23 How to Get Unstuck and Turn Average into Awesome with Jon Acuff

Facing your fears can be one the hardest thing to do. It's that fear that holds us back from taking massive action to go after our dreams. For many, it's easier to sit on the couch and do what the world tells you to do. However, this podcast is for those seeking to make a dent, […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 23 with New York Times bestseller, John Acuff. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:32Lewis Howes?

  What is up, greats? Thanks so much for tuning in this week. It's gonna be a very powerful message today. And I want you to pay attention to something very closely.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  You are more powerful than you know it. You have amazing talents and a mind that can achieve any dream you want to dream. It's your fears that hold you back from achieving greatness. But great leaders feel the fear and do it anyways. They don't let other views hold them back from their vision and attacking their goals. So live with the passion and energy that's available to you at all times and let your talents shine. It's your time to shine, guys, and I want you guys to step up today and start taking action. It's time to start. And that's what this episode is all about.

• 1:28Lewis Howes?

  It's with New York Times bestseller, John Acuff, and his book is called, Start. Punch Fear in the Face. Escape Average. Do Work That Matters. For me, that resonates. And I don't know if that resonates for you, but if you're listening to this show, I'm assuming it does. And if you've been listening to this for weeks and weeks, then I'm assuming it does. And now is the time to start stepping up. There are so many things that you could be doing. But you've got to be creating something awesome because we've only got one chance of this life and I want you guys to make the most of this. So we've got a powerful message today with a powerful man, John, who's about to jump on here in a second, who's joining me for this interview and I can't be more excited to share it with you guys. It's been

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  a powerful week for me, a lot of breakthroughs, some amazing things in my business, some amazing things in athletics, some amazing things in my relationships with my family, with my friends, and I am excited to continue breaking through each and every day and all the barriers that I have put on myself and breaking through those bad boys and making epic things happen. And I want you guys to join me and I know that's why you're here. So, thanks so much for joining me today. It's gonna be a powerful one. Want to share the fan of the week before we jump into this. And the fan of the week is from Hip and Healthy UK on Instagram and

• 2:57Lewis Howes?

  they posted a picture that is gorgeous, somewhere in the southeast of France, I think it says Province. Never been there, but Province in France. Beautiful hilltop, they just ran a marathon and they're up on the top of this hill looking over some amazing countryside in France. So, Hip and Healthy UK, thanks for posting the picture that you were listening to this during your marathon. I appreciate you guys. And I just have to say, I really appreciate each and every one of you listening right now. I received over a hundred messages last week from people on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and my personal email from the site, from people telling me how much they appreciate the episodes and

• 3:42Lewis Howes?

  specific messages from specific guests. So, I'm telling you that those messages and you guys sharing this with your friends and family and on your blogs and on social media, you guys are really inspiring me to continue to make this even better for you each and every week, bring you more inspiring guests and share with you content that really helps and that really matters. So, please keep posting pictures where you're listening to this on Instagram, share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, wherever you want to post it. And I really appreciate you guys and love you so much for tuning in each and every week. I am pumped to bring you.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  The one and only New York Times bestseller, John Acuff.

• 4:39Lewis Howes?

  What is up everyone? Thanks again for tuning in and I've got a special guest on here today who we just connected. We actually connected via Twitter a couple of months ago, about six weeks ago during his book launch and now we're first, first time connecting via the phone. And it's good to be here with John Acuff. How you doing, man?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  I'm great. Thanks for having me.

• 5:01Lewis Howes?

  And you just launched, I believe it's your third or fourth book, but it's called Start. And it just hit the New York Times bestseller list. So congratulations.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Thanks. I appreciate that.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  You have an amazing blog at johnacuff.com and a lot of inspiring content. And I want to get into your book really quick before we go into your backstory. So your book is called Start. It's called Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters. And for me, that's very inspiring. And I think for a lot of people, especially in America, they want to do things that matter. And a lot of the things that they're, they're afraid to do things and that's what holds themselves back, I think, from really doing the things that matter because they're so stuck in doing what other people think they should do or doing what they think society tells them to do, or doing something that's secure and safe. So I want to talk about fear really quick. I just want to jump right into the

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  fear. And do you think people are more afraid of fear of success or failure?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Well, I think, um, I think the one that gets all the attention, kind of the sexy one, if you will, is failure. But I think deep down, uh, fear of success is grossly, grossly underrated.

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  Now, why is that?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I think that a lot of us don't think we deserve it. Um, in our culture, we like to see people win and then we like to tear them down. Um, you know, and, and I mean, it was funny. I was, we went to the Lorax, the Dr. Seuss movie and like the bad guy was a capitalist that made money and was successful. And my wife was kind of like, who hates trees? Like, what are we arguing? You know, and it's just, and like, the whole thing, like, green was the evil color. And so I think sometimes culturally, we just, people that win, we have a hard time with. Um, you know, we, and, and then you kind of become the villain. And so I think a lot of people don't think they deserve it. I think the other thing you have to remember is that when you fail, there's no expectations. Your only expectation as a mess up is that you mess up.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  But when you succeed, even a little, suddenly there's this sense of expectation. And this sense of you've got to do more and go to the next level. And I always say that the heroes' clothes are heavier than the villains. And so, yeah, I, you know, I, I'm totally in line with that. That's definitely one of my, you know, my fears. And when things go well, I, I want to sink my own ship right down to the bottom. And my wife will be like, I feel like you're drilling holes in your sink, in your ship. And I'll be like, I know, grab one, grab a drill, we'll get there faster. Uh, yeah, it's certainly one that I've bumped into.

• 7:27Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Now, so tell me about yourself. Now, let's, let's dive back into you for a second when I go back into the, the stuff you talk about in the book. What have, what have you been up to in the last few years? And what inspired you to really start sharing this message? Cause you speak all over the world, all the country, and you're working with Dave Ramsey. So you're sharing this message, but what were you doing before this?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I, I had, uh, you know, day jobs. I had eight jobs in eight years and I was what you call a serial quitter. Um, and I was like a lot of Americans, I thought the next one would be the one that kind of fixed me and it made me happy. And then I'd get there and have a six month honeymoon period, but then I'd get bored and bitter and lo and behold, the same problems from the last job showed up the next job. And so finally, Louis, I had to be honest and admit that the common denominator in every bad job I ever had was me.

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  What, what was I gonna do about that? You know, eighty percent of Americans right now, according to statistics, want to change their job. Um, and so I, I got to a place where I thought, okay, enough is enough already. You know, I don't want to get to sixty or seventy, eighty and realize I've missed my life. And we've all been there. We've all said these same five powerful words, the words, how did I get here? And for some of your listeners, it was a relationship that should have lasted one awkward day at Olive Garden. It turned into three years of dating. You know, for some of them, it was that job. It was supposed to be a six-month, you know, stopgap job that turned into six years. And so I started a blog, um, I started hustling, I started booking my own speaking and got a one-book book deal, you know, nothing crazy. I mean, it wasn't like this lottery moment. You know, I, I tell people, when I got my book

• 8:56Speaker 01

  deal, people were like, are you gonna quit? Are you gonna quit now? And I got, at the end of the day, after taxes, like thirteen grand. If you won a thirteen thousand dollar lottery, nobody'd be like, Louis, you moving to Mexico? What up? Thirteen grand! Like, you can't get a nice Civic for that. Like, you're getting base model Civic for that.

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Nobody would be like, it's ballin' time. Louis, woo!

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Manually rolling up the windows, yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, our culture is so backwards on that. And so, yeah, started to grind and do the grind. And the great thing is, so many people are lazy, so that the bar is pretty low for you and I right now.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Like, and, and customer service is so bad that the bar is pretty low there, too. So, started to learn and still have a tremendous way to go, but about three years ago, partnered with a guy named Dave Ramsey, and he is, he kinda has been like this greenhouse effect for me, in that the growth has been larger, much larger than it would have been on my own.

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Now, what was your biggest fear in getting started, or turning average into awesome, as you like to call it?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, definitely success was on there. Um, definitely making the wrong decision. Um, you know, having people go, why did you join Dave? If you could have done this on your own, you know, we, some of that, some of that language, I guess.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Um, fear of offending people, um, you know, fear of looking foolish, um, you know, I, all those, all those fears. And then the one that, uh, the drive, that drove me and a lot of people is, who are you to do that?

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Whenever you try something new, this voice will say, who are you to do that?

• 10:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  You know, and I, I see it across the country. You're a stay-at-home mom, you don't get to start a business, who are you to do that? Or, you're an accountant, you don't get to be a painter, who are you to do that? And so, that's one of the loudest voices of fear people, people deal with.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Now, why, why did it take eight years and eight jobs? And why that moment? And what was it that actually made you switch? Why not a year earlier, or four years earlier, you know?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it took, it took, I'd say it took eight to 10 years because I just didn't know. Um, the, the problem with average, I always say there's two roads on, on life, the map of life. The road to awesome, the road to average. And the problem with the average is all you have to do is nothing. Like, you don't have to do anything. You just wake up there one day. And so, you know, it happened the same way it happened for everybody, one day at a time. You know, and there's so many lies, like one of the, the worst lies is, it's just a job. It's just a job. Nothing you do for 40 hours of waking time a week is just a job. That's your life, dude. Like, you, you know, you better recognize it's not just a job. And then, you know, our culture believes that you can be multiple people. And here's what I mean by that. So many people were shocked that Tiger Woods wasn't amazing at golf again.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  As if maybe he was Tiger golfer, and Tiger dad, and Tiger husband, and Tiger businessman. Like, he could blow up. Like, just blow up one area of his life and still be amazing at golf. But you can't. Like, nobody'd ever say, hey, don't drink from the top of the bottle of water. It's poisoned. You can drink from the bottom. No, like, when you're messed up, you're messed up. And so for me, you know, I had, I had some okay jobs, some bad jobs. And it was just, that was what I did, day after day after day. And then what changed it for me is I did a blog. And when the blog went viral and I started to see, wow, like, some of the things I feel talented at, I could use online, and, and there's a lot of people out there, and I could really do something with this. That's when I started to go, let's give it a try.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  Right. Interesting. Now, you talk about a life list, and the power, the power it has to exposing our fears. Now, what is, tell me more about that. What is a life list? And how do we make one? And how can it impact our lives?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, well, I always kind of had that, that fantasy of, you know, like, being the guy that survived a plane crash. Because like, when you meet somebody who survived a plane crash, or cancer, or whatever, they're like, my whole life has changed, like strawberries taste different now. Like, I know I have clarity. I don't watch reality TV because I'm just, I'm just living in the moment. Um, and I thought, I started to think about that because you can't just get in a plane crash. It's really complicated. And so, I thought,

• 12:53Speaker 01

  I asked myself the question, what if I died today would I regret not doing?

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  And I wrote down the three answers where I wouldn't get to write a book, wouldn't get to hang out with my wife, I wouldn't get to play with my kids. And then, and you know that's an honest answer, because I mean, I bronze medals my own kids, like, I put them below write a book. So that's just the honest answer. And then I asked the second harder question, which is, are those the things you're investing time and energy doing right now? And the truth is, I wasn't. And so, that's why, you know, the book before start was called Quit or Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job. I think a lot of us have a gap between who we are and who we want to be, or where we are and where we want to be. And so for me, the gap was, I, like a lot of people you talk to, you and I will meet a million people, especially as your next book come out, they go,

• 13:37Speaker 01

  I want to write a book, I want to write a book. And if you sit down with them and go, okay, tell me about how much writing you're doing before your day job in the morning. Tell me about how much writing you're doing at night. Tell me about the writing conferences you're going through. Tell me about the writers group you're part of. Tell me about reading writers books. They're gonna go, I don't, I don't do any of that. Well, then you don't want to be a writer. You're like the word writer, which is not the action. And unfortunately, the action is what changes things. And so, that's for me, what that life list exposed was, okay, these three things, I better get busy doing them. And what does it look like for me to actually do them? So that's, you know, it's a simple question. It's not complicated. I mean, I don't, I, I love when people criticize my book, and they'll say, it's common sense.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  I've never read a book and been like, it was too easy to understand and to do in my life. I wanted it to be more complicated and more like esoteric.

• 14:26Lewis Howes?

  That's funny. Well, you talk about also with, with Dave Ramsey, you did an interview where you said that everyone from twenty-two to fifty has a dream. And what do you think that keeps our dreams in our head from not coming into reality in life? You mentioned just before about, someone says they want to write a book, but they don't want to put the hustle or the action in. What is it actually that's holding us back from doing exactly what we want?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  I think fear is definitely a lot of it. But I think also, I meet a lot of people, and you meet the same people I do that go, I've got ten passions, I don't know where to start. And what they do is they never start on any. And when you don't start on any, Louis, you fail at every. And so like I may, I used to give out horrible advice. I used to say, write down what you want to do and then prioritize the list. And then people would get paralyzed in prioritizing it and would spend a year organizing their list perfectly. So now what I just say is, write it down and start working on the first one. And it might not be until you get to the fifth one that you really get into your zone, but you'll be better at the fifth one, having gone through one, two, three, four.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  And so I, I think a lot of times people don't know where to start. I think we, we have this mistaken belief in the perfect purpose. Like I meet a lot of people that go, ah, if I just knew what my calling was and my dream or whatever, I would really get started. I would work so hard on it. Um, but I don't know yet. So I'm going to sit on my couch and hope it's delivered to my door like a pizza.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  And like, you know what purpose is attracted to? Motion. You can't steer a boat from the shore. Like it's just, it's just impossible. So there's a lot of times where I'll tell people, let's just get started. The only line you control in life is the starting line. You have no power over the finish line. Nobody honest will tell you when they're 75 that, yeah, 25, I knew exactly where life was going to go. What a boring miserable life. I mean, Dave Ramsey, when Dave Ramsey went bankrupt, he didn't sit at the table and go, you know, sweetheart, I know we're yelling and mad at each other and we're, oh, we're so hurt, but I see a building full of 350 people and I see, you know, a New York Times seller. No, he was like, I want to help other people not go through this alone. I'm going to start a small thing, you know, in my community. And then it grew. So you've just got to start.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  But I think what holds a lot of people down is they wait and they wait and they wait.

• 16:39Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah. You know, it's interesting you say that because I'm meeting with a lot of people right now who are just starting out. They're, a lot of former football players playing NFL who have retired are asking me, you know, how do I go? What do I do next in my life? Uh, this was my dream, my entire life. Now it's over. I got injured or I got let go of the NFL. And they're asking, what do I do next? I'm really interested in these three things and I love health and fitness and coaching and all these different things. And they're paralyzed because they have all these different loves, each different passions, but they have no clue where to go. And one of the things that I did after I got injured playing football is I just started taking a lot of action, just like you said. And a lot of, I wasn't like, I want to be the ultimate LinkedIn teacher for the rest of my life. I was just like, this is something I'm interested in right now.

• 17:23Lewis Howes?

  And this is something I can help people with. So I'm going to try to become the best at this and see where it goes. And by taking a lot of action, other opportunities came to me that were able to help me grow in my personal and professional life. But again, like you said, you just gotta take action and do something and get the ball rolling because that momentum is really going to help shift your mindset and the opportunities that come to you. So I like what you said there.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Uh, now tell me about the five different lands that everyone needs to go through on the road to mastery. And why do we need to understand that it's a process and not about arriving? I think you just kind of taught, touched on that for a second.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it definitely is an experience, not an event. Um, so the way you look at it and, and I really, I tell people, I don't feel like I created these. If anything, I labeled them in my own way.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Um, but I don't like, once you hear them, nobody argues with them because they're just so simple. So it used to be based on your age. It's no longer based on your age, but it used to be that in your twenties, you didn't know who you were. You didn't really know what you're all about. So you tried a hundred different things. You moved cities. You did all this stuff because you're trying to figure out who you were. Um, and, and your brain wasn't formed completely till you're like in your mid twenties anyway. So science was even on your side. You hit your thirties and you go through this time of editing, which is about subtraction. You go, I did these 10 things. These are the three that work the best. It's the first time in your life that you edit friendships. You go, I can't be best friends with everybody. Like some people are going to be surface friends. That's all right. I have a limited amount of a relational equity. You hit your forties and you go through this time of mastering.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Where you say, okay, I get the deepest relationships. I go the furthest in my career. I start to make the most money in my career. And you get good at whatever craft you've chosen. You hit your fifties, you go through this time of harvesting. All those decisions you've made start to come home. You hit your sixties and it's this time of guiding where you get to help other people down their own path to awesome. Now, the good news is it's no longer about your age. I mean, that'd be like if this was a financial seminar and I was like, if you'll just start investing money when you're a fetus. You'll be a millionaire by the time you're forty two and you go, oh, I don't have access to the womb, like this is killing me. And so what's good is that right now, it's not about when you were born, it's about when you decided to live. That's why I don't like the term young leader. I like the term emerging leader. Cause I meet a lot of great sixty year olds that are just emerging.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  And so, once you kind of see that and see that anybody gets to be twenty, it changes your whole view and you, and you get to start wherever you are with whatever you have. And once you realize the lands, you see that simple rules, like you can't skip stages, but you can shorten them. I mean, nobody accidents their way to mastery. Like, none of your friends never played chess and then woke up one day, they were like, I feel Russian. Like, I own a lot of tweed coats, I'm amazing at chess.

• 20:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  And then you start to see it in life, you'll see it everywhere. I mean, Michael Jordan, for instance, let's, I mean, let's talk about athletics for a second, wins three NBA championships, goes to play baseball, hits two oh one, never makes the big leagues. Why? Cause he didn't learn and edit and master. He didn't get to skip those stages. He was Michael Jordan. And a lot of people think he was done athletically, he wasn't. He goes back to basketball, wins three more championships. I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow, same thing, master level actress, wins Oscar, Shakespeare love, decides, I'm gonna be a musician, signs a nine hundred thousand dollar record contract, stars in a movie called Country Strong, where she's a musician, movie bombs, record never comes out. Why? Cause it doesn't matter if you're married to the lead singer of Coldplay, you don't get to skip learning and editing.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  And so, once you see this, it creates all this freedom to go, it's okay for me to need some time. You know, our generation thinks that things are gonna happen instantly.

• 20:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Um, because everything else in our life does. You know, if you use an instant phone for ten hours a day, a smartphone that gives you instant everything, of course you think everything else should be instant. We practiced instant a thousand hours, you know, of course we think that. So, that's what the five lands are.

• 21:11Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Interesting. Now, there are a lot of, there are a lot of entrepreneurs that are listening here, a lot of people that are dreaming big, who are taking tons of action, who are succeeding all the time. And with that success, and I'm sure you're aware of this. Tends to invite haters or people, little crabs that just wanna bring you down in the bucket, right? And why is that? And why, what advice would you give to the entrepreneurs that's beginning, just starting to feel this experience of these haters and who might want to try to please everyone? What type of advice would you give for them?

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a weird thing. And part of what's weird is that friends even become haters. Because what happens is when you chase your dream, it reminds people in your life they're not chasing theirs.

• 21:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  And it stirs up this shame that you had nothing to do with. Like, you didn't chase your dream to insult theirs, but people receive it that way and they hear it that way. So that's the hard thing. It's friends become that. The problem with entrepreneurs is this, though. When an entrepreneur hears a compliment, the first thing they usually do is try to shot block it. They go, "Oh, that was nothing. It was a team effort. It was easier than it looked. It's just something I like to do in my free time." When they hear an insult or hate, they immediately focus on it. They read it fifty times. They research that person. They go, "This person gets me. I better memorize this." And I see so many young entrepreneurs that spend hundreds of hours to fix one unhappy customer while they ignore every happy customer that loves what they do. And I call this critics' math, which is one insult plus one thousand compliments equals one insult.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  We have the ability as entrepreneurs to get a thousand compliments and one insult and define our day or our week or our life against that one insult. And I'm the same way. I mean, I have ten one-star reviews for Quir on Amazon and two hundred five-star, but you know which ones I memorized. Not the five-star, where are those people? No, it's the one-star. It's Lori Ann, who said, "I would, I wouldn't even donate this book for fear that somebody else would waste their time."

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  And then, like, I never read another review. The guy said, "I'd rather count bathroom tile than read John Acuff's book." So I clicked on his other reviews. He gave bathroom tile a five-star review. He doesn't hate my writing. He loves bathroom tile.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  And so, what I, the three things I suggest to do with that, because inspiration without instruction is useless. Like, the challenge for you and I, I think, sometimes is when you tell somebody you write a motivational book, they think you write, like, the Pinterest version of a book, where you're like, "Get a Ron Swanson beard and live in a cabin and run through a field with unicorns and lavender and ribbons." And they don't like the grind side of it, the action side of it. But the three things I say are, number one, be like Herb Kelleher. And Herb Kelleher founded Southwest, and in the nineteen nineties, they got complaint letters from this one lady over and over again. And they wrote everyone back, but finally they got one that they, they couldn't respond to, and it made it all the way up to Herb's desk. And Herb took out his own personal stationery, and he wrote her a four-word response. And what

• 24:00Speaker 01

  he wrote was, "We will miss you." And then he sent the letter. And you've got to do that to some haters. There's people listening right now that have somebody they need to set free to ruin somebody else's life. Oh, yeah. Um, and go, hey, you know, like, go fly Delta. They have biscotti cookies. They're delightful. Go ruin their airline. The second thing is, you have to do the math the right way. And here's what I mean. So for me, ten one-star reviews out of all the books I've sold represents zero point zero zero eight percent of the population. So for me to obsess about that would be like if your son or daughter came home with a ninety-nine point nine-nine-two on a test, and he said, "What happened, dude? Like, I felt good about this one. You feel like this is a ninety-nine point nine-nine-two family?" Like, you'd never do that. So there's a lot of your listeners that

• 24:45Speaker 01

  are letting the zero point zero zero eight percent of people control their business, control their families, control their life. And the last thing I'd say is that, I think as an entrepreneur, you should always focus, you should never focus on turning haters into likers. Turn it, focus on turning people who like what you do into people who love what you do. Hmm. That's the group to focus on. And then, then on top of that, I'd say, and don't confuse hate with feedback. Feedback, sometimes painful, can be helpful. Yes. Um, and the difference is this. Feedback's goal is to cause improvement. Hate's goal is to cause a wound. They're, they're not the same thing. So you have to have the ability to see, okay, this stranger who wrote something really ugly about my product was not trying to help me get better at the product. They are trying to make sure that other people didn't buy it.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm not going to listen to that. This customer that took the time to write me a private email about a feature that could have been better, it's okay. Does it, you know, as a owner, do I wish everything was perfect? You know what? I do. But I want it to be better. And this person took the time, not in a public forum, but just took the time to let me know. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna respond to that. Yeah, that's great.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  Feedback's definitely important. I used to have a hard time receiving feedback, especially if it was critical, and I would get very defensive. And I've learned over the years that this is all just stuff I need to learn and how to improve. And you don't have to take all the feedback in and try to apply everything, but just be more aware of it and conscious of it for stuff you're doing in the future, I think, because everyone's going to give you an opinion. And if you change your product or your service or your message based on everyone else's opinion, then you're not going to have your own. Now, tell me, tell me about the danger of the word enough, and why this word is a crutch for not going after our goals?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Well, enough's fictional. It doesn't, it doesn't really exist. You've seen this too. Like, if your goals are fuzzy, you'll never accomplish them. You need some clarity. And so what happens is that people go, this, when I get this amount of money, it'll be enough. And then they get there, and they never stop because enough moves. Enough is really slippery. And you go, if I work this money, and then I work this many hours on my dream, it'll be enough. And you get there and it moves. And so you've got to be really careful that you don't let fuzzy, shapeless words like enough dominate your goal. I'd much rather you say, here's the amount, and this is the amount, or here's the weight I want to get to, or here's the, whatever the goal is for you, and be specific.

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, a lot of people, you know, they say, if, once I get this house, or get this money, or whatever it may be, then I'll, then I'll be happy, or then it'll be enough, like you said. But really, people need to be shifting from a place of happiness, or that they are enough already. And then those things are going to start happening, and they're never going to have to be waiting. You know, they're already living.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Well, and you, you gotta enjoy the process too, not just the results. The result lasts for like a day. You know, the process is the grind. Like, you can't hate the process. I don't want you to hate doing music for 10 years till one day you get a Grammy. Like, that's a Grammy night. It's called the Grammy night, because it's one night.

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. It's one moment. Tell me, tell me about the difference between viral and vital.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I always joke with clients, the best way to make sure something doesn't go viral is to sit in the meeting and say, we want it to go viral. Like, there's still so many companies that don't understand, you know, and are befuddled by that process. And so what I always tell people is, viral is a huge firework explosion. Viral is like, you put Mentos and Diet Cokes. Viral is the double rainbow guy. But you know what you're never gonna see? A triple rainbow. You know, you're not gonna see a part two to Hide Your Wife, Hide Your Kid. Like, those were viral videos. What I try to help people figure out is, what's vital? What's something that, maybe it's slow burn, you know, maybe it's something that over time builds bigger and bigger and bigger, but it's not just this one big neon explosion that dissipates instantly. But it's actually something that you work

• 28:38Speaker 01

  on, that you figure out. I mean, we did a fundraiser on my site, and the readers helped raise thirty dollars in eighteen hours to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. And the headlines in the newspaper were, was Blogger Raises Thirty Grand in Eighteen Hours. And technically, that's true, but it should have said Blogger Raises Thirty Thousand Dollars in Eighteen Months. Because it took eighteen months of relationship building, and content, and content, and content, for me to establish that. I didn't show up one day and go, hey, I'm a stranger, give me some money. I've built relationships. And so that's what I mean by vital. How do we figure out something vital for you, and not just viral and shiny and cool? Because that stuff happens, too. Like, getting the New York Times is awesome.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Like, that was a lot of fun. But I can't write books just to get that, because when I get it, I stop.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly. Interesting, I like that approach. Now, what was your dream as a kid?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  To write books. I knew in the third grade that I wanted to write books. I mean, I didn't, I'd be lying if I said from that moment on, I started seriously writing. I did, I like, I rode my bike, I didn't care. But a teacher named Mrs. Harris at Doian Elementary School in Ipswich, Massachusetts, published what I felt like was published, she just laminated it. Something I wrote. And it was a bunch of poems, and she, she bound it with like, string, and I was like, I did it, I wrote a book. And that was kind of my first time bumping into that idea of like, what if I wrote a book? That'd be pretty amazing. And so that was when I first kind of had that idea of, I think I might do this.

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, interesting. And what's your vision for the world now?

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I mean, my, my long-term goal would be, I wanna have a, a house in, you know, the town I live in, Franklin, um, that's a place where people come and get ideas. My, my greatest strength is I'm able to create a lot of ideas for a lot of different people.

• 30:26Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Um, and I, I, my purpose is to help people get unstuck because I believe the unstuck are unstoppable. I don't know what you're gonna do, but I know that when you're unstuck, there's really nothing you can't do.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Um, and so, yeah, so I'd love to have a house where people got to do that. I still believe in 3D geography and the power of that. I mean, it's, as fun as social media is to me, there's still a real benefit to sitting down over coffee. You know, um, and I'd love the house to be ridic- like, have a crazy treehouse and be delightful and completely accidental. There's a guy named Bob Goff that you would love, um, out of San Diego. And he has thousands of acres on an island in British Columbia. And he brings world leaders from around the world to this house. And he's just a lawyer, but he, he does things, he says it's strategic whimsy. And he'll say, John, if you get two dictators who hate each other on the back of a boat and pull them fast enough, together they become best friends.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  And so he, and when, after nine eleven, he, he wrote, he and his kids wrote letters to all the, all the world leaders and said, can we come visit you and invite you to a sleepover? And they got like thirty yeses. And so he took his kids out of school and they would travel the world and try to figure out how do we help the world? And just delightful stuff like that. So I'd love to do my own kind of version of that, long-term.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  That's very cool. And I wanna get two definitions from you. And the one is on the word leadership. What does that mean to lead? And what is it required to become an effective leader?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Uh, to, to lead is to go first, to be one step ahead and be honest. So you don't have to be fifty years ahead of me. You just have to be one step ahead of me and be honest about what you've learned and where you failed and where you succeeded and, and whatnot. Um, so I think it takes bravery. Um, I always tell leaders, your job is to give, like, your job is to go first. Because when you go first, you give everyone in your blog or your company the gift of going second.

• 32:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  And it's a lot easier to go second than it is first. First, there's no boundaries, there's no precedent. You don't know what's TMI, and so it's better to go, it's better to go first and allow somebody to go second. So that's what I'd say leadership is, and that's what it takes is honesty and bravery.

• 32:33Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, I like that. And what is your definition of greatness?

• 32:41Speaker 01

  I guess I'd say greatness is uh greatness is what happens when you're completely emptied. Um, when you haven't held anything back. Um, you know, when a hammer hits a nail, it's great. You know, somebody asked me that the other day, like, are you nervous about speaking? I still get nervous excited, but I'm not nervous about speaking in the same way a hammer isn't nervous about a nail. Like, if you're doing what you're supposed to do, you know, like, I'm sure, like, if you ask Tom Brady, go, are you nervous? He goes, no, like, everything I've ever done in my life was geared toward this moment. Like, this is, this is what I was designed to do. So I think greatness is, is the act of getting empty, um, in an unselfish way. I really believe that life change leads to world change. It never goes the opposite way.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  It's always one life gets inspired and that impacts two lives and three lives. And, and so I think the idea of using your gifts, using your talents, using your skills, using your connections, um, to the point that, um, you get empty is what I'd say is greatness.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Well, you're definitely doing an amazing job to inspire hundreds of thousands of people and soon to be millions and hundreds of millions. So I appreciate your, your hustle, your work and your leadership, uh, to allow a lot of us to go second. So I really appreciate you. And, uh, your new book, Start, Man. I'm, uh, I'm excited to check this out and I encourage everyone to go check this out. Go to johnacuff.com, that's A-C-U-F-F dot com, and, uh, go check this book out. Again, it hit the New York Times list. Inspiring message, again, simple, like you said, John, but very necessary for all of us to get unstuck. Do work that matters, punch fear in the face and escape being average. So with that, any final words, John?

• 34:22Speaker 01

  No, I, I appreciate the interview and I'd invite any of your listeners to check out Start Conference 2013. We're gonna have a two-day event in Nashville, uh, September 13th and 14th. And it's, it's just an amazing time to come, kind of really fast forward your dream because it's a desire-based event. You go to a lot of conferences and somebody's boss sent them there. Nobody's boss is sending them to this conference. It's all people that want to be there. And so it'll be me and a handful of other amazing people who've done amazing things. And it's gonna be a fun time to really, like, I, I like to say, turn what if into what is.

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, I like that. I'm excited already. Well, I appreciate it. You got all the info's on your site, right?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yep, and J O N, no H, so J O N A C U F dot com.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  J O N A C U F dot com. I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for coming on, and we will talk to you soon.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Alright, thanks, Louis.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, all the greats. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Make sure to go to School of Greatness dot com to check out the awesome show notes. There's some cool videos. You're also gonna get a discount code from John's conference if you want to check that out. And you can learn more about his book and all the other stuff that John is doing. Again, please keep posting and sharing these podcasts online with your friends. Post it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on Stitcher. Every time you subscribe, you'll get notified when there's a new episode. You can't go wrong there,

• 35:59Lewis Howes?

  so check that out. And with that, I hope you guys have a fantastic, amazing week. Keep living the dream, and make sure to do something great.