What I learned from Intention, And Imposters Syndrome! With Jeff Brown

Episode Summary

I’m talking to an extremely established radio guy and award winning podcaster Jeff Brown!! And he’s telling me how crippled he was starting his podcast after 20 years of radio?

Learn how…
– he overcame his crippling fear
– how intention in his calendar changed everything
– and what talking to the top entrepreneurs in the industry taught him!

And check me out on Jeff’s show. It was a REALLY great chat about how to get rid of 80% of your to do list and 100% of your guilt!
Read to Lead Podcast

Join The Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WinTheHourWinTheDay/
Win The Hour, Win The Day! www.winthehourwintheday.com
Podcast: Win The Hour, Win The Day Podcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/winthehourwintheday/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/win-the-hour-win-the-day-podcast

Jeff Brown can be reached at;
Twitter: http://twitter.com/thejeffbrown
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brownjeff
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/readtoleadnation
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/readtoleadpodcast/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thejeffbrown

Jeff Brown Read to Lead NYB Podcast – PART 2 – Transcription

LEGEND:

GREEN – best lines of the guest

CYAN – links to the guests business

YELLOW – introduction of your guest

Red – Trailer 

TIMESTAMP STARTS

Kris: (25:48)

Hey everyone, welcome to now your business and today we are extremely lucky. We are here with Jeff Brown. Now if you remember he was part of our launch week episode number two. So you want to go back and check that out cause he told some riveting stories that really just, I was in awe and and just so inspired by.

Kris: (26:06)

So you really gonna get some huge takeaways from there. So go back and check that out. But for those of you miss that before you head back, let me tell you a little bit about Jeff. He is an award winning radio producer and personality and former nationally syndicated morning show host following a 26 year career in radio, Jeff went boss free in 2013 and soon after launched read to lead podcast. It has gone on to become a four time best business podcast nominee and is featured Jeff’s interviews with today’s best business and nonfiction authors including Alan Alda, Seth Goldwin, John Maxwell, Liz Wiseman, Dr. Henry cloud, Gary vantage check, Simon Sineck, Brian Tracy, and over 200 more. Jeff has personally coached hundreds of successful podcasts around the globe, many of them award nominees and winners themselves and has consulted on podcasts for the U S government, one of the largest churches in the U S and numerous multimillion dollar companies. Jeff has worked and has been featured in entrepreneur and HubSpot, the blogs of Seth Goldman, Chris Brogan, Jeff Goins and social media Explorer as well as publications like the national business journal, the tendency and over a hundred other blogs and podcasts. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff: (27:22)

Well thank you Kris. I appreciate it.

Kris: (27:24)

We are so excited to have you. We had a really great chat during launch week and I just want to dive in deeper with that. I’m going to be honest with everyone. Um, my, now we talked about this for a second in launch week, but my now is having you on the show this early in the game. Um, you’re a real class act. I, I, I thought maybe if I reached out in a gentle and sincere way that you might honor me with your presence. And you did, but my instinct was to leave it till later and not have you in launch week. But of course there was opportunity here to celebrate you in launch week and stuff like that. So for me, you know, even when we did that first interview in launch week, what I want to tell you is I felt like I felt like Meryl, like I’m inviting Meryl Streep to my house and I’m gonna put on a little skit for her.

Kris: (28:10)

Like, Oh yes, here I’ve taken an acting class and I would like you to come over and sit down and watch me sort of iron out a few kinks on my first day. So I do really appreciate, um, as we stumble through this, your patients, when you have so much experience. So we, uh, we, we do have now your business and what that means to us is, you know, what is it with all your experience that we could talk about with all the really amazing people that you interviewed and you talked about your experience in launch week, but what’s some of the things you learned from all these entrepreneurs? What’s the theme, the common thread of what you would see is success for yourself and how you connected with them through your podcast and other platforms. What is the now that we could take away to keep moving forward?

Jeff: (28:56)

Uh, for me, when I think about, uh, all the interviews that I’ve done and how they’ve merged together, what I’ve gleaned from them, one of the things that keeps coming to the top, Kris, is, uh, this idea of being intentional with your time. Uh, you know, you are on my show show and we talked about, uh, you know, win the hour, win the day, uh, and productivity is so huge, uh, for those of us, uh, regardless of what line of work we’re in, working for ourselves or otherwise. Uh, but something that I have, I feel like I’ve gotten so much better at since I started my podcast. And this is in large part due to interview people like you. Uh, that’s how to be intentional with my time and that’s going so far as to doing something I, I used to not know anything about.

Jeff: (29:38)

And now when I talk about it, I kind of assume everybody knows about now. But when I talk about it, most people don’t. And that’s just the idea of blocking your time. And my weeks are structured such that there is very little white space. I’m deciding in the beginning of the week what I’m going to do with the time I’m given rather than just plugging in the appointments or the meetings and letting everything else kind of happen. Um, I want to be very intentional about what’s, what happens ahead of it. So just like you would budget your money, you would spend your money on paper before spending it for real, so that as Dave Ramsey says, you tell it where to go instead of wondering where it went. Right. And when I get to the end of the day or end of a week, I want to uh, know that I told that time where to go, not look at the week of the day and go, well where did all the time go? I actually have told it what to do before those days come. And so to me that’s been one of the biggest lessons that specifically time blocking, but more generally just being more intentional with my time and productivity.

Kris: (30:33)

Well I feel we’re in some work reality because yes, I was thrilled to be on episode two 31 and I’ll be honest, you were my first outreach when I wrote my book, win the hour win the day and really people again talking about now your business, I was trying to craft this pitch so you know, to get on podcasts and really what it was for me, it was exercise in to see if I could get you to open the email. So when you, when you wrote me back and said, yes, you can be on this show, especially the caliber of guests that you have on your show. That was like, I don’t, I don’t even like that was hitting it way out of the park. Way beyond my expectations. I was so excited when you said yes and then you said pick a date and I thought, Oh my God, I just wanted to, yes, I didn’t actually know we were going to get a job and now here we are.

Kris: (31:20)

You’re on my show and you’re talking to me about time management. So this, I feel like things are upside down so yes, I’ve written a book win the hour, win the day I to think that the theme at all success is really about doing it. It does tie into now your business, do it now, plan it. Now you know, not putting things off and always thinking, well, when I get this, when I reach this thing, then I’ll do that important thing. Even my book win the hour, win the day I actually, someone talked me into writing it sooner than I expected because I thought, well, maybe I need to be in business another 10 years and now maybe I can do this many millions of dollars or something. Like there has to be some, somebody has to take you and sort of honor you with some sort of recognition like a, a crown or tapping on the shoulder with a wand and say, yeah, okay, now it’s you, now you’re special. So with all these interviews that you do, we also like to hear some of your pain points, pain points in your journey. What are some of the things that you went, Oh, I gotta do something now. I have to change what I’m doing now. Like what were some of your nows?

Jeff: (32:23)

Hmm. Uh, one of those was when I was still in radio, uh, before I started working for myself. And I had a now moment in around 2010 and that was when I was butting heads with the powers that be, and realizing that my time in radio might be limited. Uh, just because things weren’t moving as fast as I felt they needed to move. I saw radio is an industry being threatened by the internet and I felt we needed to do certain things, uh, in response to that we needed to be ready for the future. And when we weren’t, uh, that was my opinion. Uh, and I got frustrated with that and I began to see sort of the light at the end of the tunnel that, that my days in radio were numbered. And so in 2010 I decided, well, that may be a few years down the road, but what am I going to do right now to prepare for that?

Jeff: (33:08)

So I began freelancing. I began, uh, a side hustle, my own side business to earn some, some additional income, but more importantly, just to see if I could do it. Um, I thought if I left radio at some point, I didn’t want to go to some other, you know, station or community or some other company in, uh, in stay in radio. I wanted to do something completely different. But I wasn’t quite sure what that was. But I started experimenting in 2010 with, with that side hustle and sort of getting my feet wet and, and the, uh, comfortable with the idea of, of creating things that people would pay me for, which is up to that point, something I had never done. Uh, and so I did that for about three years on the side and then came the day when through no fault of my own, the decision to leave radio was made for me. Uh, I was downsized by that same company. Um, and thankfully I had that side hustle to fall back on to keep my head above water for a time while I figured out what I wanted to do long-term.

Kris: (34:03)

Cause, you know, whenever we see someone that’s got a lot of accomplishments like yourself, especially, it looks so flawless when it’s done well. So we talked about this a little bit during launch week, but we have this misnomer that wherever the microphone went, you’d be comfortable and you’d be good at it. And so what’s the big deal? You’re on radio now, you’ve got this amazing podcasts. It doesn’t seem like a big stretch, but you know, a lot of people in your position would be really fear-based and just start moving to a smaller, smaller town and blame the industry and you know, the economy these days, there’s always a reason why you’re not where you want to be now. So, you know, what were those first steps, four first steps out there like that for you, because especially when that is a lot of safety, depending on your hours, this show where you just kind of went into, I don’t want to say an office job, but you would be somewhat protected, structured. So how did those first steps look for you?

Jeff: (34:55)

Well, I uh, through the reading that I was doing, starting in about, you know, the early two thousands, I became sort of an avid reader, whereas before, I wasn’t prior to that. And over the course of, you know, 2003, 2013, when I got let go, I was beginning to fill my mind with a new way of thinking. And I used to think that, you know, a job working for somebody else was security. That was my definition, definition of security, the every other week, paycheck, the vacation days and the health benefits and sick days and all that kind of stuff. Uh, but as, as many times as I have been let go from a job and there have been numerous times where that’s happened, uh, you, you would, you would think I would have learned the lesson a lot sooner that this really secure when all these things can so easily be taken away from you by the decision of one the person.

Jeff: (35:43)

And so in, uh, around 2010, that’s when I began sort of really thinking, well, if I was going to be one of those people who I admired, who did their own thing, what would that look like for me? Um, and really at that, at that time, even, uh, I wasn’t totally comfortable with that. I is why I did it as a side hustle. I, I wanted to build a bridge to some, I don’t want to just make a jump and, and you know, leave the job and then, you know, build my parachute are playing on the way down. I want it to sort of build a bridge to something else, what that would be long term. I didn’t know at that moment, but a part of the reason, uh, another part, the reason I did it sort of on the side was because I wasn’t fully comfortable with the idea that people would pay me for something that I created out of my, out of my head, you know, or they would pay me for my, uh, my knowledge, uh, gained, you know, on, on the job or through experience doing whatever. I really struggled with that. And so, um, I, I needed to get comfortable with that if I was ever gonna make a go of it on my own. It took some time, uh, before I really felt comfortable with it. But even then, even now I should say, I sometimes will struggle with that. Will someone pay me for this? It didn’t exist and now it does. I made it exist. Is someone willing to pay me for that?

Kris: (37:00)

Do you, is there a time where you start to glide? Like you got a lot of credentials and accomplishments in this world of podcasting, you have some really high rankings as far as awards go, you know, does that not buy you some sort of like hiking coast for a little bit?

Jeff: (37:16)

Um, I guess maybe first summit might. I, I’ve never been one to, uh, to do that. I, I’m, I’m always trying to challenge myself and try something new. Um, I mentioned in our launch week interview, um, you know, this last six years for me has been a series of first. So things that, that I’ve not done before and I’m not sure I’m, I’m capable of doing, but I am at least going to try. There are several times when things I was at, I remember, uh, preparing for my first, uh, we call it a joint venture webinar with, with one of those names you mentioned when you were introducing me and I remember, uh, thinking about throwing in the towel because I was having all these technical difficulties and then I didn’t throw in the towel. But then when we did it, we had all these problems and the website was crashing.

Jeff: (37:57)

And people couldn’t get into the webinar and all these things went wrong. But I had to just push through that and, and you know, swallow my pride a little bit, a little bit embarrassed and you know, in front of the person who I was doing this with, honestly. Uh, and a few months later try it again and the next time it was better and the time after that it was better still. And so I tried not to look at that so much as failure. It was just lessons learned and how can I do this differently the next time so that these same things don’t, don’t happen. And the person I was working with in this case had to be someone who, uh, was very gracious and offered a lot of great advice as well.

Kris: (38:30)

That’s amazing. Well, it’s good for all of us to hear that because we always have excuses. Why now is the time like, Oh, I mean I had really good reasons. I should really get better at this and get a couple of podcasts under my belt before. I’m like Jefferson. But no, you picked read to lead and I mean what, I cannot tell you how many books I had to consume just to keep up with your podcast and each one you made sound as interesting as the next. And for awhile there I remember one week going, okay, I can’t listen to this podcast this week. I read three books in three weeks. But um, it was essential in so many things that so many decisions I’ve made and so many paths I’ve taken have come from those books. And your ability to pull it out in this, let me know.

Kris: (39:11)

I should be reading that book. So I was boiled boy when I was on your show, which I’ll give myself a plug because I’m telling you it’s one of the proudest things I ever did. I’m on episode two 31 and I hold that in high regard, but what made you pick that? Because the idea of just interviewing authors. Because when you’re new with that, I think my, you know, if you let your fear get in there, you might think, well, how many authors are there and can I get all the authors I want? Like it’s very niche. So it sounds great now that it’s succeeded, but I could see where that would be, you know, do I want to go with a broader net?

Jeff: (39:48)

Yeah. And even had some people ask that very same question when I was starting out. Uh, and like how you, how are you gonna make a podcast out of this? But I started with a world view through which I would filter, um, um, anybody I invited on or any book I considered. And that worldview is simply, um, I believe that if you desire to achieve true success in business and in life, then intentional and consistent reading is a must. Yeah. No, that may or may not be a worldview you agree with, but that’s, that’s my, uh, I don’t mean you personally, but I mean anyone listening, I know, I know you buy into that. Um, uh, but, uh, but that, that was my worldview. And so that’s the umbrella, uh, through which guests or potential books get filtered. Now, uh, with that as an umbrella, I can talk about leadership, I can talk about personal growth, I can interview authors on books about entrepreneurship and jobs and career and leaving a nine to five job and working for yourself and sales and marketing and business in general and on and on nodes, a lot of topics.

Kris: (40:54)

Oh yeah.

Jeff: (40:55)

Neat. That umbrella. And so when you take that into account and the number of books released in any given year, um, I was pretty confident that I was never going to run out of authors to talk about in books to dig into, uh, you know, there, there are only 52 avails if you will in a given year. I do a weekly show. Um, and I get now when the nearly going, as you will know, it was a lot of outreach on, on my side. Uh, but now I probably get 500 requests or more a year to appear on the show. And you know, only 50 to get on. And some of those are people who didn’t reach out to me, but who I reached out to. So of those 500 that come to me, maybe 20 or 25 actually get on the show, because I’m trying to be very particular.

Jeff: (41:47)

I’m trying, you know, if the book is being featured on the show, it’s not a book review podcasts. A lot of people get confused. This is a book review. I’m not reviewing books. If, if the author in the book is featured on the show, I consider it a five star book, five star author. Right. Otherwise, why waste your time? Right? And so if it’s a book review show, they’re, they’re all, it’s just the good books. Let’s put it that way.

Kris: (42:08)

I can’t even hear you anymore Jeff. I’m just thinking about, these are compliments I’m getting. Yeah, right.

Jeff: (42:14)

Right. Well, yeah, you’re, you’re included in that. Absolutely. Absolutely. But that, that’s, that’s just the reality of it, you know? So, um, uh, I have never had to worry about, um, um, you know, running out of ideas or running out of people to talk to. Um, it’s, it’s just the opposite problem. I’ve got this, this mountain of people I could talk to and only so many opportunities to do so.

Kris: (42:40)

Yeah, you’re right. I just had never, I mean, well to be fair, you were when the first podcast I found when I discovered podcast, so I was listening to you for a number of years before, you know, I certainly had a book and then I remember one day thinking I was funny, I remember exactly, I was doing this workout going up and down these stairs. I remember thinking, man, this is a really smart entrepreneur. I would love to have a discussion with him. And then I thought, well, I’ll never be on a podcast. And I thought, well, I don’t even have a book. He only takes authors. And I hadn’t, I only discovered podcasts. So I like the idea of being on a podcast was like the idea of flying to me at that time. And then the idea of writing a book, it’s like growing an extra arm.

Kris: (43:17)

Like it just never, I just never occurred to me and I was just thinking, Oh, so I had been listening to you just because you were like this little college I was in where you are recommending the best books. And I was going, okay this weekend reading this and it really had such an impact, you know, on my business and their directions I needed to take. So it really is something, but I can just see how I think it was very smart and I have not seen it done since where you’re, you’re somebody on a podcast that only deals with books cause it, you know, it is uh, a special club per se. Right. So interesting.

Jeff: (43:51)

Yeah. And for me, just to sort of add fuel to that fire, I, I left college, um, with the mindset of, well thank goodness all the learning is done. Thank goodness I don’t have to do that anymore. Like lightly. I mean, how naive is that? Right? But, but, but, but school educated out of me, the desire to learn or certainly desire to read, I have to, I have to say now that’s not a knock against, you know, uh, specific educators or teachers, but just the, the process in general. Um, uh, I disliked, I went from loving reading as a child to disliking it once I got out of, you know, and got it in into a high school. Um, and so for the entirety of my, I didn’t read much at all, almost never, uh, it wasn’t until my early thirties, because of a mentor. Um, my boss at the time decided that as a staff we were going to read books together, at least those who wanted to.

Jeff: (44:45)

And we would come together a weekly, like a book club and talk about the book we were reading together and spend about a month on each book. Um, and my introduction into that group was Seth Goden, purple cow, uh, back in 2003, I think it was. And I just devoured it and I thought, Oh my gosh, where is this stuff then? All my life. Well, it’s been right there for the taking. I just wasn’t paying attention. And so that’s where the, the, the fire was sort of rekindle a rekindled for me, my love for reading and, and I read everything I could get my hands on. And over time I realized I was reading at a pretty good clip of book a week and that’s where it sort of the light bulb went off and I went, Oh, maybe that, maybe that’s that podcast idea I’ve been looking for. I’ve been wanting to do a podcast but didn’t know what to do a podcast about. I’m already doing this anyway. Why don’t I just turn that into interviews and conversations about the book summary. So,

Kris: (45:37)

Oh, that’s an interesting story. And yet I can see where it sounds so simple, but then all of a sudden you’d go, ah, it’s simple and it’s almost too quiet when it’s first in your head. And yet it turned out to be this amazing idea. So I think that’s another lesson for our audience as well, is that these little inspirations you have quietly in the back of your mind can really flush out to be an amazing idea. You just start with your now what is it you need to do now to get your business going to now your business. So Jeff, I want to thank you beyond, you know, you’re just, you’re a class act, you’re gracious, you’re kind, you’re generous. And even, you know, when I first sent my pitch to be on your show, um, I probably would’ve got the nicest no ever from you.

Kris: (46:19)

So even if you hadn’t said yes, it’s not because you keep saying yes to me and I don’t know how I keep getting so fortunate, but, um, you know, it’s just your generosity and your style and, uh, and also, you know, I hear that through all your other guests for the years and years, I was listening on your show. So we cannot thank you enough for being part of our little, you know, journey that starting out here and to have a guest of honor of your caliber, uh, to be on our show. It’s just, you know, it’s a great day for us here. So I want to thank you so much and please tell everyone where they can find you if they don’t know. By now you have this amazing podcast called read to lead and a, what else do you want to tell them?

Jeff: (46:59)

Yeah, well first of all, thank you for inviting me. Um, it’s an honor to be here and to appear before, uh, your listeners and I so appreciate that I can be found a, a most readily@readtoleadpodcast.com. Uh, encourage me to subscribe on your podcast app of choice. Um, and if you, um, would like a, a free resource, um, my uh, top 12 a business and personal growth books, uh, you can go to that website and right there on the right of the page is a quick first name and email address for them. Uh, pop that information in there and I’ll send you that, uh, that resource.

Kris: (47:38)

TIMESTAMP: Well, that’s a generous gift. So thank you very much again for joining us today. And again, people keep listening so that you can now your business.