The world is going through a difficult and traumatic time right now.
Unfortunately, many people’s lives are being upended by severe health issues or job loss. Even those of us who have been fortunate enough to avoid sickness or unemployment are dealing with isolation, the upending of our daily routines, and the cascading impact of economic turmoil.
Which means that everyone is dealing with swift and sudden change, and the uncertainty and anxiety that can so easily accompany it.
In this episode, Brian Clark and Jerod Morris confront the current reality we’re all facing by opening up about how they are dealing with the upheaval, as well as the lessons from the past they are choosing to draw on for strength about what the future can hold on the other side of trying times.
At the core of this conversation is a simple question: Is it time to start doing what you really want to do?
There is no “right” answer. That will depend on your current mindset and circumstances. But this episode does offer a few simple questions to help guide you toward a meaningful answer.
Links
- Cartoon: “Documenting My Progress”
- Email Jerod: jerod@unemployable.com
- Follow Brian Clark on Twitter
Subscribe to 7-Figure Small
Or search for “7-Figure Small” wherever you listen to podcasts.
Transcript
Is It Time to Start Doing What You Really Want to Do?
Jerod Morris: Welcome to 7-Figure Small, the podcast that brings you the stories and strategies that are driving the growing number of solo businesses achieving 7-figures in revenue, without investors or employees.
Here are your hosts for this edition of 7-Figure Small — serial digital entrepreneur, Brian Clark, and me, Jerod Morris.
Jerod Morris: All right, Brian, let me start out with a simple, but potentially fraught question. How are you doing?
Brian Clark: All in all, everything is good. Family is all still healthy, if they’re not… I don’t know, the teenagers, man. You think you’ve got them understanding everything, and then you’re just like, “Why are you that close to that person? Get in here. You, neighbor kid, go home. I am just that dad now because you have to be, right?
Jerod Morris: You do.
Brian Clark: But we’re all doing well so far and everyone’s healthy. My parents who are both in their 70s are in Houston, hunkering down, being smart, both still healthy. So, I cannot complain, but I often still do to paraphrase the old Joe Wall song.
Jerod Morris: Yeah, we’re kind of in the same boat. Every time I start thinking about maybe how it’s … like we were just talking, my wife and I are sharing an office and the schedule has gotten kind of jumbled up. Dealing with some of those challenges, which are certainly real, have made work just a little bit more challenging than it’s been in the past, and have made maybe productivity go down.
I do come back to what you just said, which is no jobs have been lost, everybody’s healthy, my parents are taking it seriously. My mom’s taking it really seriously. We’re questioning how seriously my dad is taking it, but he’s at least going through the motions, which is important.
For the most part, everything is about as good as it could be. And so I think we feel really fortunate that that’s the case.
Brian Clark: It’s really interesting because I just feel incredibly blessed even beyond health, because so many people are — I mean, the unemployment numbers are just staggering and probably not even done happening yet.
And I just feel really fortunate that our financial situation is such that I could coast for a few years if we had to — I don’t want to. I’m really, really engaged in both Unemployable and Further right now, because I guess I feel that the purpose that I had behind both projects has just been amplified by this more than anything.
But my productivity is crap, man. I mean, it’s just bad. And so I keep kind of chastising myself going, “Look, everyone’s healthy. You’re okay financially. What the hell is wrong with you?
Just this morning, and it was very timely, there’s a guy named Hunter Walk. I came across an article he wrote on Twitter. He’s a VC guy, very (I’m sure) financially well-off, lives in San Francisco. And he basically just mirrored everything that I’m feeling which is: everything’s fine — financially, health, family, otherwise — and yet, I’m a mess.
It was really cool, I guess, to see someone just say, “Look, I am putting on this strong face… He used the term “Wartime CEO, so being strong for other people. Definitely, I feel like that is something I need to contribute if it can help people. But he’s also acknowledging like, “I’m not just unfazed by this at all. And that’s exactly how I’m feeling. It kind of gave me permission to quit chastising myself for feeling weird about it. It’s just a weird, difficult situation. We’ve never gone through anything like this in our lifetime.
So, I guess that’s my message. It’s okay to be freaked out even if things are otherwise okay. Count your blessings, express gratitude. But yeah, go easy on yourself. This is not normal.
Jerod Morris: It’s never nice to see that someone else is going through a difficult time, but it can feel comforting to know that someone understands what you are going through, to see that they’re…
Brian Clark: Well, I think he wrote it for other people in his situation. I mean, in the VC community, there are a lot of people with a lot of wealth who shouldn’t be worried about anything, I think would be the popular conception of it. And yet, they’re still human beings and this is still an uncertain and scary thing. Just the magnitude of suffering that’s happening right now, it just gets to me.
Jerod Morris: Yeah, it’s obviously this time of isolation where we’re all back in our respective homes and schedules and some of our routines are a little bit off. And just some of the people that we normally talk to that we normally interact with that we can normally just experience conversation with, we don’t have some of those.
Sometimes we don’t have as many people as we normally do to just say, “How are you doing? And so I have a feeling there might be people listening to this that might want to just let loose a little bit with how they’re feeling, how they’re doing, whether it’s positive or negative. If that is you, send me an email, jerod@unemployable.com.
I’ve had a lot of interactions with people in our community, both private messages and the happy hours that we’ve done, jumping on conversations where sometimes people just want to talk and let that out and relate with someone who gets what they’re going through.
So many of us work by ourselves and experience a lot of this by ourselves. If that’s you, and you want someone to reach out to, I mean it, send me an email because I appreciate those kinds of connections. And I know that sometimes it’s nice to have someone invite you to them so that you know that it’s a receptive ear, receptive eyes on the other end of it.
So, if there’s anybody out there feeling like that, let me know. I mean it because that’s what we’re here for.
Brian Clark: Yeah, absolutely. People can hit reply to anything I send out at Unemployable. People have been doing the same thing for Further. Just quick notes: “Thanks for this, hope you’re doing okay.
It’s been very affirming, I would say, that beyond commerce that you can have these kind of bonds with people where just a quick note like that, it can really make a difference.
Also, the Zoom happy hours we’ve been having in the community have been so much… I’ve only been to two of them, but it’s just so nice because I’m not there as Brian Clark. I’m just there as another guy who’s going through the same stuff as everyone else. And it’s just very kind of soothing to hang out with… yeah, you know.
Jerod Morris: It is, just experience some connection. It really is. That’s connection comradery, just being able to relate. That’s what’s going to help us all get through this in the best way possible. So I really appreciate those opportunities.
Finding Meaning
Jerod Morris: And the other thing, Brian, that’s going to help folks get through this in the best way possible to a certain extent is — I mean, even though this is awful and tragic in so many ways, and people are dealing with real challenges, and we really don’t even know what the full cascading impact of it is going to be — trying to find meaning in it. Trying to find the way that you can use this to get better, so it’s not a challenge that is all in vain.
There was a meme going around today that was along these lines. It was a cartoon from a guy named Tom Gauld. And past guests of the show that I saw, Daniel Pink, Tara McMullin, others were retweeting this. I’ll tweet it out from my Twitter account, you as well from yours. But it’s a cartoon that says, “Documenting my process. And it’s got these three books: volume one, volume two, and volume three.
Volume three is over on the right and it’s a really thin book, really small little book. And it says, “Breakthroughs, Discoveries, and Successes. And then in the middle, you’ve got a much bigger thicker book, volume two — “Accidents, Failures, and Disasters. And then on the left side, a huge massive tome, volume one — “Disappointments, Letdowns and Setbacks.
Obviously, the meaning there, as he’s documenting his processes, is how much more you learn from disappointments, let downs and setbacks and accidents and failures and disasters, even than just the breakthroughs, discoveries and successes. Sometimes being able to put it in that kind of context can help you find meaning in a time like this, which can help you get through it with the best attitude possible.
Brian Clark: Yeah, and it’s the truth. I think it’s been only recent, five years maybe (if at most), where people talk more and more about — because we tend to glamorize the success and not understand exactly everything that happened that wasn’t a high point. And those, in my experience, have been some of the most meaningful moments in my life and career. Yes, they led to that thin volume of breakthroughs, discoveries, and successes. And that’s what everyone wants to dwell on.
But I know in my case, I couldn’t have gotten there without all the other stuff. Sometimes adversity is the catalyst that ultimately leads to success even though we don’t like to necessarily think about it that way.
Jerod Morris: It reminds me of the old Michael Jordan Nike ads where so many of those ads for a long time showed him doing great things. They came out with this ad, which was all these shots that he missed. And the basic point was, “I’ve made so many shots and had so many big moments because I’ve made all of these mistakes. I’ve been willing to take these shots, I’ve endured that pain, I’ve learned lessons from them, and that led me to the success.
That was the first thing I thought about when I saw this ad. And it’s true in so many different walks of life — athletics, what we’re doing — it’s a through line that you see with successful people.
Brian Clark: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think sports provides a great analogy, because Michael Jordan, he didn’t make the team as a freshman.
Jerod Morris: He didn’t make the varsity as a freshman.
Brian Clark: But can you imagine Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time didn’t even make…? You would think he was playing varsity in sixth grade. But what he did after that was go to work. His practice regimen was insane after he didn’t make the team, like he was humbled and disappointed and angry. You know how competitive that guy is.
So I think it’s important to talk about that aspect of it, because if you’re looking at someone else and thinking, “Well, I wish I could just walk my way to success so easily like they did, well, it’s probably not correct. I mean, yes, extreme luck happens, but it’s more rare than you think.
Finding Opportunity in Difficult Times
Jerod Morris: Yes, it is. So on that topic, let’s reflect a little bit on an episode that we did recently, which is the one — I think it’s three episodes back, from Spencer Sheinin. Where you guys spent some time talking about in a situation like this, which again provides so many challenges and is hurting a lot of people — it is also possible to find opportunities in it and that can sometimes be a tricky subject to broach, but yet, it is real. He actually gave some good examples of it.
Reflecting on that episode, how do you put that discussion into context now with everything that’s happened over the three weeks since we published it?
Brian Clark: Yeah, I’ve actually thought about that conversation quite a bit, because Spencer is the financial guy who gave us tips on how to survive and thrive in a financial crisis. And he just said something, “Haven’t the key moments of your life been basically when your back was against the wall?
Yes. But I pushed back a little against him, because I didn’t want to be that guy who’s telling other people, “Yes, everything is awful, so man up and do something great. It’s one thing to decide to do that for yourself as I’ve done a couple of times, and they were pivotable — pivotable, it’s not a word — pivotal moments in my life that led to everything that I ended up accomplishing.
Deciding that for yourself is different from someone telling you, especially at a time like this when everyone’s really anxious and freaked out and uncertain. The last thing they need to hear is from some guy who could ride it out for a few years financially, “Hey, just man up. I just don’t want to do that.
But I can talk about my moments and how they inspired me to really choose to do what I really wanted to do instead of making compromises that I thought I was supposed to make for a myriad of what turned out to be illogical, irrational, and unhelpful thoughts or beliefs that I had. And I kind of got rid of them in the most drastic way. It always is with me.
You can’t necessarily get Brian to do anything without some sort of drastic wake up call. And yet, it could have easily, I guess, when the sky falls down on your head, almost literally — it could also be conceivable that you would give up. Obviously, I’m going to tell you that’s the worst thing you could do at that point, and that you can actually find the motivation and the courage to actually deeply embrace what you have been telling yourself you couldn’t do or shouldn’t do, or what have you.
Yeah, Spencer made great points in that conversation and I’ve been just thinking about why I didn’t embrace… I eventually embraced what he said, but I just felt uncomfortable about putting that out to the audience, especially at this time.
Jerod Morris: If you ever do write a memoir, “When the Sky Falls Down on Your Head should probably be a candidate for the title of it.
Brian Clark: With “literally in parentheses … some people may not know what we’re talking about.
Jerod Morris: No, they might not. Some people may not know that story. Do you want to share that story? I mean, it’s a good one, it’s an instructive one. Well, maybe it’s not good, but it’s an instructive one.
Brian Clark: Honestly, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me, Jerod, and it’s so weird when you know the story that I say that.
As this episode is airing, today is my son’s 15th birthday, which means it’s been 15 years since I attended his birth with a massive pool of blood in my head, a subdural hematoma that I didn’t know about. I knew I felt bad. It would get much worse in the coming weeks.
Basically, what happened was I had sustained an injury to my head from snowboarding about a month earlier and started developing headaches. I just look back on it, I’m like, “How could you have been so stupid not to go to the doctor sooner? But I was under a lot of stress with the business I had at the time, which was the real estate business. My son was on the way, but he kept pulling false labors. It was just one of those situations where you’re thinking, “Who wouldn’t have a headache?
But just a few weeks later at the beginning of May, so again, 15-year anniversary, I had to have emergency brain surgery. According to the doctors, I was that close to dying. And yeah…
It was so bad, Jerod, I’ve almost had this kind of attitude lately about getting sick from the virus or something like that. But back then, I was in so much pain, I was like, “Either surgery is going to fix this and I’ll be okay or I’m going to die and I’m going to be okay. I mean, it was at that point. It was awful. I was hallucinating.
It was right at Mother’s Day when my wife, and mother who had just given birth to that baby (and we had a three-year-old also at home), pulled me out of bed and brought me to the emergency room. Got the MRI, and they said, “You’re getting in an ambulance right now.
Fortunately, one of the top neurosurgeons in the state, or maybe in the country, was in Dallas at that time. And that’s who I got. So very, very fortunate. But it’s just crazy. That was 15 years ago. And it was literally the beginning of the 15-year run I’ve gone on that people know me for, and it might not have ever happened without that.
What Was the Shift?
Jerod Morris: Why did that cause you to shift? Like, I mean, what was it about that and what was maybe the moment that led to… because you could have recovered and gone back to what you were doing, so why didn’t you?
Brian Clark: Yeah, it’s interesting. When I woke up from surgery, I don’t know if it was a function of the operation I just had or what, but I basically was in my hospital room alone and just had a complete experience of absence of self, like what some people might call enlightenment, basically. The understanding that your self is an illusion, not at an intellectual level.
Neuroscientists will tell you our sense of self is an illusion. It’s basically a story that we construct, an ongoing narrative of our memories and our past experiences and our current thoughts. But experiencing it, usually you have to meditate for a long time, years, or take a certain illicit substance that can mimic that sort of experience.
It was profound. I just had this experience that everything I told myself — my personality is driven by a strong sense of obligation. And I think I get that from my dad in a good way, who was always there to help other people, who always did the right thing, who always put others first. And I think that was one of the most valuable things I got from him.
But it can also be dangerous to where you feel like, “Well, I can’t do what I want to do because I need to be practical because I’ve got a family to take care of. I had a lot of those beliefs and they were gone. It was just gone. I mean, I just experienced this profound sense that I can do anything that’s within my capabilities and talents.
And what I really wanted to do was not be in real estate, not be in law. I wanted to do what I was good at and basically have a completely all online model because that’s what I found fascinating and fun, and I was good at it. Basically, that epiphany resulted in me just resolving never to do anything for money that I was supposed to do or was the pragmatic thing to do necessarily.
Now, I still have a strong, pragmatic streak, don’t get me wrong. But I do it within the context of doing work that brings me joy and gives me a sense of purpose and meaning. And that’s only continued to grow over the 15 years since. But at the time, it resulted in a very drastic move of basically ditching a successful business, because I just didn’t want to do it anymore and I wasn’t going to do it anymore.
And the remainder of 2005, I spent a lot of time looking at what was going on in blogging, because I hadn’t really been paying attention, I was so busy. I’m doing this thing that we now call “content marketing since ‘98, ‘99. And it was working for me really well in the context of that business. But I was also doing all this other stuff — managing the business, handling clients, making sure that nothing fell through the cracks. And, honestly, that is not my biggest talent. I wasn’t good at it. I’ve said it over and over again.
So, one of the things that went along with starting Copyblogger, which the idea came from me at the end of 2005, and it was up and running in January, 2006. Once I decided, I just absolutely went for it. Again, it’s that one decision has led to all of these things.
It’s interesting, Jerod, because I have this terrible habit still. My mind will go to the big volume and the middle volume of screw ups and disasters and bad decisions. And I always think of those three years in the real estate business all the time. They’re always coming back into my head. Not the three years where I started three 7-figure companies in a row. Why can’t I think about that more often?
But no, I think it pops into my head so often because I made the wrong move there and I learned from it, of course. But it’s just a reminder to always stay true to myself.
And, as you can tell, over time, meaning and purpose have become the key determiners before money, or fame, or status, or anything like that.
Now, that’s not to say that the businesses that I’m involved in now won’t make a great deal of money. I think they’re certainly capable of it.
Jerod Morris: Hope so.
Brian Clark: That’s not the issue, right? Yeah, sure. It’s like, “Yeah, buddy. I’m not here for my health.
But, seriously, no joking. If it doesn’t make me feel like I need to get up in the morning and do this, whether it makes a dime, then it’s probably not the right thing.
And I think that is probably true for most people. I guess some people are more money-motivated than others. I was at the time of the real estate business, because I wanted to prove to myself that I could start a business that had nothing to do with law, and I chose it because I knew I could make a lot of money.
So, to me, that was all the wrong motivations. But I think it’s just a phase I had to get behind me in order to learn from it. I think my mind goes back to those days so often just as a reminder, “Don’t do it again. You swore you would never do it again when you woke up from surgery, and that there’s no chance of it, honestly.
I suppose the skillset I have, if everything went to total crap for me financially, I could always make a living. I might have to choose a business model in that context where it wasn’t my life’s purpose or passion. But as long as that’s not the case, and as long as I have a choice, it’s always going to be, “Does this business satisfy something more than the need to make a living?
Jerod Morris: It was interesting, as you were telling that story, how you framed it. When you talked about that moment of having that realization, that the self was an illusion. And talking about those things that you learned from your dad, that obligation and the desire to do things ethically and the desire to help people.
It’s not like you did a complete 180 from that mindset. I mean, you’ve carried those ideals when I’ve worked with you for however long now. Since what, 2012, 2013? You’ve carried those ideals with you and they’ve continued to be driving forces. Even though you’ve shifted the work that you’ve been doing, those still seem like the foundation.
So you’re at least able to keep those elements that you had before, but it sounds like channel them in a way that is more fulfilling to you personally.
Brian Clark: Yeah, that’s the positive side of it. Of course, you wouldn’t want to lose that part. But I’m just saying that that same impulse of doing the right thing, of obligation, can also have a negative side. Because you could say, “Well, I shouldn’t do what makes me happy because I have to take care of my family. But what’s the effect of being unhappy on your family? I mean, you really have to think about the bigger picture.
If I would’ve stayed a lawyer, I would be miserable, if not dead. But if I would’ve just kept on the same path I was on in 2005, I would have been just as miserable and probably… Not a perfect dad right now, but I’d probably be a much worse one if I were just miserable all the time.
I’m becoming, I think a better relationship with my kids every day because even beyond business, I’ve become the person I want to be with regard to my health and my habits and all of these things. I feel like I’m such a slow learner, but you know, it only took me to age 50 to get it together, Jerod.
Jerod Morris: So I still have some time is what you’re saying?
Brian Clark: Yeah, exactly.
Jerod Morris: I just need to go snowboard and crack my head. And that’ll…
Brian Clark: No, this is the hope here. Do not need to be knocked upside the head like I do. I have a lot of faith in our audience that they can do the right thing without such dramatic measures. I’m just, I guess you would say hardheaded, but not hardheaded enough.
How to Determine If It’s Time for Change
Jerod Morris: So, that’s interesting. I mean, this is an interesting time for folks. I know in my experience since I started working with Copyblogger and really working with folks who were digital entrepreneurs and freelancers and solopreneurs, people who worked on their own — so many people that I’ve talked to, their stories begin in 2008 and the financial crisis. It just caused such a shift. And it was just such a difficult spot for a lot of people, but it was like a fork in the road.
It was like, “All right, am I going to go back to doing what I was going to do out of necessity? Or because this is just a moment when I can make this choice, am I going to go in a different direction?
Maybe it will be instructive for folks who are having thoughts like that right now, who are not going to have the epiphany that you had. What are some questions that people can ask themselves, or some ways that they can frame their thinking about this, to see if maybe there’s a different direction they should go in, or if the direction that they’re going in right now is the right one? What should people ask themselves to try to figure that out?
Brian Clark: Yeah, there are all sorts of various situations here. I think the first one that comes to mind is maybe you’ve got a freelance business and your client pipeline dried up, or your long-term clients cut down on hours or canceled services for a while.
We’re naturally thinking about worst case scenario, literally back against the wall financially. You have to do something. And if you’re sick of being at the mercy of clients… I mean, that’s the only downside of that model. You don’t have one boss, you have plenty of bosses because of clients. And sometimes that takes your own destiny out of your hands.
But it may also be at this moment, again, at this inflection point, your business is still okay, but you’ve been settling all this time. Like you’re being the practical, pragmatic one, but what you really want to do is X.
I think this is a valid time to really look at that with question number one being: what do you really want to do? What would better align with your values, with your sense of purpose, with what would be fun that you’re not doing now?
I think for most of us, if that thing is not what we’re doing now, they know what it is, but they kind of push it to the back of their mind to “Someday, or “That’s not practical, or “That’s not me.
When I originally wrote about my subdural hematoma and my surgery, I closed it with basically, “This life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it. This is your shot. If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it.
So first of all, what is it? What would you really want to do if there were no other considerations or barriers? “Why aren’t you doing that? would be the second question.
Jerod Morris: You saying that… I don’t have a story like yours with this big epiphany. But I went through some of that myself after I graduated from college, really just kind of meandered around with what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to teach, so I did that. Then took some short-term sales jobs, then worked as an account manager at a print shop, because my best friend’s dad owned the place and it was a way to get a job.
Then I thought I was going to go to law school because that seemed like the practical thing to do. And it was always just kind of trying to make these choices that seemed practical in the moment, but just were not the things I’d love to do.
What I’ve loved to do since I was a kid is to write and to record stuff. I’ve always loved doing it. It’s what I used to do when I was having fun with my friends back in the day.
The big thing that changed, I was doing work for a lawyer and it was the day that I met Derek Shaffer. And he gave me an opportunity to write some press releases for him. And it was like, “Writing — this is what I love to do. And it put me back on the path to doing what I’m doing now, which is what I love to do.
It made me think about that because I knew that was what I wanted to do, but it never seemed practical. I never really figured out, “How am I going to make a living doing this? What am I going to do with this?
Why wasn’t I doing it? It was because I was thinking about all these other people judging my life. Like my parents and other people, not what would I really love to be doing. And it’s like everything got unlocked once I got an opportunity to actually do what I really love to do.
And it took someone else giving me the opportunity. I didn’t just seize it, but it sent me down the path to now really understanding that mindset a lot more.
Brian Clark: Yeah. Looking back on my own life, why did I go to law school? It’s because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I did really well on the LSAT. My brain was born for law school, but it was definitely not born for the practice of law.
But yeah, I said, “At least my mom will be proud of me if I become a lawyer. That’s no way to make a decision about your life. But we do that. We do it all the time. We do it in our 20s, but if we’re doing it in our late 30s, 40s, and 50s, it’s not going to work, because the older you get, the more important purpose and meaning become to you.
This is not just me saying that. That’s from doing Further. It’s been fascinating to figure out what happens to us as we approach midlife and go through midlife. The things we thought were important become less important. And we get a new set of priorities. And then we just have to figure out, are we stuck or are we not?
I’m going to just be bold enough to say you are not stuck. I don’t care how many reasons you come up with why you can’t do it. A lot of them seem very real, but if you take a closer look at them, I think they may be just self-limiting, which was exactly what I shook off in that hospital room that day. I mean, it’s still amazing to me.
Speaking of Derek Shaffer, that’s how we met each other, right?
Jerod Morris: Yeah.
Brian Clark: You were literally doing support, hosting support.
Jerod Morris: Yeah, at that time.
Brian Clark: And how did I get you to start writing? Like how did I… I don’t know. I think you wrote something for Copyblogger and I’m like, “This kid’s good. What’s he doing in service support?
Jerod Morris: It was out of necessity, because the whole reason that came about was I created a website that was getting tons of traffic and Derek figured out a hosting stack for it. And so this other business opportunity came out, but we were such a lean company that we had to rotate weekends doing support because we had to.
So I’m writing blog posts while I’m doing it and then hopping over and doing support. It was out of necessity. But as soon as we got the opportunity to come over with you guys, I mean, Derek and I talked about this when it happened — there was going to be an opportunity to write because that’s what I’d loved to do.
I probably asked him if you even mentioned the opportunity. I was probably accepting it before you got done even saying the words, because it’s what I love to do.
Brian Clark: For those who aren’t familiar, that was the beginning of what became Synthesis, our WordPress hosting division which provided us with the expertise and knowledge to do Rainmaker. So, yeah, it was all very instrumental in what we were doing and ended up selling.
Jerod Morris: But what’s interesting about that time doing support, though, is I knew that I loved writing. I knew I loved recording and doing podcasts. What that taught me was that I really found fulfillment in helping people too, because going in there doing support, like these are people whose businesses and livelihoods are relying on websites.
And so to actually be able to go in and have that opportunity to help people get this up and help them solve real problems — because I never would have thought that doing support like that would have been fun. I don’t know that it was necessarily fun, but it was fulfilling. And it gave me that firsthand experience of serving people online that then combined with the writing and everything else that has been a through line of everything that I’ve done since then.
But, again, all those opportunities came when I finally got that opportunity to do what I really love to do and everything has just cascaded from there. I needed someone to help me and give me the opportunity to do it.
All the while, all this stuff that you’re going through, were the reasons real or self-limiting? Yeah, they were self-limiting, totally.
Because it wasn’t like the greatest opportunity. It was a guy asking me to write press releases for his small business. I could have found that if I looked for it. But I’ll be forever grateful to him putting it in front of my face and kind of making me do it.
Brian Clark: And then you ended up as VP of Marketing for Copyblogger, which was a long way from the support room. And now we’re business partners. I guess you do have your own story: “If Brian wouldn’t have wiped out snowboarding, who knows where I’d be.
But I just think that at this particular time, a lot of people are realizing life is precious and life is short and this is not a dress rehearsal. And I think that’s why inflection points like brain surgery, or 2008 and the great recession, or this pandemic are catalyst for people. Unlikely, because you feel like you need to hunker down and be practical, and maybe for a little while, but otherwise, it’s been my experience, and I’ve heard, like you, so many stories of, “It was those bad moments (whether personal or shared like this one) that made all the difference.
So, what if what you really want to do is something you start as a side hustle now? I mean, if your business is okay otherwise, you still have the flexibility to begin — baby steps, incremental progress, Kaizen. Right, Jerod? It’s our favorite concept.
Jerod Morris: Yeah.
Brian Clark: If your main gig is hurting right now, what if you just went all in?
I know it sounds scary. It was scary in 2005. I was not in the greatest financial shape two years later when we were just about to launch our first product in 2007. Thank God that was a home run because I would have been in trouble if it wasn’t.
But Tony and I were still patient, methodical. We made sure that what we were doing was actually what the audience wanted and needed. And we were proven right by being patient and by doing the right thing. You know, 0 to 6-figures in a week, 0 to 7-figures in a year. And then that was the beginning of a remarkable run. I just still look back and go, “It was all because I’m a bad snowboarder.
But it’s interesting that lots of people have told me that I’m not the same person that I was prior to 2005. Some people mean that as a compliment. Other people, I think at the time, kind of thought I had lost my mind.
But see, that’s the thing. You’re a genius if it all works out. But whether you succeed or fail is not really the criteria. It’s, “Am I doing what I want to do? Am I giving it a shot with this life that I have to live here? And did the best I can while I was on this crazy planet earth?
That’s what matters. It’s hard to think about it that way sometimes, but it’s the thing.
How to Put Change in Perspective
Jerod Morris: It is the thing.
How do you think about change? How do you put change in perspective? I imagine it’s a lot different now than maybe it was 15 years ago before that happened.
But so many of us, as we talked about, we have no idea what “normal is going to look like when we get on the other side of this. But I think a lot of us agree that it’s not going to be what it looked like before when everybody’s going through changes of some kind. So whether someone’s in the position to ask themselves these questions that we just talked about, everyone’s going to have to figure out how to adapt to the change.
How do you view that? How do you put it into perspective?
Brian Clark: Well, it’s a truism that change always brings opportunity. The status quo was being shaken up. I’ve seen people in the tech world talking about how these once completely unchallengeable business models, “There may be opportunities now that Airbnb is hurting and now that Uber is hurting. But I’m not thinking about it like that.
Coming into this year, goodness gracious, who knew 2020 was going to be like this? But I, both at Further and Unemployable, I’m like, “Look, this decade is going to be crazy full of change. And it’s going to be disconcerting to a degree because it’s going to be faster, even faster than we’ve seen since, say, 2007, which was again, right there with the financial crisis, but also the release of the iPhone, which really kind of cascaded a series of domino effects that really changed the world in many, many ways.
So I was already talking about “Change brings opportunity coming into this decade, but I did not anticipate… Anyone who says, “No one saw a pandemic coming is just not being intellectually honest. We knew it was going to happen and it’s probably going to happen again.
But I did not know it was going to happen literally Q1, 2020, the decade of change that I was telling everyone to get ready for. I was just talking about AI and what’s happening there and a lot of the tech changes and the cultural changes that’ll come with it.
Instead, we’ve got all that. And all of that is probably going to accelerate now that employers see the fragility of the human workforce. I mean, it could go from bad to worse with automation and whatnot. You know what I’m saying? Hopefully, it remains true that the machines need us to work with them. And I think that’s pretty likely.
But the point is, there’s going to be more opportunity in this decade if you can keep your wits and stay calm and take a step back and watch. That’s what we’re trying to do with Unemployable is anticipate change. We could not anticipate this and its particular timing. But now we have the obligation as business people to make sense of what this change means.
We have to take the opportunities that we see, because generally, a lot of people need our help is the way I look at it. We have a lot of value that we can bring to others, to a changing world. And if we can create a successful business that does good and brings value and enriches our own lives, then that’s what we’re here to do. Period.
Jerod Morris: That’s why we’re excited to introduce the new brand from Unemployable, “Pivotable — how to create a business that will allow you to adapt to the change that is inevitably coming in the future.
Brian Clark: I’ve coined a few phrases in my life, but I’m not proud of that one.
Jerod Morris: Pivotable. You know, right before we were getting ready to record, I think you were like, “If this one doesn’t get to a half hour, that’s okay.
Brian Clark: I know, yeah. And then you and I just started talking and it’s an hour later.
Jerod Morris: It’ll get there. It’ll get there. Well, I think that’s a great point to end on. Again, hope everybody is okay and managing as best you can.
I meant what I said at the beginning, email me, jerod@unemployable.com. If you want somebody to reach out to, or just talk to, or say how you’re feeling, you will get someone receptive on the other end of that. Because sometimes we need that, and that is okay.
Brian Clark: And if you’re not subscribed to the newsletter or to Next Level 7, then you could probably guess my email address. It’s just like Jerod’s, except my name is different. But you can always hit reply to any of those messages. And those of you who have lately, I love it. I read every one. I reply as much as possible.
I’ve been really doubling down on replying lately, because I’m like, “What email is actually more important than emails like this? And that’s, I think, been a little bit of a shift for me because you always feel like, “Well, I’ll get to all those later, but now, those are the ones I put first.
Because it’s good to connect with people. It’s good to hear if something helps. It’s good to hear how we can help in other ways if you have ideas about that.
So, brian@unemployable.com and do get on the email list. We’ve got some good stuff in addition to podcast episodes that we can share with you each week.
Jerod Morris: Yes, we do. All right, thank you for listening, and we’ll be back with a new episode next week.
Brian Clark: Take care, everyone.