Transcript for Jon Acuff Interview on the Beyond Speaking Podcast
Jon Acuff dives into the practical steps to generate great ideas, the keys to making true life change, and how to effectively set and achieve personal and professional goals. He shares insights on overcoming common obstacles in goal-setting, harnessing one's potential, and the importance of persistence and adaptability in personal growth. Throughout the interview, Jon provides valuable advice for anyone looking to improve their life through deliberate goal-setting and personal development.
Podcast Episode · Beyond Speaking · May 14, 2024 · 58m
Jon: A lot of people, myself included, are idea hoarders. They collect a ton of ideas, but they don't do anything with them. And you need to imagine a really cluttered house and going, well, that wouldn't be a fun way to live. And the third thing I do is I release them. So I release them online. I share them with friends. I put them in a book. I put them in different places. So that's the process I use. So if I'm doing those three things, I don't really get stuck.
Now there's times when I hit a challenging part of a book and I'm like everybody else, I get frustrated, I get confused. But for me, if I'm being faithful to collect ideas, so if you say something interesting I've never thought about before, I might take up my phone or a notebook, depending on what I have with me and write it down.
And I'm collecting them, collecting them, collecting them. And then I sort them, I review them and go, that's a good book idea. That's a speech idea. That's a tweet. That's a reel. And I'm sorting them or that's a family thing. I'm a big believer, the way you get better at Christmas gifts is you just listen all year and you write, you take notes. You should take notes on the people you care about.
Intro: Welcome to the Beyond Speaking podcast from Premiere Speakers Bureau, featuring in-depth conversations with the world's most in-demand keynote speakers.
Brian: Hi, I'm Brian Lord, your host of the Beyond Speaking podcast. Our event today is a little bit different.
So I interviewed Jon Acuff for a special book release for his new book, All It Takes is a Goal. So we did this long Q&A, and turned it into a podcast. And so obviously it does talk about his new book, All It Takes is a Goal, but he also covered things like the practical steps to generating great ideas, the keys to making true life change, and how also when you book Jon Acuff for your event, he might be secretly stealing the best ideas from your CEO. So thank you for watching and listening and checking out this podcast with Jon Acuff.
So we're gonna start off here talking a little bit about the book. Jon's gonna share the story behind how it was made, and then we will get into your questions. So make sure to put in those questions. We already got some started here, but we'd love to have any of your questions for Jon. So Jon, thanks for coming on here at Premiere Collectibles.
Jon: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to tonight.
Brian: So what was the original idea? So you've had a ton of bestsellers. Like you're running out you're like you've run out of fingers to have bestsellers on. And so what was the impetus behind All It Takes?
Jon: Well, it started with a place you and I both know pretty well, Samford University. So I went to school in Birmingham, and my wife went to the same college, and we took our oldest daughter on a tour a couple of years ago. And standing there on campus, my wife said, Wasn't college an amazing experience? Wasn't it the best? And I was having the opposite experience. I was thinking, Wow, what a waste. What a train wreck. In college I was just a knucklehead, rejected from every frat, bad grades. And I thought, what a wasted potential.
And as I drove home to Nashville, I was thinking about that, but I'd just written this book, Soundtracks about Mindset. So I knew I could change my mindset. So I thought, what if I could live into my potential? I can't do anything with those four years in college, but I might have 40 years ahead of me. Can I figure out how to tap into my potential going forward? And then I thought, I wonder if other people feel that way. Do other people feel they're not living up to their potential?
So commissioned a research study with a PhD named Mike Peasley. He's a professor here in Nashville. And we asked 3,000 people if they feel like they're living up to their potential. And 96% of people said no. So then I knew, wow, it's not just me. And 50% of those people felt like 50% of themselves was untapped, which is like only opening half your Christmas presents every year. And so I realized, okay, it's worth spending a few years to figure that out because there's a lot of people who feel the same way. And I want to figure out my potential and help other people figure out their potential too.
Brian: Mm-hmm. And so what's kind of that first step? You know, you go from this dejected dad, you commission this study, dejected dad at your waste potential. And then you go through these steps to figure out if other people are feeling the same way. A lot are. What's kind of that first step that, you know, Tuesday morning action that people can take to get better?
Jon: So, what happens is when you figure out you want to do more in life, you automatically run into what I call a vision wall. A vision wall says you have to know your perfect vision for the next 10 years. People think, I gotta begin with the end in mind. So I need to know where I'm headed for the next 10 years, and you run into this massive wall, and it feels really challenging, and people give up in that moment.
So for me, the way I got around the vision wall, instead of trying to guess my future in the next 10 years, which is impossible, I did this exercise that I teach in the book called The Best Moments List, where I looked backwards and said, okay, what are the things that have lit me up the most over the last five years, last 10 years, last 20 years?
So in an Augusta airport, I was at a Premiere gig. You guys had booked me to speak in Augusta. I was at a small airport, and I wrote the best moments on top of a piece of paper, and I started to list them out one by one by one. And I thought I would try it for 10 items, 20 items. I ended up writing 170 items.
And it became this really interesting exercise because, one, it taught me gratitude. It actually showed me things I'd forgotten that I was really grateful for. Two, it taught me self-awareness. If you ask your head and your heart to look for the best moments in your past, you automatically start looking for them in the present. You start to notice things as you're in the moment. And then three, it became this path forward because I wasn't guessing what I cared about. I wasn't coming up with, well, maybe I want to do this. Maybe this is a fantasy. I was saying, wow, these are the things that light me up and what happens when you do this exercise. And I taught hundreds of people how to do it before the book.
That's the thing. My books changed when I started teaching them first and writing them second. So I don't write this in an office and go, I hope this helps. I write the ideas and then I teach it to hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. And then I figure out what works and then eventually it ends up in a book. So I taught this to so many people, and everybody has the same experience. You do the best moments list and you automatically go, I want more of that. Why don't I have that, what if instead of accidentally having those moments, I can plan those moments, how do I do that? And when you get to that moment, then you go, I'm gonna need a goal. And that's what the book's about. The book is okay, you find a desire and then all it takes to accomplish it is a goal.
Brian: Yeah, and I love too what you did with the different types of things that you're grateful about. Like some people are like, I accomplished that goal and some people are all about the experience. Like what are those four different things? And what do you learn about yourself when you figure out where most of those come from?
Jon: Yeah. So what happens is you have this massive list. And then I thought, is there some way to categorize them? Are there similarities? And it was like one of those moments where you stare at one of those posters from the 90s where something pops out of the back. Remember those 3D posters and be like, this is a sailboat with a unicorn! I looked at the list and I realized that they all fit into four different moments: an accomplishment, an experience, a relationship, or an object.
So I'll give you an example of what I mean. If you go on a hike by yourself, you go and you hike Radner Lake near us by yourself. That's an experience. If you go with a friend and you get to pour into them because they're going through a divorce, that's a relationship moment. If you hike it faster than you've ever hiked it, that's an accomplishment moment. If you pick up a rock or a pine cone while you're there to remember that moment, that's an object. So what happens is people started to label their lists.
And where it gets really fun is it becomes what I call the most honest personality test that's ever been invented because you look at it and go, Wow, 40% of my list were relationship-based. No wonder I'm in such a funk right now. I don't have the amount of relationships that light me up. Or you go, wow, accomplishments are what drives me. But I grew up in a family where accomplishment was seen as greedy or not something I should do. So I've always kind of watered it down, but I'm really an accomplishment person. Or wow, objects don't matter to me, but I've been trying to inspire myself to do goals because I'll get objects. No wonder I'm stuck. I don't really care about objects.
And so it gives you this very clear path forward to go, okay, these are the things I really care about. And I'm going to deliberately put more of them in my life and I'm going to use goals as the pathway.
Jon: Mm-hmm. And I also like how you built in, you know, because you had soundtracks, which is sort of that mental side of things. How do you go through the mental side, like having that sort of truth talking as you're going through to try and build your life more towards those things?
Jon: Well, first you give yourself lots of grace. That's what happens. People go, I want to do a goal. And sometimes I hit this automatic feeling of shame of I should have done it sooner. This would have been easier. Like I want to get in shape. So you're 44 and you say, I want to get in shape and go, I should have done it when I was like 34. Or I wanna prepare for retirement. Finances, big goals for people. And you go, I'm forty-eight, I should have started. We always hear that compound interest story. If you save when you're twelve, you're a millionaire in an hour and a half and you go, I should have started earlier.
So you have to give yourself lots of grace when it comes to like the mindset side of things. You have to give yourself lots of time. It's funny with goals. There's certain goals we think will be fast, but other goals we know will be slow. Nobody ever says, I got a goal to learn Italian, I think it's gonna take like two weeks. Like you would say, No, that's not how Italian works. Yeah. But people go, I wanna write a book, I wanna get in shape, and two weeks in they're frustrated. They go, it's not working. But if you said, I'm gonna learn Italian in two weeks, you go, No, I'm not. Like that's not. So you have to give yourself lots of grace, lots of time.
And then what's really fun is when you have other people that do the journey with you. That's what I think the books I like to write, they get shared. And we've had events where it's funny, I've done Premiere events where I'll be somewhere and they'll go, the CEO goes, Do you know why you're here tonight? I go, No, why? And he goes, Well, my wife was listening to a podcast about weight loss, and your book was on there, and you were on there and she said I should read it, and now you're here. And what happened was the wife was able to give the book to him and say, Hey, I think you should check this out.
So becomes this really fun communal activity too, as you go, Wow, I think I can build the best moments list. I think my spouse can build one. I think my kids can build one. And so that's part of the mindset too, is that you're not meant to dream alone. You're meant to dream with other people.
Brian: Is that one of the things you found when you worked with all these different people? Like what are some of the things you're like, aha as you're working with people?
Jon: Yeah. So they're always surprised. They're all like when you see yourself in the list, you're surprised. They always feel like they should do more than they can at first. Like you kind of have to have a pace. Like, cause what happens in the book I talk about, there's three performance zones. There's the comfort zone. We've all heard of that one. Everybody talks about it.
But the really dangerous zone is the chaos zone, where you go from doing nothing in comfort and then you go inspired. I heard an Eminem song, I'm gonna do it all, and you go over to the chaos zone. And that's what happens in January, for instance. Most people never make it out of January with their New Year's resolutions. And part of the reason is they went to the chaos zone, they tried to do it all at once. They said, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna learn yoga, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna start a podcast, I'm gonna get a dog, and it's too much, it's chaos. And in the middle is the potential zone.
So that was a consistency. People trying to do more than they think they can. We say, go big or go home. There's all these, I would say like Instagram wisdom, that is actually pretty harmful. So when you say go big or go home, most people go home. Like cause they have this goal or like your goal should be so big it terrifies you. Terror is the bar for when I know I'm doing well? Like, no, yeah, that's not sustainable. Like that's not a really fun life. And so I would say that the surprise was like figuring out bit by bit, like, no, that's not helpful.
And then the other thing I'd say, a surprise for me was how many different ways people could execute the ideas. So one of the things I'm excited about in the book is there's 40 stories of real people. So if I write a book in my office by myself, I better hope you identify with me because it's just my story. But I've known each other for 10 years, 12 years at this point. I'm 47. Like, God forbid I write another book that's a memoir. Like I haven't done much. Like at 47, I shouldn't be like, I found a different part of my life that you should care about. So what I like in the book is that because of the process, sharing the book and teaching it before I publish it.
There's real people that have poked holes in the ideas and said, here's how I did it. This didn't work. So, like Susan Robertson, for instance, she got her bachelor's degree and she did it in the car rider pickup line as a mom. She would watch 20 minutes of a video, do a little bit of assignment. So she's a busy mom. I would never argue that any mom isn't a busy mom, but she said, you know what? I think I'm capable of more. I think that I have potential. I'm not gonna listen to the excuse that I don't have enough time. I'm gonna go out and find time. So for me, I was constantly surprised at people's ability to use the ideas in different ways and really sprint with them.
Brian: What were the biggest holdups? I know you've talked about a little bit you know, with that, where is the biggest danger zone when you're trying to accomplish your goal?
Jon: Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is fear. We talked about fear a little bit, and fear can come in a variety of forms. So it can be fear, perfectionism, like it has to be perfect, and as soon as it's perfect, I'll start. It's never gonna be perfect. Procrastination. It can be distraction. Like sometimes people say, why is it hard to accomplish goals? And I'll say, it's hard to accomplish goals because Netflix is easy. Instagram is easy. Like you're up against 50,000 of the world's greatest developers who have ever lived.
And I even just think about that with my daughter. I have two teenage daughters. We were on a road trip last week. I'm going to see some friends in Atlanta. And she said, Mom, I just saw this ad on Instagram for these Lululemon shorts. They're exactly what I wanted. She got a targeted ad on a road trip. That happened zero times to me when I was a kid. I never saw a targeted ad, I was never pitched while I was driving. I could see like South of the Border billboards or like Buc-ee’s, like now, but I was never targeted to shop.
And so you have to realize that distraction technology has scaled faster than our ability to focus. And so sometimes it's hard to do goals because there's so many other things vying for your time in a very elegant way. And so you have to stack the odds in your favor and go, okay, it's going to be hard for me to write, or it's going to be hard for me to work out how do I stack the odds in my favor? And so I think a lot of times we don't give ourselves enough credit that distraction has changed and we have to change too.
Brian: Absolutely. And just for those watching, make sure to go to premierecollectibles.com/Acuff, where you can get these books here. And Jon's gonna start signing some here. Let's go. And yeah, so let's get some listener or watcher questions here for you.
And so the first one is Stephen from Michigan. What inspired you to write and release this book now?
Jon: I think what inspired me now is that I saw the need. I look for three things when I write a book, Stephen. I look for one, a personal connection to the content. I think you can tell when somebody's written a book with their hands but not their heart. And it's technically true, but it's not heart true. So I look for something I deeply care about in my own life that I want to change. So I wanted to change my potential and I wanted to live in a different way.
And then I look, do people actually need it? Am I hearing about it when I'm at events? Am I hearing about it at the neighborhood pool? Am I seeing people talk about it online? And the third thing I look for is is there space for me in the marketplace? Has it been done a million times already? And so with this book, I had a deep connection. I saw the need. We did the study. And then the third thing, when I looked at the word potential, a lot of resources were very fuzzy about it. They were very kind of holistic. And I wanted to know, okay, what do I do with this on a Tuesday? Okay, it's great. I want to be inspired. Don't get me wrong. I don't like to read books or go to events where I'm really inspired, but by the time I get to my car, I go, What was that? I was gonna do that.
So I wanted to write a book about potential that somebody could say, now here's how I execute it on a Tuesday. Here's what I do with this as a busy mom, as a busy dad, as a college student, as a retiree, so that it was practical and tactical. And so once I had those three things, I knew it was time to write this particular book right now.
Brian: Awesome. All right. So next question from Candace in Minnesota. Is there one main gold nugget you want your readers to take from this book?
Jon: Yeah, I mean, the big kind of need I'm trying to fill is I think you're capable of far more than you think. I think you have more gifts to open and I think there's ways to do that. And life is really fun when you start to open more of your gifts.
Another way I'd say it is like busy, happy people don't have time to hate. They're just too busy. They're too busy doing like they're too busy doing things they really care about. Another way I say it is I want you to find a joy you love so much that it makes Netflix boring.
See, nobody wakes up and decides to change your life. Nobody goes, I think I'll just have grit today. I think I'll just be, I'll have persistence. I think I'll just have willpower. What happens is you find something you desire more than staying stuck. So nobody just willingly leaves their comfort zone. You shouldn't. It's comfortable.
What happens is you get a glimpse of something that's even better, and you go, I'm willing to change my life for that. I'm willing to change how, you know, what time I get up. That's what happened to me in Atlanta. I'm 34 years old, so 13 years ago. And I start blogging on the side of my day job. And I realized, wow, I really like this. Like I can communicate with people online. I can, I can share ideas. And that's what made me start getting up earlier. I didn't decide one day to get up early because it was a mature thing to do. Blogging was so fun that I wanted to throw more time at it.
So what happens is once you discover something like that, it's like every hour is a log and you can't throw enough into a fire. Like you're just so like I stopped watching as much TV. I started getting up earlier because I had that desire. So my hope with this book, if you said what's the one nugget, is you'll find something you love so much that it starts to pull you toward it. And then the book gives you practical, actionable steps you can do to amplify it.
Brian: Okay, awesome. So now I'm gonna make up a we'll listener question here. So Minnie from Poughkeepsie asks. See, I was watching Mickey Mouse and my twin six year olds. So Minnie from Poughkeepsie asks, what is one of those, if you had all those presents off to the side that you're missing, what's one that you opened up in the process of writing this book?
Jon: Learning to be a leader. Like I've for years, one of my broken soundtracks was, Well, I'm an artist, not a leader. I'm just an artist, I'm an artist, I'm a writer, I'm just chaotic, like I'm not detailed. And writing this book and learning how to lead my team and lead my family and learning how to say, no, I think I can learn to be a leader. Like it might not be something that naturally comes to me as easy as some other things do.
But in order for me to grow, in order for me to accomplish the goals I want, to get this message to as many people as possible, I need to lead my small team. How do I open that gift? How do I put time toward that gift? And how do I treat it with respect? Because it's going to take time. I'm going to need some easy goals and some middle goals and some guarantees. I gonna have to climb the goal ladder, if you will. So how do I do that? So learning how to be a leader is one of the things that came with this book.
Brian: That's awesome. And by the way, for those who don't know, Jon also has a podcast. And I thought that was interesting. You're talking about those leadership things that you were learning, like how you communicate and the difference between you brainstorming being obvious about whether you're brainstorming or directing. It was a really interesting thing.
Okay. So next up, a real question from a real person. Lucas from California, when you're riding and hit a rut or a block, what are practical things you do to help you overcome?
Jon: Yeah, so I don't believe in writer's block. I believe in idea bankruptcy. So if I can't write, I just haven't collected enough ideas. So I'm a real big geek. I'm a huge idea geek about how I structure ideas. So the process I use is, I record. So I've got a notebook right over there.
Brian: Like a physical notebook?
Jon: Yes a physical notebook, just off camera. There's a notebook I brought just in case there's an idea. So I record them, I review them because a lot of people, myself included, are idea hoarders. They collect a ton of ideas, but they don't do anything with them. And you need to imagine a really cluttered house and going, well, that wouldn't be a fun way to live. And the third thing I do is I release them. So I release them online, I share them with friends, I put them in a book, I put them in different places. So that's the process I use. So if I'm doing those three things, I don't really get stuck.
Now there's times when I hit a challenging part of a book and I'm like everybody else, I get frustrated, I get confused. Like, but for me, if I'm being faithful to collect ideas, so if you say something interesting I've never thought about before, I might take up my phone or a notebook, depending on what I have with me, and write it down. Go, that's really interesting. I never thought about it that way. And I'm collecting them, collecting them, collecting them. And then I sort them, I review them and go, that's a good book idea. That's a speech idea. That's a tweet. That's a reel. And I'm sorting them, or that's a family thing.
Like I'm a big believer. The way you get better at Christmas gifts is you just listen all year and you write, you take notes. You should take notes on the people you care about. So I didn't become a great Christmas giver because in November I was like, ugh. Like what happened was I just had a file in my phone that says Jenny, that's my wife's name. And when we're somewhere and it's February and she goes, you know I really need one of those, blah, blah, blah. I pull out my phone, it takes 30 seconds. I write that down. And then when she gets that 10 months later, I'm the greatest husband in the world. And so that's what I mean. Like I'm in the habit of taking notes, I'm in the habit of reviewing them, and then I'm in the habit of releasing them.
Brian: Awesome. Let's hope Jenny's not watching this. She could be like, he waited ten months to get me this?
Jon: She doesn't watch any, like, she's like I got it at home.
Brian: Awesome. All right. So next up we've got Shannon from Colorado. What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the corporate world? What's something, it's two parts, and what's something you wish you would have known then what you do now?
Jon: Okay, congratulations on being in the corporate world. The quiet quitting movement is gonna make your job so easy. There's so many people that are doing the bare minimum. Do more than the bare minimum. So as the world goes this way, go the opposite way.
So what I wish I'd known earlier was that you play how you practice. So I had some corporate jobs where I didn't like them, I was frustrated, and I just wouldn't go above and beyond. But then what happened was as I started this blog that I just mentioned, I really wanted to have full strength on the weekends, but I couldn't go half strength all week and then turn it on the weekends. Yeah. You play how you practice. You can't half do your day job, your corporate job, and think you'll be amazing on the weekends.
So the more I gave to my day job and was deliberate and enthusiastic and excellent, it was like I practice excellence for 40 hours every week. And then guess what? I got to be on the weekend. I got to be excellent. So seeing the relationship between how you live at work and how you perform on the weekends was game changing for me. That you're one person.
And so then and then the other thing was I just started to see opportunity. So I got really invested in if the company I work at had a leadership program or an extra thing you could learn, I signed up for everything. Every additional thing I did because I was like, they're paying me to learn. They're paying me to grow. I was the only person, we did a three day trip to Boston. This was in Atlanta at the time, a three day trip to Boston and it was for customer service representatives. I wasn't a customer service representative. I was a copywriter, but I said, Hey, I'd really love to learn about that side of our business. Like, can is there any way I could join this? They were like, they were thrilled.
And I got that. We went to the Ritz. Yeah, it was the Ritz-Carlton to study customer service. I slept in the Ritz-Carlton as part of my job. Now, if I had had a grumpy bad attitude about, I hate this job, I'm gonna give the bare minimum. These people don't understand, like it would have been completely different. But because I said, I'm gonna learn as much as I can in this building, and then I'm gonna connect with people that I think have the kind of career I want, and I'm gonna learn from them and I'm gonna ask questions. Like I think a corporate job is an amazing place to learn if you've got a good attitude.
Brian: Yeah. I remember reading that, that was like three books ago. But I remember thinking that like a lot of people's logic is I'm gonna save my energy for the weekends.
Jon: Yeah, no, dude. No. So here's a principle people talk about. If you want to make sure something gets done, ask a busy person. Yeah. People that are high performing, like you think Tom Brady puts on forty pounds of fat and just lays around in the off season? The top performers are very consistent and very deliberate about their actions, whether that's how I play on the weekend or, like I heard a stat the other day, the average NFL team has sixteen hours of field time in a non playoff year. Sixteen hours. Do you know the amount of hours they prepare for those sixteen? Like so that's how I look at it is, okay, how do I practice this so I can really crush it on the weekend?
Brian: Yeah, that's awesome. All right. Next we have Delaney from Florida. What's been a highlight or pinch me moment in your career?
Jon: Easy dude. Opening for Dolly Parton at the Ryman. The Ryman Auditorium is like the mother church of country music. My kin, Roy Acuff, we're not close enough that I have money from it, but he was first cousin with my grandfather. There's a statue of him and Mini Pearl in the lobby. So it's probably in the top ten places to play in America as far as musicians.
And my dentist, Dr. Wells, who I love, puts on a charity event every year and he's Dolly Parton's dentist. And he said, hey, would you come do comedy, like pure comedy, not kind of speaking ideas? And would you come do comedy? One of the people performing that night will be Dolly. And so to get to go do that, to do pure comedy, super challenging, sold out Ryman and to get to meet Dolly Parton, like that, I mean, I, you know, that was obviously like one that I have a photo of and I think about.
But I also thought about this the other day. I spend my entire year for 50, 45 minute segments a year. So my entire year is about getting on 50 stages for 45 minutes at a time. And I love it. I can't believe I get to do it. Like it's my favorite thing in the world. And so that's a highlight moment that I can call to, but I have a blast when I get to like I'm going to talk to 250 insurance agents in a couple of weeks. Like I'm gonna love that.
Like and I love the challenge too, because most of my audiences have never heard of me, and I and I have to win the con like the conversation. I have to earn the right to tell them things because understandably so, they're like, This isn't somebody famous. I don't have a celebrity kind of opening doors that way. I love the challenge of making sure the content is sticky and engaging and relevant to them. And like I told a joke to 3,000 optometrists that destroyed but would’ve bombed in every other room except for optometrists.
Like the idea of going, How do I write something so specific to an optometrist that they go, that's hilarious and that's exactly what my day is like. You nailed this challenge. I think of every speaking event like that. It's just so fun to me.
Brian: Yeah, awesome. So for those of you watching, listening, go to premierecollectibles.com/Acuff, and you can get that one right there. Maybe that one you get, book number fourteen signed.
All right. Next up we've got Eric from North Carolina. What led you into a career of writing and speaking?
Jon: Well, writing, it's funny you asked that, Eric. The book dedication, which is right here, is for Mrs. Harris, my third grade teacher in Ipswich, Massachusetts, who taught me that writing was easy if you make it a goal. So I believed I could be a writer because I had a third grade teacher, Mrs. Harris, who laminated a collection of poems I wrote in third grade and really made me feel like you could be a good writer. And so that was a spark planted in me years ago.
And I always tell teachers whenever I get to talk to them, that's the challenge of teaching is that often you don't get to see the end of the song. You get to be one verse. You get to be a verse in the third grade. And rarely do they come back and say, Hey, 15 years ago, like if you're if you're a middle school teacher, an eighth grader never comes up to you and says, Hey, I just want you to know that you're building a foundation in me that's gonna be really valuable later on in life. And although I sometimes am grumpy, I recognize it and I value it, like that doesn't happen. Yeah. And so for me, that was a spark.
Speaking wise, I really have to say, my dad's a pastor. So I grew up with the idea that speaking wasn't weird. I grew up with the idea that it could be fun even to structure something and share it on stage and use it to help somebody's life. And so I grew up around it. And then, you know, went to school for advertising and copywriting, really loved writing, advertising, and then started blogging. And that's when speaking started to come into the picture. But it was kind of, you know, several moments over a thirty year period.
Brian: So out of curiosity, was your dad really good at the little sticky sayings? Like breaking things?
Jon: Well, he started a Southern Baptist Church in New England, which was unheard of, which is unheard of. So there was no cultural Christianity where nobody had the shared language. So for him to go into that environment, he, you know, I was watching him go, I'm gonna structure this humor this way, or like here's something he says to me. Like he said to me, he said, Jon, the way you spell love is T I M E. Like you don't get to say you love somebody that you don't spend time with. So that's a hook, very sticky, like, the way you spell love is T I M E. Like that's easy to remember. So yeah, he definitely had like he approached communicating that way.
Like so, in addition to seeing him do it as it made me feel like it was a normal thing to do, I also saw ways to do it. Like I he wasn't like I could have had a dad who was like very by the book and very dry and very, you know, not expressive, but I didn't. I had a dad that would use humor and pop culture references and Seinfeld and like things to relate to the audience and made me go, hmm, I think I could see that working.
Brian: Yeah. Awesome. Very cool. All right. Next up we've got Thomas and Maryland. You discuss skills, character, relationships, and hustle. Which of these do you think is the most important and why?
Jon: I think character. I think character is because when you start, you don't have the other three. Like when you move to a new city, you don't have relationships. When you start a new job, you don't have the skills yet. Like when you, you know, when you begin something, maybe even your hustle isn't there yet, but character you always have.
I always say, like, you bring you with you. Like whenever you move to a new city, you bring your loyalty, you start a new job, you bring your integrity. So for me that's the foundation. You need all four 'cause it'll fall apart if you don't have all four. But I really think the first one is the one that you need the most, which is character.
Brian: Awesome. All right, next up we have Lindy in Missouri. Like the name. What if the company you are at is not supporting your development and growth? And then second part, what's the balance between paying rent and reaching your potential?
Jon: Paying rent. I like that question. These are great questions, Lindy. The first thing I'd say is every bad boss is telling you the same thing. I dare you to get a better job. I dare you. And so I answer that there. Like if you feel like this company, this boss, like if you feel like you've exhausted all your options, because depending on the size of the company, there's other paths. You can figure out, you know what, I could be in a different department, I could do a different role.
So I'm not a “quit right now” guy. Like people read quitter and would joke with me and go, I don't like that the first chapter is don't quit your day job. Cause they wanted the book to say, screw the man, you gotta like that's not my attitude at all. Like I think you can do amazing things within companies.
But I also think that that's a good challenge to rise to. Like, I wanna be amazing. I wanna be amazing at what I do if I can't do that in this environment. And I've gotten wise counsel. Like, ask, ask your friend who doesn't tell you to jump all the time. Ask your slow moving friend that asks hard questions. And say, hey, here's what I'm thinking about and get their opinion. Be patient with it. Be deliberate about it. So that's what I'd say, you know, can you find somebody in the company that will? Can you find a different role within the company that will?
And then you start to ask questions like the rent question, paying rent versus chasing your dream or fulfilling your potential is how much runway do you have? I'm very much risk adverse. It sometimes looks like what I do with my job that I'm like, I'm this risky guy, but I'm really not. When Jenny and I make financial decisions, we're very deliberate about okay, well, how much runway do we have? You know, if we start something new, how long can we go until we need it to make money? We have a year already saved up. Okay, we can take this risk or wow, these things are tight right now. We shouldn't take this risk.
So I look at that and I kind of balance the two. So I'm not a guy that's like people say like sometimes you gotta jump and grow wings on your way down. That's not how gravity works at all. I think there's a lot of terrible people giving terrible advice about, you got to just go for it.
But for me, I connect the two. So rent and living my potential aren't enemies. They're partners. So if I had a job, you know, because you mentioned jobs, I would figure out can this job become my venture capitalist for the next thing I want to do? Like I love that approach. I'm my own venture capitalist. I'm always going, I'm an angel investor in my next thing. So if I'm faithful to this job and I'm deliberate, what will it allow me to do?
And then I get super nerdy and I start going, man, DoorDash just costs me seven extra days on this job. Or like all the little things that are that, you know, in addition to rent, that if I'm deliberate, I can actually quit this job sooner if I'm patient. Or like, man, I have seven subscriptions to seven different video systems, and I only watch one of them. Ooh, okay, what's that costing me in extra days at a job I might not like?
So I really try to kind of have one life that's pushing in one direction. But I'm not a I'm not a just go for it with no wisdom guy. But the last thing I would say is just be careful, Lindy, that when you ask questions or when you kind of think, well, I've got a rent, I can't do this. Don't let your rent be the reason you don't try. There's a million things, usually, especially on an easy goal at the beginning of a goal, it doesn't cost anything. I say that in the book. Easy goals shouldn't cost anything.
So sometimes I'll meet people and they'll go, I would go for this goal, but I have my rent's really expensive. And I'll say, well, what are the free versions of that? Let's figure out the free versions. Like it doesn't cost you anything to write. Like you just gotta find the time. Okay, it doesn't cost you anything to research business plans.
Now, if you said to me, Jon, I have to go get an LLC and I have to hire a lawyer, those are later steps. Let's do the free steps first because you already have some expenses. Let's exhaust the free ones before we decide the rent is preventing you from dreaming. I think sometimes we lean on our excuses too quickly and we don't do the free stuff.
Brian: Nice. Lindy, you're gonna take my job. All right, good question. All right, next up, David from Texas. When I think about making and writing down goals, it becomes overwhelming. How do you dial in and focus on what really matters?
Jon: So I'd say do it the way that works best for you. Like maybe he's not a list guy. I'm a list guy. I love writing down a long list. A lot of people hate him. I shared an action tracker. I have a 30-day action tracker that I teach in the book and I posted it online, and I love it. It fires me up. And this woman said, that is hideous and obnoxious and looks miserable. And she just left out two keywords for me. For her it was. For me, it was amazing. So that's the problem with these types of books is that people go, You have to do it exactly this way. And if you don't, you're failing.
So somebody who's a more natural morning person goes, if you don't get up at 4 a.m., what are you even doing with your life? And they put their system on you as if it's the system. So what I like to do is go, okay, maybe you don't like writing down goals. That's okay. Like, are you an audio person? Are you a visual person? Like maybe you're more, I want to cut out pictures out of a magazine and put up on a board, or maybe I'm a music person.
There's somebody in the book, their favorite thing they do when they have a difficult email to send is to turn on a song and they have to have sent it by the end of the song. So that music, in spite, like, will that work for everybody? Definitely not. There's other people in the book that made a whole game, like a board game out of their goal. And like it was elaborate and crafty and artsy.
And somebody else who's an engineer might go, I don't, I don't want to have to use glue and like popsicle sticks in my goal, I like an Excel spreadsheet. I'm not an Excel guy. My buddy has an Excel spreadsheet of all the segments of the Appalachian Trail he's done. He's an engineer, he's an accountant. Like that's his brain. He loved tracking that goal via an Excel spreadsheet, not how I do it.
So to this person, I'd say, man, you don't have to write them down if that's not your jam. I don't care how you execute it, as long as you get the results. So if you do it via audio, if you do it as a conversation with a friend, if you do it via photos, whatever you want to do, as long as you're doing it, I think is the goal.
Brian: Awesome. All right. And just a quick reminder, go to premierecollectibles.com backslash Acuff, A-C-U-F-F, to get this wonderful book signed by the author Jon Acuff. All right, next up, we've got Danny from Virginia. Outside of work, what do you like to do for fun to rest and recharge?
Jon: I love hiking. I've learned to love hiking. My wife is a big hiker and I've learned to love it too. And so hiking in North Carolina, we went out to Flagstaff and Sedona in May with our kids. That was like Sedona feels like a different planet visually. Like it made no sense to me. It was so beautiful. I like to run. I really enjoy running. I love spending time with friends. I'm really learning to put value on relationships.
There was a time in my life where I was so focused on work that I just didn't have time for them. And you know, tonight I got to hang out with a friend of mine, David Nurse, and it was a really fun conversation. And so hanging out with friends, I love to read. I'm a big, big reader. I like fiction. I love doing CrossFit, and I've added weights to my workout schedule about 18 months ago and I've enjoyed that.
And then family time. I've got, you know, this weekend we're going to the Samford-Auburn football game. That'll be fun. And we're going with both our daughters. Or playing pickleball with one of my kids. So a lot of time with my wife, a lot of time with my kids.
Brian: Awesome. And so a follow-up question that I'm just making up for Danny. What is one race you'd want to run and a dream place to hike that you haven't hiked?
Jon: A race I wanna do, there's a race down in 30A that is supposed to be really beautiful that my friend's done a couple times. But the real one that's deepest in my heart is the Disney half marathon. They do a Disney half marathon. We were there one time accidentally and where I like, Why are all these people wearing medals? And the medals are super cool and they look like the Millennium Falcon.
So like I would nerd out on a Disney half marathon. That to me would be super fun. What was the second question?
Brian: What’s your dream place to hike where you have not yet visited?
Jon: Pacific Coast Trail. You have to win a lottery to do more than 500 miles. I don't know that we do more than 500 miles, but the Pacific Coast Trail or the John Muir Trail on that side of the country, it's just a hundred times more beautiful than the Appalachian Trail. Like the Appalachian Trail is cool. But there's a lot of fields. There's a lot of like side-of-a-highway kind of stuff where the Pacific Coast Trail is sculpted for beauty. So that would definitely be up there.
Brian: Okay, awesome. All right. Next up, we've got Morgan from Idaho. What is your favorite thing to do with your family? I know you just mentioned hiking.
Jon: I love road trips, so we'll go on road trips. Super fun. We went to Disney a bunch when they were young. We went to Universal recently and that was super fun. Like doing the Harry Potter world with them was fun.
Brian: Drink the weird drink. I can't remember. There you go.
Jon: Yeah, totally, of course. Haggard's ride was like the best thing I've ever ridden. So yeah, I love that. And then we just do walks. So we'll walk with my youngest daughter. My oldest is in college, but during the summer all four of us would just do a couple loops around the neighborhood. I find that a walk without a phone is a great way to connect with a kid. And that's not to say that my kids are like that, we want to walk and we'll sing like the Sound of Music while we go.
Like I'm not trying to make it sound like it's always easy. There's grumbling. Sometimes we'll go like, hey, we're going on a walk. I don't want to go on a walk. But when we're out there and we're enjoying it and kind of getting to connect, that usually ends up being pretty fun.
Brian: Awesome. All right. Next up, we've got Charles from Kansas. How do you balance work and life?
Jon: Poorly. All right. Next question. No, I mean, I think there's probably a dozen different ways I do it. I took all of July off this year for the first time. And that was a big endeavor and was really fun. And I think my wife and my kids felt like I was really present. And it was hard for me to do that. The first seven days I was kind of itchy for work. And I started preparing for that in February. And so I'm deliberate about vacation time.
Thanksgiving, for instance, like I'm pretty deliberate about that. I'm deliberate about Christmas. And then I try to shut the office down. The challenge with laptops or with work from home is you're never done working. And so I try to, you know, shut my laptop down. I also do activities like the last question where I can't work. I can't work hiking. You know what I mean? Like I can't work if I'm going on a family walk. Like I can't, and then I try to use soundtracks.
So one of the soundtracks that helped me in a specific way, I had a book due in two weeks and we were going to Jackson Hole for a family vacation. And I knew I'd be tempted to be there, like physically present, but mentally absent, because I've done that a hundred times in the past. So I wrote on a post-it note, “don't miss it,” to remind myself. And I put the post-it note up weeks before we went, and I looked at that a hundred times, a thousand times. So we go on the trip and I'm present enough to notice: wow, the pine cones on the street here are different than the ones we have in Nashville. Like the pattern, they're so different.
So I take it and I carry it home 1200 miles, which is a weird thing to do. But one of my soundtracks is I don't care if it's weird if it works. And so now it's sitting on my desk because there'll be another time where I'm tempted to miss it. And now I've got a symbol. And so it's doing stuff like that. We're going, what's coming up? What is it like? Or ask Jenny, what would make you feel loved today? Like what would today, what would make you feel loved? And give her a chance to say, like, hey, here's something I, you know, it would make me feel loved if blank.
Then other practical things, like I deleted Twitter from my phone. So I still use it online. Like I still have a laptop and I'll tweet, but I never have my computer with me. So what happened was I got in this streak where I would be in the middle of a moment, I would stop and I would freeze in the grocery store to tweet some thought I had. And Jenny would be like, Hey, where are you? I'm on aisle three, you're aisle five. And I'd be stuck, like writing something for strangers about a box of pancake mix I saw.
So I had to eventually just delete the app entirely from my phone so that I could be present in the moment. So that might be extreme. Not everybody needs to do that. But for me, it was like I had an IV drip of social media and I had to kind of pull it out and go, I'm not against it. I'm still going to use it. It's part of my job, but I'm not going to do it on my phone.
Brian: Mm-hmm. All right, and again, those of you watching, premierecollectibles.com backslash Acuff. Do you have this wonderful book? All It Takes Is A Goal. All right, next up we've got Allison in Kentucky. For someone who is intimidated by public speaking, what would you say to them?
Jon: I would say you're already good at it. You do it all the time. You just don't give yourself credit. Anytime you talk to somebody, you're public speaking. So that's the first thing I'd say. You probably do it more than you know. Second thing I'd say is it's like anything else. You practice it in small ways. And you expect there to be fear there. So the first time I spoke to 10 people, I had a 10 person size fear. And I worked on it and I worked on it and I worked on it. And I did it a couple of times. And then I got over it.
But then I had a hundred person-sized fear, and I had to go speak to a hundred people and I worked on it, I worked on it. And then I had a thousand person fear and then ten thousand person fear. So there's going to be fear there. Don't see the fear as failure. Like that's part of it. There's going to be anxiety, there's going to be nerves, but it's like anything else, you can get better at it. You can work at it. You can even start to enjoy it.
The third thing I'd say is that you have to think about it is everybody there wants me to win. And what I mean by that is nobody wants to watch somebody fail. Like it's so uncomfortable to watch somebody be bad at something. It's amazing to watch somebody be good. Like it's amazing to watch Tom Brady or Michael Jordan or LeBron James, whatever, like to watch somebody. So everybody in the audience is hoping you do well. They're not against you. They're actually very much for you. And so that kind of helps me.
And the other thing is that if you make a mistake, it makes you human. It doesn't make you a failure. It makes you human. And so and you get to kind of either react to the mistake and joke about it or you just move on. If you make a mistake at minute three, nobody's remembering that by minute six. Like they're in the moment with what you're creating. So you think I'm gonna say the wrong thing and it's gonna be monumental and I'm gonna, you know, get laughed at and all this pressure, and it really doesn't work that way.
So it's like anything else. You practice it, you realize the audience is for you, not against you, and you give yourself some grace with making mistakes.
Brian: What's the most afraid you've ever been on stage?
Jon: Most afraid I've ever been. I did a three hour event with FedEx. That was pretty intense. Like, it's often so there's moments where they'll go, Hey, we just want to do like a 40 minute Q&A. And I'm afraid when nobody's asking questions. And I've learned to have 40 minutes of backup content because like 40 minutes of tap dancing is a long time.
But single event, I would say the first time I spoke at Catalyst and it was thirteen thousand people. And I know I was afraid because Heather Whitaker, Carlos Whitaker's wife, he's a great speaker, had to tell me right before I went on stage, like you missed a belt loop. Like I was so nervous I had missed a belt loop. And that, like I was terrified. I only had 10 minutes and it was a big deal. And so that was probably the most.
Then the one that was the worst, I spoke at a music festival. You guys didn't book me on this. And it was the middle of the day, and it was a rap Screamo music festival, which doesn't need a motivational speaker. And the problem with the middle of the day is there's no lights to show people where to look. So there's nobody looking. They were expecting this rapper named Lecrae to come out.
And I came out and it was like, what's the deal? And there was another stage going on at the same time and everybody just started to walk over there. It was so that one was nervous, but I should have said no before. That was on me to go, nah, not going to set me up for success. I'm not a great musician. Like Andy Minio is going to crush that. John A. Not the moment I'm built for. Thank you. I'm honored, but no.
Brian: Yeah. Very cool. All right. Next up we've got Rich in California. What's been the coolest experience you've had in your professional life?
Jon: I mean hitting the New York Times bestsellers list was really cool. Like I remember where I was when I got the phone call. Like that was really that was really cool. I was in Texas. I was in Dallas, and Dave Ramsey called me and told me, Hey, you hit the New York Times bestsellers list. So that was really cool.
And then as far as an event, I did an event with Range Rover and Wycliffe Jobs. And so that was cool, like, cause he's a Fuji. Like he's been an ambassador to Haiti, like. To hear the way he thought about things was really fascinating. I feel like my job is that I get to be on the front row of 50 of the best classrooms in the world every year. And if I pay attention, I get to learn every time I do it and I get to bring that learning forward.
So I look at it that way. So what happens is when the CEO of Ace Hardware says something really fascinating, I write that down and then I think about that. So I got to learn how by having access to that many smart minds and people that are at the tops of organizations, and that I get to learn from, like, it's certainly thrilling to get to do the Wycliffe Jobs stuff, but it's also thrilling to be like, Man, that person is really sharp. And I got to go to school today in essence for thirty minutes to an hour or whatever with that person. I can't believe I get that opportunity.
Brian: Mm-hmm. Yeah, very cool. Next up we've got and first of all, don't forget premierecollectibles.com/Acuff. We're getting close to the end here. All right. So Mary in Arizona, Any advice when working for a difficult boss that doesn't encourage development and growth? This is kinda I guess part two to the earlier one.
Jon: Well, so again, like I think sometimes with a difficult boss, they can be made less difficult if you figure out their value system. So I'll give you an example. I had a boss in Atlanta who loved long weekly updates for me. We'd have our weekly meeting. She wanted three pages of everything I'd done, like really long updates. We had a re-org, I got a new boss. I brought a new weekly report to him, it was three pages. He looked at it for 30 seconds, said, Looks good, see ya. And I was crushed.
And at that moment, I didn't create a shorter one. I created a longer one. I was like, maybe it's like when you go to Italy as an American and you talk louder, like they don't understand me. Maybe louder. Well, it's not a volume issue, it's a language issue. I had to figure out his language. His language was that he wanted to know three things that I needed his help with, three fires that I couldn't put out on my own. And he would go, Yeah, try this, this, this, good. That was a success.
So once I aligned with understanding his value system, I was able to manage up, as they say. Like we had a much better relationship. So sometimes with a difficult boss, if I can figure out, this is a numbers person. And the things that matter most to them are numbers. And every time I bring them stories about how we're doing, we have, it's good, it's not good. So I'm gonna translate this idea into numbers and see if it changes our interaction. How do I help that person win? How does that, you know, and now that's not to say like if they're a toxic, abusive person, I'm not saying.
Figure out their value system. But if it's a normal, bad working situation, I would go, okay, what's their value system? What do they care about? What can I do? How do I make them win? What does that look like? What, you know, I'm thinking about that.
And I think about it in a sense of a sales position. Like everybody's in sales to some degree. I'm trying to sell my ideas to that person. I'm trying to sell to them that I want an easier relationship with them. I'm trying to sell that I want to enjoy my job a little more. I might never love it. I might never, but I think you can fall in like with it. So like if I'm trying to sell him or her that position and trying to, I want my life to be easier in that building. And so I'm gonna have to sell them something to make that happen.
So then I go, okay. Then it makes it a game. Then, the reason I grew close to every legal department I ever worked with was because I knew I was going to need that relationship later. And I knew that people like me. Copywriters often say, I hate the legal team. They said no. Er. And I was like, nope, I'm going to be Todd Krieger's buddy. Like, I like he's probably pretty interesting. And nobody probably goes out of their way to be kind to the legal department. I'm going to do the reverse. And I think it's going to make my life easier too. And then lo and behold, my life is easier. And then I got to know Todd as a person. So I started to look at my corporate job as sales opportunities. And that's when it changed my ability to enjoy it.
Brian: Awesome. All right. Last question. This honor goes to Kathy from Rhode Island. What are your tips on defining your why?
Jon: Well, mean, I think the best moments list will get you there in a really, really fun way. The second thing I would say is I like whys, not why. I like lots of whys. I've never met a single person in life that had a single why that just had one why. Like what a boring life. Like if you said, Well, this is my life, I just like reptiles. That's the only thing I'm into. I'm into herpetology. Like you would go, That's that can't be it. Everybody I've ever met has multiple whys. I have multiple whys. I have goals about my marriage, my parenting, my health, my whatever. So I like to give people permission to have multiple whys because then it opens you up to try.
The big thing there is: experiment. Experiment. You don't know on the upfront if this is a goal you want to spend a year with. No wonder New Year's resolutions fail. You don't know in December. You don't know in January. I'm gonna commit to this thing. I've barely flirted. It's like getting married on the first date. Like you barely know that goal.
So experiment, try some things, and you're gonna learn as you go. Okay, it's March. Yeah, these three goals I thought mattered. No, none of them matter. But this one, this is one that's firing me up. This other one's really interesting.
So yeah, I always look at it that way. Like I'm gonna experiment with a few desires, a few whys, and I'm gonna do that by giving them some hours, and then I'm gonna pay attention to what happens. Cause there's gonna be a star in one of those five, but I don't know which one yet. Like I don't, I haven't figured it out.
I'm cycling. I tried cycling. I hated it. And my mistake was I overbought the bike. I should have borrowed a bike from a friend named Dean. Every cyclist you know who's serious has more than one bike.
Brian: What number of bikes is the many you have plus one?
Jon: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's a fleet. I should have borrowed one of my friends' bikes, ridden it 10 times, been like, nope, I'm a runner. But what I did was I bought an expensive carbon fiber bike and stupid, waste a lot of money. So I took an experiment for six months and I was like, nah, not my thing. I don't feel shame about that. And any more than if I have friends who like to cycle, they hate running, cool. Like we both love different things. So I try to get people to do experiments versus I gotta find my why.
Brian: Awesome. Well, cool. Well, Kathy, thank you for that. And thanks everybody for tuning in. And make sure before you go, as you're planning, you've heard your wife say she likes Jon Acuff. So make sure to get this book now for December, planning ahead. My wife bugs me about stuff all the time.
Okay. So my wife's question. So Krista from Franklin asks once, Krista from Franklin wants to know, Who was it harder on when you dropped your oldest off to college the first time? Was it harder on you or your wife?
Jon: It was harder on me just because I'm more emotional that way. Where I think Jenny, she's great at looking at things and going, This was the goal. It would be really sad if she wasn't able to do this. In the same way, she's the same way with kindergarten. Like she didn't bawl when Ellie went to kindergarten. She said I'd bawl if she didn't get to go. Like if there was something wrong or like she couldn't, like that would make me really sad.
The goal as a parent is that you launch them, whether that's you launching them to a job, to the military, to a gap year whatever. You want them to launch. So she has a very pragmatic, rational attitude on things like that. Where sometimes I'm a writer and I get in my head and I get adjective laden, you know, and like that.
The moment I remember, we shut the door on the dorm, we say goodbye, we shut the door, and I turned to my wife while we're walking down the stairs and I went to say, like, hey, go grab Ellie. Like, cause we were leaving and we were leaving without her. That's where I caught myself. And that's where it was like, like that's where it got me.
But then the things I'd learned are you see them more than you think. The problem is culture gaslights you into thinking it's the end and it's not. Like it's just a different chapter. Like a friend of mine, the way he says it is he says, Done and begun. It's done and begun. So that chapter was done and then we've begun the next one. So I get to talk to her on the phone. We spent all of July together last year. We went to Samford three times in the fall. Like so there's way more moments than you think.
But yeah, I would say it was definitely harder on me. Jenny's a very warm person. It's not to say she's not, but she just processes things differently than I do. And that I definitely had more emotion.
Brian: Yeah, just a big softie. Well, awesome. Well, everyone, thank you for tuning in here and make sure you go to premiercollectibles.com/Acuff to get your very own signed copy. Thanks again, and Jon, thanks for being here.
Outro: Thank you for joining us for the Beyond Speaking Podcast. To learn more about today's guests, visit PremiereSpeakers.com. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen.
