The Life You’d See in a Museum: Are You Living It? with John Strelecky

Episode 68: Conversations with John Strelecky on Purpose and Marketing
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[00:00:00] Introduction: The Museum of Life
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[00:00:00] John: What if every moment of our life is being recorded? Everything we do, everything we say everything we spend our time on, and then when we die, a museum is going to be built to honor us.

[00:00:10] John: Only the museum is gonna show our life exactly how we lived it.

[00:00:14] John: And so if 80% of our time is spent on things that we don't care about or a job that we don't like, which I have done, uh, at different times in my life, then at the end when we go to our museum, 80% of the museum will be dedicated towards those things.

[00:00:27] John: ​

[00:00:27]

[00:00:32] Meet the Guest: John Strelecky
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[00:00:32] Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing podcast. I'm your host, Allan Dib. With me, today's special guest, John Strelecky I recently had the opportunity to spend a bit of time with John, and to be honest, I was kind of embarrassed because he's like such a huge bestselling author. And I'd met the author before I'd ever read his books even, even though I'm really a, a student in the area where John writes on.

[00:00:56] Allan: So, as many of you know, I'm a student of the rich [00:01:00] life, you know, thinking about some of the bigger things. Of course we talk about marketing, we talk about business, but really they're a means to an end. And so the end is really living an amazing life on your own terms. And so, John, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:14] Allan: For those who don't know you who are you what are you best known for? And then we'll get into some of the deeper questions.

[00:01:22] John: Fantastic. Well, thanks for having me on the show. Well, it's great to see you again and yeah, who I am I, I am a philosopher, an adventurer, a traveler, a father. I'm just a guy like everybody else trying to figure out how do you win the game of life. I've been fascinated by what is the point of it all for as long as I can remember.

[00:01:39] John: And at some point I left everything behind and decided to try and go figure it out. And from that experience, I had a book flow through me over the course of 21 Days, which is The Cafe on the Edge of the World. And that led me to become an author. But I've had a lot of different lives before that I started working.

[00:01:54] John: ROS 12. I've done every job you can imagine. Most of the ones you don't wanna imagine. And, [00:02:00] Uh, I, I actually love marketing, so it's a great fit that we're having this discussion. 'cause I think anybody who has a dream, anybody who has a deep passion for something, one of the most important things to understand is the way to help bring that gift of yours into the world.

[00:02:13] John: And I've shared that with my daughter. She's about to enter college soon. And I said, do me a favor, no matter what you study, at least take a couple of marketing classes. So it's a

[00:02:22] Allan: love that. I love that. Well, you certainly must be good at marketing. You've sold, I believe more than 12 million books. Is that right?

[00:02:29] John: Yeah. Yeah. Very fortunate in that regard.

[00:02:32] Allan: That is just phenomenal. I mean, someone who sold a million books is like a smash hit, like 12 million is just unfathomable. And so, um, it really speaks to, you know, the book just penetrating the culture because I, I believe you can sell a few hundred thousand copies just through brute force because you know the right people, because you push it through the right channels, because you do the right things. But to sell a million plus to sell 2 million, five, [00:03:00] 10, it's just gotta be an amazing book that people refer, that people give.

[00:03:04] Allan: And so, I always love speaking with authors who've just made such a big impact on the culture and on people. So, like I said I'm a little bit embarrassed because I do consider myself a student of the rich life. I do consider myself as someone who thinks about some of the deeper questions.

[00:03:21] Allan: And I'd not read your book before, despite it being such a huge bestseller, and you and I met for the first time a few months ago. And um, I really, really enjoyed your book. it's very short an allegorical story. I'm assuming it's not a true story, but

[00:03:37] Allan: uh,

[00:03:38] John: Yeah, there's elements of it that are a hundred percent based on truth and the rest of it I leave for the reader to determine, huh? Exactly. How much of this has happened and how much of this is part of the story. Yeah.

[00:03:48] Allan: perfect. Perfect. Well, the three questions that you sort of pose in the book and we'll get to some, I know you in some of your later work you have a framework for really thinking about life at a deeper [00:04:00] level. But this is the book that started at all, isn't it? The

[00:04:02] Allan: cafe that, and so there's, the upshot is in the book. Someone goes to a a far-flung cafe. They, you you kind of get off track, you are stuck in traffic, and you end up at this cafe, miles and miles in the middle of nowhere. And on the menu are written. Three big questions. Why are you here? Do you fear death?

[00:04:22] Allan: And are you fulfilled? Now you mentioned this book flowed through you and you and I had a discussion about this when we met, where, you know, I've certainly had this kind of experience where you almost download an idea fully formed rather than kind of come up with it. And I've definitely had that experience.

[00:04:43] Allan: Before we get to those questions and before we get to some of the bigger things I'd love you to talk about that a little bit and some of your thoughts on that.

[00:04:51] John: Yeah, it's really fascinating.

[00:04:52] John's Journey: From Pilot Dreams to Bestselling Author
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[00:04:54] John: So I left everything behind in my early thirties. it's kind of a long story, so I'll give you the super brief version of it, but is I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was growing up. [00:05:00] And I uh, actually saw the movie Top Gun when I was a senior in high school and decided that's what I wanna do.

[00:05:04] John: I want to go fly airplanes. For anyone who's listening horrible life decision to be making your own life decisions based on Hollywood movies, that is not a good strategy for success. But nonetheless, that was kind of the dream and. At the truth of it was that I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted to do something adventurous and I wanted to travel.

[00:05:21] John: I wanted to see the world. And the only people I knew who got to do that, that also made pretty good money were airline pilots. And so that was my dream. And so knowing absolutely zero about the industry, having never flown a plane before in my life, I embarked on this great big adventure to go be an airline pilot.

[00:05:36] John: Fast forward four years later and I graduate. I've got super high recommendations. Everything looks great. I'm fully prepared to be the youngest captain in the history of United Airlines, one of the big airlines here, and I go for a medical exam for the airline and find out that I have a very rare, very undiagnosed heart condition.

[00:05:53] John: Which only impacts one in every 100,000 people. And coincidentally, Allan only matters if you want to be a pilot or an astronaut. [00:06:00] So the odds of this impacting just anybody in a way that would dramatically alter their life is really thin. You know, you'd probably have better odds of winning the lottery twice over.

[00:06:09] John: But it was me. And so literally on that day, everything that I'd worked for since the age of 12, all the money that I'd ever saved and invested in this dream was gone. And the most brutal thing was that it was gone. Not because I had done something stupid or wrong and, and, you know, had had carved a horrible path for myself, but it was, I had worked so hard for that dream and I hadn't done something wrong, and it was taken away anyway, and so this just added absolutely rocked my world.

[00:06:33] John: I didn't know what to do for about a year. I was just struggling to find my, my footing again. And again, long story short, I ended up going to school got a break and ended up getting an MBA in marketing and organizational development. Worked for, as a consultant for a bunch of years, and at the age of 32, I just found that my life was passing by.

[00:06:52] John: I was trading my minutes for dollars and it didn't seem like such a good trade. I don't know if it's something that you've experienced in your life at some point.

[00:06:59] Allan: Yeah.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] John: I left it all behind and I went and backpacked around the world and everybody at the time said the words crazy. Like, okay, like that's a fine dream when you're 18.

[00:07:10] John: That's totally okay. If you wanna take a gap year in college or maybe a year after you're done with university, before you enter the real world. But nobody leaves a career at 32 to go throw on a backpack and see the world. But I felt I was drowning. And if I didn't do that now, I thought I would never do it.

[00:07:26] John: And so I did it and it changed my life completely. And when I came back something flowed through me over the course of 21 days. And this is to your question. And so I can't remember exactly if it was a voice or just a deep thought or something, but something inside of mes had sit down and start typing and because I had been on the road for a year listening to my intuition when I heard this thing say, sit down and start typing. I sat down and just started typing and I never thought what I was gonna type the next day. I never read what I typed the day before. I just sat, and over the course of 21 days, I downloaded to use your terminology. I would sit [00:08:00] down each day and I would actually open up my laptop and I could see the scene in front of me. I could see the characters. I knew exactly what they looked like. I could hear their dialogue as they were talking, and my job was to simply get it down on the page as fast as possible. And so, yeah I think it was there already.

[00:08:15] John: And I had to prove to whatever is out there, the universe, God, the algorithm that I was gonna be a willing participant in this. And I did that by going off and adventuring around the world and taking a lot of risk. And then I became a candidate to be the author for this story. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:31] Allan: I heard an idea recently that ideas are kind of. Almost floating in the ether, looking for a host, right? And there's this there's this weird concept of simultaneous invention where two completely independent people will invent the same thing at around the same time. Like, you know, like electricity, the light bulb.

[00:08:52] Allan: There's, there's masses, masses of

[00:08:55] John: within hours, I think filed patents on it. Yeah.

[00:08:58] Allan: Yeah. And [00:09:00] funnily enough um, you, you know, like I was reading the other day Michael Jackson sometimes would wake up at 3:00 AM and call his producer and say, Hey, we've gotta get this recorded because otherwise Prince will get the idea. He was that afraid of like, Hey, the, if I don't do it, the idea will go to Prince.

[00:09:17] Allan: And so, as I've gotten older, I've started listening to my intuition a lot more. I've started being open a lot more to ideas that I think I wouldn't have been down the track I would've thought of, of them as woo woo and things like that. But the more I've listened to that inner voice and the more I've followed my intuition or gut feeling or whatever I've definitely gone down better tracks than when I've followed, Hey, this is the logical thing to do.

[00:09:45] Allan: This is the thing I should be doing or whatever. I've definitely experienced that concept of, Hey, I'm just downloading this idea and I better get it down as quick as possible before I lose it. Um, So, I can totally relate.

[00:09:58] The Creative Process: Capturing Ideas and Finding Purpose
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[00:09:58] John: I'm [00:10:00] curious when you say you feel your, because that's, I think that's a really good question for everybody who wants to tap into this essence, and that is, what does it quote unquote feel like when you feel it? Because I notice in my conversations with people, some people actually have visions of an idea.

[00:10:15] John: So if they're super, super visionary in the way that they receive data, they'll get it that way. Some are more tactile, they'll actually feel something. You know, they'll be moving their hands. They'll be like putting their hands on a table. They, They sense it in a very different way.

[00:10:28] John: Some people, I'm very auditory, so I hear things a lot. And I also have chills up and down my spine. Like I'll get physical cues that tell me, okay, something here is happening. What is it for you? How do you know when you're, you've got a really good idea versus a sort of, oh, it's a spreadsheet saying it's a good idea, idea.

[00:10:45] Allan: for me it's just,

[00:10:46] Allan: it's just this flow. It's like, you know, It feels like it just the words like I write most days and sometimes it's just like pushing shit uphill, right? So it's like, you know, I've spent three [00:11:00] hours and I've crafted maybe one paragraph and it's like, and maybe it's a good paragraph or whatever, but that came from la that came from labor that did not come fully formed.

[00:11:09] Allan: Whereas other times, I just can't write and note it down fast enough. It's just flowing and I'm just like trying to catch it, you know? So

[00:11:17] John: Yeah.

[00:11:18] Allan: in, in time. So for me that, that's the way it feels and it feels like my brain's going over time. I'm just like trying to download it, trying to download it, trying not to lose bits and pieces of it.

[00:11:27] Allan: So it's almost feels like, you know, I mean, I don't know, people talk about ADHD or whatever, but it's like your brain is going o over time and I've just gotta catch it on paper before I lose it.

[00:11:38] John: Yeah. Well, and I think the key thing is to recognize what it is. So for everybody who's listening, it's to recognize what it is for you and because every human is gonna experience it a little bit differently, the more you're tuned into that, the more when the download is available that you know it's available and you have the methodology or the procedure to capture it.

[00:11:58] John: And so I've had the [00:12:00] experience before, much like you were describing, where I have a great idea that sort of downloads into my brain and I'm in the middle of the shower or I'm driving down the road and I have nowhere to write it down. And I can't tell you the number of times I've said to myself, I gotta remember this.

[00:12:13] John: I gotta remember this. And then I finally get to a place where I can write it down and it just, it's gone. It's, it just cannot, no matter how much I try and replay the moment, it's just gone forever. And I think to myself, exactly like you said, somebody else got that download. I just wasn't in the right place to receive one at that moment.

[00:12:29] Allan: Yeah you've definitely gotta capture it at the time. You definitely lose a lot down the track if you try and recreate it. I've absolutely experienced that. have you ever found a way to be intentional about that or be able to trigger it? Because for me, it seems kind of random.

[00:12:44] Allan: It'll be like, you know, I'm just doing something random and I'm like, yes. You know, and then it comes. But have you ever figured out a way to trigger it or make it more intentional? Okay.

[00:12:55] John: Yeah, so I'll give you two examples. One in the field of sports and one in the field of [00:13:00] writing. And so in the sports field, when I was younger, I was trying to make it as a professional beach volleyball player, playing to deal like the Olympic version of two Man sand beach volleyball, and. I'm not super tall and so I had to rely on quickness.

[00:13:13] John: I had to rely on just sort of seeing the court really well. And back then I had all the physical skills that you need to compete at a super high level. And I did. What I didn't understand was the intuitive part. So finally, I think it was actually when I came back from my travels and that channel was so wide open that I no longer had as much of the physical skills 'cause I was older, but I had intuition on a level that was unprecedented compared to the previous time in my life.

[00:13:40] John: And I'll give you an example of the way that manifests. And so, even to this day when I'm playing now, 'cause I still play. I will be in the ready position and I will watch my opponent take the ball, turn away from me, go back to the service line, and I'll get a flash. I'll just get an intuitive flash that says he's gonna cut it towards the outside line, or he's gonna try and bridge the [00:14:00] gap in between us, and it is right a hundred percent of the time.

[00:14:04] Allan: Wow.

[00:14:05] John: So this is amazing to me because the play hasn't taken place yet. And so somehow in that moment, not only are you downloading, you're downloading a future event that is going to happen, and I think you could at attribute it to just like, you know, John, you've played 10,000 hours, a hundred thousand hours of volleyball.

[00:14:24] John: You're just aware of what's likely to happen. But it's not that, Allan I've thought about that. I've sort of analyzed that. It's not that there's nothing in the queue of the person going back that would give me the indication of this is exactly where the ball is going to go. So I think we have this capacity and the ability to use it in lots of different ways.

[00:14:41] John: That's sports. The way that I channel it for writing is when I decide to work on a project, and I don't do projects on calendar. So I don't say to myself, oh, it's been a year. I should write another book. I only do a project if I'm super excited about something. It comes to me and I'm excited about it. But what I do process wise is I will [00:15:00] commit to the project emotionally and mentally, and then I'll say, okay, so the next two months.

[00:15:03] John: I'm just gonna gather. I'm gonna download and so I will keep a notepad with me. I'll keep my phone very handy and I'll use the voice feature on the phone. And I will just capture ideas for two months and put 'em all in one big Microsoft Word file. And then there comes a day. That's, again, a very intuitive, I just know today's the day that I'm supposed to start writing, and I'll go back through and I'll read everything that I captured in the two months prior to that.

[00:15:26] John: And I go to a park, I sit down and I start writing. And the process part that is a little bit more like pushing shit uphill is I commit to myself that I'm going to write 10 pages that day. So I'm not answering email, I'm not listening to my phone messages, nothing else until my 10 pages are done for the day.

[00:15:44] John: But I find that when I make that level of commitment, it's almost like the minute I start driving to the park that my channel opens up wide. And from the time that I sit down, it's just flow, flow, flow. And to your point, I some days are just like ridiculous flow. Like you [00:16:00] can't even keep up with it, to your point.

[00:16:02] John: But I would say that I don't have days that I struggle. It's either. Unbelievably flow or it's really good flow and I think it's because, again, I've set the expectation with whatever it is that I'm connecting to, that I'm in and I'm in. 'cause I demonstrated I'm in, I'm not on my phone, I'm not answering email.

[00:16:17] John: I'm at the park. The laptop's open. Let's go.

[00:16:19] Allan: And so do you think it's the ritual that's, that really gets you into that flow? Like, Hey we are now it's business time kind of thing,

[00:16:27] John: I mean, if,

[00:16:28] John: if everything is energy, which I believe that it is then much like tuning a radio to a specific frequency where back in the days when you were driving in your car and trying to tune in an FM radio station and, and as you got closer to it, it went from garbled to closer, and then boom, there you were, and it was spot on.

[00:16:45] John: Super clear, super loud. And I think maybe the procedure helps dial it in the frequency. And so it could be like that, that literally the process of getting everything ready going to the park is me turning that dial and getting it closer and closer to the point where the channels [00:17:00] open.

[00:17:01] Allan: That's really cool. So, when you wrote your first book how did that come about? So were you, was that on your travel or after your travel or did you just decide, Hey, I am gonna write this story? Like, where does that come from?

[00:17:14] John: No, I came back from my travels. I had no specific plans. Uh, I was bought outta money and, uh, because I backpacked around the world on $40 a day, and I came back and right before I was supposed to come back again, the spirit of synchronicity and how this all works, I got an email from a buddy of mine and he said, Hey I heard you're coming back to the states and I need a consultant, which is what I used to do.

[00:17:33] John: I used to do management consulting, and he said any chance you're back in the country by January? Whatever. And I said eh, actually I am. And I didn't, like I said, I didn't really know what I was gonna do when I came back. And Allan , I am not a cold weather guy at all. And so, I said, where's the engagement?

[00:17:49] John: And he said, it's in Detroit, Michigan. Which if you're someone who lives in the States, Detroit, Michigan is like very ugly. In January, it is flip and freezing cold. It's, you don't wanna be outside for [00:18:00] five seconds, let alone five minutes. And it was going back to the consulting world that I'd left behind, which is I left it for a reason.

[00:18:07] John: I didn't really want to go back, but I did go back 'cause I needed the money. And when I was there. It was exactly everything that I had left. You know, it was sort of minutia focus on things that I didn't care about. Like when you've traveled the world and you've been traveling in third world countries and you've seen people with no arms or no legs that are working in a band on a street corner trying to make money 'cause their limbs got blown off in a land mine.

[00:18:30] John: And then you come back to the United States and you see someone whose most important thing in the world is selling one more super high-end luxury vehicle, which is what I was working on. You're just kinda like, really like this is where we're focusing the time and energy. And so I was kind of in that mental space, right?

[00:18:45] John: And on the very last day of the very, of the project. I was running late, I had to close everything down. I'm running through the airport to get to my flight and I don't have a book with me. 'cause I had finished it when I was at the air at the hotel two nights earlier. And so I get on my plane, I'm sitting [00:19:00] on the plane and they announce, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, due to freezing cold weather, we're gonna be stuck on the tarmac here for a few hours.

[00:19:07] John: And so I'm now sitting there with nothing to read and I was thinking to myself, okay. I know the feeling of when I had followed my bliss and gotten out there and traveled the world, and I know the feeling that I'm feeling now, which is doing what I didn't wanna do anymore. And so these two worlds were colliding.

[00:19:22] John: And the thought that came to me was, what would I tell someone right now is the meaning of life. And so I took a piece of paper outta my bag and I just started writing. And I woke up the next morning and that's when I think the download had begun was actually on that plane. Because when I sat down the next morning is when I heard the voices had sit down and start typing, and that's kind of where it all kicked off.

[00:19:42] Allan: Wow, that's cool. There's something about travel that definitely opens up your mind that has gets ideas flowing. I mean, I certainly experience that whenever I find myself a little bit stuck, a little bit starting to go in a downward direction. I know [00:20:00] I'm due to travel.

[00:20:00] John: are you an adventurer at heart? I mean, is that a kind of a core piece of who you are?

[00:20:05] Allan: I think so. I mean, I don't do anything too crazy, but just getting outta my normal environment, seeing other places, and it doesn't have to be anywhere incredible or whatever. I mean, you know, sometimes it isn't. But just getting out of my day-to-day environment because I do live a very routine life because you know that, that.

[00:20:23] Allan: Optimize as well. And you know, I like to keep healthy and all of that sort of thing, but yeah, I definitely get to the stage where I'm like, all right, I've gotta get outta here.

[00:20:32] John: Yeah, I mean, I think there's something, so every, my understanding of it from a neural net perspective is that every time we see something new, every time we experience something new, it causes The neurons in our brain to rewire. And so if you're doing the same thing today that you did yesterday and you have that routine and it goes on for 30 days or so, there's not a whole lot of rewiring that takes place and therefore you don't have a lot of creative new input.

[00:20:53] John: Ideas and maybe the channel to new creative thoughts isn't as open, but every time, and it can be simple stuff [00:21:00] I recommend to people all the time, if you take the exact same route to work, then take a different route. It doesn't have to be massively different, just do three streets over. So as you're driving, you can't be on autopilot.

[00:21:10] John: Um, because I, I, for many years of my life, I would get in the car, I would drive to work, and literally I'd get to work and I couldn't remember the drive.

[00:21:17] John: I had done it so many times that I was completely on autopilot the whole way. And that means that your brain isn't recalibrating. And so then one of the reasons I think travel does that is because you often put yourself in environments where every single thing is new.

[00:21:29] John: You know, the restaurants are new, the people you're meeting are new, the scenery is new, and so that causes new levels of creativity to blossom. So, yeah I, I, I I don't think writer's block is a necessity. I think writer's block is because just a little too much of the same old.

[00:21:43] Allan: I think the other thing is, I mean. I've set my home up very comfortably. I've got my office, I've got my studio, I've got my gym, I've got everything. Like, everything's just like a, an easy, comfortable routine. Whereas travel, even if you travel very comfortably still, you're like [00:22:00] going from airport, you're going through security, you're trying to find the hotel, you're late for this.

[00:22:05] Allan: Right. You know, so all of that sort of thing. So there's there's new chAllanges and then obviously you get to see different people in different places and connect with people. So yeah, I, travel has become a very important part of my whole routine and my whole process to really keep fresh.

[00:22:23] John: Yeah, I find that about 95% of people, when I do an event when I ask them about something called that I call the big five for life, which are the five things you most want to do in your life? And I find about 95% of the people have travel on that list. And that makes me think that it's not a cultural conditioning thing, it's actually something that most of us are hardwired with.

[00:22:41] John: We have an awareness that this planet is really fricking amazing and the percentage of it that we see is really small unless we make a concerted effort to go and see it on a bigger scale. But I do think we are wired for walkabout, to be honest with you.

[00:22:53] Allan: you're a hundred percent right. I mean, when you talk, you know, I talk about the five why's, you know, which is asking, you know, someone, [00:23:00] a business owner will be like, Hey, I want to get to 10 million in revenue. Why? Well, I want to get to 3 million in profit. Well, why? It all almost always comes down to, Hey, I want better health.

[00:23:11] Allan: I want freedom. I wanna be able to travel. You know, they're usually in the top. Kind of three things that, that they're hoping to be able to do. And you know, o often they're going on a very long roundabout way of achieving those things.

[00:23:26] Allan: So your first book you pose the three questions, why are we here?

[00:23:31] Allan: Do you fear death? Are you fulfilled? How did you get to those questions? Why were those so important? And then I think in some of your later work, you kind of mentioned you have the big five and they sort of dovetail into some of those questions as well.

[00:23:45] John: Yeah. Like I said, the process of the first book flowing through me, it did a good job of writing itself and so I can't say that I consciously chose those three questions as much as they downloaded right into the process that said, I distinctly remember even being a kid and looking at life [00:24:00] and trying to figure it out. You know, it's kinda weird that if you were given a game for Christmas or for your birthday or something, the first thing you'd do would be unwrap it, open it up, and then look at the instruction manual to figure out how do you play and how do you win. Like, those are the just kind of steps to, to a new game.

[00:24:16] John: And interestingly, 'cause I do think of life as a game that There's very little instructions given when you arrive in terms of like, here's how it's played and here's how you win. And even that, you can choose different paths to victory. Like you could choose, oh, if you wanna really be an adventurer, then do these kind of things.

[00:24:31] John: If you really wanna be something as a scientist, do these kind of things. And so there's sort of a missing link there. And even as a kid, I just was looking at most of the adults and thinking, I don't get it. Like I, I never really liked school. I was pretty good at school, but it was just their sheer effort.

[00:24:47] John: I didn't really love the process. And so I was looking at, the life trajectory and thinking to myself, okay, lemme get this straight. So I'm gonna spend eight years in grade school, then I'm gonna spend four years in high school. Then I'm gonna spend four [00:25:00] more years in college, and then I'm gonna go get a job.

[00:25:03] John: And I'm gonna do that for like 43 years. And most people that I knew did not like their job. So, and then finally at the age of 65, I will get freedom. You know, and as a kid I literally was looking around and I'm like, this is the most jacked up system I can, Ima like, this can't be all there is.

[00:25:20] John: And so I think that seed very early was planted of Why are you here? You know? And I didn't realize it for a long time. Certainly not at that point that choosing your purpose or connecting with your purpose is a big part of the game. And that if you allow yourself to, you can tap into the things that make you unique and special and the genius that you have to offer the world and tap into the things that you want to do, see and experience to help you fulfill that purpose.

[00:25:48] John: As a kid, I was just confused, but now as an adult, I realize that is part of the game, is giving yourself the freedom and the flexibility to make those choices and then align your life in sync with them. And honestly, that's when the game starts to [00:26:00] get really interesting.

[00:26:02] Allan: so many people get stuck on the purpose component though. They're like, I don't know what my purpose is. You know? And how do you guide people like that?

[00:26:11] John: Well, I think the movies and hopefully not my book, but to some degree, books too have painted this perception of purpose as you have to wait until you hear the booming voice from the sky type moment. So at some point, Allan , you're gonna be walking through a field of wheat or the woods and you'll just be walking quietly.

[00:26:30] John: You'll see a squirrel, you'll be admiring the squirrel, you'll see the sunset, you'll be admiring the sunset, and then. This voice from the sky will say, Allan Dib your destiny. Right? And so we have this perception of the booming voice moment. And don't get me wrong, I think you and I from this discussion could say, okay, John, to some degree you had the booming voice moment.

[00:26:48] Finding Your Purpose Through Joy and Curiosity
---

[00:26:48] John: The book kind of wrote itself through you. Right? But I think that's because I taken the leap of faith to follow my heart and to follow this path that I was called to, which is to be an [00:27:00] adventure. And so to me, when someone is struggling to find their purpose, I start asking super basic questions, which is, okay, what do you love to do on the weekend?

[00:27:07] John: What do you do when you're not having to work? And what are the kind of things that bring you joy? What are the kind of things that you would do if you didn't get paid? And those aren't necessarily the big booming purpose statement, but they're good indicators and good clues towards the things that you genuinely enjoy.

[00:27:22] John: And I think that's a big part of the purpose of life. It's to spend as many minutes as possible doing the things you want to do with the people you wanna spend time with, and the ways that you wanna spend those minutes. I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot for a lot of years, and when I think about what is the purpose of life, I think it actually comes down to that.

[00:27:40] John: And then when we do that's when we come up with ideas that are something to share with the world. That's when we contribute to what I call the collective consciousness, which then becomes accessible to everybody who wants to tap into that.

[00:27:52] The Importance of Sampling and Trying New Experiences
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[00:27:52] John: So I think it's about sampling Allan. If you don't have the booming voice moment, or you don't have the.

[00:27:56] John: You know, you're third grade and you know you wanna be a ventriloquist, [00:28:00] or you're in fourth grade and you know you want to be an animal doctor. If you don't have that moment, then it's about sampling things until you find the ones that just connect with everything that you know you are.

[00:28:10] Allan: I think sampling is such a perfect way to, to put it I always tell people, look, just follow your curiosity, follow your opportunities, right, right now. and I think sampling is such a great thing. It's like, hey. Let's let you know, just like you do with food let's try this. Oh no, I didn't really like that.

[00:28:26] Allan: Oh, wow. I like the flavors of the, this kind of food or whatever. And you go down, down that track. And I think, you know, it's, it seems to be more and more rare that people do this with experiences. People are, are either do it, do something because they know for sure it's gonna be fun, or for sure they're gonna be good at it.

[00:28:46] Allan: It's funny, I was I saw a TikTok yesterday and I'm like, yeah, that's true. They say like, people don't sing anymore. Like, it would be weird if, like, if you came over to dinner and we, we said, let's sing a song. But people used to do that all the time and [00:29:00] it's kind of like a bonding, it's a healing experience, all of that sort of thing.

[00:29:04] Allan: And now singing's become really performative. Like you only sing if you're an amazing singer, right? Otherwise it's cringe or whatever. Right? So,

[00:29:13] John: Extrapolate that same issue to everything. Oh, you're not really good at games. Well then you shouldn't play games anymore. Oh, you're not really good at crossword puzzles. Don't do those. Oh, you're not really good at hiking 'cause you're not a professional. Well, don't even bother getting on the trail at that point.

[00:29:26] John: That's a shame. You know? How

[00:29:27] John: do you, every expert starts off knowing nothing about what they became an expert in. Everybody, every human starts off at ground zero and builds from there. Um, the, The analogy that I share with people, with the sampling thing, 'cause this is one that when it came to me, I was like, yes, that makes perfect sense.

[00:29:41] John: That. How do you know a particular song is your favorite song? Because you listen to other songs and you don't like them as much as that one, and at some point some other song will become your favorite song. But if all you did was not listen to songs 'cause you don't know what your favorite song is, then you'd never get to listen to music, you know?[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Allan: That's true. 100%. I love the idea of just sampling. And the other thing is kind of extrapolating, like, in your case, you know, you didn't wanna sit in a cubicle forever, but like, just looking at people who are successful in whatever you are doing at a couple of levels above, and you look at their life and you say, you know, would I like their life?

[00:30:21] Allan: You know, and so many times I've looked at people I admired for their whatever, professional success or business success, and then I look at their life and I'm like, no, I don't want that life. that sucks like that.

[00:30:33] John: Yeah, because oftentimes in our society today what you see is the glossy 2%. You don't see the 98% that comes with it. And I think it's great to watch biographies. I was actually, I'm just about finished with a two part biography on Billy Joel. And I love Billy Joel's music, and so it's on HBO max and.

[00:30:51] John: You realize when you watch that or any other really genuine biography that in order to achieve that level of success in their chosen field, a [00:31:00] lot of times people have sacrificed a ton, and so it's nice to look at the Grammys and be like, I wanna be a Grammy award-winning artist, and that's awesome. If that's your dream, just realize that there may be consequences associated with that and have those top of mind also as you're going through the process so that you know when you should go down the road to the left instead of the right.

[00:31:19] John: If you don't want the path to the right.

[00:31:22] Allan: I saw a tweet recently that said woodworking looks really cool until you realize it's 95% sanding. That's

[00:31:31] John: There you go. That's awesome. Yeah, because

[00:31:34] Allan: really the case with almost anything.

[00:31:36] John: it's totally true. I think, and especially at this point in my life that. As I've gotten older and you realize more and more that the commodity that is only valuable is time. And I think when I was in my thirties, I still had the sense of invis, invincibility and immortality.

[00:31:51] John: A little less so in my forties. 'cause when you're in your early forties, your eyes start to go and that's like a biological marker that something dramatic is shifting. But then as the days continue to [00:32:00] add on.

[00:32:01] The Museum Day Analogy and the Big Five for Life
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[00:32:01] John: It actually brings me back to the second question in the cafe menu, which is, do you fear death?

[00:32:05] John: And what I realized through the process of that book flowing through me and I've thought about this a lot, is that in truth, we humans don't fear dying. What we fear is getting to the end of our life and realizing that we haven't really lived. And so I am greatly bothered by the tendency that you described that you've noticed.

[00:32:22] John: 'cause I've noticed it as well that people are hesitant to try. They're very hesitant to fail. They don't wanna look foolish in the eyes of others. Because man, oh man, you know, what's far worse than that is getting to the end of your life and being so sad that you didn't give it a try.

[00:32:38] Allan: Yep. Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion. I heard that one recently. I thought that is so true. You know?

[00:32:48] John: And what's funny is I remember a buddy of mine, he was he was really good at it and that he would put himself out there and if it went horribly wrong. He would laugh like so loud, he would just embrace the moment it [00:33:00] all jacked up and then he just let it go, you know? And I learned so much from watching him.

[00:33:05] John: 'cause I think at that point in my life I was way more self-conscious about making a mistake.

[00:33:09] Allan: Yeah, I agree.

[00:33:11] Allan: Hey, it's Allan here, ready to dive deeper into today's marketing insights? Head over to lean marketing.com/podcast. To get a full summary of today's episode, including all of the resources mentioned, go to lean marketing.com/podcast. Now, back to the show.

[00:33:28]

[00:33:28] Allan: John run us through quickly through the big five because I think they're important important things for us to ponder. I'd love to leave with some of those.

[00:33:38] John: Sure. So this is an idea that came to me. I was asking myself the very simple question of what would it look like to describe someone who is the greatest leader in the world? And that was the overarching premise for it. And in the process of thinking about that, I had a very profound experience in a tiny little museum.

[00:33:55] John: And much like we're talking about, I was walking through this museum and I was looking at all, all these pictures of people [00:34:00] and they were high school photographs. And as I was looking at them, I couldn't help but think to myself. I wonder if he asked that girl out that he always dreamed of asking out.

[00:34:09] John: You know? And I wonder if she got on that tramp steamer and went around the world like she maybe always dreamed of doing. And what was weird about it is that because these pictures were so old, all these people had passed away by the time that I was looking at their picture. And so their story had already been written, but because I was looking at them when they were 18, and that picture, the story had not been written yet.

[00:34:29] John: And I had this profound moment which is called Museum Day. And it's very simple and I'll explain it quite quickly, and it goes like this. What if every moment of our life is being recorded? Everything we do, everything we say everything we spend our time on, and then when we die, a museum is going to be built to honor us.

[00:34:48] John: Only the museum is gonna show our life exactly how we lived it. And so if 80% of our time is spent on things that we don't care about or a job that we don't like, which I have done at different times in my life, then at [00:35:00] the end when we go to our museum, 80% of the museum will be dedicated towards those things.

[00:35:04] John: And there will be giant pictures and there will be wall murals, and there will be audio snippets that you can listen to. If instead you loved spending time with your family or your friends, or a particular passion or hobby, the woodworking but for whatever reason, you only allow yourself 2% of your life on those things, then no matter how much you wish it to be different at the end, only 2% of your museum is gonna be dedicated towards that.

[00:35:28] John: Maybe it's just gonna be a few pictures right near the exit door. And what really hit me with this is that imagine if heaven or the afterlife or however your belief system approaches the end that what if it actually consists of you being the tour guide for your own museum for all of eternity. And that was the premise that really launched everything with this concept because when I had that in my head, I started to think about like, how would you avoid that?

[00:35:57] John: Like how would you enable yourself to create a [00:36:00] life that you would joyously walk and guide people through? Like you couldn't wait to take 'em to this particular part of the exhibit to tell them about the time when you blank. Right? So the net essence of that circled back to this thing called the Big five, and it's based on an experience that I had in South Africa where people talk about the African Big Five.

[00:36:18] John: But the essence of it is that if you allow yourself to, that you can identify the five things that you most want to do, see your experience in your lifetime before you die, and then you allow yourself to allocate your resources, your time, your energy, your financial resources on those five things and those five things alone.

[00:36:35] John: And what's powerful about this is it's not about me telling Allan Dib, here's what your five need to be, or anybody else. It's not about your spouse, your parents, your boss, anybody. It's about you truly identifying for yourself, like what do you want to have in that museum? And what's amazing to me, tying this back full circle to the start of our conversation is.

[00:36:55] John: I cannot tell you the number of times in my own life and the number of times people have come back to me and said, [00:37:00] John, there was something magical that happened when I did that, when I went through the process and allowed myself to get clear on this, first of all, it reduced my stress level because people would say, Hey, do you wanna do this?

[00:37:09] John: Or Do you wanna be involved in this project? Or Do you want to start this business together? And I would look at my Big Five for Life list and I would say, Nope. Or. Hell yes. Right, because it made decision making so easy. I knew exactly what the future was that I wanted to create for myself because I had decided what was super important for my museum.

[00:37:25] John: So I love that because it eliminates stress. But on the magic side, there's something about drawing the line in the sand and saying, this is where I wanna focus my time and energy. And then demonstrating that a little bit. And I think what it is, Allan , is something that I call the cosmic algorithm of the universe.

[00:37:40] John: I think all these forces at play, the downloads that are available, the resources that are available. They're sort of in a holding pattern and they're looking at the way that we're demonstrating our interests and saying, huh, I don't know. They seem to be demonstrating exactly that. And I'll give you, I'll actually, I'll give you a super, super specific example.

[00:37:58] John: If you say to yourself, I [00:38:00] wish I was more adventurous and I wasn't sitting at my desk 40 hours a week, but you're thinking that, but you're at your desk 50 hours a week. Then the algorithm looks at you and says, I don't know. He's a creature of free will. He could do anything he wants. And he's choosing to sit at that desk for 50 hours a week.

[00:38:16] John: Look, his back hurts. He's missing his kids' football game, but he's still doing it. He must love that. And since we are a benevolent presence and he's demonstrating through his actions what he truly loves, we'll give him more of that. And so what's cool about this is when you flip it on its head and say, no, I'm gonna actually align all of my resources towards my big five for life.

[00:38:36] John: Those same powers start to assist you in ways you can't possibly imagine. And I'll give you again, super specific example of this. I'm on my backpacking trip traveling around the world.I'm in China, and I have a friend who emails me and says, I'm getting married in Italy. Are you able to come?

[00:38:52] John: Now, I kinda mapped out my itinerary at plane tickets and the rest of that. And I was like, oh, I don't think so, man. I'm gonna be in South Africa. And so I was like, well, [00:39:00] let me take a look. So Allan , and again, this is going back a whole bunch of years, right? The very early stage internet, again on the internet, I get on a travel site up pops $11 round trip, airline tickets from Johannesburg, South Africa to Milan, Italy.

[00:39:13] John: I'm like, what the, there's no way. Right? And I'm thinking to myself, can't be true. Can't be true. But I was like, whatever, I'm booking it. So I booked the tickets and at the time, anything that you bought with the credit card had to be shipped to the address your credit card was located at. So I literally sent an email to my brother-in-law.

[00:39:28] John: I was like, dude, I really don't think this is gonna happen, but if an airline ticket shows up for $11 for round trip tickets, I need you to FedEx them to South Africa for me. Allan, it cost me $72 to FedEx, my $11 round trip airline tickets to South Africa. And the whole time I'm literally thinking to myself, I'm gonna get up to the gate and they're gonna say, dude, what?

[00:39:47] John: These are not real airline tickets not the case. I walk up to the gate, hand them my air friends ticket, they say, welcome aboard Mr. Strelecky and off I fly on my $11 round Trip Airline tickets now. I don't know how that happened. I don't [00:40:00] know why that happened, but I've found that this kind of stuff happens somewhat frequently when you're aligning yourself with what truly matters, when you're aligning your life so that you don't get to the end in fear death, that when the day comes, you're gonna look back over your existence and say, well, I may not have gotten to everything, but I got to the things that really mattered to me.

[00:40:20] John: And if I go today, that's okay.

[00:40:22] Allan: I love that. I love that. And I really love the museum analogy because conversely, you don't want your museum to be, and this is the day I was eating the sandwich at my cubicle, and then I was eating another sandwich at my cubicle the next day. And.

[00:40:36] John: exactly. All my friends asked me if I wanted to go to that concert. I'd been dreaming about going to for six months, but I was like, no, I gotta finish this report, which nobody's gonna read, you know? Yeah, it just it was very profound for me. And so that was the, the big five for Life book that I wrote incorporates all of that into a story in a way that has been really beautiful.

[00:40:54] John: I can't tell you the number of people that will write back to me and in the tagline of their email are like, make it a great museum day. [00:41:00] And to think that little concept that flowed through me that I downloaded has become part of their conversation is just super cool.

[00:41:07] Allan: I love that so much.

[00:41:08] Marketing Wisdom and Life Lessons from John Strelecky
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[00:41:08] Allan: John obviously to have sold a number of books and made the impact that you have. You are obviously an incredible marketer. What's what's something that's worked, had an outsized impact? Now, like I said in the beginning, obviously your stuff is awesome. That in itself creates a lot of goodwill.

[00:41:29] Allan: It creates people giving, sharing all of that sort of thing. What have you done intentionally that's helped? You sell so many books and makes such a big impact.

[00:41:38] John: Yeah, a bunch of things come to mind. So lemme start with the first one that you said. And that is, if you're going to create something, make sure by the time you release it to the world that it's an a plus, especially in the book world because the writing process for a lot of people I notice It can get cumbersome and tiring for them. And so they get to the point that they're like, I just want be done with it. And that's a very dangerous statement to say with something that is a [00:42:00] onetime opportunity. 'cause once you release a book, sure you could do a second edition, but you're not gonna be able to send emails to you and be like, Hey, you know that first edition you bought?

[00:42:07] John: I know that wasn't great, but try the second edition. You'll love it even more.

[00:42:10] Allan: yeah.

[00:42:11] John: And so from a process perspective, what I do there is when I've written something and I'm a fanatical editor, so I will go through and edit 50 times until I'm literally happy with every single sentence. Every single word.

[00:42:22] John: So that's part of it. So making sure the product is great. The second piece is make sure that the product is great for the end consumer. And so it's nice that I think it's great, but far more important is does the reader think it's great? And so what I do is I ask 10 people to give me very critical feedback, and by very critical feedback, I explain to them don't tell me, oh, I really liked it.

[00:42:44] John: Don't tell me. Yep. Really good. John, tell me, you know what, in this chapter, you lost me on page 74. This particular part of the book, I felt like it was just kind of a little bit boring right there. Like I really want to hear what worked, what didn't work. And I wanna hear the good stuff too. If like this made you laugh, [00:43:00] great.

[00:43:00] John: 'cause then I know don't cut that. And so by asking 10 people I say to, I tell everyone who I give this advice to. I say, listen, if one person tells you something didn't work for you, that's an opinion. But if three or four of the 10 tell you that chapter four didn't flow. Now you owe it to the reader to go back and rework it until it flows.

[00:43:19] John: And so by putting yourself out there and being vulnerable with your product, whatever it is to get very critical feedback, you dramatically increase the chances that by the time you actually release it to the world, it's everything you hope it will be. 'cause at the end of the day, we're marketing, hopefully something that we truly want to be successful and make a difference and help people, whether it's a squeegee or whether it's a book.

[00:43:40] John: And so by putting yourself, making yourself vulnerable and putting it into the hands of potential buyers and getting that really critical feedback, it greatly enhances your chances. So I would highly recommend that.

[00:43:51] Allan: I a hundred percent agree. I mean, the magic is in the editing and, you know, having done, I mean, I haven't done as many books as you have, I've done two, but, you know, by the end, [00:44:00] you're sick of your own writing and sick of hear, reading it and listening. Like, I listen to it because I want to feel what it's like to gonna be a computer reading it back because it's very unforgiving, like sentences that you thought made sense.

[00:44:13] Allan: Suddenly I'm like, that's a clumsy sentence or So I've listened to my book like probably 20 times by the time it, I've finished my final edit and yeah, you're sick of it by then and everyone around you sick of it too, but

[00:44:28] Allan: that's

[00:44:28] John: so I think that's, yeah you have to be willing to put in the time and. I would say an element of that, maybe it's not that you're sick of it, but that you sort of know when it's time to stop the editing when you are in the process of editing and you're gonna change a paragraph to include an example, and then you keep reading.

[00:44:45] John: And two paragraphs down is the example already. Like that's when you know, like, okay, I'm to the point where I need to stop with the editing. But I would say in conjunction with that. By doing something that you love or creating a product that you truly believe in. And again, whether that's a sponge squeegee, [00:45:00] or a book, or an AI platform, do something that you're genuinely excited to be, to get up and work on every single day.

[00:45:07] John: Because if it's gonna succeed, honestly, you have to outwork everybody else. The only way you're gonna have the energy to outwork everybody else is that you truly believe in the purpose behind it, or you just love it. And so if that's not the case, I think your odds of being successful go down dramatically.

[00:45:26] John: You might still be able to pull it off 'cause you have industry expertise and the idea is that good of an idea, but you're up against somebody else who is living, breathing. Thinking about this all night long, it's tough to compete with that if that's not you. So I would say no matter what you're gonna create, allow yourself to be in alignment with your purpose and create something that you're passionate about and excited about every single day.

[00:45:48] Allan: The qualification I'd put to that is, I mean, you like there are days where where, hey, I don't want to be writing and I know I've got a deadline, or I know I've got a, whatever. And it's [00:46:00] kind of like the LA or like, even writing aside, let's say exercise. Like I wake up on a day I'm tired.

[00:46:06] Allan: I'm like, this is the last thing I want to be doing. But yeah, doing it is so important. But it's not that you're gonna love every moment of it, but, loving the result, potentially loving the thing that it enhances your life with. All of those sorts of things.

[00:46:25] John: Yeah. And maybe a good mental perspective for people on that is that you're. You're at most gonna love love, love. 80% or 85% and there is going to be a certain percentage that is drudgery. Editing is drudgery to me. Like I love the writing part, the editing part. The only thing I will say with editing that sometimes is like incredibly gratifying is you're looking at something that doesn't work.

[00:46:46] John: It doesn't work, and all of a sudden you download something that works or you come up with the perfect way to say it and you're like, oh, there it is, right? But if you don't do that extra tough stuff, then you're not gonna get to the product. Like you said, that you truly can't wait to get out there.[00:47:00]

[00:47:00] John: And I, you know, I think being an editor of my own work makes me a better writer. Like I catch stuff in the editing process that I don't repeat. I have a very bad habit of using the word that when I write, and it's completely unnecessary the vast majority of the time. And so the more I edit my own work, then sometime in the process I get better at just not doing it that way.

[00:47:20] John: Right?

[00:47:20] John: And so, I think the drudgery sometimes can lead you to some of your biggest AHA moments, either because you realize this is a part of the business that I don't wanna personally be doing, and therefore I should outsource it to somebody else. Or you realize like this is a part of the business that nobody is going to like, so how do we do this completely differently so that it's actually not as painful?

[00:47:36] John: So it can lead to some innovation too.

[00:47:38] Allan: Yeah. What else from a marketing perspective have you found powerful?

[00:47:44] John: Word of mouth is the most dramatic. So there's such an inundation these days of content and product, whether it's, again, anything like, there's just so many things that people can spend their time and energy and money on these days that when someone gives a personal referral about something, it's [00:48:00] dramatic.

[00:48:01] John: And so this goes to the quality of the product, first of all. And then second of all, it goes to. If you're going to seed copies of your books anywhere, seed them in a way that particular person is going to have a dramatic experience with the book. And if somebody has a dramatic experience with it, they're likely to tell 10 other people.

[00:48:17] John: Now, you can really exponentially increase your chances of this by saying, okay, the person that I think will have a dramatic experience with it is also in an industry where they're interacting with a lot of other people. So, in my case, for example, if you were to gift a copy of The Cafe on the Edge of the World to a yoga instructor who, you know, 52 weeks of the year is interacting with classes of people, and those people are saying, oh my gosh, thank you for an amazing yoga class.

[00:48:41] John: What else can I do to make myself feel calm each day? They're probably more likely to recommend that book to a higher percentage of people or a higher quantity of people than a single person who sits in a cubicle all day and doesn't talk to anybody. So I think looking for those opportunities, if you're gonna use your marketing dollars to get your product into [00:49:00] the hands of people.

[00:49:00] John: In the case of books for me thinking, okay, who are they gonna be talking to? I will say for that though, that we've tried a lot of different things in terms of sending it to people unsolicited. And so for example, I love the fact that guidance counselors working in high schools are helping kids.

[00:49:16] John: And so, we would look for guidance counselors that had five star reviews and we would send them a random book and just say, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing that is clearly having a dramatic and beautiful and positive impact on people. Here's the thank you from us. And that was good, but we never really knew if they read it or didn't read it.

[00:49:33] John: Every once in a while we'd get feedback. We'd get a school counselor who would be like, I'm ordering a hundred copies for my students, or something like that. But I think now in retrospect, and this is what we've put in place since then is offer the opportunity and if they say yes, then send it. And so instead of a blind send, just say in an email or a letter of some sort, like, listen, we're super inspired by what you do and the way that you do it.

[00:49:54] John: I'm the author of this book, it sold 5 million copies and has had a profound impact. I would love to send you a copy as a thank you if [00:50:00] you'd like. Well now if they opt in. They're far more likely to read it. They're far more likely to then talk about it with other people. So that small step is a, an important one to take, I think.

[00:50:10] Allan: That's cool. Yeah. So a micro sort of commitment.

[00:50:13] John: and I would say the last thing, Allan , is just putting yourself out there. I can't tell you the number of interviews I've done over the years and TV and radio back in the day when it was radio. Now it's podcasts and press interviews print interviews. And so, one of the great struggles for me as a young author was I didn't feel really comfortable doing interviews.

[00:50:31] John: I was like, who? Who am I? I'm just a guy who threw on a backpack and backpacked around the world, like, who am I to give advice about anything? This story flowed through me. And so, it took me a while to get comfortable with the fact that when you're an author and the book connects with people, they want to spend time with you.

[00:50:46] John: They want to hear more thought, they wanna ask you questions, they wanna talk to you, they want to interact with you. And very often what happens then is they ask you to speak. And those two skills are completely unrelated.

[00:50:56] Allan: Yes,

[00:50:57] John: Sitting in a park and writing on my laptop completely by myself, [00:51:00] where it has to be super quiet.

[00:51:01] John: It's very different from a room of 5,000 people standing on a stage with no, you know, no teleprompter. So I think putting yourself out there in ways that make you a little bit uncomfortable enables you to grow in terms of your ability to market. But you know, at the end of the day, if the book is having a positive impact on people, whether it's a book about marketing and it's helping entrepreneurs market. Whether it's a book about the meaning of life, like the cafe book, if you believe in it and fans believe in it, I think you owe it to the material to put yourself out there enough that it has a greater chance of finding its home.

[00:51:32] Allan: I totally agree, John John, you, your wisdom is profound, both on a marketing level and on a life level. I thank you so much for your time. I mean, I could spend all day speaking to you and you know, someday we, we will again

[00:51:47] John: Indeed. Indeed. Well, I'll tell you what. So if anybody who's listening to this, I mean, yeah, I feel like we scratched the surface of what could be a six hour conversation. But if there's something that we didn't talk about, send a message to Allan and we'll do round two based [00:52:00] on questions that people have, whether it's deep life questions or whether it's questions about marketing or a combination of the two again.

[00:52:05] Allan: I would absolutely love that. And John, where's the best place for people to, to find you and your content?

[00:52:11] John: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm available on social media platforms, Instagram. My website is johnstrelecky.com and I will throw one little plug in there. It's not for me, but it's for tiny little green sea Turtles. My passion project for this year is working to save the lives of baby sea turtles, and so we are donating the proceeds from book sales that happen towards saving baby sea turtles.

[00:52:33] John: And for every book that is purchased, we can save the life of 10 baby sea turtles. If you go to my Instagram channel, which is John Strelecky, you'll see some of the videos that we recently posted from a sea turtle hatch that I was able to witness. And these just are amazing tiny little creatures are the size of your thumb.

[00:52:49] John: And Allan, they hatch outta the sand. They go a hundred yards on these tiny little flippers to make it to the ocean. And then this tiny little creature heads off [00:53:00] all on its own into the great big ocean to start its life. It's one of the most courageous. It brings you to tears to think like, if that little dude can do that, what am I so worried about?

[00:53:10] John: Like I need to be a little more courageous in my life. And unfortunately due to predation and to human influence, like a lot of the nests are destroyed and it's very easy for us to fix that problem. And so we're actively working to do that. So if our conversation today inspired someone, know that a copy of the book that you purchased is gonna save the life of 10 BC turtles.

[00:53:28] Allan: Oh, that's so cool. John, thank you so much, and like I said, John, it was an absolute pleasure to speak with you. I can't wait to talk to you again.

[00:53:36] John: Sounds great. Thanks Allan .

[00:53:37] Allan: Thanks for tuning in to the Lean Marketing Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by the Lean Marketing Accelerator. Wanna take control of your marketing and see real results with the Accelerator. You get proven strategies, tools, and personalized support to scale your business. Visit lean marketing.com/accelerator to learn how we can help you get bigger [00:54:00] results with less marketing.

[00:54:01] Allan: And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review or share it with someone who would find it helpful. See you next time.

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