The Winding Road
The Winding Road
Jenny Blake: The Power of Serendipity
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Winding Road Podcast; today’s guest is Jenny Blake.
We say hello to Jenny again to talk about serendipity because our last conversation got caught short (listen to Ep_41); we chat about what we think serendipity is, how it works, and how we can open ourselves to it.
Jenny Blake is an author and podcaster who loves helping people move from friction to flow through smarter systems powered by Delightfully Tiny Teams. She just launched her award-winning third book, Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business.
We talk about:
- Increasing our serendipity surface area.
- Croissants Versus Bagels!
- Whoever you talk to at a conference, they want you to talk to them
- If I make one new friend at a conference, that's a success!
- Soften our vision around specific outcomes; then we can be delighted by whatever occurs
- We don't always know what our next moves are leading us toward
Connect with this week’s guest Jenny Blake
- Amazon: Free Time, Pivot, Life After College
- Podcasts: Pivot with Jenny Blake, Free Time with Jenny Blake
Follow Winding Road Careers:
Ep#50 - The Power of Serendipity with Jenny Blake
Travis: Welcome to the Winding Road podcast. Uh, have a repeat guest today. Jenny Blake is joining me again because we just ran out of time last time to cover everything we wanted to. And we're gonna talk about, serendipity and the role it plays in life and business. And also, her decision to leave social media, which I've been fascinated about ever since I heard she did that.
It's something I wish I could do, but I don't have the guts to do it. So, so welcome Jenny, back to the Winding Road. .
Jenny: Thank you so much, Travis. If you have the guts to run your own business, you could definitely leave social media if you wanted to, but no press. I know. We'll get into all
that .
Travis: Yeah. Yeah.
It's just, it's scary cuz you feel like you're cutting yourself off from Yes. Potential clients in the world. Humanity. Yeah. Humanity, . Yeah, exactly. And so, so yeah, it's been a while since we, we talked and, and, curious like what, what are you most excited to be working on right now?
Jenny: Hi, of Loving Podcasting.
You and I have talked about this a lot. I just find it so rewarding. It's the best part of my day, connecting with friends like you. And whether I'm interviewing for one of my two shows or being interviewed, I always hang up feeling like it was time while spent, hang up as if we're in the old school telephone days.
But I, I genuinely feel that, that these hours are my favorite way to spend the day, partly because. . I love deep conversation, but then I, I love knowing it's recorded and that other people can listen in the future, and that from a business perspective, each episode creates a little asset, a little form of what we talked about last time, public original thinking that is searchable and discoverable, and even if somebody finds it, Pivot podcast is seven years old now.
Even if they find it seven years later, they can go on a binge and go down the rabbit hole and listen to all the old content at once. And so I, I feel really excited about that and I'm also excited at the moment to not create anything new, to just focus on growing what I have. That's the theme for the year ahead is.
Kind of putting the brakes on. I tend to like building things and creating a new course or a new product, and it's like, no new things just grow. What exists? I've created two whole universes for pivot for free time. Life after college has its own micro world. No new things. Just focusing on growth and serving the community that I have to the best of my ability.
Wow,
Travis: and and is this the first time that you've taken that approach to not. , anything new.
Jenny: Whenever I have a book coming out, there's a lot of Launch energy, let's call it. So I've, I've written the book, I've built the backend of the business, the systems, the products that support the book. So I would say launch years tend to have that.
In this case, I'm almost extending it because free time came out in March of 2022, and so. , once the book is out, I feel a responsibility to help it make its way into the world and to really, you know, my friend MBS has a five year view on that, that he launches a book for five years. And so I think that's part of it.
So in some ways I've done it in the past, but I don't think I've ever been quite so explicit, like marry a course, , I should really, really. I have plenty. I don't think I've ever felt like, okay, I'm up to my ears in products and services that I've created. , , they're all strategic. They're all scalable. They're all very intentional.
now. Now that's it. Like for now. I'm sure you can't hold me back for too long of wanting to tinker around and build something new. But I'm gonna see how I go because this is not my comfort zone. My comfort zone is ideating and building and creating, not staying put and launching like the whole, you know what, you're better at marketing, marketing ops, growing.
That's not, that's not where I'm comfortable because I don't find it as fun
Travis: sometimes. . Interesting. Yeah. That, that's, that's, that's awesome. And Yeah, I think it's important to get, outta your comfort zone and, and just kind of, I think it rejuvenates us to, to do that, right? And, and we see things we never saw before when we, when we do that.
yeah, it's, it reminds me of, I think John Bogle is the author, the of Vanguard founder of Enough. have you read, read that? .
Jenny: Yeah. He's quoted in free time. Oh, that's right. In
Travis: the introduction. That's right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Such a good book, and I feel like that's kind of where you're coming from with, with this decision.
Jenny: Yeah. It's nice to have permission not to have to. Yeah, not just not, not to overexert. It's almost like for years now, I've had these themes of spaciousness trying to leave, abundant time margin, buffering my days, leave things unscheduled, unplanned, and so similarly in the business, in creative front, it's like.
just taking the pressure off. There's, I don't need to build anything new. I'm at a point 11 plus years into running my own business. It's actually approaching 12 that it's all built now. So, so to relax for a minute, , , there's a lot that's built and that, because part of the reason what that means is that I could work less and sell more of what I already have.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I've been thinking of things a. In seasons lately. and I don't think I ever thought about things in that way. I, I, I knew of thinking that way, but I don't think I've ever actually done it. I'm trying to do that now and I think. That's what this reminds me of is cause I think if, if you don't think about things in that way, it's almost like you're just constantly in summer or when like you're just going, going, going on the same things.
Even if you're building something new, it's that process that you're always involved in. I think if you start to think about seasons of pulling back from one thing, things go dormant, certain things go dorm. For a while and that's a a different time to think and be creative and kind of take a break from from things.
So see, I love that you're doing that.
Jenny: Yeah, very true. I love that. And that's why I love living in New York City cuz I love seasons. I actually hate summer and humidity, but I love winter. I love fall in New York City and then I love winter and the more snow today, the. Probably because I grew up in California and barely had any, so snow was like magic to me.
But it's true that each season in nature brings its own gifts and its own ways of being, like staying in more versus getting out and and that's, yeah, it's just a great reminder to do that creatively and business-wise as well, and go through the full cycle rather than always being, trying to harvest or always trying to push.
Travis: Yeah, e exactly. And it's funny that you, you love winter and hate summer, and I used to be like that. And now I'm like, I, I like summer more and spring more. And and we just, and I'm try, I try not to like, Kind of like date the the interview, because this will be a couple months out, but it's November here early to mid-November, and we actually just got snow last Monday and it's still around.
It's just been cold ever since. There's still leaves on the trees. And I just told my wife last night, cause I don't like January and February because I feel constrained and can't get out to do as much. And told my wife last night, I'm like, if someone came and offered me $200,000 and would pay for our moving expenses to go to Los Angeles, I would say absolutely right now, like the timing because I just, I don't like this stuff right now too early.
But, but yeah. , I think, I lived in LA and I did miss seasons when I lived there, so, so yeah, I, I get that. and so, so yeah, to kind of pivot a little bit, Into, the topics today. you know, one of the things I wanted to talk with you about is serendipity. You mentioned it a lot, and, and it comes, shows up, a lot for you and, and I, I felt it as well.
And, and like, how, how would you define serendipity, I guess to, to kind of kick things off with? .
Jenny: Mm. For all the conversations I've had, no one's asked me to define it. That's a great question. How would I, well, I define serendipity. I wonder what the dictionary would say. I define it as delightful surprises, unexpected moments, unexpected paths crossing, and yet they're unexpected.
But with a positive twist. Like with something joyful, delightful. It's like the serendipity of. Walking down the street opposite directions and meeting my husband. That's in the book. I talk about that in free time or the serendipity of two people realizing they have a mutual friend and then all of a sudden something great can come from that.
Or the serendipity of being on public transportation here, New York. I take the subway and reading a sign that says something interesting that our, my intuition might pick up. And give me a little clue for the day or for my life or for a question. Just all those micro moments or moments. Large and small.
Yeah. Where something lively, unexpected sparks.
Travis: Hmm. Yeah. And, and you can't really plan for that. Right. And, but yet it shapes our lives and our businesses so much that I think that's why we can't plan very well with anything. Right. We can't predict the future because that always shows up. ,
Jenny: well, I guess it has a lot to do with how we talk about luck.
That what is the quote? The basically preparation plus something equals luck. Yeah, opportunity.
Travis: I totally, yeah,
Jenny: I think it's totally bungling it opportunity. So in, in the same way that we can increase our luck surface area, I forget who first used that phrase. I do think that we can increase our serendipity surface area.
So part of the reason that I live in New York and I don't want a car, is that I want serendip. in my life. Every day. I want it every day. Yes. Sometimes weird things happen, especially in the city, but for the most part, I'm just delighted by who I meet. Like one time I was on the subway, get talking to a guy.
Turns out he's a chef at a world famous restaurant. You just never know in New York City. So I do think that even though we can't plan for serendipity, by definition, we can put ourself in ever more serendipitous situations. .
Travis: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That, that makes sense. I'll have to try to figure out how I can leverage that in Spokane, , but,
Jenny: uh, yeah.
Well, I know you're, you're hosting more and starting to send out invitations to people you don't know and mm-hmm. , even though that might not technically be serendipity for you, you could be sparking serendipity for the other people there, and then later they might think of you. and, and some opportunity might arise or so.
So I do think that making connections even virtually or hosting things with people from your broader area, I do think that that counts even if it's not living in the midst of a big city.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. And I think just putting yourself in position like to, for things that happen, right? Like when I lived in Denver, I remember at one point.
I, I wanted to do a, a lot of, when I was starting a business back then, I, I, I went to a lot of meetups when those were a thing and, and a lot of, like startup type of, of meetups and just, and I hated it because it was always scary and I was going alone and I didn't have a, a wingman or a wing girl to kind of help, you know?
And I think, I think that does help, but, I would always come up with a million reasons why I sh not to go. Right. And it was usually fear-based. And, and then I would just say, gotta go. Just do it. And I would, and every time I, every single time I went, I was so glad I did and some connection would happen and, and it would just, and then I started to think like, man, if you, you just have to show up.
You just have to be visible. And when you're visible, serendipity will. Find you right. If, if he can't find you, if you're hiding. And so, so yeah, that kind of reminded me of, of doing that and getting outta my comfort zone and just doing it, getting out there, meeting people. So
Jenny: I love that. I love that. Yeah.
But getting uncomfortable. And also, this is why not every conference. is amazing, but I love conferences too. So let's say you don't live in a big city, but going to the places where the people that you are energized by gather, I think can also be so positive. So I've always loved South by Southwest because it seems to attract, attract tech forward people who are innovative love software.
You know, this, the conversations that we have in passing or waiting in line is so interesting. I, I attended for this reason. The TED Conference for the first time I had registered in 2019, but it got postponed for two and a half years. So I first attended in 2022 and there I was in line at a food truck for a hamburger and I met the head of talent for Masterclass.
Oh wow. And who used to work with Oprah, and it's like, wow, how cool is that? It's just waiting in line, there's, there was no science to it. It was just going to where. Other interesting people would be attracted to go. Mm-hmm. .
Travis: Wow. That, that's, that's awesome. there's an, I think it's a new book that came out.
I'm curious if you've read it, by Robbie Samuels, croissant Versus Bagels, have you? Read that.
Jenny: I've heard his concept. Yeah. I love the concept. We should explain it for listeners and viewers, but it's so
Travis: good. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't read it yet. I have it. I started to read a little bit of it. and I think one of the things that I read the very beginning is, is he said that if you don't go to, if, if you can only go to one conference per year in person, do it.
Make a commitment to yourself to get out and do that. just for that, that reason. Right. And I think the concept. and I'm excited to read it, is, I, I think it has to do with how people form in little mini groups in conferences where they're more like a donut and or a bagel, and it's hard to bust into that circle and, and start get into the conversation.
And he's saying, I think to be more open, more like a cro. Shape, and invite people in to the conversation. When, when you're at a, is that how you take the concept?
Jenny: Yeah. That if you, you stand in a tight circle that makes a bagel, so then it's harder for new people or people who are by themselves to kind of break in.
But if you stand like a croissant and one person opens their body language up, or two on both ends, there's just this open pocket that's more. For new people to come up, so Yeah. Exactly as you said. Yeah.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. So, so make it Chris up for the, the people like me who are usually there alone. Right. And have a hard time.
Yeah. It's just hard to, to break in and you never know what to say to start that conversation. . I think just knowing it's gonna be awkward. Like Alyssa Cone was on my podcast, she said, here's her magic trick. She says, hi, my name's Alyssa. What's your name? . And then my dad always reminds me, whoever you talk to at a conference, they want you to talk to them like they're feeling as odd as you are, and they will be grateful.
Jenny: that you came and made the first move. Mm-hmm. . So I try to keep that in mind. And then I also just know, I think from podcasting, I'm used to every day of my life just feeling so awkward. Mm-hmm. and I, I truly feel awkward with every podcast that I do. And these days I'm recording five or six a week for my shows and including guesting on others.
And I feel awkward every time. So, Walk up to someone at a conference and I feel awkward. It's no different than the rest of my days . So I guess it stopped bothering me how awkward it can feel. But I, I'm pretty shy, so sometimes I just be lying for the bathroom and stay in there for 15, 20 minutes if I'm at a house party and I'm like, overwhelmed.
So I, I've definitely gone both directions. .
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. It, it's, it's tough and. And I, and I think coming back after being away from live conferences for two years or, or more, has made it challenging as well. I think more so for people who are introverted who have a tough time with that. I went to a conference in Anaheim in April and, and I think where I was with my business, my confidence wasn't quite there.
and I went to meet a client who, is in the UK and that's kind of our best opportunity to meet in, in the US and met with them and it, it was great. But then when it came to like walking around the, the conference floor and, and trying to meet new people, introduce myself, I just felt like I would be selling.
Something and I felt awkward and, and even there were people that I had met before and I had a tough time even going up to them and, and, and I, I just ended up like changing my flight and leaving early because I just couldn't, couldn't do it. And, and I felt. Horrible ever since because I spent a lot of money and it was an opportunity to really get in front of some people where that's what conferences are kind of for, right?
People go there to learn, they want to find new things and, and and yeah, so that was a big regret, I guess, of the last year with my business of like failing that opportunity to, to meet people. And so I think part, I haven't been to a, that was my first in-person. in two years, and so I think that played into it a little bit too.
I just wasn't in that for sure. Mindset,
Jenny: right? Yeah. And isn't that sometimes it's like that. Sometimes the best thing you can do to take care of yourself is leave or go back home or go back to the hotel room. I went to South by Southwest in 2022. for the first time in a few years. I think I'd last been in 2017 and I spent way more time in my hotel room than I ever had by myself.
And I went to bed early and I was like, you, I was kind of sometimes feeling guilty that, oh, I, I left that party super earlier. I didn't stay in chat. I didn't network, I didn't go here, there, the other, I just couldn't. I just like you probably because of being so insulated during the pandemic time, but yeah, I had way less capacity.
Than I normally do. But even when that happens, like you said, you had a win with your clients that you saw, so maybe that's it. Like, yeah, maybe it's just also lowering our expectations. I always tell myself if I make one new friend at a conference, that's cool. It's a success. .
Travis: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, is like, what, what is the objective?
and, and is it like a smart goal, right? Like, is it realistic, and, and, attainable. And so, so yeah, that's, that's a good point. and kinda sticking with, with, serendipity and knowing that you can't predict the future, but yet it plays such a big impact on things. does it how? How does that impact how you set goals and objectives for your business and for yourself?
Jenny: I have a very funny relationship with goals because , when I was in my early twenties, I would visione every area of my life and the more specific, the better, and I would write in the present tense and I felt like, A lot of that came to pass. And so I, in a way, it was really a positive relationship to visioning and imagining success.
And I even remember doing coaching exercises of my future self, and she was sitting in an apartment in New York City with a mug like this one, , you know, and bright light and bookshelves all around. And these things happened, but in a business sense, The best things that ever happen in my business are usually inbound.
I have nothing to do with them. Like if I keep putting my thinking out there and I do the best work I can in terms of creating my three books, two podcasts, my newsletter, that's what I'm committed to, but that's more of a commitment and an ongoing. Process. Tara McMullen in her new book, what Works, she talks about process versus goals.
James Clear talks about this too, that it's really about setting up systems that almost inevitably lead to a certain result. But any time that I've aimed directly at the result, it's just, it's so meaningless. Oh, I wanna earn a million dollars this year. And no matter, no matter how many books I would read on abundance, how much I would try to like manifest the million dollars, it didn't arrive and.
In hindsight, I always ended up feeling, I just set myself up for this really weird sense of disappointment because who's to say I know what's best? I don't know what's best of how much is best for me to earn, how much we need. I'd rather focus on being grateful for what I have than obsessed about what I don't.
And so, I don't know. I don't really set too many goals and I don't really track too many metrics. I, I look with the podcast generally. is the chart up and to the right. I kind of, I do look at directionality. I would love for them to grow, but every time I've set growth numbers of what I wish the subscriber number was, by what amount of time it ha, it has nothing to do with reality.
It just has nothing to do with anything. So I guess from a marketing perspective, until I dial in exactly how I would. invite five new people at, you know, 500 new people until I dial in some method that actually works reliably to bring in new people. It's so pointless to set an end goal in some way. At least that's just my personal take on it.
Yeah,
Travis: and, and I wonder if goals, May actually inhibit serendipity from happening because if maybe it, like you have this goal, but then the, the things you have to focus on to make that goal happen takes you away from what did work and and where that serendipity would would find you. And now you're putting yourself in a different position because you're trying to obtain that goal.
Jenny: I know. I wonder and maybe that. It closes off our vision to unexpected things. I wonder if that's true. My dad told me this thing the other day that if you stare straight at a star in the sky, it doesn't look as bright as if you soften your vision and then almost open up your peripheral vision. Then the star in the middle actually gets like much, much brighter.
Yes. And so I think we were talking about that as it relates to goals and. Big dreams and something like that, that I think for serendipity, yeah, if we, if we soften our vision around specific outcomes or how something needs to be, then we can be delighted by whatever occurs and just think, well, this must be what's in my path.
And like, I, I don't know. I do believe in a, i, I don't wanna ever offend people because I feel like if I say, oh, everything happens for a reason. It's just deeply offensive to people who have. Real tragedy and trauma. Hmm. In, in a business context, though, I, it does help me to maintain a mindset of everything that happens for a reason.
It just helps me find the silver lining the good in whatever happens. I, I look for what I can learn from it, how I can adapt, how might this actually be helping me? So the Zen parable will. That's the thing I lean on all the time is just events, good or bad, we'll see, try to maintain. I try to maintain equanimity and then I think that that mindset of gratitude and equanimity does create more fertile ground for serendipity.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's, that's a, a interesting way to, to, to view it and, and, yeah. . Yeah. It with the, the star thing as well, like right, like if we have a goal, a lot of times we're, we're constantly growing and evolving in life and business, and we don't know what we don't know. And sometimes it takes that experience to, to, for the next thing to show up, right?
We can't see it until we do A and B, we can't see c and. I wonder if we have too many goals or too rigid of a, of goals that it's preventing us from seeing those like the stars, right? Like we're too focused in on that one thing. We can't see the, the other stars that, that exist, and so we're actually shutting ourself off.
So yeah, that's a, a great, great way to look at it.
Jenny: What I love. Having a mindset, being open to serendipity is also releasing the pressure to know everything you, you know, you talk about the winding road and your pivots and pivots in progress and so do I, which is, we don't always know what our next moves are leading us toward.
And so I find that when I, when actually lean on surrender and serendipity, and I acknowledge them as part. Quote strategy. It takes the pressure off of having to know, because I'm saying surprise me universe. You know, it's like, just surprise me and crazily enough, you know? I know we'll talk about leaving social media, but I don't know.
I've been able to run a business now for almost 12 years with doing no outbound sales. Like only receiving, just receiving outbound thinking, yes, but then receiving whatever results. It, it wouldn't make it easy to like pay a payroll cause it's not as predictable what I'm gonna earn. And so I have to be more comfortable with uncertainty and with riding dips because I'm not, I haven't created a machine quite yet that just spits off like super predictable cash flows.
Certainly not through the pandemic, but. But it's working. It's working. So I can just say that I'm still here, like not having goals, not obsessing over metrics being surrendered to what? Surprises come my way. It is, it is working. I'm pretty happy. I'm happy with how things are and I'm just, sometimes I think we need to take those risks in terms of how we approach something.
One, to find more joy in the process, but then two, to realize, oh, my worst fears did not come to pass. It's okay. And it might even be better than it was before. .
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a good segue into the social media. And you had mentioned that, you know, most of your business comes inbound. And I think that really gets to the heart of, really from a marketing standpoint of what one of the more core tenets of marketing is.
And that's creating something that's so good that people talk about you when you're not in the room. Right. , and I think that's what you're doing. And you don't need social, you don't need to tell people. Because what you're creating is, is doing the talking for you and other people are your messengers.
Right? And, and the social, they, they're doing the social media talking for you. And, and I was just talking to a, with a friend this morning about this exact thing that, I mean that, that's, that's really why communities are becoming such a, a powerful thing from a marketing standpoint because people are in these.
Smaller groups that seem safe and people are talking there and, and people are asking questions, they feel more open to asking questions about, Hey, I don't know this thing. I'm trying to solve this problem. And then people are saying, Hey, well you should talk to this person, or have you tried this software?
and that's where marketing's happening now instead of social and kind of megaphone distribution. So I'd love to hear your thoughts. , if you feel like that's how it's happening for you and, and why you don't really need social.
Jenny: Yeah. I, I enjoy small communities too. I have one, I've have had one for seven years now because of exactly what you said.
It's a little more private. It's a little more of psychological safety that we can post and share things, and it's not part of the public historic record. Mm-hmm. now there's just so much pressure, like the way back machine is capturing everything we ever do online. I basically loved being on social media.
In the early days. I was never like a so gungho about Facebook, but I didn't hate it. Twitter, I made a lot of friends. It helped me grow my blogs. My blog at that time was life after college. I made a lot of friends. It was so fun. Going to my first South by Southwest in 2011 and like seeing all these little Twitter square people pop up into real size, just add water style, you know, it was so rewarding.
But then there started to be this shift where the more people that went on, I felt that I was just shouting into the void because it was too much to keep up with my own network, even I couldn't read what everyone else was saying. So I was just starting to blast only what I was promoting. That felt disingenuous cuz I, I didn't, and then I, I also, I just started to feel like it was death by a thousand cuts in terms of my attention.
So if I post a tweet, that means I'm now on the hook to read the replies and respond to people. And I would feel really guilty if I didn't, if I would post but then not read or respond to anything that didn't feel good either. I tried delegating to my team members to draft social content and schedule it.
That felt really silly cuz why are we doing this at all if it's not even me? , the whole thing just felt like it was laden with shits. I should be on social media. It how, you know, I, if I'm running a business or trying to become a thought leader, , I've never had that exact vision, but then I should be there and if not, I'm gonna be, like you said at the beginning, missing out.
But the drain on my energy and my attention was not worth it. Like I really value deep work. I know you're a fan of Cal Newport. As, as am I. I would rather write a book every five years than say that I was good at keeping up with Twitter or social media. I don't wanna be good at that. I don't want to put out a bunch of tiny thought snippets and obsess over those.
And then the replies, it's just not how I wanna spend my time or my attention. And. When Instagram grew in popularity, I'm not a very visual thinker as it is, but I definitely got more compare and despair feelings from Instagram where I was either seeing what was happening in my friend's lives and then feeling guilty I wasn't keeping up with them.
Mm-hmm. always the guilt or. I'm looking at how many like beautiful, perfect women are on Instagram and then feeling horrible about myself, or I'm looking at like just whatever it was. Just every time I would sign off, I noticed I feel worse, not better. And the fork in the road was I could either go to therapy and try to work on why this is making me feel so bad or I could just stop looking at it.
Now, even the way I consume the news, I've hated TV news since I was a child. I thought it was, it gave me nightmares. I thought it was scarier than the scariest movie because it was true that I was gonna get kidnapped any day now. And so even as an adult, I only read my news in the physical newspaper. And so I get the New York Times, Thursday through Sunday, I get the New Yorker, I get the Week magazine, and a couple others.
But none of it involves clicking. None of it involve. Well, it kind of involves the algorithm cuz they, they still have an algorithm for our attention, even in print media, but it's much slower and less aggressive mm-hmm. Than getting caught in the web of fighting these companies, fighting and profiting from our attention.
Mm-hmm.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. And, and it is exhausting and, and I've never thought, in the way that you mentioned of when you put something out there, then you're on the hook to reply and, and yeah. And if you don't, it feels like you were just, it was one way. Right. And I think it, it, it should be two way communication.
Jenny: Yeah. The tragedy of the commons. Yeah. I was now part of the problem. Right. Yeah,
Travis: exactly. And, yeah, and, and like even LinkedIn, I mean, LinkedIn's changed a lot over the last couple of years. , and it's almost like a micro blogging site now, where like the posts are 250 words plus not characters, but words.
And and, and that's been fine. But then again, like if you're gonna do that, now you are, especially if you like to write and, and share your thoughts in what you would normally do in a blog, now you're renting that space instead of owning it on your own site. Right. And. Elon Musk buys LinkedIn and does a bunch of crazy things and it goes away then like you've lost it all.
Right? And, and it's also hard to search and hard to find. And, I don't know. And, and I've, I've felt, and I think this probably has, you know, bearing on my confidence levels when I started my business back in August of 2021 and when the imposter syndrome hit immediately after I left my full-time role that.
I'm, you know, if I start talking about this stuff, I'm gonna be found out of being a, a fraud. Right? And, and so I just like clammed up and didn't do anything, like I was doing. And, . And then I think that comparison, like what, how you talked about Instagram, I think the same thing can happen on LinkedIn where you see all these people who appear to be more successful than you and they're sharing all these things and, and I'm reading it thinking, oh, I'm a consultant in this space and I didn't know that.
Why didn't I know that? Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I don't know enough. Right? And so then you start to doubt yourself more and feel guilty and. . Yeah. And so I've thought about it. The, I think the hard thing for me is that I have made a lot of great connections over the last two years, especially during the pandemic of being more active on LinkedIn.
but then a lot of times I think about like, some of these relationships, and they actually started in communities and then we took 'em to LinkedIn. Right. and now we're engaged through that. so, so yeah, I've, I've been struggling with that. And, and I think one thing that over the summer when, when I was doing the Voxer coaching with you and I was talking about writing a book and you talked.
Travis: When you think about writing a book, you wanna position it to where, I think you used an example of people are having a coffee and someone says, Hey, I'm having a tough time doing this thing. Another person says, well, you should check out this book. Right? And that stuck with me and I've tried to think about that, not just in the book I wanna write next, but also with my business and how can I be.
That to where people are having that conversation at a conference in a community and they say, Hey, I've got this problem. I can't do this thing. And they say, well, you should talk to Travis. That's what he does. and, and so, so I, that, that stuck with me a lot and I try to think about that and then if that's the case, I don't really need social media.
Right. .
Jenny: Yeah. It's not to knock it. If anybody really loves it, keep going. By all means, because it means you probably, it fits your personality. You have a skill for it. You, because you love it, you're gonna be doing more and more interesting things on it. So I would never tell someone to stop if they're really enjoying their experience on any of the socials.
I don't like that. Every time a social media company changes their business strategy, I'm expected to jump. So we say jump. You jump like, oh, and I love LinkedIn. I have courses on there, but, oh, just because LinkedIn, the, the norm is now creating a newsletter on LinkedIn. Okay, Jenny, go, no. You know, I can't, I can't just jump every time a new company is invented, like TikTok or the next one, or the next one or be real or whatever, it's like I cannot live my life to just try to be everywhere and have.
For all the places. And so it's not that you can't make friends on them, the question is, okay, if you turn off all those faucets of friend making, you will find new ones. You'll just find different ones, and maybe you'd have even more energy, like in my case, because it find, I find it so draining, having notification bubbles frigging everywhere, email, text messages, voicemail, let alone any other inbox that someone else creates with my name on it because I have a profile.
just if you can't tell, it's like it drives me crazy. So, so what I'm saying is that I find that all so deeply draining that when I turn it off, not only do I instantly feel better, then I go make friends where I want to make them like it. You could, it could still be done. The one thing that I get FOMO for is that,
Sometimes I admire how Tim Ferris, let's say he can just post on Twitter. You know, I'm doing an ama, what do you want me to answer? And the HS of all of his community will respond and he gets really brilliant intelligence of what mm-hmm. to talk about or what people want him to ask, one of his upcoming guests.
And with, with my podcast, I always say, you can leave me a voice memo, you can write in, but I get very little. Feedback that comes through my email inbox probably cuz I'm always complaining about it, . But, it's really hard to, that that's the one thing it's harder to just take an instant temperature check of, I'm interviewing Travis Scott coming up, what do you want me to ask?
And then boom, 10, 15, a hundred replies come in. That is the one thing that I sometimes feel. Wistful, could I be more in touch with my podcast listeners if I had a way that they could be like almost in regular communication with me? But then again, we have the private FF community, so I do feel that they're the focus group version.
yeah. Of the broader community.
Travis: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, if you wanted to, to, to run that temperature check, you couldn't just pulse it right, spin it up, spin it down. You have to be engaged and build that momentum and keep that engagement with your audience there on Twitter or wherever, so that they're ready when.
The, you know, they, they can respond. And so that's the tough part, right? It'd be nice if you could just like, spin it up, spin it down and get what you needed and get your insight. I know. , so. Yeah. So, so, yeah. Well, I know you have a hard stop coming up and, wanna be respectful of that and, and, yeah, really appreciate you coming back on.
The, the, the podcast to continue our, our conversation into serendipity and, and social. And, it's always great to, to catch up and, enjoy the conversation. again,
Jenny: I feel the same way. Thank you for such a fascinating conversation. It's, these are the topics I love the most and I just so appreciate everything you've asked and opened up around them.
It's fun to dig in a little more and. . Yeah, just see what's there and, and, and hearing your experiences too. Kind of always. I always feel less crazy . You can just hear someone else who says, I turned right around from that conference, and it's like, I've been there. I've done the same thing. , we all have those moments, so thanks for sharing as well, Travis.
Such a, such a joy to be connected and through all the different forms, boxer
Travis: included. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, really appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks a lot for coming on.
Jenny: Yeah, thanks so much.
