Ep. 38 Steven J. Manning

On this episode I am joined by Steven J Manning. He is a self-described shameless researcher who has really made it a passion in his life to make human connections with the people around him. That may mean building a friendship with the person who shines his shoes, or it could be hoping on a red eye to a completely different destination just to finish a conversation with someone he would have never had the opportunity to meet in the first place.

We talk about his book Pimps Whores and Patrons of Virtue: A kaleidoscope of poignant and entertaining satires, anecdotes, essays and ideologies about the human condition and spirit. His book includes 30+ stories that will make you both laugh and cry.

He is also an internationally known business leader, public speaker and advisor. He is one of the pioneers of advertising on the internet. We talk about his pillars of success that can help you reframe how you are thinking about your daily life.

Pimps Whores and Patrons of Virtue Book by Author SJ Manning (stevenjmanning.com)
FYMC: The Creative Enterprise of Business and Relationships
SJ Manning (@manning_sj) • Instagram photos and videos

Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women
Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the filled up cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource one that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.

Ashley: 0:31

I have Steven J. Manning joining me. His newest book is Pimps Whores and patrons of virtue, a kaleidoscope of poignant and entertaining satires, antidote, essays, and ideologies about the human condition and spirit. I love the title of your book. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Steven: 0:50

It was entirely my pleasure. Ashley,

Ashley: 0:53

can you tell readers what they can expect from your book?

Steven: 0:57

I think that the book is, as you said, it is 31 individual pieces. There are stories, essays, thesis correspondence, even a eulogy. What people walk away with I hope is that they are challenged, they're entertained. They're certainly are informed. Everyone reads my book humbly look at it from a very interesting perspective. They find I draw a real distinction between what's important, critical and what's ordinary and what's extraordinary. I hope that what people walk away with is the manifestation of my philosophies in life. I've led an experienced rich life, you know, millions of miles, life miles, and then millions of those, awful pressurized sardine cans Boeing and I are good friends, you know I fancy myself. Astute observer of people in life. I express all my observations and conclusion as a storyteller, satirst as something, I am a provocateur. Now my four philosophies of life, if you will. First of all, life is not a dress rehearsal. We are doing this now. We're living this. Now, this what? We may do this again, this is the big show. You better live it today. Because it's the may never come again.

Ashley: 2:17

For sure

Steven: 2:18

I kind of have these on my little imaginary teleprompter in front of my face. Cause this is how I live. Otherwise. I don't see the point. Number two, a life without passion is not a life worth living. Now. Imagine waking up in the morning, yawning all day long. Why? Not because you're sleepy cuz you have nothing in your life. They're passionate about. Life without a passion is not worth life living. I can bring the same passion. For my breakfast, as I do to something that happened yesterday in Somalia or in Africa or in Des Moines, Iowa, or Los Angeles, California. And by the way I do eliminate people for my life who are just not passionate about anything. They don't get it. You know what, there's just nothing there. And of course, you need to understand that there are options in life that there's options to lead, follow, or get out. Number three, seek knowledge and wisdom all the time and everywhere. Knowledge is ubiquitous. It's endless. It would require lifetimes to put just a little dent in gathering knowledge. There's an incredible library in the sky called Google. You know, just two taps away. You wanna know about the mating habits of wallabies in a month of April, no sweat you'll know a lot about me or you just a couple taps in a couple of minutes. I think that the way I live and I've asked all the people on me to do always ask the next question and the next one and understand that there are no definitive answers to most questions for most of us. Just test for hypothesis. I am a shameless researcher. I will talk to anybody about anything who talk to me. I called a Pope one day to ask a theologic question. How arrogant is that? Right? I just think that one of the things that we need to understand and, appreciate that the reality is that most people who really know stuff are really eager to educate you, share with you all, you have to just ask. That's wisdom I live by and anyone given day at the end of my day, if I can't identify two things I learned that day well became clear to me that day for the first time, even if it's just new to me, I wasted the only commodity that is truly perishable, which is time.The real chore in life, and you have an audience that's amazing. It spreads across a couple generations genders and all of that. I advise to identify what you are in that place. The real short in life is to find one's place in the world. So the world is an elaborately staged tragicomedy. I think, to be successful in this world, you have to find your role in it. They have to script it. That's a big deal and they gotta direct it yourself. You're the one acting this when I'm living this play and then you get to live it fully. And honestly, those are my basic pillars of life.

Ashley: 5:26

I love that you have a philosophy on life. I feel like a lot of times people don't really consider their virtues or consider what's important to them or consider what pillars they really wanna live their life by. So I think especially as somebody younger, I think that more people should actually do that. One thing that you had talked about is really that connection piece. I feel like we don't sit and talk to each other and say, Hey, what's your life story? What can I learn from you? What is, something that you've gone through that I, could learn and just really have that connection piece with people I think is really missing. So I love the idea of you collecting stories and collecting these memories and collecting these experiences through just learning.

Steven: 6:15

I think my perspective, I'm an absolute shameless researcher, I will talk to anybody about anything. I also find out that I find tremendous value in talking to lots of different people. I am fortunate to have met and know quite well. Some really prolific people, a couple of Nobel prize winners, a world class scientists and world class writers and authors. I get as much wisdom of life. If you will, from a young guy who parked my car a couple hours ago, he is a lot of things his day of 22 years, his life experience of 22 years and limited wisdom of these yearsbut it's there. Now in terms of, research, to demonstrate to extent to which I'm shameless about it, because I've discovered, as I said before, early on that people wanna know all those really super Uber people, Uber brains, they're glad to help. They're glad to share why I'm there for reasons of their own. Also there's some degree of paying forward to a lot of these people so I shut off my big mouth one day and I said something about, heck I wouldn't call the pope three times, without getting a call back. And of course, early in the morning, I felt very embarrassed for having said that. At five o'clock in the morning, I actually called Vatican. It took exactly four minutes until the holy father was on the phone. Of course I broke up in a terrible sweat. I didn't know what to say. I said holy father in Italian. And I said, you know, I apologize. I'm not ready for this call back.One day can I call back he said of course. I was on an airplane a couple years ago, headed from New York to Paris. I was connection from Paris to Vienna. Much delayed flight. It was painful, but I sat next to a guy who happens to be the world preeminent expert of reproductive rights in Africa, you know, is not like me spent a lot of nights awake thinking about it, but heck he was the guy. So I started talking to him and you know what? He wanted to talk to me. In addition to which he had two partners, had an amazing consulting practice who were clients, governments, you know, cause that's what they do. So he wanted to talk, well, hell I only had a 400 questions to ask and when we landed in Paris, I said to myself, how often will I have the opportunity to get this guy's attention? And ask him how he thinks, what he thinks, how you see a thought leader. I mean, that would be the holy grail to influence what people think, particularly at that large scale. Oh, by the way, being a thought leader is not something to strive for. Just if you're gonna influence a continent, you can influence your spouse, your mate, your children. That's a holy grail. You know, it's not just to tell, to influence people what to think, but influence people. How to think. That's the holy grail the bottom line to my story. So I said to this guy, yo, I'll see in a few minutes. Well, he was headed to Istanbul I jumped off the airplane. I spent$1,800 on of my hard earned money on a round trip ticket for Paris Istanbul. I got right back on a plane sit next to the guy another three hours and the guy said, I thought you were getting off. I said, I was, but you were really cool. I'm learning and I'm learning the clarity of your thinking is beyond, I'm learning so much from you. When I landed in Instanbul I called my wife and said, honey I'm a little late, you should be in Budapest by now. My wife would used to be getting like way late. I said, yeah, but I sat next to this guy and he was so interesting. I just had to go to Instanbul with him. Oh, okay. Well, call me when you land in Budapest, by the way, I feel the same way. If you tell me, Hey, Steve, that guy over there in the mall. The shoe shine guy. That is the best shoe shine guy in California. I'm your guy. I'm there. I'm gonna pay that guy, whatever, shine my shoes three times, cuz I wanna know what makes him tick. So I'm talk to each other, you know, you can learn from just about everyone. If you asked, you will get, I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten on airplanes to meet somebody at Kennedy airport for a cup of coffee. They knew something I couldn't find out anywhere else. And to my amazement, they were so glad to share that attitude, being a shameless researcher, by the way, is one of the very pillars of my success in life. I've obtained some. People intimidated by people with greater knowledge, nonsense people with greater knowledge are much easier to talk than the people, less knowledge why they want to lecture you, you know? Well, good. Tell me, teach me how did knowing a lot about. reproduction trends in Sub-Sharan Africa benefit my life. Well benefited my life is to figure out how the hell that guy was thinking. And how did he communicated all that at that level? Wow. I did tell a story about some statistics about reproductive rights in Sub-Saharan, Africa dinner one night, and people looked at me like, how would you know that? Well, I learned that somewhere over the Atlantic

Ashley: 11:52

well, I, think when we approach people with that appreciation and that authenticity of I just wanna get to know you versus. What can I gain specifically for my own benefit from this person that it's like, just having that, like we had talked about that human connection. I just wanna know what you know and have those real conversations with people. I feel like in this day and age where most of our conversation is done via computer or done via app, I feel like that connection piece is starting to disappear. People need to just have conversations with us, have conversations with each other. And again, whether it's the person washing your car or whether it is, a billionaire CEO, there really is such a benefit and such wisdom in both people,

Steven: 12:39

I wrote a piece years ago, I ran a big company and we were talking about how I make impressions and all that. I said, you know what percentage of the first impression is visual and then audio. Then beyond that you meet someone and, oh, I meet you and you look at me and say, I just don't like that guy. There's something about him that works. And then I have to work very, very hard to undo that first impression if I can get past that visual. Oops. And I begin to talk once I talk and you respond, you talk, I respond, that's over 70% of the ball game in what's called first impression. Your eyes. I have never met you. I hope to Ashley your eyes tell a phenomenal novel. I mean, I can meet you say hello, how you doing? Shake hands. And I can write a paragraph about you five minutes later, cuz your face tells a story. I'm amazed when I'll say to someone in a text, yo, I don't wanna pound the keyboard anymore. I got big hands. This, a small keyboard. Call me, remember, you know, like the old fashioned phone thing. To think back not so long ago where most overwhelming deals, if you will, business deals, arrangements were made in person. You want to see that woman, you wanna see that guy email, again would do humility. I created, email chat in the online world. That was a long, long time ago. We were the 10th people in the backbone of the internet. I have broadcast, I don't know, a hundred billion emails by now. I'm a writer. So writing to me comes kind of second nature, obviously. And yet I just said this insane desire to say, Hey Ashley, can we just chat for a minute? You know? I have a couple of relationships. People who are just Buffalo, because I wanna sit and chat. Well, dude. How about you drop me an email I'll respond. How about I don't drop doing an email. How about, I can show you the umpteenth miles. I traveled just to meet people who I thought were benefit from me. And you said something amazing a moment ago. I'm not trying to be nice to you but it's when you approach someone say, talk about them and what they do and that is what means something to you rather than yo help me out with this, or I need this it's characteristically different. When you go to somebody say, look, this is something you would know, I'd like to know more about, it. And then maybe I'll shift the conversation. Now here's what I really need. Oh, I think that's a cats meow. What you said was just, it's absolutely a game changer. There are a couple of really, really smart people who make a tremendous living, teaching that one. Concept. Really probably one, the top five podcasters in the world. That's his mantra. He never show something. Hey, I need your help. You just say, there's something, you know, that I'd like to know more about and maybe I can participate somehow. So what you said was, so, I mean, if you can use a highlighter on a voice thing, let's highlight that one.

Ashley: 16:03

Perfect. Well, that is something I'll mentally highlight, cuz it is really the case. I feel like we're as people getting a little bit more selfish, so it really does become so like ego driven or we think about ourselves first that it really is. We're missing out on all of this value. And to your point about phone calls, I feel like. Unless you almost give somebody a heads up like, oh, I need to call you real quick. I feel like more often than not, people will not answer their phone or they're more keen to have a text message or an email that I feel like even just picking up the phone and talking to somebody is something that is disappearing or a lot of people, especially younger people are losing that skill because they just absolutely don't communicate that way. It's sad that that part is going away. And the division between having to communicate in more of a way that doesn't build human connection, like the text or the email Seems to be the way of the future,

Steven: 16:59

you know, Ashley again I love listening to what you said, as you know, among other things, I'm a writer. I can turn out pages for the best of them. I can knock out pages on this laptop. Like nobody else. So I think I can distinguish words, noetically. I think I can get my thoughts across, even in an email yet I consider my emails, get to be really specific, but. I consider them lacking. You don't hear the inflection in my voice. You can read stuff in it. You can read beat me lines, stuff that does not exist. What's fascinating for me is that I get a lot of emails from people who read my book. Pimps, whores and patrons patients are virtue. And among them, I get emails all day and all night because my email addresses in the book itself. It's also on the website that services the book, and I get emails all the time from people. Do you remember me? We met in 1987. Somewhere, or we did some business together, or you were doing this talk or whatever. I worked for you from 1980 to 1990 to people just write emails. And when they I'm reading a book, I am quoting an email, I got this morning from a phenomenal woman. She achieved some general success. You know, Steve, I'm reading your book and the Highlight of me reading your book is not the great stuff. What the highlight is, I'm reading the words and I hear your voice. I see your face. Now isn't that cool.

Ashley: 18:39

That core bank memory, I think really the human connection plays into that. It's having that conversation, hearing your voice, being able to picture you that if you are somebody that's just communicating between somebody behind an email that you're never going to necessarily meet. If you're like say company to company that it's like, you just don't remember them in the same way. You don't really have the same emotional connection or memory like 15 years later of. Oh yeah. I remember that guy. I emailed him a couple times versus, oh yeah, that was the person I went for coffee with. Or I met him on an airplane I just feel like is a little bit different versus I sent a text message or I sent an email

Steven: 19:18

of course, and then the reality shows that a lot of people hide behind that email. I can send an email, close that client and I'm done. If I don't wanna engage, I don't engage. You know, it's easy to tell someone, you know, dude or lady buzz off, go away. It's a whole lot harder to say no in person, because engagement is live is now tell me actually, what is your problem with this thing? Well, you know, Steve, I got three problems. Okay. Can we talk about those three, and then I look at your face. I listen to the inflection in your voice. I know exactly the next thing I cannot say. And I'm pretty sure I know where I have to take this conversation too, because you're telling me what you want. Try that in a sterile email or text message. Now 140 characters of text message. Your friends, Steve Manning invented the 140 characters, but a whole different reasons for that 140 characters. I've been writing advertising copy since men began walking upright how hard is it to write 140 meaningful characters? As I said, ask me to write 5,000 words, no problem, 140 characters that really get a message across that is a work of art. One of my biggest clients over time, I was writing advertising. If you can believe it, 156 characters. How exactly do you sell a$50,000 thing with 156 characters?

Ashley: 20:53

It would be really hard.

Steven: 20:55

It ain't simple.

Ashley: 20:56

Thinking about your book you had mentioned that there's a eulogy in the book. Is that for somebody else or is that for yourself?

Steven: 21:07

forgive me. I, think that's very funny actually, because it's not for me. It's when my best friend in life passed away. He was a really wonderful few righteous people. I knew one few virtuous people I knew. I tried very hard to think about why do so often righteous people, you know, really virtuous people die quite young, when they accomplish so much and they have so much more to do I tried to rationalize that best I could do. I'm certainly not a poet, but I wrote something called tears for the righteous and where I rationalize the passing of someone righteous The best I could come up with. I know this is shallow, but Maybe when that person who I think is righteous, who I think is, virtuous, who I think is so generous and kind, and spirit passes away. There's some mystical nonsense. I don't buy it a lot of that stuff, but there's some mystical nonsense where he had to go, because there only so many of that person, that type. And the world, whatever that is, the spirits needed room for one more. Maybe the moment in time when my friend Kevin passed away. Maybe there was some woman in next door to me or in Somalia or in somewhere in some God for saken part of the world gave birth to a baby who is destined to change the world who will change the world. How is that for rationalization? My brilliant, wonderful friend passed away to make him for some woman, maybe in Darfur who knows to give birth the baby who will accomplish some truly amazing life-changing things. I hope you read my book and tell me what you like. And you did not like, I'm humbled by the reception of the book. I'm humbled by the reviews of my book. About a week ago, I got an email early morning at six, seven in the morning from the man. I don't know, but when I looked him, I said, whoa, this guy does a lot of big label stuff. A lot of big in Europe and America, he's a big dude, you know, he's a relevant guy, thank God I know some of those, but, he says to me, Steve you owe me a night's sleep. I'm assuming that he was in the nut case. I go back. Great. How do I get you or buy you a night's sleep. Why are you a night's sleep? Well, my wife kept me awake all night long. I said, now that is an issue of me. I probably know a psychologist that can deal with that. No, no, no, no. All night long, she was laughing. She was crying and she was pounding the keyboard. Why? Well, she was reading your book. She started reading about eight o'clock at night and at five o'clock in the morning, she was still pounding the keyboard, but what was she doing? Was she sending emails to her girlfriends about, I just read this, you read that piece. It's funny than now. And then an hour later, she, she was crying her hard out. She's reading a piece. I wrote about my father and that to me is a wonderful thing. This is not a novel this is 31 individual pieces some are fun. And some are really challenging. I think some are intellectually challenging and some are stories from my past that quite frankly, even now having written them and having read them, a thousand times I still share some tears and that's what I think makes my book a little bit different than a lot of other books I make this offer to everyone you buy by my book. You don't like it. I will personally deliver a refund, you know but it is different. My use of the language, I think is sometimes challenging. My syntax is a little bit different because English is not my native language yet, that's what I speak and write, but Hey Ashley, you reading my book is a privilege for me.

Ashley: 25:10

I really appreciate the fact that it has so many diverse stories that it isn't just like here's a collection of everything that went right in my life. It's a collection of a little bit of everything. It's such a gift when people have the opportunity to potentially laugh and cry and feel all different kinds of things when they're reading a piece of work. I know as somebody who writes myself, there's nothing more exciting about being able to write an article or like I haven't written a book, but being able to hit, send and have it go live to the world. So I can just imagine how fun and humbling and exciting and scary and all of the things that come with actually publishing a piece of yourself for the world to read.

Steven: 25:53

I gave an interview to a large online magazine. It was about writing and the five things you must do to be successful writer give me a break, but I didn't make a point. It was just precisely what you just said. Writing honestly, is a very different kind of naked because, if you write with one thought in your mind, well, let me think who's going to read this. Oh, I better not do that because you are taking your clothes off emotionally speaking, for sure. And, who's gonna read this the minute I think about who's gonna read this. Forget it grow a beard or grow long braids, go to Pavuvu sit on the beach and drink fruit drinks, right. Is not for you now. That is not entirely true in that. Well, for example I just CEO world magazine just published the piece I wrote it's called I'm a columnist there called leadership homogenized. Now I need to kind of pull my drawstrings a bit when I write that it's because now I know who's reading that I have to do two things. I have to resonate with them and I can't piss'em off.

Ashley: 27:21

Yeah.

Steven: 27:22

when I write that, when you write technical stuff, I publish two or three articles a week and a couple columns, I have to be mindful of that readership, but writing a book. No, thank you. If you go to the website that serves my book, it's Steven J manning.com, which is an initial S T, E V E N J M A N N I N G dot COM you can read about me too much about me and my book and all that. There's a tab there called blog. If you tap on a blog tab, you begin to read some of the pieces that I have published. When you read through them, you'll say, whoa, this dude doesn't mince words. But I don't go flaunting my thesaurus or my weirdo ideas for the heck of doing it. I wanna make an emphatic and thorough point. So when you read it, you'll say I got it. Don't agree. Interesting, dude, smoking some really cheap stuff. I don't know, but I'll invoke an emotion other than oh. Later for him. I certainly take my emotional, my intellectual dance job doing that. But you know, so writing, as I said, and as you said, same thing, different words is a really different kind of naked. A lot of people do a lot of weird things. I say they collect bottle caps. And a lot of people when life is closing in what they do, they overeat, they drink too much. They go shop too much. They literally stick bad stuff in their veins, me, I sit down and write a paragraph, and I don't care. Who's gonna read it at three in the morning. When I write about the time I walked into this brothel Macau and I met this dude, when I write that, I'm not thinking uhoh my wife, or daughter's gonna read this, gonna say, honey, when were you in the brothel Macau? the truth is the truth. I travel so much that it's entirely possible that I was on a brothel in Macau. I made a bet with a friend of mine who was a phenomenally gifted writer. I was so pedestrian. It was scary. He was just better than everybody else. I said, you know I have a book that I'm writing by the way, it's titled all about women. I'm also writing another book called explaining Bitcoin to Buddhist Monks but all about women. It's kind of my study of women, my whole life. And I said, women are the most amazing. Creatures, because they are kind of like imagine orchid, a magnificent orchid that smells so wonderful and has thorns that will rip you apart. That's the woman analogy. Yeah. True. Think about it. Okay. So I said about, so if you start there said, I keep sitting here in the room and a woman walks in the door. I know nothing about her, other than her name. We talk for five minutes and I'm thinking I'm seeing stuff on her forehead, you now. So I said to my friend, I bet you was soda. I can write a paragraph about her now evoke one or two things. She's gonna start crying, but she's gonna grab a chair and try to crush my skull. Now that's different. It's something, you see something, you perceive something you hear look, you are successful doing what you do. You could be doing this. If you are not perceptive, you read people, you hear what's coming well, you hear the words differently than most ordinary folks. I'm not trying to be nice to you, but that has to be the case. Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing what you were doing.

Ashley: 31:00

Well, I appreciate the compliment, but I think we all just need to step out of our comfort zone and not live boring lives. If we, go work our nine to five, we watch the same TV shows. We go to the same restaurants. It's like looking back on our lives. We're gonna go, I should have cut a whata. So I think to your point, it's like, Read different authors that you haven't read before. Try to have different experiences that you've always wanted to have and not be afraid of taking the risk or, talk to that person beside you on a bus or on a plane, and really having that piece so that you're not just looking back and going shouda coulda woulda and living some really boring life that you didn't wanna live in the first place.

Steven: 31:44

Without doubt. I mean, but, most people, you and I encounter don't have time for that. What I need that for? The truth also is that as you get a little older and hopefully you wisdom and start to catch up with your age, you do make a point of disassociated for people who have nothing to contribute, who just go through life. there are, as I said before, there are three ways to go through life. You can lead, you can follow or get out. Now let's go backwards. Get a, I don't know exactly. I don't know what that means or what that you just drop off, drop away. You just accept failure and option and you become, forget it. Next is your follow now. See now you are not a follower. I already know that to follow. What does that mean? Well, you know, you just kind of get in the flow, you gotta do the ordinary and what happens if you become obscure is there point to that? Okay. Next is to lead. How do you lead that is you lead by thought you lead by a hundred different ways. As I said before, and I'll say this again is lead by influencing people and how influencing the work, how to think. That's the leadership part, which, and if that's what you want to do, you will associate with people who are somewhat the same thought or you'll benefit from that. That doesn't mean they have to have a Nobel prize or bullet surprises or having down chairs and major universities, you know quite honestly the smartest man. I know he's been cutting my hair for 30 years. Okay. And when I tell that to my other smart friend who has written 20 books and multiple New York times bestsellers and teaches a couple universities and around the world, and I say, you know, you're smart Robbie, but my friend Ray is smart. There's something innate in him because he can, he makes me think beyond what you do. And of course, my friend Robbie, when I say, Hey, how are the kids? I get nine pages, a big biography of 57 books, a hundred articles, cuz that's how he thinks. And then he sends it to me in, well, he wrote this in French, but he is in English. You knows phenomenal truly, truly, truly phenomenal, but I need a lifetime to begin read stuff, but you, meanwhile Ray has street smarts the benefit, better veered a bit on topic. But again, you have three options you can lead, follow or get out. I don't shoot a point of getting out get it and following really be ordinary. It could and then delete. Well, there you go. And if you're find a way to do that, the most elegant part of it again is to not only just influence people what to think, but how to think. I believe that is what you do when you get in front of your microphone. Is it not?

Ashley: 34:48

I would hope so.

Steven: 34:50

I know, so otherwise you wouldn't be doing this

Ashley: 34:54

For me personally, the idea of working the same nine to five job every single day, and just sort of fitting into that box was just something that I personally don't envision. It just, wasn't a long term goal for me. So really branching out and being able to create the life that I wanna live. And depending on which country that ends up being or what experiences I basically just wanted to sort of build something that didn't require me always depending on somebody else or like you said, just being bored all the time.

Steven: 35:27

There are pillars of success. There are ways to become successful once you define what success is, and that's something I spend again, a great deal of time on reading, writing and talking about of course, one of the pillar successes, you just never consider failure or an option. It's brainless to conceed defeat. It's so much easier to fail than succeed. What are you going to and you are not gonna try it. You're not going to do it. you have to understand that all successful people fail their things. They fail often remarkably. So, but the one that successfully people will all live in common is that their failures are never ever because of lack of effort or conviction. If they fail well, something just conceptually then didn't work it's not in their grasp it is the courage to continue that counts. That's kind of one of the things that speaks to what you just said

Ashley: 36:22

I think sometimes people get so afraid of the idea of failure where sometimes failure can be your biggest pivot or your biggest lesson. And at the end of the day, if you reach a roadblock and the answer is no, then it's like the answer's no, you're not necessarily gonna blow up and die in that moment. it may be a very hard failure to experience, but then it does give you the, wisdom of being like, okay, it's not this, but I'm gonna try it at a different angle or I'm gonna try a different thing that ends up being better suited for you or a bigger success than had you succeeded at the thing that you failed at.

Steven: 36:58

Of course, when you think about failure and again, you should never consider failure an option. What exactly is the point. You get up and say, okay, this could fail. Most likely gonna fail. Why bother? Okay. Your cooked. It's over now. The underpinnings of success. That's eliminate luck. The underpinnings of success are homework. You gotta do homework. How much homework? Not enough exhaustive homework. And you think you're done? You gotta do some more. Then, as I say, I am a shameless researcher? I offer everyone should be a shameless researcher. Once you've done the homework. And you dive into the proverbial pool. You find out that there's just no substitute to wisdom on the firing line. You learn when you face hits the water, and then of course, without a doubt, head to hand with that, you gotta outwork and outthink everybody else. Well, can you out think everybody else? No, no, no. It's not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen out work. Most people that's absolutely possible. So most people are not willing to put through the kind of effort the successful people do, you know? How many times have again, humbly have I heard from people I had respect for? Who said to me, well, you know I'm like the work as you do. Well, I hope I worked hard and smart, you know, someone along the line. I kind of put together 47 billion for commerce. But you gotta work. You gotta out work to everyone else. And hopefully I'll smart everyone else. in my long day I managed to run a business. I managed to write and publish. I have meals with my wife and sometimes my kids, my kids are grown and chase my wife around the house as well and read couple books a week, which I don't remember because I read just, it goes in and out. And all of that. How do I make time for that? Well, that's the key. I make time for it. Let's just do you know, and hopefully I'm efficient about it. Otherwise I wouldn't lose anything worthwhile

Ashley: 39:22

We really make time for the things that are important to us. So I think it's people maybe stepping out of their comfort zone and really questioning what would bring me joy. What is exciting to me? What have I always wanted to do and really going back and getting to know themselves, if they feel like they're stuck in a rut or they feel like they're bored with their life and going back and finding those things that are gonna make you wanna get up in the morning, and to really bring passion so that you aren't, stuck in this boring life

Steven: 39:50

I have a hyper successful friend she does have a top 2% podcast in the world. And she's very smart. We will get on the phone. Nah, probably every two weeks or so. We scheduled time and I put my feet up and we should chat for two or three hours. Now she will tell me she had no clue how to write a decent paragraph. Of course she does a lot of agency work, but I just don't know how to do that. She doesn't know how to write because she's never bothered to sit down and do it. What's the worst that can happen. Write something, just write something and send it to people that like you, we're not gonna destroy it. Send it to me. I'll be glad to read middle of the night, but that's a perfect example of someone who has a comfort level at a truly high level in what she does, but write a paragraph. She dying to write this article and so on. You know, what, dunno how to tell you this. But how about you write some garbage in your mind? Send it to me. I promise you I'll edit the heck out of it. Cause of what I do. And then you'll have something that's gonna be strictly competent, but if you don't get off your butts never gonna happen. What are you waiting for? You waiting for the muse, this kiss you on the forehead that only happens in Gatsby doesn't happen anywhere else Real life. It's a labor passion and all of that combined.

Ashley: 41:26

Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more. I think too many people are waiting for somebody to say, you know, this is your ticket to the life you always wanted or waiting for somebody to tell them, you know, do X, Y, and Z. Instead of people really having that drive to figure it out for themselves or to find it on their own. Because at the end of the day, it's like, we all do have to look out sort of for ourselves first. And then everybody collectively together, if you are on a path of figuring out your passion and filling your time with things that you wanna do, you're not necessarily gonna go, oh, I think my neighbor down the street might be a little bit bored. How can I fix that for them? They really have to have that passion to fix it for themselves.

Steven: 42:06

Absolutely. Way back in the dark ages when I had a great deal of hair and a lot less attitude or a lot more attitude, but not very good. I worked for a tiny little company, a tiny little marketing business, and they were during solid company was going broke and I've been there for almost two years. I worked at my boss's office said, Hey, listen, I'm gonna take a vacation. I'm gonna take off two and half weeks. I haven't my honeymoon. I haven't done anything since grade school. You know, that's not true because I was homeless in the middle there somewhere. I need to take up two and a half weeks. Take my new bride away. The guy said we get one week vacation here the first four years. I said, but one week, I mean, I'm borrowing money to take my new wife to Europe for two and a half weeks, and then looked at me and said if you take two and a half weeks, don't bother coming back. So I made a choice and I left for two and a half weeks. When I walked in the office, the following Monday two and a half weeks later I found out the guy I worked for my boss quit. So I walked into the office my big boss, the guy who said, don't come back. The owner walked in, I talked to him. He said, do you know how to do the marketing plan, the media plan? So I looked inside. I said to myself, you have two options here. He get fired right now. He get fired a month from now. When he figures out, you have no idea. I said, of course I do. And he left and highlighted that day was that I now had a chair cause my bosses had left behind the chair. I sat on a stool now in intervening many years, I took that company to a billion dollars and incredibly profitably. So it started out with me lying. but I wasn't about to say, no, I'm not gonna jump at apple. Don't allow to swim. I figured good. Okay. Keep get to keep the job for another month while he figures out that I have no clue a month later, the world changed and I kind of figured some stuff out and it began to work out. In time I ended up running this business to what became great success.

Ashley: 44:17

I'm happy to learn tons of things about you, I think that's also a great lesson, fake it until you make it. And you know, all you can do really is try. Could that have blown up and you could have got fired in week. Absolutely. But it's like, what's the harm in trying and I feel like people are so afraid of failure or so afraid to step out of their comfort zone, now's the time to kind of say, fuck it and see what's out there and what you really wanna do.

Steven: 44:45

Oh, well, you know what? You will enhance your failure. If you don't do the work, you'll enhance the prosper success. If you do the homework and then you put in the effort, that's all there is to it. It's amazing to me how often I say this is, if you think Mary Ellen or Bob across the street know something you need. To go forward. Well, you know what? They're not gonna tell you. Why should they share? How about ask, ask? I can't tell you how many times I said be fine. How many times have you gotten on the red eye in LA? And had a meeting at JFK in New York at seven in the morning with somebody. I said, look, you know, something that I'm fascinated by it. I'd like to know more. If I buy a cup of coffee tomorrow morning, will you talk to me to have some, man or woman say like you going take the red eye to New York just to talk to me? Absolutely. In fact, if you don't want to get up that early, I'll just hang around and meet you in your office Midtown. Oh, you'd have to do that. I'd be like to talk to you now. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't wanna put you out. And how do I reciprocate. It's fascinating. I'll never forget the one, one experience. When I called the man, after doing six months of research on a specific business problem, we had, I asked everyone in the world now, I don't know. Pretty sure a few people said, well, you gotta talk to what's this guy up in the lakes in Wisconsin, he knows that. Pretty soon, Ashley on the fourth or fifth person said to me, well, you gotta call that guy in Wisconsin. He's probably the only one who knows that that's what he does. It's his business. He lives on the lake, has a boat, has a plane. Everybody in the world is his client. I said, oh yeah, he can't wait to educate me. Right. I called him. I said, look, you know, something that's very important. You are the guy I love to know more. How do I get to you? I know I need to fly to here, but I don't know how to get from there because you live on this island and you have your own boat and you're playing, how do I get to you? If you can just give an hour over, you know, soda or something and the guy you to do that, I'll be glad to tell you what you want to know. I was about to say now, why the heck would you tell me that without me writing a big check? I didn't. I said, I'm so grateful. Please educate me. I appreciate it. Look, I talked to him about 10 minutes, saved my company, millions of dollars. I said to him, how do I compensate you? He says, so next time I'm in LA or New York or in Chicago someplace for you might be buy me dinner. I'm thinking, can we buy this guy a restaurant? you know, I said, I couldn't thank you more. I sent him a note saying, look you have saved me a great deal of money. My company, the education is invaluable and all I'm going to do with this, just so you know, is I will go back and call everyone. I talk there, say, oh yes, this is the guy. I'm not gonna say, you know, you're so generous, but if your phone starts ringing more than usual, it's the string of 20 people I talk to. I don't know how to reciprocate of course, it be my pleasure to have dinner with you. More importantly, I'd love to tell everybody that you're the guy. What a lesson to learn the advice you gave me, Ashley, I don't wanna be modest here at the time. Our little company was doing maybe 500 a million a year. That little piece of advice he gave me, took me six months to find saved my company five to 10 million. That is not trivial. That's enormous. That was years ago. That was in the eighties when, 10 million was a lot of money, you know? Yeah. So if you owe I how to do all you, well go ask, you know, eventually somebody say, well, I don't know, but what's his name know what's his, I don't know, but ask Ashley. She probably knows Ashley say, yeah, no problem. What do you wanna know?

Ashley: 48:56

Well, and, and that really is the piece. It really is. The more that you talk to people, the more you get those connections and those ability to, get a tip, that's gonna save your business. Or maybe if you're traveling abroad, maybe a new person to meet or just anything. It really is just finding that connectiveness between all of us.

Steven: 49:18

for years we have been wanting to start a new business called we know somebody who now the, my friend I mentioned before, who I wrote a eulogy for was bleeding as brilliant as is the guy who cuts my hair as is what's his name of the florist and stories were trade for days on days. You remember the guy in Kansas city with a white shirt, with a blue collar. Yeah. I, even that guy did this, like I did that. It came to a point where was kind of like among the three of us or four of us. Do we know somebody who does that? Yeah, I think we do. We could certainly make a bunch of calls before too long. We knew the two doctors in north America. There were the ultimate authorities on a chosen orphan disease that no one knew anything about that took a half a day, but do we know somebody who, you know, what ask and then you can get passed around and surely, you find somebody who, so I said, well, one day do a business called we know somebody who, so the call comes, say, do you guys know somebody who knows how to sell horse manure in Argentina? Yes. Yeah, we do. We know somebody who, and then of course we have this great big library that I talk about, which is Google, and Google's a great start to identifying resources. Start not to finish. Start. If you rely on Google entirely you're gonna get your toes snowed in a meaningful way, but it's a hell of a start.

Ashley: 50:53

I definitely agree with that. I think that would be a super awesome business idea because what a great resource to have sort of a one mold fits all. This is who we contact list. Mm-hmm well, Steven, I really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation with me today. Can you let everybody know if they're looking for you online where they can find your book or if you have social media?

Steven: 51:16

The best place to go to learn about me is a Steven J manning.com S T E E V E N J is initial M A N N I g.com. And you can learn a bit about me again, and I hope you read my book. I hope you comment on my book. My reviews, you can go to Amazon and look up pimp whores and patrons of virtue or SJ Manning and when you find it and you will, and you read the reviews on Amazon first of all, it's about a small percentage of the reviews I got because the Amazon folks decided that the book came out and I got 150 or 205 server reviews the first day they decided they didn't want to do that. Of course, nobody who does makes those decisions has ever written a book. But anyway, if you read the reviews they're posted Amazon and you don't, they don't turn you on. Don't buy my book. Otherwise, please get my book, read it. I think you'll enjoy it. So Amazon, everywhere books are sold. You'll find Pimps, Whores and Patrons of Virtue. The website I gave you that is the website to devoted to the book. There's on the website that we have, that's developed to my agency. It's fymc.com. That's the website for my agency. I'm proud to tell you and humble to tell you that in the aggregate of doing what I do, what I've done in my lifetime, which is advertising and media and data and marketing and conflict resolution, corporate governance, all of that stuff. I mention Chicago together about 47 billion in revenue in the United States and in Europe. I've done work for 20 fortune one hundreds and a whole bunch of brand names that you will all recognize. From CBS to so many to telegrams interaction, so there's a nickels worth of my background.

Ashley: 53:05

Well, thank you so much. It was nice to meet you in this way and to hear your stories.

Steven: 53:09

I promise it's my pleasure entirely, anytime. I'm glad to have met you.

Ashley: 53:14

Oh, thank you so much.

Steven: 53:15

I've done 50 of these this year and here and across time and all that. I think you are a wonderful interviewer and I appreciate hanging out with you for an hour next time. How about schedule in two hours?

Ashley: 53:28

absolutely. I would love to have you back anytime.

53:33

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the filled up cup podcast, don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear, you can also connect with us@filledupcup.com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.