your name tag off?
00:00:49.000 | Sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? But that's actually what today's guest did. His name is Scott.
00:01:15.000 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and today is Tuesday, February 10, 2015.
00:01:23.000 | Today we're talking with Mr. Name Tag Scott. His actual name is Scott Ginsberg.
00:01:29.000 | And yes, he does in fact, to this day, 5214 days later, he wears a name tag 24/7. Even when he goes to bed.
00:01:39.000 | But even though that's pretty interesting, the most amazing thing to me is how Scott has built a business that was founded on that idea.
00:01:58.000 | But he just launched off of that idea and launched just an amazing entrepreneurial journey over the last decade plus.
00:02:08.000 | It sounds a little bit crazy, but yes, he really does wear a name tag 24/7 no matter where he is.
00:02:14.000 | Everywhere in the world, day or night, no matter what, he's got a name tag on his chest that says, "My name is Scott."
00:02:23.000 | Now, he used that idea to launch a really amazing entrepreneurial career.
00:02:29.000 | And that's what I had him on to talk about. Scott is an expert in many different areas.
00:02:33.000 | He's frequently invited to speak at different places. He's actually the author of 27 different books.
00:02:40.000 | He's an award-winning blogger. He's spoken at a TEDx event. He produces something called Name Tag TV.
00:02:47.000 | He's delivered over 600 presentations worldwide and was inducted into Ripley's Believe It or Not.
00:02:54.000 | Although, you'll have to judge for yourself whether or not that's something to be admired.
00:03:00.000 | But Scott was inducted or at least was featured in the book for his long stretch of wearing a name tag every day.
00:03:08.000 | But he's built, as I said, he's built a career based upon this. And that's what we primarily talk about.
00:03:13.000 | We talk a lot about – I talk a lot on the show about entrepreneurship.
00:03:17.000 | And there are many ways to apply entrepreneurship.
00:03:20.000 | First, if you enjoy being an employee and you found a business or a company that fits you and suits your goals well, I think that's fantastic.
00:03:32.000 | But you still need to have an entrepreneur's mentality in the way that you approach your job.
00:03:37.000 | You need to be thinking about, "Who is my customer?" and making sure that they are constantly happy and constantly pleased.
00:03:42.000 | Because if you don't, over time, that will infect your coworkers. And over time, that will lead to the down – just the retrogression of your company.
00:03:52.000 | But if you do think like an entrepreneur, then that – you'll be able to help and grow your company.
00:03:59.000 | And that will be an amazing value to all of those that you work with.
00:04:03.000 | But am any of you desire to create your own business? That's what I'm in the process of doing is creating my own business.
00:04:10.000 | And I'm fascinated by how Scott, at a very young age, as you'll hear in the interview, grasped one idea and then built on it with years of hard work and has built a really amazing career for himself.
00:04:24.000 | You'll hear all the details in the interview.
00:04:26.000 | Before I play the interview, I just want to very quickly thank you for all of your support for the launch of our new crowdfunding campaign.
00:04:35.000 | Our first day so far has been just an amazing success and I'm very, very thrilled.
00:04:40.000 | And I thank you to each one of you who has signed up to support the show with our new Patreon campaign.
00:04:48.000 | As I record this, it is 3.05 p.m. And at the moment, we are up to 15 patrons total for the show and a total monthly pledge of $280 per month.
00:05:00.000 | Thank you, each one of you. That means the world to me that – well, 14 because one of them is me.
00:05:07.000 | But 14 of you amazing people out there would choose to support the show.
00:05:14.000 | The one was me. I have to have a test account so you can test things and I haven't pulled my pledge yet so I'm still supporting my own show.
00:05:19.000 | But hey, I put my money where my mouth is, $1 a month of it.
00:05:23.000 | And that's the point. You can go on there and you can support the show at any level.
00:05:28.000 | And that helps us to keep the show corporate sponsor-free so I can bring you this information and education free of any corporate sponsors.
00:05:36.000 | If you enjoy today's show, if you find any benefit or any value in it, please consider going to the site at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron, as in a patron of the arts.
00:05:47.000 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. That will put you right on to our Patreon account and you will be able to see that.
00:05:54.000 | And please, $1 a month is great. $2 a month is great. $200 a month is awesome.
00:05:59.000 | We had our first $200 a month slot go and at the $200 a month level, what you get access to is all of the bonuses.
00:06:07.000 | In fact, I'm actually going to highlight one of the bonuses I forgot to mention yesterday and then also I'm working on other bonuses that you'll see coming in future days.
00:06:14.000 | And those will be given to existing patrons as well.
00:06:17.000 | But one of the bonuses at the $200 level is a monthly mastermind call with me and four – I've capped that level at a total of four individual patrons.
00:06:27.000 | And the benefit for the first mover is you get free access to me, all to yourself until the other three slots are filled.
00:06:35.000 | So in many ways, this is a very cheap coaching opportunity for those of you who might be interested.
00:06:41.000 | So check out all those benefits at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:06:45.000 | The bonus that I forgot to announce in yesterday's show was I have created a 20-minute video presentation of me talking through a five-point framework for understanding financial advice.
00:06:59.000 | Many of you have heard me talk about a three-point framework where – and I've mentioned on the show plenty of times.
00:07:04.000 | And that's in fact the first three of my five points, which is you can control your income, your expenses, and the rate of return that you earn on the surplus.
00:07:11.000 | And that's it.
00:07:12.000 | But what I've done is I've developed that with an additional two points, which I'm not going to tell you right now.
00:07:17.000 | But if you will go and sign up on the Patreon page to support the show at any level, then you will get access to that 20-minute video that I've prepared for you.
00:07:27.000 | It's a draft, but it's a draft of something I'm working on and I'm very excited about it.
00:07:33.000 | I may add one sixth and final point to it that makes sense to me, but I'm toying with the idea.
00:07:41.000 | What I've done is I've developed this framework for interpreting all financial advice.
00:07:45.000 | So if you want to have Joshua's framework for understanding any financial article you read, any financial blog you read, any financial book you read, anything, and you want to have a place to hang it and a way to organize the information in your mind, you'll want to see this presentation.
00:08:00.000 | So go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron and sign up as a patron of the show and you will get access to that.
00:08:08.000 | Thank you to those of you who have already done that. I appreciate that.
00:08:12.000 | That's it for my little ad here at the beginning. Let's get to the interview. Here's Scott.
00:08:17.000 | Scott, welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast. I appreciate you being with me today.
00:08:22.000 | Well, I appreciate being with somebody with 28 letters after their last name.
00:08:27.000 | Well, I'm glad to be with somebody who's written a gazillion books and projects. This ought to be fun.
00:08:32.000 | I want to give you the story of how I found your work and then ask you to kind of introduce your work.
00:08:38.000 | But I originally started reading your stuff back in about 2004.
00:08:45.000 | And I was working at a job that I didn't really care so much for and somehow I came across your content.
00:08:52.000 | And I was just completely upset with you for taking a completely silly idea, capitalizing on it, and doing everything that I always wanted to do.
00:09:01.000 | So I was a bit jealous of you. And as I've watched you over the years, I've been absolutely amazed at just the work that you've put in and the career that you've built for yourself.
00:09:11.000 | So share the story of the name tag guy, if you would.
00:09:15.000 | So the story goes back 5,207 days exactly. And if you do the math, that's about 15 years.
00:09:24.000 | And I was in college at Miami University in Ohio and I went to one of those events where they give you a little sticky name tag.
00:09:31.000 | And when the event was over, everybody else threw their name tag in the trash can, but I always have to be the opposite of everybody.
00:09:38.000 | So I just kind of said, "Yeah, what the hell. I'll leave my name tag on just for fun."
00:09:42.000 | And I go out and about and instantly people are friendly and saying hello to me and starting all these conversations.
00:09:49.000 | And a bunch of cute girls said hi to me and I was like, "This is the greatest day of my life."
00:09:53.000 | And so at the end of the night, I kind of had this epiphany. I thought, "Well, one day and I meet all these great people. What a fascinating experiment."
00:10:03.000 | And I made this sort of commitment that I would sort of indefinitely keep wearing a name tag just for the experiment, just because I like experimenting with stuff.
00:10:13.000 | And I had no intention of converting it into a career, but after about a year, I had all these stories and interesting data and interactions and patterns that I had written down in my little marble composition notebook.
00:10:25.000 | And I decided to write a book called Hello, My Name is Scott. Little did I know it wasn't a book. It was a brand.
00:10:31.000 | And when I graduated college in 2002, after finishing the book my senior year, it went viral before viral was viral, if that makes sense.
00:10:40.000 | And it just sort of launched my career first as a writer and as a publisher.
00:10:46.000 | And then eventually people asked me to share my story, so then I became a public speaker.
00:10:51.000 | And then I became publishing more and then I became consulting and strategizing and creating in this entire empire now that for the past 15 years, the foundation is writing because that's what I do all day.
00:11:04.000 | But I travel all around the world and I give presentations in new corporate training programs and consulting and strategic planning.
00:11:11.000 | And I also write music and I made a movie last year. So I'm trying to do as many different media as I can to share my message and that's my story.
00:11:21.000 | Have you ever worked for anyone else since that time?
00:11:23.000 | Yeah, it didn't work out well.
00:11:25.000 | [Laughter]
00:11:27.000 | So I've been to the dark side and I know how it works and I'm glad that I've done it.
00:11:32.000 | I've done it a couple times. I've had a mixed career over the years where sometimes this is the only thing I did, sometimes I did half and half, sometimes it was full time, sometimes it was part time.
00:11:44.000 | But I was never not working on this even though I may have pursued other paths.
00:11:50.000 | But ultimately I'm highly unemployable so this works out well.
00:11:54.000 | How much of this do you think was planned and intentional versus accidental or just simply noticed the good idea and decided to see if it would go?
00:12:04.000 | Well by nature I am not a planner. It's not my personality type so the quick answer is none of it was planned.
00:12:12.000 | But I'm not going to be naive and say that I didn't notice things and respond accordingly.
00:12:17.000 | So I would say I learned how to leverage very quickly and I learned how to be more strategic and intentional with a lot of my activities.
00:12:25.000 | But it's sort of a half and half thing. It's like when I make stuff I have no plan.
00:12:32.000 | But once it's out there, I'm like, "Okay, I've got stuff to do. Let's go."
00:12:36.000 | How old are you now?
00:12:38.000 | I'll be 35 in like a week so it depends when you air this.
00:12:42.000 | Or recording on February 3rd so the audience can do the math.
00:12:47.000 | Yeah.
00:12:49.000 | So here's what I'm most intrigued by. You seem to have a remarkable ability to spot things at a young age.
00:12:58.000 | Do you have any idea what contributed to that? Were you widely read?
00:13:03.000 | Did you have clairvoyant mentors in your life that could figure out what you should do? Or did you just stumble into this kind of lifestyle?
00:13:12.000 | I would say all of the above. I sort of won the family lottery.
00:13:18.000 | I was really fortunate to grow up in a family of affirmative, thoughtful, caring, artistic, creative, entrepreneurial people.
00:13:28.000 | So that's 90% of it. I was raised by these great people from my parents to my relatives to cousins.
00:13:37.000 | That's pretty much what I contributed most of it to.
00:13:42.000 | The idea of having done a lot at a young age, I'm an old soul. All I wanted to do when I was a kid was be an adult.
00:13:52.000 | I still have the mentality of a 12 year old, even though I am an adult technically.
00:13:59.000 | I just wanted to grow up when I was a kid. I wanted to be married and have a career and be a professional.
00:14:08.000 | That was exciting and interesting and cool to me.
00:14:12.000 | Before I started writing books, I started my own record label when I was a freshman in college.
00:14:19.000 | Right around the time when the whole name tag thing started, that's also when I was performing and publishing music as well.
00:14:26.000 | If the name tag wasn't a thing, something else would have been the thing and it would have looked different.
00:14:32.000 | There was no stopping whatever the hell this thing is.
00:14:36.000 | You took the question right out of my mouth.
00:14:39.000 | It's hard for me to imagine that the name tag thing was actually the big driver.
00:14:46.000 | It seems to me like whether or not you stumbled across the name tag guy idea or whether or not it was something different,
00:14:55.000 | it seems like you just found a good idea and noticed it.
00:15:01.000 | This is something that I actually am interested in your advice from my listenership.
00:15:06.000 | A lot of people ask, "I just don't have a good idea. What do I do?"
00:15:10.000 | I receive emails from people. We talk a lot about entrepreneurship, not as the only path to financial freedom,
00:15:15.000 | but as a well-worn path that has its own obstacles but is probably going to result in financial freedom at a faster rate.
00:15:25.000 | Yet so many people say, "I don't have an idea."
00:15:28.000 | That was my feeling when I was younger as I was looking at you.
00:15:33.000 | I'm kind of jealous of the fact that I'm turning 30, so I'm five years behind you.
00:15:37.000 | I was jealous of the fact that here this guy just takes this idea.
00:15:40.000 | Why didn't I come up with that idea?
00:15:42.000 | How important is the idea versus the execution on any idea and forward progress?
00:15:48.000 | I'll respond to that with two things.
00:15:51.000 | The first thing is idea versus execution.
00:15:54.000 | I wrote a book called Ideas Are Free, Execution Is Priceless.
00:15:58.000 | I believe that. I do believe that there's a million ideas, but it's all about getting there first.
00:16:04.000 | I was actually writing on my blog today of the story of Alexander Graham Bell, who everyone of course knows invented what?
00:16:11.000 | The telephone.
00:16:12.000 | Right. What most people don't know is that there was a guy named Elijah Gray who in the 1800s also had this exact same invention, exact same schematics, but literally Bell got to the patent office two hours before he did.
00:16:27.000 | Wow.
00:16:28.000 | It's the greatest story of all time.
00:16:30.000 | Well, I mean, not for Elijah Gray because no one knows who the hell he is.
00:16:34.000 | So, yeah, the execution is huge.
00:16:37.000 | What's interesting though is if you look at sort of where the Internet has taken our world, execution is actually a lot easier now.
00:16:47.000 | You can go to Elance and Fiverr and you can hire all these people for nothing to do all this very simple programming for you, or you can do it yourself.
00:16:55.000 | And execution is a million times easier today than back in 1999 when I was making my first CD and I had to go find the guy on my dormitory floor, the one guy that had a CD burner.
00:17:09.000 | Whoa.
00:17:11.000 | And I had to kiss this guy's ass just to get five copies of my album made so I could sell them to my roommate or whatever.
00:17:19.000 | So I'm still more of an execution proponent, but it's not as hard as it used to be, which means the ideas have to be better.
00:17:29.000 | So that's my first thought to respond to your question.
00:17:33.000 | And my second thought is another cool piece of trivia that the sort of the cliché that people say in terms of originality, finding a new idea, is, "Well, there's nothing new under the sun."
00:17:46.000 | I'm sure you've heard that before.
00:17:48.000 | That is such crap. I don't believe that whatsoever. And actually, I did the math. Do you know what the diameter of the sun is?
00:17:55.000 | I don't.
00:17:56.000 | It's 864,000 miles. So if you can't find something new under it, you're not looking. You're not listening. So for the people that say they can't come up with an idea, listen louder.
00:18:14.000 | What kind of strategy did you have in your early years? So you built a career in many ways as an advice guy and as an idea guy.
00:18:25.000 | And certainly you executed it. I'm not in any way diminishing the importance of it.
00:18:29.000 | But you built a career in the face of a society who, I guess, prizes experience and age, it seems, over ideas and youthful zeal.
00:18:42.000 | What types of strategies did you employ when you were younger to overcome that?
00:18:47.000 | Yeah, it was really hard for the first, I don't know, five to seven years because in the early 2000s, nobody cared about the younger people just yet.
00:19:02.000 | Like now, it's, "Oh, millennials. Yeah, listen to the millennials. Everything is for the young people."
00:19:08.000 | That's all people care about because they want to stay relevant.
00:19:12.000 | When companies are hiring, if you're over 25, you're too old.
00:19:17.000 | So I'm upset that people care about young people now because when I was 22, 23, nobody cared.
00:19:25.000 | And it was a struggle.
00:19:28.000 | So if I was giving a presentation to 300 financial planners that were in their 50s and I'm 23 years old and I've never worked a day in my life and haven't done anything except wear a name tag, then that's like the first thing that I say.
00:19:41.000 | And I think that's sort of a very minor tactical thing that people should do is, I mean, if you're the youngest person there, say it immediately and recognize it and don't try to hide it.
00:19:53.000 | I honestly thought if I just didn't shave and wore glasses, I would look older.
00:19:59.000 | And maybe I did, but I still think like a 12-year-old, so nothing was going to change that.
00:20:07.000 | So I made a conscious decision though.
00:20:10.000 | I think after my first book came out, I noticed two things.
00:20:16.000 | Number one, when you're young, nobody listens, all that stuff.
00:20:19.000 | And that's hard because all you want to do is be heard.
00:20:23.000 | But the second thing I noticed was that when I had a book at the age of 22, 23, people may not have listened, but they noticed.
00:20:33.000 | Like, "Oh, you wrote a book?" And it's like it changed the whole dynamic of the conversation.
00:20:37.000 | And unfortunately, it's not quite the same in 2015 as it was in 2001 because anybody can write a book now and it's not as impressive as it used to be and with print on demand, stuff like that.
00:20:48.000 | But what I did though is I remember that feeling.
00:20:53.000 | Oh, I feel welcomed and I feel like people are interested because I wrote a book, even if it's not that good.
00:21:00.000 | And I kind of said to myself, "Well, I don't have any experience. I'm 22 years old. I guess I'll just write a lot of books."
00:21:09.000 | And somewhere around book number 10, people shut up.
00:21:14.000 | That is definitely a strategy. I mean, I got to give it to you.
00:21:21.000 | I go to your website and I look and usually what I like to do is when I'm going to interview somebody, I like to read all their books.
00:21:26.000 | And most people, that's pretty easy because it's exactly zero or it's one or it's two.
00:21:32.000 | With you, it's not quite so easy to read all of your books.
00:21:35.000 | Yeah, I like simple strategies and I'm not good with details and I'm always looking for a catch-all.
00:21:44.000 | And a catch-all is essentially the lead domino.
00:21:48.000 | The one thing that if you can do this one thing, this is like the stone that kills all the birds, right?
00:21:54.000 | And so for me, writing is my catch-all.
00:21:58.000 | I figure if I can just keep writing and writing and writing and writing and hit my thousand word a day quota, then I'll have more books.
00:22:07.000 | And so I kept doing that for so long and whatever credibility issues were there, whatever preoccupations and judgments existed in the minds of 400 people in the audience,
00:22:19.000 | when I showed them a picture of the 13 books that I wrote, they're like, "Oh, okay."
00:22:24.000 | So for me, if the answer isn't volume, rephrase the question.
00:22:31.000 | So what's interesting is I employed exactly the same strategy.
00:22:34.000 | When I started as a financial advisor at 23, I have a terrible baby face and I'm a big guy, but I've always, my entire life,
00:22:41.000 | someone just looks at me, they think I'm about 13.
00:22:44.000 | Until I stand up and then they think I'm about 33.
00:22:48.000 | But usually I'm sitting down and I felt like I had this massive chip on my shoulder.
00:22:54.000 | And that was why I got all the financial planning designations, because I said, "Well, I can't be the oldest guy in the room.
00:22:59.000 | I can't change that, but I can be the most knowledgeable and the most credentialed."
00:23:04.000 | And it changes.
00:23:06.000 | And what happens is, for me, it wasn't so much about the actual knowledge that I gained in the designations, although that was valuable.
00:23:13.000 | But the reality is I have a bunch of textbooks on my shelf and I probably remember a little bit more than the average person,
00:23:19.000 | but I just know how to go and find the textbook and find the section that I need when I need it.
00:23:23.000 | But the key thing was that it transformed me.
00:23:25.000 | And that process of actually getting all the designations helped me to feel so much more confident.
00:23:30.000 | And that came across regardless if anybody ever knew, saw the designations or not.
00:23:35.000 | Yeah, that's the cool thing, is like my mentor told me that first you write the book and then the book writes you.
00:23:41.000 | And I think that is the perfect metaphor for any process.
00:23:46.000 | It's like we think we're doing it to like, you know, I'll show them with other people.
00:23:51.000 | And then what happens is we're the ones who change.
00:23:54.000 | And, you know, through the process, not the product, we become better.
00:23:58.000 | And that is ultimately what does the work.
00:24:02.000 | The other question I have about your writing.
00:24:05.000 | You can't write, at least unless you took one chapter and duplicated it 14 times and called that a book, which I don't think you did.
00:24:12.000 | Although I haven't gone through all of your books.
00:24:14.000 | You have to have something to say.
00:24:17.000 | So did you have a plan or do you have a plan, a personal development plan that you follow of learning about different things
00:24:25.000 | and studying and having input that you're processing and then pushing out in the form of writing?
00:24:31.000 | Yeah, and I'm glad you used the term input because that's what I use.
00:24:35.000 | It's like Johnny Five from Short Circuit, remember?
00:24:38.000 | No.
00:24:39.000 | Oh, no, you're killing me.
00:24:41.000 | I'm the worst person in the world at pop culture.
00:24:44.000 | I generally ignore all of it.
00:24:46.000 | So if it's anything related to what I'm supposed to know, I probably don't know it.
00:24:49.000 | So in the movie Short Circuit, both one and two, the robot essentially needed input.
00:24:56.000 | So he would have to go to the bookstore and read thousands and thousands of books because it was like nutrition for his robot brain
00:25:04.000 | and that's how he was able to engage with humans.
00:25:07.000 | Anyway, so I kind of took a hint from Johnny Five.
00:25:10.000 | That was the name of the robot.
00:25:12.000 | I need input and I view it as a source of energy.
00:25:17.000 | So, for example, I have kind of my daily rounds and every single day I read dozens of blogs and publications and cartoons and all kinds of stuff.
00:25:27.000 | I take notes and I write down ideas as I'm learning and stuff.
00:25:31.000 | To me, the news is a form of energy.
00:25:35.000 | Like reading the New York Times every day could be depressing because it's the news and all news is depressing and sort of if it bleeds, it leads, that whole thing.
00:25:46.000 | But to me, it's a source of energy because I get excited or angry and I use that to fuel the input phase.
00:25:55.000 | So my creative process is three different phases.
00:25:58.000 | It's input, throughput and output.
00:26:00.000 | It's like a factory.
00:26:02.000 | So for me, the coal mine or the mountain or the fracking, if you want to use a more controversial term, is all of this input and the podcasts and all the different stuff that I sort of inhale.
00:26:15.000 | And then the throughput is that organizational system that I built on my computer where I have all my files organized.
00:26:22.000 | And then the output is the physical creation of it, taking all that and alchemizing it into that particular book.
00:26:30.000 | So, yeah, the input to me is the most important part of the process.
00:26:35.000 | What are some of the specific resources that are on your daily list?
00:26:40.000 | What are some of the specific sites that you keep up with, things that you read, podcasts you consume?
00:26:45.000 | Sure.
00:26:46.000 | There's so many I have to open it to look at it.
00:26:49.000 | So Scott Adams, who does Dilbert, has a great blog.
00:26:53.000 | My cartoonists are Dilbert, Hugh McCloud, Grant Baldwin, Tom Fishburne, Pearls Before Swine, love all that stuff.
00:27:03.000 | Why do you read comics?
00:27:04.000 | Because they're hilarious and they're simple and they sort of engage a different part of your brain than reading The Times would.
00:27:12.000 | And I always secretly wanted to be a cartoonist, but I can't draw for a damn.
00:27:18.000 | I'm the worst.
00:27:20.000 | So it's kind of me living out that failed dream of reading cartoons.
00:27:24.000 | New York Times, Atlantic, I've got to read The Onion. I like to look at Google Trends and find out what people are searching.
00:27:33.000 | I listen to 20 hours of podcasts a week while I'm doing other things.
00:27:39.000 | My wife writes an amazing nutrition blog.
00:27:42.000 | I read and listen to and inhale everything because it's all juicy to me.
00:27:48.000 | Was there something in your childhood that helped you to develop that habit?
00:27:54.000 | I don't know. I didn't grow up in a family like Chris Rock, whose dad worked for a newspaper and he always read newspapers every morning.
00:28:03.000 | I didn't read more or less than anyone else as a kid.
00:28:08.000 | I liked it and it was fun.
00:28:10.000 | I found my authors when I was a kid that I really loved.
00:28:14.000 | But now it's just sort of my wiring. I like inhaling.
00:28:19.000 | How do you organize your notes and your thoughts, specifically tactically?
00:28:24.000 | Do you read all this electronically and use an electronic document?
00:28:28.000 | Are you just taking notes in a journal? How do you actually organize your process?
00:28:32.000 | Oh, God. It's like the biggest question in the world.
00:28:35.000 | I wrote an entire 700-page book on the answer to that question, just so you know.
00:28:42.000 | That's just how much information there is for me to answer that.
00:28:46.000 | Which of the books is that?
00:28:48.000 | It's not out yet. It comes out in about a month. It's called Prolific.
00:28:51.000 | Ah, got it.
00:28:53.000 | Anyway, the quick answer is I use whatever I can. I don't care.
00:28:58.000 | I have my Kindle, but I also use my Kindle reader on my computer if I'm not sitting in bed or on a plane reading my Kindle.
00:29:07.000 | I love actual books because they smell nice, and I like to scratch the pages with marginalia, that kind of thing.
00:29:14.000 | I take notes on my phone. I have a pen and paper with me at all times in case the phone dies.
00:29:21.000 | I'm equipped. I will never not document something when I need to.
00:29:29.000 | I have an unbelievable memory, which is just genetics, so that's really helpful.
00:29:33.000 | I have an entire system on my computer, and I know exactly where everything is.
00:29:39.000 | Everything I know is written down somewhere, and I can get to it in 10 seconds.
00:29:43.000 | So I'll have to read your book then to get the full answer.
00:29:46.000 | Yeah, and what I can do is I can give people an insight into my brain.
00:29:51.000 | One of the things I love doing is building things to solve my own problems.
00:29:57.000 | It's something I learned from the tech world. They call it scratching your own itch.
00:30:01.000 | A couple years ago, I had this idea of a portable creative environment.
00:30:08.000 | I have my creative nirvana here in my workspace at home, but if I'm somewhere else,
00:30:15.000 | if I'm traveling around giving a presentation or visiting a client or doing whatever,
00:30:20.000 | let's say I don't have access to my file system.
00:30:24.000 | I'm not a big cloud user, so what I wanted to do was build some utilities that I could use.
00:30:30.000 | So I started a series of websites that I continue to build more of.
00:30:34.000 | The first one was called SentenceJunkie.com because I don't do drugs, I don't drink, I'm completely sober.
00:30:42.000 | So what better name of a site than Junkie?
00:30:45.000 | Because I am a sentence junkie.
00:30:47.000 | But if you go to SentenceJunkie.com, you will see just this inventory of all of my notes.
00:30:53.000 | I use it almost every day if I don't have access to something, and sometimes it's quicker to use it.
00:30:58.000 | It's just a reference point for my files.
00:31:01.000 | I built another one about a day ago. It's called QuestionJunkie.com, and it's all of my questions because I collect questions.
00:31:08.000 | I've got a million of those. I'm working on a couple other Junkie websites, and I want to build this whole network.
00:31:13.000 | I don't know if it's useful for people. Probably not.
00:31:17.000 | It's cool the first time you go there, but it's really just for me, and I use it all the time.
00:31:22.000 | Maybe I'll find a way to help other people do the same.
00:31:25.000 | But if you go there, you'll get an understanding of the insanity that is my brain.
00:31:32.000 | I'm on SentenceJunkie.com, and you've got a search box, and you've got 38,000 phrases here.
00:31:38.000 | These are sentences that you've come up with while you're reading as things saying that are important to you.
00:31:47.000 | "Give the public everything you can give them."
00:31:49.000 | "Facebook lost half its value since going public."
00:31:51.000 | These are just notes that you've taken out.
00:31:53.000 | Yeah, I mean, right now I'm on the website, and I'm typing in "financial."
00:31:58.000 | So great. Here's 30 different sentences and notes and thought starters and inspirational phrases that I've collected,
00:32:07.000 | some of which I've used, some of them I haven't used.
00:32:10.000 | But if I'm writing on a particular topic, like "boundaries," for example, I write a lot about that issue.
00:32:18.000 | If I'm writing about boundaries, I'll just whip up Sentence Junkie, type in "boundaries," see what's there.
00:32:22.000 | Like, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that one," and then cut and paste and use it in whatever I'm writing.
00:32:27.000 | That's just how my brain works, and it's really useful. It's really simple, and it has a big syringe.
00:32:34.000 | Like, how cool is that?
00:32:36.000 | So this is super interesting to me, and it's kind of selfish.
00:32:40.000 | I think the audience will benefit from it, but it's also me.
00:32:42.000 | I am a content creator now. I've closed my financial planning firm, and now I'm a content creator.
00:32:48.000 | I started with an audio form, so I create a new show every day.
00:32:53.000 | In order to do that, and my shows are quite varied, so I need to amass a large amount of data.
00:33:00.000 | But I also need to start writing, and so I'm going to start writing consistently, so I need data for that.
00:33:07.000 | I'm in the process of developing about a dozen courses over the coming year or so.
00:33:12.000 | And so that's a whole bunch of other data, and I need to develop some speeches and start speaking.
00:33:18.000 | But I don't know how to organize it, and I literally have no idea.
00:33:23.000 | I've got all these haphazard systems, and everything takes me too long,
00:33:27.000 | because I don't have a good system of being able to say, "Okay, here, I'm going to create this topic. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom."
00:33:33.000 | Yeah, it's not as overwhelming as people think it is.
00:33:37.000 | I mean, most of my organization is arbitrary.
00:33:40.000 | So all of my notes are arbitrarily sorted either by file name or by date.
00:33:48.000 | So if you go to Sentence Junkie and you type in a random word, you'll notice it's in alphabetical order.
00:33:53.000 | And the reason is because it's totally arbitrary.
00:33:56.000 | So one of the important concepts about innovation and idea creation is serendipity.
00:34:02.000 | And it's about connecting ideas that maybe didn't show up together or don't belong together.
00:34:07.000 | But when you arbitrarily sort them, alphabetizing, for example, it's a lot easier to have these happy little accidents
00:34:15.000 | of these two sentences that never should have gone together.
00:34:18.000 | But that makes it a lot less overwhelming when you kind of just say, "Well, I don't need to organize it.
00:34:23.000 | What if I just dump them alphabetically and then search by keyword?" It just makes it easier.
00:34:30.000 | Why did you not, other than having a cool website, why did you not use some of the tools like Evernote that already exist?
00:34:36.000 | I would have used Evernote, actually, had I started at Ground Zero.
00:34:41.000 | I'm just pissed I didn't create Evernote. I think it's one of the greatest things I've ever seen.
00:34:47.000 | But I don't know. Evernote is cool and I used to use it, but I wanted to make my own.
00:34:54.000 | Evernote's great, but I'm a songwriter. I don't do covers. I make my own music. So that's why I built these.
00:35:02.000 | How frequently do you post on your blog?
00:35:05.000 | I post every day. It's important that people know that what you see on the day that I post is not what I wrote that day, ever.
00:35:16.000 | Because my editorial calendar is massive. I write so much all day because that's all I do.
00:35:24.000 | If I'm not giving a presentation or traveling or doing some other activity, all I do is write.
00:35:29.000 | I have such a massive editorial calendar that the next 300 blog posts are already written.
00:35:34.000 | Wow.
00:35:35.000 | I just pick it off the queue, again, arbitrarily sorted, chronologically.
00:35:41.000 | Like, "Okay, what is the most recent one that I've written that I haven't used yet?"
00:35:46.000 | "Great, I don't even know what it is. Sounds good. I'll publish that today."
00:35:49.000 | I don't think about, "Well, should I publish this today because it's Groundhog Day and it has something to do with living a life you choose?"
00:35:56.000 | I don't care. I already wrote it. I published it. It's a routine to me.
00:36:02.000 | It's just something I do every day and I love doing it. My blog has given me everything.
00:36:07.000 | So that's why I do it every day.
00:36:09.000 | Is that what it started on? Was it actually publishing your blog and then people finding that?
00:36:14.000 | You had written the book, but was the blog one of the cornerstones of your marketing strategy?
00:36:20.000 | It became that way, but before blogging was huge, I didn't really know what it was.
00:36:28.000 | I wrote my book in 2001, 2002, and when it came out, I had a website with a journal on it, but it was a feature that we built.
00:36:37.000 | It wasn't a blog, even though it was the same spirit of a blog.
00:36:40.000 | Then one day, Seth Godin, who I've become friends with, linked to me and I got all this traffic.
00:36:48.000 | I was like, "Whoa, what's happening?" I realized it was from the blog post that he wrote about me.
00:36:53.000 | So I'm like, "Well, I should probably start one of these things." That was 12, 13 years ago.
00:37:00.000 | One of the things, obviously, you wrote a book called Prolific and you are extremely prolific.
00:37:07.000 | What do you see in 2015 for people who are interested in starting to establish their own creations?
00:37:19.000 | Is it different than when you started, or just the tools have changed and it's basically, if you need to have ideas, worth talking about?
00:37:26.000 | What advice do you have for people in today's day and age?
00:37:29.000 | It's so different from 15 years ago when I started. Think of it this way.
00:37:34.000 | In 1999, just before I started wearing a name tag, about that time, I started my own record company and I made an album.
00:37:44.000 | The only way that people got this album was literally from me.
00:37:50.000 | I had to sell people on my dorm room floor copies of it and play concerts and try to sell them out of my case.
00:37:57.000 | My mom bought a dozen of them and she gave them to all her friends. That was my distribution. It's embarrassing.
00:38:05.000 | Now, let's say I was 19 right now. All I would have to do is record the album.
00:38:15.000 | Except this time, when I recorded the album, it was in my basement and it sounded horrible.
00:38:21.000 | Now, it would still be in my basement and it would sound amazing.
00:38:24.000 | Because I'd be using Pro Tools or GarageBand.
00:38:29.000 | But instead of having to print an actual CD and pay money and have to worry about liner notes and cases and all that stuff,
00:38:37.000 | I would just upload it to TuneCore, which is actually what I use.
00:38:41.000 | It's a great seg that sends out your music to Amazon, Spotify, iTunes.
00:38:46.000 | It does everything for you. You pay $80 and it's there forever. You get the money and you're done.
00:38:53.000 | Think of what's different. The technology is different.
00:38:57.000 | You can do it instantly. You can do it basically for free. There's no barrier.
00:39:04.000 | So what does that mean?
00:39:06.000 | Well, the only thing stopping people is permission.
00:39:11.000 | Because if anybody can do anything for nothing immediately and have it go anywhere,
00:39:19.000 | if you don't do it, then it's your fault. It's permission.
00:39:24.000 | Something inside of you says, "I am not blank enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough.
00:39:31.000 | I haven't been playing guitar long enough. I don't have enough credentials after my name to produce X products, so I can't do it."
00:39:38.000 | That's fine. Someone else will.
00:39:41.000 | So the biggest thing is all permission. It's everything.
00:39:46.000 | And nobody realizes this because, like I said before, the execution is now easier than ever.
00:39:52.000 | So the only thing stopping you is the person looking in the mirror, and that sucks for a lot of people to realize.
00:40:00.000 | In a world where it's that easy to produce, whether this is three years from now or today, then how does somebody stand out?
00:40:10.000 | I don't know, actually. That's a really hard question that I struggle with.
00:40:16.000 | Take Amazon. Amazon just launched the Amazon Kindle Unlimited program. Are you familiar with that?
00:40:27.000 | I am, yes.
00:40:29.000 | It's amazing. It's $10 a month, and you get millions of books.
00:40:35.000 | But the problem is, because I tried it for a month, the books aren't that good.
00:40:40.000 | Right, exactly. I did too.
00:40:42.000 | They're getting long-tail books, and nothing against the people who write them, because I'm proud of anybody that writes a book.
00:40:49.000 | I'm good for them, and I hope they're doing great.
00:40:51.000 | But they're not that good.
00:40:53.000 | And that's kind of the problem, is that when anybody writes a book, anybody will.
00:40:57.000 | And that's just the nature of economics. When there's no barrier to entry, the quality goes down.
00:41:02.000 | So then the question becomes, how do you stand out?
00:41:06.000 | I have no idea. I think that's so hard.
00:41:10.000 | I lucked out that in 2001, I was a guy who wore a name tag, and it was interesting, and no one had ever done it, and it was easier to stand out.
00:41:19.000 | But now, every website is a content creator.
00:41:24.000 | I was on the Today Show in 2005. It was the biggest deal in the world. Everybody was talking about it.
00:41:31.000 | I sold books, and I booked speeches, and I got all these emails on my list. Everything happened.
00:41:37.000 | When I was on the Today Show six months ago, no one cared.
00:41:41.000 | I was disappointed, but not surprised.
00:41:46.000 | But it was sort of a wake-up call.
00:41:48.000 | I'm like, "Well, this is it, man. This is where we're at. I don't know what I have to do.
00:41:51.000 | I guess you have to be a complete narcissist like Kim Kardashian and just whore yourself out."
00:41:59.000 | So I have a new book coming out. It's just selfies of me.
00:42:03.000 | Sorry, that idea is taken. It's not going to work.
00:42:07.000 | It is interesting, and I'll tell you, I am very concerned about just the general career knowledge of many people.
00:42:15.000 | Especially, this is what drove me out of the financial business.
00:42:19.000 | I looked at it, and I said, "Come on, guys. You're living in a world of 1994, and we're living in 2015.
00:42:28.000 | We cannot have these – I mean, yes, the rules exist, but we've got to change them, and we can't have these arcane rules that you can't publish about this, you can't publish about that."
00:42:38.000 | I said, "We're getting killed."
00:42:40.000 | The problem is that those of us who were – again, I was a financial advisor behind the wall, and I said, "Those of us who know a little something, we're getting destroyed in the marketplace by people who are well-meaning but are ignorant of technical knowledge."
00:42:55.000 | Some of us have got to – I said, "Somebody's got to make that transition."
00:43:00.000 | I decided to make the jump, but whether it's something like that on an industry perspective, or – I mean, I couldn't create and build because – maybe it was I couldn't, or maybe it was I didn't think I could.
00:43:13.000 | Whatever, permission.
00:43:14.000 | Because of my work as a financial advisor, I couldn't actually as freely publish and create content on topics that were important to me.
00:43:24.000 | I could do it, but there was this – I had to go through a lot of permission because of the industry.
00:43:28.000 | The problem is I never realized how much of a disadvantage that was.
00:43:32.000 | If you don't have a website in 2015, you don't exist.
00:43:37.000 | And if you don't have – if you're not a thought leader in your space, I mean, we're going to get just – things are becoming more and more segmented.
00:43:47.000 | In the last recession, jobs were eliminated permanently.
00:43:50.000 | They're not coming back.
00:43:51.000 | In the next recession, it'll happen again.
00:43:53.000 | It'll happen again.
00:43:54.000 | It'll happen again.
00:43:55.000 | It'll happen again.
00:43:56.000 | And you've got to be the leader in your industry or you're not going to exist.
00:44:00.000 | You're going to be out sitting on the street with your hand out.
00:44:03.000 | I tell you, I struggle with that.
00:44:05.000 | It simultaneously creates apathy and excitement for me.
00:44:11.000 | Because I mean like anytime I have that wave of apathy, which is like who cares?
00:44:18.000 | No one's even going to notice.
00:44:20.000 | What's the point?
00:44:21.000 | Do I really want to add this thing on the pile of crap that is the internet?
00:44:27.000 | And that's like my biggest point of resistance right now.
00:44:31.000 | I just finished a documentary that I'm really proud of and I went through that grieving, apathetic process of, oh, no one cares.
00:44:39.000 | And basically what I came to decide was you're probably right.
00:44:45.000 | Let's say no one cares.
00:44:48.000 | Let's say nobody will ever notice.
00:44:51.000 | Let's say you are not going to stand out.
00:44:53.000 | Are you okay with yourself still doing it if that's the case?
00:44:58.000 | And I think that's a big thing for people.
00:45:00.000 | I think it kind of weeds out the intentions of the type of people that are doing what they do.
00:45:05.000 | Because I'm glad that since day one and up until now I've always just been really selfish and just did it for me because I just want to do these things.
00:45:14.000 | Like if Amazon didn't exist, I'd still be writing five books a year.
00:45:19.000 | I don't care.
00:45:21.000 | I may or may not print them.
00:45:23.000 | The world may not know that I wrote five more books in 2015.
00:45:27.000 | But I don't care.
00:45:28.000 | I'm not doing it for them.
00:45:29.000 | I'm doing it for me.
00:45:30.000 | And I believe that when you are selfish intentionally and strategically and then generous once you are done making something, I do believe it reverberates in a positive way.
00:45:40.000 | And I do believe it leads to making money.
00:45:42.000 | It may take 15 years but you have to believe in it because you can't guarantee that anybody else ever will.
00:45:49.000 | How do you actually practically structure your day to manage your input and your throughput and your output?
00:45:56.000 | I have a team of elves that lives in my closet.
00:46:00.000 | They're amazing.
00:46:03.000 | I actually found them on Fiverr.
00:46:05.000 | So they're very cheap.
00:46:09.000 | They speak five languages.
00:46:10.000 | Like these guys do everything.
00:46:14.000 | So I structure my day kind of -- the first half of the day I have a lot of structure and the second half of the day I don't intentionally.
00:46:22.000 | So I try to wake up as early as I can.
00:46:27.000 | I don't get up quite as early as I used to.
00:46:29.000 | But I get up pretty early and I do the morning pages from the Artist's Way, Julia Cameron's writing meditation.
00:46:38.000 | That's really helpful for me.
00:46:41.000 | I write most of the morning.
00:46:43.000 | I try to work out at midday to split up my day.
00:46:49.000 | I'm such a focused person that I'll just work forever and I'll forget to eat and spill water down my pants.
00:46:55.000 | So it's better that I cut myself off.
00:46:58.000 | So I'll go work out and go out to lunch or whatever in the middle of the day.
00:47:02.000 | And then the second half of the day I tend to do less structured activities.
00:47:07.000 | So I do most of my songwriting in the afternoon because after I work out my vocal cords are warmed up.
00:47:13.000 | So I'll work on that or other projects or do an interview like this.
00:47:18.000 | And then in terms of the night, I mean there's really no telling what we're going to do.
00:47:24.000 | But I have my rituals of I always read fiction before I go to bed because everything else I read is nonfiction during the day.
00:47:33.000 | So if I'm going to read at night, fiction is just great and it's fantasy and it puts me to sleep and I love it.
00:47:39.000 | If I'm not giving a presentation or working with a group or doing some sort of other activity, that's sort of my typical home life, incredibly boring writer's day.
00:47:51.000 | You put forth so much stuff, books, blogs, content. You are prolific.
00:48:00.000 | How do you actually make money and what's the most effective form of making money off of your stuff?
00:48:08.000 | Oh, I'm broke. I didn't know if that was a thing we were supposed to talk about. Yeah, I don't make any money.
00:48:16.000 | So I have a variety of income streams and anywhere from giving presentations to doing facilitated employee training to consulting to strategic planning to selling books.
00:48:33.000 | I have a one-on-one service called Rent Scott's Brain that is a combination of coaching, mentoring, consulting and strategy all together.
00:48:43.000 | Yeah, I make money in a variety of different ways, some more consistent than others.
00:48:48.000 | But yeah, I pay the bills, I support my family, so all is well.
00:48:53.000 | So I guess I wasn't – here's what I was trying to focus in on.
00:48:57.000 | It's got to feel – I mean how many years did you work building the foundation before you felt like you – before you got some paying gigs?
00:49:06.000 | I mean what was the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey like?
00:49:10.000 | Oh, it sucked. I had no money. I worked a part-time job parking cars at the Ritz-Carlton at night and on the weekends.
00:49:17.000 | How interesting. For how long?
00:49:19.000 | For two years. That was actually a great job. I loved it. I learned a lot. But yeah, I didn't make money for about the first three years.
00:49:29.000 | I mean in that whole time though, you were creating a large amount of content.
00:49:33.000 | Yeah, and living with my parents, which is really important and that should not go unmentioned because I think that the best thing –
00:49:42.000 | the best gift I was given from living with my parents for two years, eight months and 29 days was that I had the ability to be brave.
00:49:53.000 | And not everybody can say that.
00:49:56.000 | Like if you're 40 years old and you have three kids and you're starting a business, you can't really take the emotional and financial and creative risk that you can when you have mouths to feed.
00:50:05.000 | I didn't. I was 22. I had zero obligations or debt.
00:50:09.000 | So I was living in my parents' basement and I could take risks and I'm really grateful for that.
00:50:14.000 | So I would advise to people that if you have the ability to take some of those risks, if you have a partner or a spouse who can support you while you dig into this venture, take that.
00:50:27.000 | Because I imagine that as you get older, that goes away.
00:50:31.000 | Yeah, it's definitely one of the biggest challenges as you get yourself into a certain routine.
00:50:37.000 | And whether they're real barriers or perceived barriers, you know, for example, when I closed my previous business to launch this one, I looked at the house that I live in and I said,
00:50:48.000 | "Well, I think I can afford to live in this house, but if I have to move out and rent it out and we downsize, I'm doing that and I'm not going to give up."
00:50:57.000 | Like, it's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when.
00:51:02.000 | And whatever it takes, I'll do whatever it takes to make it happen.
00:51:07.000 | And it is certainly a lot easier. I wish I'd known and I wish I knew what I know now at 15, but unfortunately I didn't.
00:51:14.000 | Yeah, everybody wishes they knew what they knew when they were older.
00:51:18.000 | And there's actually a way to do that. Just have old friends.
00:51:22.000 | Like, I was so lucky to have so many mentors, and still do, that were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, even 70s.
00:51:29.000 | And they told me all this stuff. And like, I mean, the best way to grow up quickly is to surround yourself with people with gray hair, because they know what they're talking about.
00:51:38.000 | Last line of questioning I'd like to ask you is about your public speaking career.
00:51:42.000 | So, you do well with public speaking. You charge a fair amount of money.
00:51:46.000 | According to your website, at least 10 grand for a speech.
00:51:49.000 | How did your public speaking career develop over the decades?
00:51:53.000 | I did an interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper in 2003, before he was cool.
00:52:00.000 | And this is when my book was going viral, and we had just invaded Iraq.
00:52:05.000 | So, a story about a guy wearing a name tag to make people friendly was sort of perfect timing.
00:52:10.000 | Like, I'm a total pacifist, but God bless the war in Iraq. No, I'm just kidding.
00:52:16.000 | That's a horrible thing to say.
00:52:19.000 | It's funny because it's true.
00:52:22.000 | It is. And after that interview on CNN, I got a phone call from the local Rotary Club.
00:52:28.000 | I didn't even know what a Rotary Club was.
00:52:31.000 | But they asked me, this 22-year-old guy who was on CNN, to give a speech at the Rotary Club.
00:52:38.000 | I'm like, "Yeah, sure."
00:52:40.000 | And keep in mind, I come from a music background, so I'm not shy in front of a crowd.
00:52:45.000 | I've had plenty of performances.
00:52:48.000 | I was nervous in the way that anybody would be, but once I got up there and started telling my story, it went great.
00:52:55.000 | As great as it could have been for a first shot.
00:52:59.000 | When we did Q&A at the end of it, nobody had any questions except this one 90-year-old retired doctor guy.
00:53:08.000 | He asked me what my job was, and I was like, "Oh, I don't know. I wrote this book and I kind of see where that goes."
00:53:16.000 | And he said, "You should quit your job and become a public speaker."
00:53:20.000 | And that was pretty much it.
00:53:23.000 | So then did you go about it in a systematic way, or did stuff just find you?
00:53:28.000 | No, it just found me, and it still does.
00:53:33.000 | The only system I had was writing a lot and sharing everything I possibly could that was inside of me.
00:53:40.000 | When people asked me to speak somewhere, I just said yes.
00:53:43.000 | And eventually I just said yes, and here's how much it costs.
00:53:46.000 | And eventually I said yes, and here's how much more it costs.
00:53:50.000 | I just kept practicing and trying stuff out and bombing and failing.
00:53:55.000 | And it was fun, and it's been amazing.
00:53:59.000 | I love doing it.
00:54:02.000 | I think the biggest realization I had was a couple years ago was to charge more and to travel less.
00:54:09.000 | And that was a huge realization, because if you're on the road giving a speech every week of your life, you don't have a life.
00:54:18.000 | So I've found a good balance with that, and it's been an incredible adventure, and I really love doing it.
00:54:23.000 | So I know that that sounds great, but are you actually serious that you just kind of,
00:54:28.000 | "Well, I just kind of bumbled into this, and I kept writing, and it just kind of happened"?
00:54:32.000 | Or is that a generous, "This sounds nice in public," and you actually were approaching it with more planning?
00:54:38.000 | Is that real?
00:54:40.000 | It's about 50% real.
00:54:42.000 | I mean, 50% false humility, not trying to sound like a jerk on an interview.
00:54:48.000 | I mean, 50% of it is just my nature, because I'm not a planner, and selling is not my strong suit.
00:54:55.000 | That's my brother. You can talk to him about selling. He's the best in the world.
00:54:58.000 | But me, I'd rather be heard than paid, and that's both one of my mantras and also one of my downfalls as a business person.
00:55:07.000 | So I always just kind of said to myself, "If I can just get heard, whatever being heard means, I know I'll find a way to get paid."
00:55:15.000 | So I think once I realized that, I was a lot more strategic.
00:55:19.000 | And look, I have my systems, and I have my strategies, and they work, and I know what I need to do.
00:55:26.000 | But yeah, it is not as intentional as you would think it is.
00:55:30.000 | The reason I push back is, yes, it's hard to not come across.
00:55:34.000 | You have to downplay your own success in anything.
00:55:39.000 | I mean, it's like when someone asks me, "Joshua, you have all these great planning destinations."
00:55:43.000 | "Yeah, I'm good at taking tests."
00:55:44.000 | Reality is, I work hard for it.
00:55:46.000 | But you sound like an arrogant jerk if all of a sudden you start--
00:55:52.000 | In our society, for whatever reason, in polite company, we don't talk about our own success.
00:55:57.000 | We downplay it and let other people--
00:55:59.000 | It's easy. We've got to let other people talk about it.
00:56:02.000 | But the challenge is, for example, the stage that I'm at in the growth of radical personal finance is I very much--
00:56:12.000 | I didn't intentionally model your career.
00:56:14.000 | That wasn't the goal.
00:56:16.000 | I've come to the same conclusion.
00:56:19.000 | I said, "Well, I don't know where this will go, but I know I've got some ideas and some thoughts that will help people."
00:56:25.000 | "And I believe that I can provide value."
00:56:28.000 | "So let me just try to help as many people and be as consistent and prolific as possible."
00:56:34.000 | The point of the prolific nature, the reason why I needed to jump in with both feet first is, frankly, because I'm not very good.
00:56:43.000 | And you've got to do something until you get good at it.
00:56:46.000 | And if I were-- I'm going to record one show a week.
00:56:50.000 | Well, it would take me a really long time to become an excellent host.
00:56:54.000 | Or if I'm going to do one interview every three weeks, it's going to take me a long time to become a great interviewer.
00:56:59.000 | So I just said, "I want to jump in."
00:57:01.000 | But I'm also at that transition stage where I feel like I've built the beginnings of a starting point.
00:57:07.000 | And now I've got to transition and build that out.
00:57:12.000 | But there's so many competing methodologies.
00:57:20.000 | There's so many competing things that could be done, ways to approach things.
00:57:25.000 | And then the question is, well, for example, I've struggled with, "Should I pull back on the number of shows that I'm creating so I can create more paid content?"
00:57:33.000 | But then I feel if I pull back on that, then it sacrifices the audience that I have.
00:57:38.000 | And so it's just so confusing as far as what's right, what's wrong, what works.
00:57:43.000 | And basically, thankfully, I'm pretty okay with failing.
00:57:46.000 | And I just try a bunch of stuff.
00:57:47.000 | And, okay, that didn't work.
00:57:48.000 | Let me try the next thing.
00:57:49.000 | And I figure that's about what it's got to be.
00:57:51.000 | But I guess I'm not asking a very smooth and sophisticated question here.
00:57:57.000 | I'm more just kind of saying, if you have any words of wisdom from your experience having been a little farther down this road than me.
00:58:04.000 | Yeah, excellence is overrated.
00:58:09.000 | Ooh, nice timing on that buzzer.
00:58:12.000 | Sorry about that.
00:58:15.000 | That was like a Zen cone.
00:58:17.000 | Yeah, this is something I've realized in the past year.
00:58:21.000 | Excellence is overrated.
00:58:22.000 | We live in a country that is so, "We're number one and we've got to be the best at everything and we're excellent.
00:58:31.000 | And if you can't win, go home."
00:58:34.000 | You know what?
00:58:35.000 | I don't think that way.
00:58:37.000 | I don't like sports.
00:58:39.000 | I'm not good at sports.
00:58:41.000 | I tried when I was a kid.
00:58:43.000 | But I play to play.
00:58:46.000 | I don't play to win.
00:58:47.000 | That's the finite and infinite game metaphor from James Kars.
00:58:51.000 | So when you're on a football team and everyone else is playing to win and then there's me just playing to play, like, yeah, you're on the bench.
00:58:57.000 | So the reason I say excellence is overrated is because who cares about being good?
00:59:09.000 | Like when did we decide that being the best -- I mean, not even being the best, being good, when did that matter?
00:59:16.000 | The Ramones were terrible.
00:59:19.000 | But they were doing something interesting and different and new and crazy and innovative and they had fun.
00:59:26.000 | I don't even like the Ramones.
00:59:28.000 | I don't listen to their music.
00:59:29.000 | But they're so great for so many other reasons.
00:59:32.000 | And I feel like especially in this country we're all about good.
00:59:36.000 | If we can just be good, everything else will follow suit.
00:59:38.000 | Not necessarily.
00:59:40.000 | Like let's look at all these other things that surround good that are more important.
00:59:44.000 | Continuity.
00:59:45.000 | So you do a show every day.
00:59:48.000 | That's amazing.
00:59:49.000 | That's continuity.
00:59:50.000 | Consistency.
00:59:52.000 | Interestingness and the compelling nature of something.
00:59:56.000 | Commitment.
00:59:57.000 | Discipline.
00:59:58.000 | All of these things are more important than talent.
01:00:02.000 | And I think once -- again, this is a permission thing.
01:00:05.000 | But once people give them permission to be something other than good, no one cares if you're good.
01:00:11.000 | And eventually you'll probably become good just by default so you don't really have to worry about it.
01:00:16.000 | Just let that go and just show up every day.
01:00:20.000 | And it turns out that actually pays off.
01:00:23.000 | >> Yeah.
01:00:24.000 | It's one of the things that I love about the world we live in in 2015 is there are more and more people who are just simply showing up.
01:00:32.000 | But they're showing up in public.
01:00:34.000 | And, like, on my show, I try to bring -- I'm working to bring on a diverse array of guests.
01:00:40.000 | Some of whom are quite advanced in their career.
01:00:43.000 | And some of whom are just getting started.
01:00:45.000 | And building out in certain things.
01:00:47.000 | Because we have such a fixation on those who have achieved it all.
01:00:53.000 | Those who have -- and it's hard to relate sometimes.
01:00:57.000 | I remember when I was a kid driving around and listening to Zig Ziglar or listening to Brian Tracy or listening to Tony Robbins in my car.
01:01:04.000 | And, man, I loved their input in my life.
01:01:07.000 | But if you asked me how on earth could I ever be, you know, Brian Tracy, even though I had the positive mental attitude, it's like, man.
01:01:16.000 | He's already been there, done that.
01:01:18.000 | He's 40 years down the road.
01:01:19.000 | He's got something I don't.
01:01:21.000 | But when I found Scott the name tag guy, here's this kind of goofy guy who has this silly idea to wear a name tag.
01:01:28.000 | I just thought, man, that is so absurd.
01:01:31.000 | And yet, look, he's doing it.
01:01:33.000 | And that was just so encouraging to me because you shared your story.
01:01:36.000 | And you know that's a compliment when I say it's absurd.
01:01:40.000 | >> Thank you.
01:01:41.000 | >> But it's -- you know, that's -- and same thing with podcasting.
01:01:44.000 | I've realized, you know, there are some podcasts that are so tightly buttoned up.
01:01:49.000 | And, frankly, I just don't care.
01:01:51.000 | I like hearing something that's amateurish.
01:01:55.000 | I like YouTube videos that don't have a high production quality because they're more relatable for me.
01:02:00.000 | >> Yeah.
01:02:01.000 | I think that people should forget about being the best at what they do and focus on being the best of who they are.
01:02:08.000 | >> Good quote.
01:02:10.000 | >> Thank you.
01:02:12.000 | >> It's one of those tweetable comments.
01:02:15.000 | If I were sophisticated enough to do that, that would be a good tweetable comment to add on my show notes.
01:02:20.000 | >> Yeah.
01:02:25.000 | >> Scott, this has been fun.
01:02:27.000 | >> Yeah.
01:02:28.000 | >> I've enjoyed this.
01:02:29.000 | And I appreciate you coming on.
01:02:31.000 | Closing question is this.
01:02:32.000 | >> Okay.
01:02:33.000 | >> If you recognize a deficiency in something and you do recognize you at least want to get better at something,
01:02:40.000 | do you have any kind of, you know, any thoughts on how you would organize a plan of attack to learn about an area
01:02:47.000 | or for somebody who's not currently writing or not currently publishing or whatever it is,
01:02:51.000 | do you have any wisdom from your experience of how to approach that process?
01:02:55.000 | >> I usually just pay people to do it for me.
01:02:58.000 | I really, like, I'll give you a great example.
01:03:02.000 | I have no interest.
01:03:04.000 | Like, I like to get better and I like to improve and grow and evolve and all that stuff.
01:03:08.000 | And I do like learning new skills.
01:03:10.000 | I think that's important.
01:03:12.000 | But, like, do I really need to learn how to edit a movie or can I find someone who's amazing at doing it
01:03:21.000 | and contract them to do it and not have to think about it and trust them and, you know, collaborate with them?
01:03:27.000 | Like, that sounds better to me.
01:03:29.000 | So here's my example.
01:03:31.000 | I have a new album that I'm putting together.
01:03:33.000 | It's almost done.
01:03:35.000 | And I'll put it out later this year.
01:03:37.000 | You know, I write acoustic singer/songwriter, bluesy folk songs, right?
01:03:42.000 | Just one guitar, one voice, very simple stuff.
01:03:45.000 | But half of the music I listen to on a daily basis is electronic
01:03:49.000 | because it's really good writing music.
01:03:51.000 | And I love the beats and the rhythms and that kind of stuff.
01:03:55.000 | I really dig that genre.
01:03:57.000 | And, you know, there's that part of me that wants to, like, create a pseudonym and put out electronic albums.
01:04:03.000 | But I am never "I know me."
01:04:06.000 | I will never learn how to use a vocoder.
01:04:10.000 | Like, have you ever seen one of those things, like, these complicated, like, radiohead electronic equipment?
01:04:15.000 | Like, I can't use that stuff.
01:04:17.000 | And I'm not going to spend nine months to learn how to program something to create, like, really cool Skrillex-sounding beats.
01:04:23.000 | But what I can do with my new album is once it's out, I can go onto Fiverr and hire for $5 a bunch of people
01:04:33.000 | to do remixes of my songs and then re-release it as a second follow-up album that's all electronic.
01:04:39.000 | And boom, I just became an electronic musician.
01:04:42.000 | And I'm totally energized.
01:04:45.000 | I can't wait to finish this record just so I can have people do, you know, insane sort of dubstep remixes of it.
01:04:51.000 | Because, like, that would be cool.
01:04:53.000 | And I can finally live out that dream of wanting to be an electronic recording artist.
01:04:58.000 | And all I had to do was pay people $5 to do it for me.
01:05:01.000 | Like, who knew it was that easy?
01:05:03.000 | Wow.
01:05:05.000 | What about when you were young and didn't have quite as much capital available for that?
01:05:11.000 | Did you approach it differently?
01:05:13.000 | I don't know. I probably just did something else.
01:05:15.000 | Like, I am not the kind of person who is interested in being well-rounded.
01:05:21.000 | Like, you're a financial planning expert.
01:05:25.000 | So you're really good with numbers and with left-brain thinking.
01:05:31.000 | I am not.
01:05:33.000 | And I never will be.
01:05:35.000 | So when I was a kid, I was just bad at that stuff.
01:05:39.000 | And I didn't care.
01:05:41.000 | Because it kind of goes back to the volume thing.
01:05:44.000 | It's like, well, I'm not really good at math and algebra.
01:05:49.000 | But my essay that I wrote for my third grade class was like 14 pages.
01:05:56.000 | And it was only supposed to be three pages.
01:05:58.000 | Like, I'll probably get a C in math.
01:06:02.000 | But in my writing grade, it's going to have that little asterisk where it says, "Need to talk to your parents."
01:06:10.000 | And my third grade teacher, Mrs. Edwards, probably went up to my parents and said,
01:06:15.000 | "Your son has a lot to say."
01:06:20.000 | Not real good with the long division because we know how important that will be in life.
01:06:24.000 | But, yeah, your son just keeps putting stuff on my desk.
01:06:29.000 | I don't even think he cares what the grade is.
01:06:33.000 | He just makes -- this really happened.
01:06:36.000 | Like, my teacher -- I would just put stuff on her desk that I made when I should have been paying attention to math.
01:06:43.000 | And I turned out okay.
01:06:46.000 | So, like, if you're bad at something, who cares?
01:06:49.000 | Go do something else.
01:06:51.000 | Like, go find something else that you're really good at and that makes you really happy.
01:06:54.000 | And do so much of it that people don't even notice that you suck at math.
01:06:58.000 | Scott, thanks so much for coming on.
01:07:01.000 | HelloMyNameIsScott.com.
01:07:03.000 | Is there anyone else that -- anywhere else that you want people to know where you are?
01:07:07.000 | Yeah, I mean, I got like a million websites.
01:07:09.000 | So, the easiest thing for people to do is to go to Google and just type in the word "Name Tag" and knock yourself out.
01:07:15.000 | Perfect.
01:07:16.000 | And you'll be there for about, man, two or three years if you read straight through.
01:07:20.000 | Yeah, it depends on your reading level.
01:07:23.000 | But, yeah, have fun.
01:07:25.000 | Scott, thanks for coming on, man.
01:07:27.000 | I appreciate you so much.
01:07:28.000 | My pleasure. Thanks, man.
01:07:29.000 | Are you inspired?
01:07:32.000 | I know I am.
01:07:34.000 | I love talking with people who have such fascinating histories.
01:07:39.000 | It just shows to me that if you have a vision and you have a bit of a start, you can figure things out as you go.
01:07:47.000 | Don't gloss over how Scott talked about how difficult the first couple of years of his business were.
01:07:56.000 | But focus on how the hard work that he put in enabled him to accomplish some really amazing stuff.
01:08:03.000 | And I would encourage you.
01:08:04.000 | I'm inspired by somebody at his age, again, 27, published books.
01:08:08.000 | And I'm just always inspired by people who are prolific and who are able somehow to gain the self-discipline and the self-mastery to be able to be consistent at their work.
01:08:20.000 | There's a fascinating list that I enjoy looking at from time to time on Wikipedia called "A List of Prolific Writers."
01:08:29.000 | And what's fascinating to me is just how some of us – I've never written a book.
01:08:36.000 | Well, I wrote half of one when I was in middle school.
01:08:39.000 | But it was like 100 – I don't remember.
01:08:42.000 | It was 100 and something pages.
01:08:43.000 | But it was an adventure story that I didn't know how to finish.
01:08:46.000 | But except for that, I've never written a book.
01:08:48.000 | But I'm inspired to almost have the draft of one that I think would actually be a meaningful contribution to the world of financial discussion.
01:08:58.000 | And so I've been thinking about it a lot the last few weeks as I've kind of figured out what I think would actually be helpful to the world of financial media.
01:09:05.000 | But it's intimidating to have never written a book.
01:09:07.000 | Most people have never written a book.
01:09:08.000 | And yet there are some people who have written hundreds and hundreds of books.
01:09:12.000 | You've got Scott.
01:09:13.000 | He's written 27.
01:09:14.000 | And that is amazing.
01:09:15.000 | But there are people who have written hundreds and even thousands.
01:09:19.000 | If you go and you look at this list of prolific writers, there are writers here who have written 800 books.
01:09:27.000 | There's one that's written over 1,000, Prentice Ingram.
01:09:30.000 | One wrote over – Rolf Kalmuchak – I'm not sure how you say that in German – wrote over 2,900 individual works under more than 100 pseudonyms.
01:09:41.000 | Some other people, a Spanish novel writer called Corrine Tellado wrote over 4,000 novellas.
01:09:51.000 | There's one person that I was previously familiar with named Jacob Neusner who is currently alive.
01:09:57.000 | He's a Jewish scholar, an academic scholar, and he's published or edited more than 950 books.
01:10:05.000 | And he's still going at it.
01:10:06.000 | He was born in 1932 and he's still going at it.
01:10:09.000 | Absolutely amazing to me the output that some people are able to have in their life and the impact in whatever their field of interest is.
01:10:19.000 | So be inspired.
01:10:20.000 | Go and check out Scott's stuff.
01:10:22.000 | Scott has written just a wealth of information on his blog, his books.
01:10:27.000 | Some of them are free.
01:10:28.000 | Some of them are very low priced.
01:10:30.000 | Go and check out his story in more detail.
01:10:32.000 | I think you'll really enjoy that.
01:10:33.000 | Keep an eye on what he's doing.
01:10:34.000 | What a – just a fun guy.
01:10:37.000 | That's my kind of quirky career story that I like to bring to the show.
01:10:43.000 | If you know of other interesting career stories like that, bring them on and I'll – you let me know about them and I will bring them on the show.
01:10:49.000 | That's it for what I wanted to cover on today's show.
01:10:51.000 | Thank you so much for listening.
01:10:53.000 | Again, remember we are launching our crowdfunding campaign and I would be thrilled if you take a moment and support the show at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
01:11:02.000 | We are at $280 a month.
01:11:04.000 | Our first milestone is $2,000 a month.
01:11:07.000 | And then if we get there, we can get rid of this music.
01:11:10.000 | So if you hate this music –
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01:11:46.000 | Also, for those of you who are signed up over there already, make sure you check your activity feed.
01:11:51.000 | Tomorrow's show, the title has already been released as far as what it's going to be on the topic.
01:11:59.000 | And I'll just tell it here since there are only a couple still over there that are receiving it.
01:12:03.000 | But we're going to talk about 529 plans.
01:12:05.000 | But what I need your input on is I need your input of what you want me to focus on first.
01:12:09.000 | So whether you want me to focus on the prepaid programs or the accumulation savings programs.
01:12:18.000 | There's a lot of nuance and detail to either or.
01:12:21.000 | I'm willing to do either one of them.
01:12:23.000 | That's totally fine.
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01:12:33.000 | So get over to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
01:12:36.000 | And I thank you for your patronage.
01:13:03.000 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
01:13:05.000 | If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is Joshua@RadicalPersonalFinance.com.
01:13:12.000 | You can also connect with the show on Twitter @RadicalPF and at Facebook.com/RadicalPersonalFinance.
01:13:19.000 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment.
01:13:26.000 | But your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.
01:13:34.000 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy.
01:13:43.000 | And consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.
01:13:55.000 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show.
01:13:59.000 | But I'm one person and I make mistakes.
01:14:02.000 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please help me by coming to the show page and commenting so we can all learn together.
01:14:10.000 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.
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