Mic Drop

The Right Kind of Difficult (ft. Jon Acuff)

Episode Summary

In today's conversation, unparalleled speaker Jon Acuff shares many terrific insights, including how to rewrite the broken soundtracks that may be holding us back, how to develop your own authentic use of humor to boost impact from the stage, the approach he took to bounce back when things got really tough for speakers during COVID, and innovative ways to monetize content and expertise beyond the stage.

Episode Notes

The Right Kind of Difficult (ft. Jon Acuff)

On learning, growing, adapting, creating, and sharing

OPENING QUOTE:

“Be your version of funny. Don't be somebody else's version. So what happens is speakers read a book about public speaking and they go, "I got to tell a joke." And they tell a joke that isn't their joke. And it just feels like you're wearing your dad's coat at the eighth grade dance. It doesn't fit you. It doesn't create the moment you want.”

-Jon Acuff

GUEST BIO:

Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books and one of the most successful thought leaders on the circuit, which is why Ink Magazine named him one of the top 100 leadership speakers in the world. He's also a gifted comedian, recently fulfilling a dream by opening up for Dolly Parton at Ryman Auditorium. For over 20 years, he's helped some of the biggest brands tell their story, including the Home Depot, Bose, and Staples. His fresh perspective on life has given him the opportunity to write for Reader's Digest, Fast Company, The Harvard Business Review and Time Magazine.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[4:22] - The Right Kind of Difficult

Finding your zone is about finding the right challenge

How do you know you’ve found your calling? When it’s the “right kind of difficult,” the kind of challenge that has you excited to confront it, to take it on, to master it. Jon calls walking off stage the hardest part of his job, because he could stay there for hours — not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard in a way that thrills him.

[6:17] - Content that Soars (and Sticks the Landing)

Perfectly packaging ideas for your audience

Jon is the first to acknowledge that almost no speaker or thought leader is delivering truly brand-new, never-heard-before ideas. But what separates bad from good and good from great is the way those ideas are interpreted, packaged, and presented in an unforgettable way.

One example of this is Jon’s concept of “soundtracks,” or the messages that live inside our heads on a daily basis. By taking the idea of internal monologue and presenting it in an instantly memorable way, Jon has created a keynote message (and book) that resonates with audiences everywhere.

[15:41] - Be Funny by Being You

Ill-fitting humor is like an ill-fitting suit

Jon emphasizes the importance of humor, while also emphasizing the risks of using humor that doesn’t match your personal style. He likens it to “wearing your dad's coat at the eighth grade dance.”

He goes on: “It doesn't fit you. It doesn't create the moment you want. If you're slapstick at a dinner party, be slapstick on stage. If you're dry at a dinner party, be dry on stage. Be your version of funny. Don't be somebody else's version of funny, because it won't work. You won't enjoy it."

[26:30] - Rewriting Your Soundtrack

How changing what you tell yourself can change your life

Use Jon’s three-part question to see whether you have a broken soundtrack or repetitive thought. First: Is it true? Second: is it helpful? Third: Is it kind?

If the answer to any of those questions is “no,” you’re suffering from a broken soundtrack that’s going to keep you from achieving both happiness and greatness.

As a speaker, the first person you have to inspire is yourself.

[34:39] - To Monetization and Beyond

Turning ideas and expertise into content and income

If 2020 taught the speaking industry anything, it was that even if your business model starts on the stage, it can’t end there. Jon has found myriad ways to expand his message and monetization — from treating writing books as a craft to trying out new media like podcasts, YouTube, and online challenges. He’s still a speaker at heart, but he’s also much more — and that means diverse audiences and income.

RESOURCES:

[1:20] Jon’s Books

Follow Jon Acuff:

Follow Josh Linkner:

ABOUT MIC DROP:

Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

Episode Transcription

Jon Acuff:

Be your version of funny. Don't be somebody else's version. So what happens is speakers read a book about public speaking and they go, "I got to tell a joke." And they tell a joke that isn't their joke. And it just feels like you're wearing your dad's coat at the eighth grade dance. It doesn't fit you. It doesn't create the moment you want.

Josh Linkner:

Hey Mic Drop enthusiasts, Josh Linkner here. Delighted to be bringing you season two of Mic Drop. I love our conversations with speakers and industry leaders alike, so we can unpack the industry and we can all perform better. Let's get after it and get better together.

Maria Cairo:

Mic Drop is brought to you by ImpactEleven, the most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers to get on bigger stages at higher fees with greater impact, faster. They're not just elevating an industry that we all know and love. They work with thousands of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses, accelerating time to success, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impactE-L-E-V-E-N.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

Today's conversation may be my all-time favorite episode of Mic Drop. Hysterically funny, powerful insights and a pension for queso, Jon Acuff is one of a kind. Jon is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books and one of the most successful thought leaders on the circuit, which is why Ink Magazine named him one of the top 100 leadership speakers in the world. He's also a darn good comedian, recently fulfilling a dream by opening up for Dolly Parton at Ryman Auditorium. For over 20 years, he's helped some of the biggest brands tell their story, including the Home Depot, Bose, and Staples. His fresh perspective on life has given him the opportunity to write for Reader's Digest, Fast Company, The Harvard Business Review and Time Magazine.

In today's conversation, Jon shares many terrific insights, including how to rewrite the broken soundtracks that may be holding us back, how to develop your own authentic use of humor to boost impact from the stage, the approach he took to bounce back when things got really tough for speakers during COVID, how to package ideas so they really land and ways to monetize content and expertise beyond the platform. This is an episode I plan to listen to at least a dozen times. So let's sit down to learn, laugh, and celebrate life with one of my favorite humans.

Jon Acuff, welcome to Mic Drop.

Jon Acuff:

Thanks for having me. It's great to see you again, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

So we've got to know each other over the last several years. At first I read your book and I have to admit, I had an author crush on you. The books were so good and really funny. But maybe just give us a little background on how you first started to become an author and then ultimately, how you became a speaker.

Jon Acuff:

So I was in corporate marketing for about 12, 13 years with big brands like Bose, and Staples, and Home Depot and I started to blog in my free time. And all of a sudden I realized the gatekeepers are gone. If I want to share an idea with a large audience, there's access. In the '40s, I would've had to own my own radio station. And then all of a sudden I had access to people. So I started to write ideas and share them publicly. And then that turned into my first speaking events. A client said, "Hey, we read your blog. Would you ever come talk about it?" And I was like, "I would love to do that." And then that started to slowly turn into a book, and then to a second book, and then to five events a year, and then 10 events a year, and then 30 events. And then it grew from there.

But it really started from the joy of sharing ideas with audiences and then discovering there's so many fun platforms to do that. One of them is on stage and that's my favorite thing to do. I spend my entire year working to get on 50 stages a year. And so it's my favorite thing that I get to do. And so that's why our overlap was so fun, because you're such an expert at it. You've got such a heart for helping other people do it. So I got to come to one of your events in Detroit and that was really where it cemented our friendship and this sense of we're peers in the same weird, fun industry.

Josh Linkner:

I love how you talk about it with such joy. Why do you love being on stage so much? What is it about that medium, that act, that fills you with so much joy?

Jon Acuff:

Dude, it's the best. I think it is the best. I mean, the hardest part of my job is getting off the stage. I could stay for hours. That's one of the things I tell speakers, is respect the time that time. That time isn't casual. That event planner has that time. Don't show up and go, "Oh, I'm sorry I was 12 minutes over." No, you just wrecked the CEO's talk, which is four hours later, because it's all going to cascade. But for me, you get to really encourage people. You get to really serve people. Speaking changed for me when it turned from an act of performance to an act of service.

And my business did so much better when I was able to see, no, I'm there an hour. The event planner, who often works at the company, is there all year, how do I make her look like a rockstar? How do I make him look like a rockstar? How do I serve the people in the audience? And so it's this great chance to serve people. It's challenging work. It's tightrope work. It's not everybody can do it. It's a skill that you have to practice largely live. You can do all you want in this room, but you still have to work out some stuff with a live audience. And so it's, I've heard this phrase before, the right kind of difficult. For me, it's the right kind of difficult. It gives me a great challenge, a great payoff in that there's engagement.

And I love, Josh, you and I get to sit in 50 to a hundred of the best classrooms in the world every year. And if we pay attention, we get to learn. So I get to sit with FedEx and go, "Oh, here's what they're... Oh, wow, like..." Case in point. I spoke to the top 1,000 Ace Hardwares a month ago. And the CEO shared the stats about how much they earn if they ask the right question of a customer. An assisted customer spends more money. It blew my mind. And now, when I talk to the next team and go, "Hey, here's what Ace Hardware learned by asking the right question. What does it look like for us to ask the right question?" And so I'm getting to learn constantly. It checks every box, dude.

Josh Linkner:

It's so, so good. Another thing that's the right kind of hard, I think anyway, and I really admire about you and I was hoping you could shed some light on, is packaging an idea in a way that people can understand and that it sticks? People have been talking about, for example, your most recent book, Soundtracks, which I love by the way. I bought a bunch of copies, share with everybody. But that's not necessarily a new concept, the idea of inner chatter, the monologue that we say to ourselves.

But you package it in such a thoughtful way that I think where maybe before it was diffused idea and didn't really land, yours really landed as evidenced by the wild breakaway success of that book. When you think about either your previous work or your upcoming work, how do you think about packaging a complex idea in a way that people can understand?

Jon Acuff:

Well, I want it to be repeatable. I know the ideas work. Soundtracks, I can tell, has worked because the day after I speak somewhere, they'll say, "We were in a sales meeting and somebody said, 'Hey, I think that might be a broken soundtrack. We need to change.'" And so you can pick it up instantly. So I look at things like the speed of pickup, how much time it takes to understand. Can you instantly get it? The other thing is with my background, I received the benefit of being taught how to write headlines at Home Depot, and Bose, and Staples. So Home Depot would say to me, "Hey, we need 20 amazing headlines for this rug in the next hour." And then I had to crash learn about how do you communicate a rug in a way that somebody at home can understand? And so I really benefited from that.

I mean, at Staples, I remember we had a campaign where I had to write fortune cookies related to our office products. So I had to say, "Okay, the running tiger is fast, but not as fast as overnight delivery." I had to find a clever way on a small little thing. So for me, I consider packaging... Part of my job is I'm a handle maker. I put a handle on an idea so you can take it with you and you can carry it with you. And so we have enough ideas in the world. You're right, the book Soundtracks is about mindset. My new book, All It Takes Is a Goal is about goal setting. So I always joke, it's depressing to me now because I'm on PR lists, and I'm sure you're on the same PR list with your podcast and your platform, people go, "Hey, here's a new book from so-and-so."

And you'll read and go, "Oh, this is the 10th of that book I got this week." So we have enough ideas. I just don't think we have enough ways to bring them into our life and actually use them. So that's how I think about packaging, is how can I put the simplest, stickiest handle on this so that people can get it immediately and can actually use it?

Josh Linkner:

That is such beautiful wisdom, because I think we meet a lot of people that are experts. They have a deep body of work, which is awesome. Of course, not criticizing expertise. And they think that their expertise is enough. And then they wonder why they're not getting booked more as keynote speakers. And expertise is crucial, yes. And, not or, you have to be able to package it in a way that people can, as you said, grab onto that handle and go. And I think that's where many speakers fall short. They minimize the importance of packaging and making it, as you mentioned, quickly accessible and sticky.

Jon Acuff:

You have to do the work, not the audience. It's not the audience's job to interpret what you share and go, "Here's how it applies to me." That's your job. Okay, so this week, Sunday I spoke at Chick-fil-A. Tuesday I spoke at an alarm industry expo. Yesterday I spoke to a farming organization. I had to figure out, how do my ideas apply to those people versus going, "Hey, here's my expertise, here's my ideas, you figure it out"? So you see the same thing. There's people that'll write books and they're disconnected ideas. And essentially, they're saying to the audience, "Hey, reader, you figure out how these are related." That doesn't help the end user, and I think your message stays smaller. So a big part of it is if you had a PhD, if you're an expert in something, it's going, "Okay, how do I make this relatable?"

The expertise is amazing. What a foundation. I love that. But then you have to take that next step, like you said, of going, "How does this serve somebody in this audience?" In my experience, audiences can tell immediately if you have one talk that you give the same way every time, regardless of who's sitting there. They can feel that in a second. If you show up and whether you're a mom blogger, or a farming organization, or accountants, this is what I'm saying, they turn off in the first 60 seconds. But if they can tell you did the work... Josh, one of my favorite things, I love hyper-specific jokes. So I spoke to 3,000 optometrists about a month ago, 'cause an optometrist, part of the challenge is a lot of industries, they're taught the science but not how to run a business.

So at optometry school, they go, "Hey, by the way, happy graduation. You're now a CEO." And they're like, "What was that last thing you said? I didn't..." And so I said, "Your job would be so easy if all you had to deal with was an eyeball. But unfortunately, they're attached to humans. It'd be amazing. Your job would be amazing if eyes just rolled into your building and you just had to deal with them." And that joke killed in that space. It would be terrible in any other space, but it was specific to them. They immediately said, "Oh, that's our world. He's right. I've often said, 'Man, it's hard. I wish I could just do the part of this I love, which is the eyeball, but unfortunately...'"

And so that's one of the ways that I try to say, "Okay, how do I translate what I know into recognizing their unique challenges and customize it so that they feel seen and I get to serve them?"

Josh Linkner:

Well, your spirit of generosity in giving, your packaging abilities, your customization, but also you mentioned humor and I wanted to dig in on that. One of the things that I loved about, and I still love about your work is you're really funny. I know you've done standup and you talk about that a lot in your book. And I know you can't have a conversation without the word queso in it, which is also crucially important. But how do you think about humor? And how do you use humor? Why do you use humor? And how have you used it to differentiate yourself versus other thought leaders out on other stages?

Jon Acuff:

So I use it to amplify ideas. That's one of the ways. I use it to exaggerate a point so that it's big enough that everybody can see it. So I'll say an idea like, "The reason you have a hard time with your goals is you're the most persuasive person you've ever met." And that's a fun way... They're like, "Oh, you're right. Every bad decision I've ever made, I told myself it was a good decision." And so then that's an idea, and then I'll amplify it so it's easy to see. And I'll say, for instance, "Have you ever eaten a whole bag of something and then looked down and realized the outside of it said share size, and you were like, 'Ooh, hoo,' or like, 'Party size?' And you're like, 'Party of one.'" And everybody can relate to that.

Or I'll say, "Have you ever stayed up later than you wanted to because you promised yourself you're just watching one more YouTube video?" And then I'll say, "A couple of nights ago, I stayed up till 1:00 AM watching videos about Singapore's top stingray breeder. And I'm not even in the market for a manta ray." And that was a real thing I did. So I use it to amplify a point. I use it to flip things around and say, "Well, look at it from this angle. Let's exaggerate. Let's have fun with it from this angle." So here's another example. One of the things I've been saying is, "Every company I talk to right now is saying it's impossible to hire." And I keep hearing that. And it's true.

And what I'll do is I'll go, "Hey, just between you and I, have you had that sense yet of where is everybody, 'cause I know they didn't leave. Every restaurant I go into has a sign that says, 'Please don't punch the staff who showed up in the face. We're so glad they're here.'" And I go, "Where is everybody? I feel like there's this unemployed Coachella somewhere, where 40 million people are dancing in a field and not working. And I just want to say, 'Please come back.'" And the last one I'll say is, "Has anybody checked Kansas? Is it possible that right now Kansas is standing room only, because they're all there?"

And so it's a ridiculous way to make a true point, which is, it is hard. We've all gone to a business in the last three years and gone, "Only half of this thing is open. The other half of this restaurant is dark," or, "This is going to take nine hours. It should take 10 minutes, 'cause it's not staffed." And so I'll use humor to exaggerate a point, to amplify a point, and also to deliver something that they maybe wouldn't want to hear if it didn't have humor.

Chris Rock, one of his statements is, "There's some things people won't listen to unless they're laughing at the same time." And so I use it. If I have a hard thing to push at, I'll use some humor to make it a little easier so that people can go, "Oh, yeah, you're right. That's true. I do that too. Or that's something I've thought about too." So I use it as a tool. And I love it. And I study comedians.

I mean, I think you could study Nate Bargatze's recent special and just see the timing. And great comedians are social commentators. And I think great speakers are too. Great speakers come in and go, "Hey, here's a thing that I've learned that'll help your company. Or here's an issue your company is having and I want to help you fix it." And that's social commentary. And so I love watching comedians that are great at that, because then I get to learn and then I get to grow.

Josh Linkner:

Some people, I think, are naturally talented at certain things. I play music pretty well. I don't think I'm naturally that funny. My wife, Tia, certainly thinks I'm the least funny person on the planet. I think you're especially funny. You have a natural gift. But I also know, in addition to your natural talent, that you've studied. You worked on it. You've developed it as an intentional skillset. So in addition to watching the greats, as you mentioned, and by the way, awesome, yes, do that. Are there any other practical things that people can do if they want to build their humor muscle, they want to get essentially more funny, not just to hit it off at cocktail parties, but to make a bigger impact on stage?

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, easy. Number one, be your version of funny. Don't be somebody else's version. So what happens is speakers read a book about public speaking and they go, "I got to tell a joke." And they tell a joke that isn't their joke. And it just feels like you're wearing your dad's coat at the eighth grade dance. It doesn't fit you. It doesn't create the moment you want. So I always tell people, "If you're slapstick at a dinner party, be slapstick on stage. If you're dry at a dinner party, be dry on stage. Be your version of funny. Don't be somebody else's version of funny, 'cause it won't work. You won't enjoy it." That's the first thing.

Second thing is pay attention. The difference for me between talent and craft is in the moment, on stage, you'll often have a moment you weren't expecting. I like to structure my speeches so there's unique time for new moments to happen, and they're so not structured that you go, "It felt like I was reading a script." So what's going to happen is you're going to say some joke that you weren't thinking of. Did anybody check Kansas happened one time at an event. I had other jokes written and I added that and it killed. Maybe that's talent. But craft is going, "Oh, that worked. Let me hone that. Let me write that." So pay attention. Pay attention to the things you're saying. Pay attention to the things you say that make friends laugh.

And then take notes. I think great speakers are great note takers. I think they treasure ideas. I think they value ideas. I think when they hear a story from somebody, they say, "Oh, that was interesting." The Ace Hardware thing, I heard that. And then I figured out a way to add humor to that. And then the last thing I'd say is write lots. Write lots and lots of content. So there's a lot of my stuff that I'll write and then I'll go, "It didn't work. It didn't have the response I thought it'd have. I'm going to tweak that."

And then test material. Use material in events and go, "Okay, this worked really well. I'm going to hone that. This didn't work as well as I thought it did. Is it only funny to me?" Some things are only funny to you and that's fine. That's fine, but that's not a joke for the stage, 'cause you're not supposed to only tell things that are funny to you on stage. You're supposed to eliminate those as fast as you can. But those are some practical things I think about with humor.

Maria Cairo:

Becoming a keynote speaker is an amazing profession. The top performers earn millions while driving massive impact for audiences around the world. But the quest to speaking glory can be a slow route with many obstacles that can knock even the best speakers out of the game. If you're serious about growing your speaking business, the seasoned pros at ImpactEleven can help from crafting your ideal positioning, to optimizing your marketing effectiveness, to perfecting your expertise and stage skills. As the only speaker training and development community run by current high-level speakers at the top of the field, they'll boost your probability of success and help you get there faster. That's why nearly every major speaker bureau endorses and actively participates in ImpactEleven.

The ImpactEleven community provides you unparalleled access to the people, relationships, coaching, and accountability that compresses your time to success. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impactE-L-E-V-E-N.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

So good. And you mentioned the intersection between talent and craft. And to me, the more you develop your craft, the better the talent gets. I mean, they have a mutual cycle.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, they're mutual. It's a cycle. You're a hundred percent right.

Josh Linkner:

I think you've written eight books, is that right?

Jon Acuff:

Yep. Well, the one that comes out in the fall, It Takes a Goal, is number nine. That's the other thing, is you talk about craft. I've worked really hard at the craft of writing. The problem is people treat a book like it's this magical thing. And they add all this pressure. I always tell people, "Don't add extra pressure to something that's already pressurized." So when somebody tells me, "Jon, I want to write a book," and I'll go, "Why?" And they'll go, "I just want to prove to my father that my career choices were correct." I'm like, "Ooh, hoo, hoo, no wonder you're having such a hard time. That's a lot of pressure on a book. Take some of the pressure off."

And so I really look at writing as a craft and go, "I can get better at this craft. How do I figure out systems? How do I track hours? All this stuff." So this is actually my ninth book. I need to get better at saying that.

Josh Linkner:

It's amazing. Well, I've read three of them. I've got some work still to do. And I wanted to play a fun little game. And by the way, I'm not just saying this because you're here, you really are one of my favorite authors. I think you do a beautiful job. You're very thoughtful with words. You're able to take complex points and make them simple. So again, it is well-deserved feedback.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, thank you.

Josh Linkner:

I've read three books and I want to play a little fun game. Well, the ones I read were Start, Finish and Soundtracks. And I wanted to take those one at a time and say, what's not just the essence of the book, but what can keynote speakers learn from the core message of that book? What can keynote speakers first learn from Start? And then we'll go through the other ones. So let's start with Start. What can keynote speakers learn from that beautiful book?

Jon Acuff:

So what's fun about that book is the subtitle overwhelmed the title. The subtitle on one of them, is Punch Fear in the Face. And so people will come up to me and go, "I love your book, Punch Fear in the Face." Sometimes that happens. The subtitle becomes the handle. And so that one's really about saying, "Okay, I've got a lot of fear. What do I want to do with it? How do I move beyond it so that I can actually start?" Here's a great example. Yesterday, this is yesterday, I'm in Minneapolis. I'm getting into the car to go to the airport. And a man that saw me speak runs down and goes, "Hey, real quick, how do you do what you do? I want to do what you do." And he said, "But don't you have to have a dramatic, amazing story where you overcame some incredible challenge?"

And I said, "That can be a path. It can be that you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair. You can have the dramatic, like you did something. But that's not my story." I said, "You just saw me speak. I didn't share that I had overcome some... That's something. Elizabeth Smart, she's been booked a million times. She got kidnapped. My story isn't that I was kidnapped by a drifter. We don't have the same story." So the thing with Start is to say, "Okay, what are the fears that are getting in the way?" And maybe one of them is, I don't have enough life experience, or I'm not amazing, or it's not dramatic enough. So I'd say, "Let's push that to the side. You're good at something. You have an ability that you can hone, that you can build on."

If I compared myself to NFL players that are out on the speaking circuit, I would suck. If I said, "Oh, I haven't won any Super Bowls," dude, that's not happening. That ship has sailed. There's no world where the next time I'm on your podcast, I go, "Josh, I actually did make an NFL team. They were like, 'We need a 5' 7", 153 pound guy and you fit the bill.'" Dude, that's not happening. So Start, I'd say, is about saying, "What are the fears that are in my way and how do I move beyond them?" That's the first one.

Josh Linkner:

All right. Well, the inverse or the counterbalance, of course, is your next book Finish, which I loved. How can we keynote speakers benefit from the core message of that book?

Jon Acuff:

So a big part of the core message of Finish is about perfectionism and not letting perfectionism get in your way. And that's the challenge for me with speaking, is that you can plan every detail, but something that you talk about a lot that I love, Josh, is the show must go on. You've had events where you lined up everything perfectly and you got there and the slides weren't there. Or you got there, the mic went down. I had a fire drill in the middle of an event. We had to get cleared out for 30 minutes. I had to come back in and re-kill. And so you can't go into speaking with this idea of it's going to be perfect. There's a way I can do it where it's always perfect. And there's no delayed flights. And there's no frustration.

You're a jazz musician. You have to have the ability to adapt. You have to have the ability to go where the moment takes you, to be flexible. So I think a big part of speaking is a willingness to be really prepared and then really flexible. And those are two different things, sometimes, a hold in your hands, but it's possible and it's really important. That's what I think you could take from Finish as a speaker.

Josh Linkner:

Before we move on to the next book, one of the things that I loved about that book, in addition to what you mentioned, is the notion when you see Finish, the first thing you think about is hustle it out, persistence, tenacity. And you're not saying that at all. I mean, I remember you saying, "Set smaller goals and achieve them." And so what is misunderstood about this notion of you just got to gut it out and finish? There's other ways to go about finishing, isn't there?

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, well, I like sustainable wins. The challenge is the things that are online right now, the motivational content online, a lot of it is you got to get up at 2:00 AM. You got to take a cold plunge. You got to yell at yourself while you run 42 miles. No pain, no gain. If your dream doesn't scare you, it's not big enough. And I always end up dealing with people who tried the massive thing and it didn't work, because it was divorced from reality. So they planned a goal that would take 40 hours a week of free time. And they had one hour available. They just never looked and said, "I'm going to try to fit this 40-hour new goal into my schedule that currently has one hour."

I see moms all the time that I talk to about that. They'll say, "My goals aren't working." I'll say, "Well, tell me about your family." They'll say, "I have two twins that are three. And I have a five-year-old and a seven-year-old." And I'll go, "You are very busy right now. Stop beating yourself up and holding yourself to what..." What often happens is you'll see a 24-year-old influencer who doesn't have a family, is not married, and doesn't have a mortgage, or whatever, and is like, "You got to work 80 hours a week." If I did that, a lot of the rest of my life would fall apart. So I have to figure out what's my scorecard? What's the pace I can go at that's sustainable?

The way I think about it is this, Josh, I love running. Running's one of my passions. I could probably run 20, 30, 40, 50 miles a week right now, but then by the time I'm 60, my knees wouldn't be in the same place they are and I'd lose the sport altogether. Or I could say, "I'm going to run 10, 12 miles a week and love it. And I'm going to do that till I'm 85, till I'm 95." I want long speaking careers for your listeners. I don't want them to go, "I did 200 events this year and I burned out and then I never did it again." I want them to build and give themself a chance to build momentum, and systems, and structure and all the things that keep you really...

Speaking can be a really addictive career if you're not careful. It can be really, really addictive in some unhealthy way. So I'm always going, "Okay, what's the dad dial look like? What's the husband dial look like? What's the speaker dial look like?" So that I have sustainable long-term success, not I kill myself and burn myself out in a year and then I don't do it again.

Josh Linkner:

Perfectly said, which leads us to the last book that I read. I'm excited to read your new book coming out, I think, in October. But the book Soundtracks was terrific.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, thank you.

Josh Linkner:

I love the humor. I love the storytelling. What can we speaker folk learn from Soundtracks?

Jon Acuff:

So the thing that I'd say that I think is most applicable to speakers, there's a three-part question I ask of broken soundtracks. And soundtracks is just a repetitive thought. The first question is, is it true? Is the story I'm telling myself about myself true? Is the story I'm telling myself about my speaking career true? About the progress I want is true? Second question is, is it helpful? When I say this again and again and again, does it push me forward or does it pull me back? And the third question is, is it kind? Am I being kind to my myself right now? Now, those three questions, if you can't answer yes to all of them, you might need to retire them.

So let's take expectations. Maybe you thought, "By now, I'd be in a different place speaking. By now, I thought my fee would be here. I'd have more events. I'd do all this stuff." And you go, "Well, is it true that's reasonable? Is it true?" If you look at other speakers, was that their career? And for me, I'll tell people all the time, I remember flying from Atlanta to San Diego to speak twice, and I got paid $800 and no travel expenses. And I was like, "I am killing it, dude. 800 whole dollars from me." But that was the stage I was in. But what happens is you see somebody 10 years later and you go, "Man, that's their third event this week. They must have always done three events a week."

And I try my best to go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no." There were gigs I did for free. There's tons of those. There's all these moments like that. So I think that idea of is it true that you should be further right now, you might go, "Well, maybe I'm being unreasonable." Is it helpful for you to tell yourself again and again you're failing because not as far as you want? Of course not. That doesn't excite you. And if a friend said that, that wouldn't be a kind friend. So if you wouldn't let a friend talk to you that way, don't let you talk to you that way. Give it some time. Give it some pace.

And that's what I liked about your event that I went to in Detroit is there were people at different levels encouraging each other in different ways. 'Cause again, that's the other thing about public speaking. It's an isolating industry if you're not careful. So your events create the rarest thing in the speaking world, which is community. You and I could be at the same event and never see each other. I am in and out. I'm doing my thing. I'm back in my room. The green room hangout is a myth. And so you need community to have other people go, "I remember that," or, "Here's what I did," or, "Here's how I learned."

So I think that's the other thing is you've got to be deliberate as a speaker with building, and leaning, and community, because then you'll learn true soundtracks from other speakers who have been where you are or are where you want to be.

Josh Linkner:

Exactly right. So you shared with us what a broken soundtrack would've been. Can you flip it for us so we can see how a repaired soundtrack or a rewritten soundtrack may sound better?

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, sure. So here's an example of a broken one, "That'll never work for me." So let's say you read a book about speaking. You hear this podcast and you go, "Well, that'll never work for me. I'm not funny." And you go, "That'll never work." What if you just switched that to, "I wonder how that could work for me. I wonder how I could adapt that me"? I wonder, they're mostly the same words, just a completely different result. That'll never work for me shuts down any learning, any innovation, any growth. I wonder how that could work. It doesn't say it's going to automatically work. I'm not Pollyanna, where I'm like, "You turn a frown upside down and the whole world..." No.

When people say the universe is for you, no, it's not. The universe is busy jamming boats in the Suez Canal. The universe has very little attention left over for Jon Acuff. So I'm not saying, "Oh, everything will always turn out." But I think if you say, "I wonder how that could work for me." I heard this episode where Josh talked about this. And maybe it's not a hundred percent for me, but I wonder, is it 20% for me? Peter said this. Okay, I wonder how that could apply to me." So just leaning into that.

And then another one that I love that's related to that is curiosity kills criticism. So the idea of, again, somebody shares something, you go, "Okay, before I shut it down..." And my team, I have a small team that helps me run the business. We implemented that in a practical way that I learned from Marshall Goldsmith. If I shut down an idea without listening to it and investigating it when they bring it up, I pay the person $10. So we have a $10 counter. So if in a meeting they go, "Hey, we're thinking about launching this thing," I go, "That'll never work," they go, "I think you owe me $10." I go, "Ah, you got me."

'Cause out of fear, out of insecurity, out of tiredness, out of frustration, whatever, I've overreacted. So all right, curiosity beats criticism, curiosity kills criticism. How do I be curious? That's a soundtrack I use all the time.

Josh Linkner:

Before we jump away from Soundtracks, I could chat with you about it all day, are there any other personal soundtracks that you tell yourself, the ones that you've engineered, the ones that you want to listen to that are on your playlist that you'd be willing to share with us?

Jon Acuff:

A hundred percent. One is, I'll pull it off my wall. This says, "I love writing this book." This is a note I wrote myself on November 10th, 2019. So almost four years ago I said, "I love writing this book," because in the middle of a challenging project, like a book, I'll sometimes forget that. I'll forget that this is a real joy. This is a real honor that I get to do this. And writers are dramatic. So they'll say things like, "Got to go to the coal mine. If you want to write a book, just open a vein and bleed." Oh, come on, dude. It's a joy. So I'll forget that. So that's a soundtrack for me.

Another one is ask for more. I found myself undervaluing what I was doing in situations. So I needed a simple reminder. No, ask for more. Again, that's not super creative. That's not hooky. Another one that I say is that fear gets a voice, not a vote. So I'm not one of these people that's like, "Be fearless." I think that's garbage advice, because anytime you do something new at a new level, there's some degree of fear. And there should be. Fear is a helpful emotion. The first time I spoke to 10 people, I was afraid of the 10 people room. But I got over it. And then I did a hundred people, a thousand people, 10,000 people. At each new level there was new fear, but I worked through it. So fear has a voice. I'm going to learn from it. You don't get to be self-aware as a human if you try to shut down fear.

And the frustrating thing is you don't get to eliminate certain emotions and enjoy others. They're a package deal. If you shut out fear, you accidentally shut out joy, too. You accidentally shut out hope, too. And you think you can pick and choose. And that's not how the human heart works. And so for me, I go, "Fear gets a voice. I'm going to listen. I'm going to learn quickly, but it doesn't get a vote. It doesn't get to sit at the table and bang a gavel and go, 'Jon, you can't do that.'" And then the other one would be I've done this before. A lot of situations, when you're afraid, you forget all the good stuff you've done. In that moment, you go, "I've never done something this." So I like, "I've done this before. That's right. I've done this before."

And I think friends are helpful with that too. I call friends archives, 'cause they archive your good moments and will remind you when you've forgotten them. So a good friend will go, "Wait a second, Josh, I know you might be nervous about launching this, but, dude, you've sold companies. Did you forget? You're Josh Linkner. You've done stuff." You go, "I forgot. In the moment, I was stressful. I forgot." So those are some that I use in my own life.

Josh Linkner:

So good, and I think so relevant for us all. Thank you for sharing those with us.

Jon Acuff:

Of course.

Josh Linkner:

Where I want to shift next is, it sounds actually very tactical, but I think there's some real substance behind it. In addition to being on stages, which you're crushing and writing books, I know you have a subscription-type model. I get texts from you all the time. I look down and it says, "Text from Jon Acuff." And I just imagine you hand typing each of those words to me. So that's very cool that you do that. But kidding aside, you have a thriving business that probably starts on the stage but continues off the stage. Could you just walk us through a little bit about that model, how it's unfolded and what some of us who are trying to monetize our expertise in other ways might learn from it?

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, so I always think about entrepreneurship having multiple faucets on at the same time, 'cause some are going to get shut off outside of your control and you're going to be glad you've got some others going. That doesn't mean you have a hundred. You still have to be focused. You stay in your lane, so to speak. But a great example would be 2020, where 2020 in January, I opened for Dolly Parton at the Ryman Auditorium, which is the greatest sentence I'll ever be able to say. I have a picture of me and Dolly up on my wall right now just in case anybody comes over my house. I'm like, "Oh, is this in my pocket? I didn't even know. What? That's crazy."

And I remember driving home from that event being like, "This is going to be the greatest speaking year ever," 'cause I had more gigs than I've ever had booked. It was going to be the best year. And then it was in March, the narrator was like, "No, it wasn't." And so in that moment, I had two options. I could pine or I could plan. I could pine for the way I wanted things to be or I could actually plan. And it took me six weeks to get the plan. It'd be so false if I was like, "So then I turned a frown upside down and I took an emotional vitamin." No, dude, I was grumpy. I was frustrated. But that's where I started to go, "Okay, how do I make sure that if this happens again, I have other things going on that can sustain that?" So I said, "Okay, I want to lean into my writing career."

My wife said something great to me. She said, "If you write a book every three to four years, you get to write maybe five more books." And I was like, "Wait, what?" 'Cause I'm in my late 40s and she's like, "Hey, just mathematically." And I was like, "Oh, I need to treat this like a craft. I need to treat this like a skill and really..." So I started to be more deliberate about my writing. I started a podcast to test that. I tested YouTube. I started doing online challenges. So I really started to be deliberate about other faucets so that I could supplement speaking when speaking paused for a minute. And that's the same thing. I think what's interesting about the speaking industry to me, Josh, is I think it's one of the few things that are AI proof. I used to look at jobs and go, "Is this recession proof?" And now it's, "Is this AI proof?"

I don't think AI will replace a live human at a live event doing something live and magical. I think it'll replace some of my copywriting stuff, some of the stuff I did at other jobs. But I really don't think it's going to be a hologram that's programmed. I don't think we're going to stop doing what the Greeks used to teach math a thousand years ago. I don't think that all of a sudden we're going to be like, "No, people don't like oration." No, that's going to keep going. So I recognize that. But then I also started to say, "What are some other revenues of income that I want to make sure that are there so that they're consistent?"

But I stopped doing YouTube. YouTube for me was not worth it. I did the math. I tried it. I did an experiment. I think everyone listening to this that wants to be a speaker should get comfortable with doing experiments, where you go, "Okay, I'm going to try this thing. I'm going to give it a period of time. I'm going to go all in, whatever. And then I'm going to be willing to say, 'It's not for me.'" YouTube wasn't for me. It had three things that are bad for me. One, it didn't make a lot of money. Two, I hated doing it. And three, I was bad at it. That's the Venn diagram of stop that thing. That just is. And there's some things I'm bad at, but I love it, so I'll get better. But it's a double whammy if I'm bad at it and I hate it.

And for me, that Venn diagram, so as a business owner, I'm always going, "Wait, why are we doing that?" And I mean, talking about this to you is ridiculous, because it's like a kindergartner telling Michael Jordan how to dunk, like what you've done in your business career. But those are the little things on my end that have been helpful.

Josh Linkner:

So good, so good. Well, as we wrap up our conversation, and I wish we could chat all day and look forward to the next time we're in the same city and same room, but just anchoring back to Soundtracks, and I know a lot of your work is helping people see things differently, maybe overcome a false narrative and discover a new one, if you could give a gift really to the speaker community, what soundtrack would you like them to embrace? I know they're deeply personal and everyone's different. But just is there a general notion that you think that emerging thought leaders and people that want to be the next Jon Acuff might consider for themselves?

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, your story is worth it. You don't have to go become somebody else to become a speaker. You just have to be more you. And you have to figure out the parts of you that can serve an audience. So it's not I don't have a story, I don't have a good enough story, I haven't done something dramatic enough. What do I know? Who am I? These are all broken soundtracks that come up when you think about being a speaker, in my experience. So I would just say, your story's worth it. And there's more stages than you could possibly imagine. And there's more spots for your story. Now, it obviously takes work, but for me, when you fall in love with it, I always think, you know you found something you enjoy when you're willing to put up with a lot of things that suck.

I don't know any speaker that's like, "I love a delayed flight. It's the best when I have to sleep in Milwaukee at the LaQuinta, 'cause there's the only one." Nobody is masochistic like that. That'd be ridiculous. Tuesday of this week, no, it was Monday, so I spoke on Sunday in Denver, flew back to Nashville with my family. At the airport I changed out luggage and I had to go get a car, rent a car. I'd rented it months ago. I went to Hertz. Hertz was out of cars. No cars. And so there's 200 people in line. Everybody's frustrated. I have to drive to Louisville. It's rush hour. I'm stressed. Everybody's sweaty and upset. And they go, "Hey, the only car we have is a Tesla. Do you know how to drive one?"

I was like, "Oh, of course." I've never driven a Tesla. You could have given me a seahorse in that moment. I would've understood the seahorse just as easily. But I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got somewhere to be. I don't miss events. Let's go." Dude, I had to Google, how do you turn a Tesla on? How do you turn a Tesla off? I was an idiot in that car. But I was willing. If they had said, "All we have left is this donkey, will you ride this donkey to Louisville?" I'll be like, "Do I get to speak at the end of this trip? Let's go." So I think once you fall in love with speaking, the work it takes, the frustration it can sometimes take, the challenges it takes, you'll start to see them in a different light and you'll go, "Nah, it's worth it."

If you think about it, if it takes you 36 hours of travel and all this stuff for a 45-minute keynote, most people go, "Man, you traded 36 hours for 45 minutes?" And I'm like, "I'll do it again. I'll do it 50 times a year. I'll do it a hundred times a year. Let's go." And so for me, I think once a speaker falls in love with it that way, the work, it's not that it becomes easy, but it definitely becomes something that you're like, "Let's go. I'm willing to do that."

Josh Linkner:

From seahorses to queso, a wonderful conversation. And I just want to thank you. I mean, you looking across all these different dimensions from writing skills, from the use of words, from comedy, from commitment to the craft, from helping people become the best versions of themselves, from experimenting and optimizing revenue, and from doing whatever it takes, including riding a donkey to get your next gig, I think you've shown us today, Jon, exactly what it means to be a pro. Thank you, my friend, and wishing you continued success.

Jon Acuff:

Thanks for having me, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

Okay, was that the best conversation or what? So many takeaways, but a few that really hit home for me. Number one, I love the notion of the right kind of difficult. This is exactly what the speaking business is all about, constantly learning, growing, adapting, creating, and sharing. The way Jon framed it will definitely help me get through my next inevitable rough patch. Number two, your story is worth it. Beautiful words and a great reminder for us all. Your story is worth it. Number three, the three questions that Jon shared for us to interrogate our own inner soundtracks are just brilliant. Number one, is it true? Number two, is it helpful? And number three, is it kind? If the answer to any of these questions is no, time to rewrite the soundtrack.

And finally, number four, Jon's true love of the craft is contagious. I was inspired by his joy, making me willing to do whatever it takes, including riding a donkey to get to my next gig. We heard loud and clear that our job as a professional keynote speaker isn't only about stage skills. We need to package our content so it lands. We need to find authentic ways to connect. And we need to bring curiosity and enthusiasm to the world. Nobody does these three things better than my friend, Jon Acuff. Jon, I'm excited to continue to follow your work. Excited to grab our next queso-inspired meal and excited to continue to watch you crush it as one of the best of the best in our field.

Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five-star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening. And here's to your next mic drop moment.