EFR 511: The Self-Employed Mindset and Why Now is the Best Time Ever for Creatives with Jeffrey Shaw

Chase: I am joined by Jeffrey Shaw, who is someone that no doubt I probably wish and could have valued from years and years ago when I was transitioning out of my nine to five and just exploring the whole side hustle passion project and going full blown entrepreneur shortly after that. He's quite literally written the book on it and he is here to just help you listening watching right now to make a decision to figure out to know really, that this is what I want to do and to know that there is life on the other side of self employment and there's somebody and somebodys that have done it before and can, you know, get me ready to join the other side of the fence so to speak. So Jeffrey, welcome. I'm so glad you have kind of devoted your work now and all of your content to helping others with this really unique transitional piece. And that is, how do I start my own business? What is it like on the other side? Is it everything that it's cracked up to be? Is it as scary as I hear? What is the first thing that comes to mind? When you are getting ready to talk to somebody who wants to step into the self employed life? What is the first thing that you honestly hope that they hear first?

Jeffery: Yeah, you know, it's, I love that you're asking it that way. Because when I wrote the book, I wrote the book for existing self employed business owners, you know, that was my, that's why I care about you know, it's all I've ever known. But I started the book at the end of 2019. Alright, so I was well into the book when the pandemic hit. And, you know, of course, then as I'm writing it, I became very concerned about the people who are losing their the millions of people that were losing their jobs, and realizing that every time there's been an increase in unemployment is an increase in self employment. So then I was actually thrilled like, I felt like, okay, my timing is really good here. This book is going to serve a different audience, you know, people that really need this context, they need to figure out to get back on their feet really quick but I will tell you what to answer your question once the book was out what surprised me is I started then thinking about as I was just paying attention to the way all of us were and have been reevaluating our lives. Then I started thinking about people like yourself, people that are in the corporate world, I'm wondering how many of them are miserable, you know, because, hey, employment engagement is like at an all time low. I've been around in business long enough to know that like, during the Great Recession, when, again, millions of people were losing their jobs I there was a study, like some 80% of people who lost their job, didn't like the job they lost anyway. Right? 

Chase: So what are you sad about?

Jeffery:  It's such a big life change. But you know, specifically, what I love to hear from people, when they reach out, either they've lost their job, or they're planning ahead, which is ideal, they're looking six months to a year down the road, you gave it like, what, 90 days or something,

Chase: it was supposed to be six months, I got a little aggressive.

Jeffery: If someone's gonna plan, it's usually six months or a year but what I love to hear honestly, when they reach out is that they have no idea what their next there's a next step is, like I think there's people doing holds people in place, what holds people into probably a job that makes them miserable as a health insurance, which is just awful. Like, that's a terrible reason to do it. I get it, right. But man, we need to solve that problem like it shouldn't be so hard and costly to get health insurance. If people are sacrificing happiness for health insurance, we have to change that.

Chase: if you're sacrificing your health for the thing that you think you're keeping, right? 

Jeffery: Isn't that the craziest thing? Right. But aside from that, I think one of the things that hangs people up is there too worried that they have to have it all figured out. And honestly, as a coach, having coached so many people through this transition, just reach out for support and let someone know someone like myself know that I have no idea what my next step is, because that's what a good coach is able to do, they're able to find in you what you can't see in yourself. Right, what I look for is what I call the intersection between meaning and marketability. Like, you know, at this next stage of your life, you want to create meaning you want to do more purposeful work, and it has to be marketable, I'm going to be able to see that from an outside perspective, much better than you can see in yourself. So I actually like I think the best position it be in as scary as it is, is to be open and vulnerable and not know, because too often, you know, what can hang us up is thinking we have to have all the pieces in place and you know what, you can, you can try but those pieces can get thrown in scattered throughout the floor and no time flat, as we know. 

Chase: So true and quite literally, as you were just describing that process there this analogy popped in my head of when we're, you know, in the job market, the nine to five corporate world and let's say we know we want to get out of what we're in, what do we do? We get our resume ready, we look at indeed look at all the websites, we look at all of the listings for possibilities, and we just try to match the one that looks the best on surface and also align our skill sets with what it's demanding. And you know, hopefully we can get some growth in there as well. But there is no real process for that when we're doing that with ourselves. So how can you kind of walk someone through of taking the skill sets that have taken that resume, but instead of just taking that and putting it out into the ether and trying to just align the best fit and hope that it sticks and hope that it works out better than the last one. How can we kind of create this listing for ourselves so that we can also create meaning along the way because it's very rare when we get to create the job and create it for ourselves, instead of just finding one that we hope that works out?

Jeffery: Yeah, gosh, you know, Chase, honestly, I think all of life is lived backwards. I'll give you a specific example. I've been saying this for years that businesses are built backwards, right? The way that typical business is built, somebody has an idea, they have a logo created in business cards printed, and then they run around for years trying to fit people into the box they built. Right, the right way to build a business is to first get clear on what you bring to the table, who you're meant to serve and then build a business for them build a business, they recognize from afar, they recognize your brand message, and they recognize the design that it fits them. Right. So then I'll tell you, the business from that point is easy. So similarly, like I said, I think all of life is built backwards that's how business is built backwards. But likewise, you know, employers do it backwards, too. I do I speak a lot in HR and I this is the point I make when I speak at HR events, companies are also building their businesses backwards, and when it comes to recruiting, because they recruit whoever they think can fit and then they try to change them once they get into the job. And I was like, you know, if you have if you have an engagement problem with your employees, like how about taking more care about who you're hiring in the first place, that they're aligned with the values of the company? You know, and how about sticking, you know, keeping that alignment so it's a solid relationship. Same thing as an individual, instead of building the resume, trying to figure out where you fit, do the inner work to find what you bring to the table. What are the skill sets that you have? What are what's your story? Like? What’s been a part of your life? What's one of the questions, I love to ask my coaching clients, what drives you crazy? Because there's a really good chance what drives you crazy, and life is what you would love to do to solve that problem. 

Chase: that is the problem meant for you to solve. Stands so well to you.

Jeffery: Exactly. So it's really an inward out process. So the first thing that instead of trying to figure out where you fit in where your resume fits, do the inner work to define who your best fit suited for? Where do you go? What do you bring to the table, and then attract that job or that opportunity and that's the same process for self employment? I mean, that's the work I do I help people get really clear on what they bring to the table, their unique, what I refer to as their unique perspective, right, because business talks a lot about differentiators. For example, you know, customer service. Customer service is not a differentiator; I don't care how good your customer service is, because your competition on the street can match it. Right? Customer service in and of itself is not a differentiator. What's a true differentiator is your unique perspective on what you why you do what you do. Right? Because hardly any of us are in any kind of profession or business that we're alone in so competitions all over. The only thing that separates you is that you how you see what you do differently than anybody else. Right. So the work to be done is to define what builds up your perspective it's your story, your life history, how you how you've interpreted life events, and it's unmatchable. That's why in a single family, you'll have multiple siblings who will look at the exact same life event or family event in a different way because, right, because it's the perspective we bring to it. There's something new if you could define that I guarantee you, there's something really unique about what you do and what you bring to the table that's probably marketable. It will make you stand out. I mean, as a speaker, I play off the fact that I'm a 37 year portrait photographer for athalon families. That makes me a unique speaker because I teach a business. I use a lot of photography metaphors, I talk about looking at business through a different lens. I talk about how my core skill set is I'm really good at seeing things in pieces and imagine a composer as a whole because that's what a photographer does. That gives me a leg up as a speaker because I actually don't know of another photographer on the speaking circuit who's talking about business. So the more I can use that leverage that the more it separates me from everybody else.

Chase: And I can chime in and give personal experience here. When I go back to the first kind of ideas and Inklings that you know, Chase, I don't know this nine to five, like, I love my job. I always say that I loved what I did, but it was just that the business aspect. It was that environment that was kind of pulling that passion out of me. And so when I hired my first official coach and mentor, I hired her because well she had been in my community and been in and out of my life for many, many years, I know like and trust, but what I hired her specifically for originally was because she had done so much of what I thought that I wanted to do in terms of, you know, my world, my profession is health and wellness and she had done it sold it flipped, it moved on to the next thing and I thought it was hiring her for the strategy for the for the secret sauce when it comes to how to be an entrepreneur how to start a business, but the work that we did, Jeffrey is so spot on to what you're talking about and what sounds like what you do. And it was, well, who am I? What are the problems that I see in the world that I want to fix? What is my unique story? What are my limiting beliefs? What are my skill sets? What are my different lenses through which I view the world? And how can I then take that once I get clarity and solidify who I am the personal aspect? How can I then apply that to the professional side of things? And it blew my mind. Honestly, it kind of caught me off guard a little bit because I was like, wait, are you sure this what we're supposed to be doing? But looking back I know that was the work, the most crucial and most necessary work. So when you're going through this with somebody, is there that friction? Do people kind of question, you know, hey, am I supposed to be working on myself and instead of, you know, my resume or what I can build as a business?

Jeffery: There easily could be however, because of the work that I do, and how I the mess of the brand messaging I put out, I only attract my ideal clients. Okay, my ideal clients and this is this, this is the work I like to do for others. My ideal clients aren't hardcore business minded that they don't believe in needing to do the personal development work. So I just flat out I mean, I don't come across that, thankfully, I don't get it because I don't attract it. But I also that's a client, I would wouldn't would choose not to work with me, somebody who's so far give me the strategy, given the strategy and like, you don't understand, yeah, I can't give you tons of strategies. That's why the format of my book is unique, the self employed life, because it's what I present in that book is the self employed ecosystem, which is a three element system of personal development, business strategies, and daily habits that create consistent mindsets. Now, it is meaty as hell with business strategies, because I have a lot to say about how self employed and small business owners, you know how they can market themselves differently, I have a lot to say about that. But I was very clear that I'm not going to give away that information until I first change the person and that's why the book starts off with personal development. And it's about a third of the book is the first third of the book is personal development, which is, of course, this the work that people love to do when you get in there because otherwise, I'm just a contributor to the biggest problem, which is so many people just constantly applying action. And you know, every new social media comes out and every new you know, person hears you keep applying action wonder why you're not getting ahead. The reason for that is that if you don't do the personal development, you're not increasing your capacity for all your hard work to fit into. And I look at personal development as a capacity. Every time I want my business to expand or that I my client, I first turned to the inner work, what do I need to do to believe that I'm capable of more? What's the work I need to do to step into the next level of what I believe I deserve? Because we all put a ceiling on what we think we deserve. How do I bust through that ceiling, and know with certainty, I deserve even more, I'm capable of more, that's the work that you have to like, you have to raise that ceiling and bust open that container to increase the capacity so that when you're putting all that work in, it's going somewhere, otherwise, we just keep hitting against the wall hitting against the proverbial glass ceiling. And that's why it to me personal development is an essential part of business growth. And to your point is that it's I make that very clear. That's my process. And I only work with clients that that understand and respect that process. 

Chase: Since you began the book and it came out. The world has gone through a lot of change. First ever global pandemic I'm pretty sure you weren't predicting this when you were writing your book. So I'm curious since writing it and putting it out and then now applying and seeing people apply it through the lens of personal development. Have you seen any interesting changes? Have you seen the world of personal development, particularly in how you want people to apply for the self employed life has anything new or unique risen to the top this last year since a pandemic or maybe a re-visitation of something that you know, was maybe lower on the totem pole of personal development and now is much more needed? Does that make sense?

Jeffery: It does. It's a fantastic question because I think there are a lot of things that rose to the totem pole and people are looking at everything in their lives so differently. Why is there such an employee shortage, right because people got a taste of the life they want to live and don't want to go back to the life that they had. And I'm, I'm a professional speaker, and I've always, I've always controlled. I've always, you know, to your point about ever forward right, my you know, I've always focused on how I've made every business decision based on first how I wanted to live. Alright, so I've always kept a pretty tight control on what my business looked like, so that I could live a life that I chose to live at that point. Now, I'm not talking about balance, because work life balance is a fallacy. To me, your life is in balance, if it's if you're empowered with a choice. I work more now than I did probably 30 years ago. 

Chase: entrepreneurs, the only people that will work 80 hours for themselves, so they don't have to work 40 for somebody else, right?

Jeffery: That matters. I can choose to work 24 seven if I choose to, because I'm not beholden to my family anymore. Like I've raised my kids, they're out of the home that you know, I live with my partner, Miami, and I can make the choices to work when I choose. So actually, because I love the work I'm doing I'm passionate about this work I am working more now than I did 30 years ago, but doesn't feel off balance to me because it's empowered of my choice. So I think one of the one of the differences is that people are actually stepping into self care, reevaluating the life designing the life of their choice, you know, on a more global level, if you will, again, having been in business as long as I've been in 37 years, I've been through 911, the Great Recession now this one I said, this was like my third rodeo. Every time there's a major upheaval the upside is, and believe me, I'm fully aware of the trauma and the loss and the difficulties so many people went through, but the upside is that we keep deepening our humanity. Every crisis deepens our humanity. That's why I believe there's a call for businesses to be more human now than ever, to be more empathetic, to be more understood, to broaden their acceptance of everybody of all different people. Right, of different beliefs and races. And you know, we're constantly called to deepen our in this crisis, I think, probably even more so than 911 and the recession, this crisis seemed to do that more. This was global.

Chase: it affected every human.

Jeffery: Yeah, it really did. And that's, you're absolutely right. And there's a way in which I think we've really deepened our humanity through this. And I think because of that, we as consumers are going to demand that the people we do business with are more human as well. So bits on both sides, like I you know, as always, I'm, I'm an eternal optimist. But I look at all the shifts and think, you know, there's a real beautiful humanity that's going on here, people are demanding that they are able to work at home, if not all the time, but partly because they want to live their lives, they want to be there for their family members. So there's a real deepening of humanity, that the unloving, and I think businesses, employers, everybody's going to have to adjust, in order to for this to all fit, but I think we're going to end up with a really, really incredible life experience. I think there's it's not going to be all work. And we're going to work a little bit more at our own pace. The interesting thing is, I guess another part to your answer to your question is one of the biggest changes I see is also result of after the book was out I told my speaking rep when I wrote the book that let's focus on getting speaking gigs at associations, because what corporations going to hire me to talk about self employment. But here's the thing Chase, like once the book was out, companies and people on LinkedIn are really being attracted to this content. Here's what I realized, I realized that are the best employees of the future, are self employed minds. They have a self employed mindset about them. Because the way in which they, and I think that's just the way they work, because the workforce is going to look, people are going to demand that they have the autonomy of this of a self employed person, they want to work for a company with the same sense of mission. They actually I believe a lot of people really want to care about the company they work for as if it was their own. It just there are a lot of people who just don't want the hassle of owning a business. So that's a shift, a major shift in the workforce, that I'm really curious to see how many companies step up and redesign the workforce to accommodate that value, that value shift. I think it's going to be necessary. They're just simply not going to get workers.

Chase: I agree and, you know, kind of takes me back to that initial struggle that I was feeling with my last job and like I said earlier in the interview, I absolutely love my job, I loved what I did, I loved the people that I served, I love the patients, the clients that I worked with, I loved the team that I that I managed. But it was just everything else that wasn't clicking, you know. And I really do believe that maybe if there was more of this kind of self employed, application self employed and autonomous mindset that was able to successfully be woven into the fabric and culture of that organization, then, you know, who knows, I very well could have still could still be there, I had no problem staying there. And I don't think there's anything wrong, as much as I love, you know, being self employed and doing my own thing. Now, I do not think there's anything wrong with anybody working for other people, as long as this personal side and the fulfilling side and this autonomous side, and this, everything side is taken care of alongside with the mission of this other company. I mean, there are great missions, great companies out there that need the support of people, but it's just what are we doing to the people along the way that you know, can be corrected?

Jeffery: Yeah, 100%, I think, you know, so what do I think the world is gonna look like in the future, I actually think it's gonna look whether you have a traditional job or not, I think it's all going to look pretty self employed. You know, I just think as humans, we're going to demand it and this is I truly believe you get the best of people and you give them autonomy. You give them your self fulfillment, Self Realization, if you allow people to tap into that, you know, there's a, there's a really basic, and I know, this may sound incredibly naive, but I truly think a huge percentage of the world's problems could be solved if we just actually believe that people are basically good human. Basically good humans, it doesn't take you know, it doesn't take definition, be it by religion, or what have you. People fundamentally want to be good humans. And if we leaned into that, and trusted people, and if employers trusted their employees, and gave them an opportunity to be on a journey of self realization, in that journey, people want to want to do their best, they want to be good humans. So I think we should be encouraging that in life, and we'll get much better results.

Chase: I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Jeff, you also bring something unique to the table in that you have been a creative for so many years, you've been a creative I think before maybe technically at term, you know, applied, you've been a photographer, you've been quite literally capturing, capturing moments in life, in people's lives, in nature, and just helping translate an experience into a tangible thing. How have you kind of seen the creative space transition over the last several years of last couple of decades? Do you think that it's just been finally now creatives are in a time on earth and in history where it's more accepted? And you actually can make a living out of it? Can you kind of maybe walk us through your experience as a creative and like why you think that this is such a great place to be in?

Jeffery: Yeah, it's, it's again, another interesting question, because why? I'll explain by means of telling the story of my podcast, if you will. So I started my podcast in 2014. It's actually July, so I'm just coming on

Chase: wow. You're way ahead of me. That's amazing. 

Jeffery: yeah, seven years ago, we were just coming on 700 episodes. So on the average put out 100 episodes a year and I started the show started being it was started out being called creative warriors. So yeah, it was called creative warriors because I really having been in the creative space. My entire life up to that point I wanted to support creatives in business. And I felt like it took this it takes the spirit of a warrior to be a creative in business because it was such a hard road. Once this, you know, after the show a couple years into the show. I to your point, I started recognizing a little bit of an expansion, right? It wasn't the world was broadening in that there were a lot of people that were in business but were I felt really craving a way to be in business differently. And I started seeing this as a speaker, this is about the time I started speaking and being in front of stages in front of audiences on stages and people coming up to me as like, wow, people are deserve genuine craving for people to want to be unleashed to be in business in a different way. Like they're creeped out by typical sales techniques. They're creeped out by and I was hearing this over and over again. So I kind of we broaden the show we kept the name of creative warriors to broaden it. But instead of referring to it as a show for creatives in business, we started referring to it as people that needed creative solutions in business. Right so it alright, so it started so the creative person to be started broadening. It wasn't just the traditional creatives; it was now people that wanted to be in business in a different way. And we sailed that way for quite a number of years and just about we're just coming I guess on to just about two years ago we rebranded the podcasts again, complete rebrand to call the self employed life because now I wanted to once I broaden it now I want to hone in. Right. So what I think has happened with the creatives and business. First of all, I think fundamentally, everybody's creative. I had one of my coaching clients, super smart, analytical minded guy, who was a he referred to himself as a data architect, basically, he's just a really so yeah, he basically just a really fancy programmer. But he is brain data architects suited him because he would start from nothing and create custom programs swore to me that he didn't have a creative bone in his body. I'm like, he literally takes company's problems like big companies and he takes their problems and creates a solution through software like, so I don't, the software may be logical, but you're as creatively solving huge production problems. And the solution is, it's amazing to me, he refused to identify as creative. How could you not be so to me, the whole idea of creativity has broadened in my lifetime, it is broadened so much from being pigeon holed as a creative person to living creatively, like living by your life by design creating the life you want. So I just think I don't want to see it as a narrow niche of type of person, or a type of business but now I see it as is, I think the word creative and design is much more, I think they overlap a lot more and it's just designing or being creative to design the lives we want.

Chase: That's so well said. And I think that's a really unique perspective for the listener, maybe they've never thought of themselves as a creative. I don't think creatively, I don't create anything out of the norm, I'm just a punch in and punch out I, I went to school, I have this skill set I do whatever. Yeah, you may be used to this kind of formality, you may be used to this kind of, you know, infrastructure. But now more than ever, like you've been talking about Jeff, now is the time in our history to apply that in a very creative way. And so I think this is where we're seeing, dissolving a little bit of the old formal, this is my job. This is my role. This is what I do into just, you know, everybody putting on that creative lens, and just seeing well, where, where can I apply this in a way that's never been applied before. And in a way that is going to also suit me along the way as well as it's suiting this other organization or creating my own. I think now is the time for creativity to be seeping in into every nook and cranny and everybody's life, especially when it comes to what they do for a living.

Jeffery: Yeah, Lord knows we need creative solutions to life's problems and problems. You know, I think another way that creativity, as we have thought of it in the past, I think another way in which it's is broadened you know, we joke a lot about how you know, the kids that were the geeks in high school are now the richest ones on the planet

Chase: running Google and everything. 

Jeffery: right. Exactly. So but I think the same, there's a there's this undercurrent, that there's something creatives have known all along that I think people are now experiencing  and that is what it feels like to be an outcast. So creatives, I mean, I have taken numerous polls, you know, amongst especially when I had a broader traditional creative audience, the podcast, creative warriors, I've asked how many people felt like the black sheep of their family, every hand goes up. Right? Because that is the experience. It's one of the reasons and one of the another interesting dynamic here Chase is that a tremendous number of professional speakers on the biggest of stages identify as being introverted, you wouldn't think so. But I'm one of them like I consider myself basically an introvert.

Chase: most of the biggest creators I know, that are on quote on meal, podcast, video, YouTube, whatever huge introverts

Jeffery: huge introvert. Right, and one of the reasons I think the several reasons why that is, but I think one of the reasons is, is because we're actually really good at managing uncomfortable situations. We're used to it, right? When you're an introvert and you are a creative that's used to feeling like a black sheep, you've actually learned a really wonderful skill set. This again, could go right back to your unique perspective, you you've gained a really unique ability to manage uncomfortable situations and break through it. And what I think we're another way which I think the creative person is expanding so broadly in the world is that we're so much more inclusive, right? We're society is really focused on you know, we still have a lot of work to do, but there's work being done so we're going, we're going forward. Still a lot of work to do but we're moving forward on being more inclusive. I actually was just going to post something on Facebook. I haven't yet. But I just thought was kind of ironic, because on my podcast, one of my biggest challenges for has been for years is that we have far more men than women. And I've been encouraging women for years to speak up, be louder, you know, because the men are just plowing right through. And I became, as many of us did far more conscious of that a couple years ago, because I wanted a little bit more of an even show. As it turns out, I was just before hopping on with you, I was sitting down with our broadcast schedules, like scratching my head thinking, Oh, my gosh, I've got seven women in a row. Like, it's flipped the other way. Now, like I need to get, I need to get some dudes interjected, I didn't move the schedule around, like break it up. Right, because we've made a very conscious effort to be more inclusive. And I think that is happening all around. And I think that I think there's a way in which creatives, as I said, there's that there's that element of making sure we're included, being able to manage when we're not, there's something the creative person has known all along about that, that I think now society is having to hear them. And I think it's a fantastic change for the better.

Chase: That's such a unique perspective. And a very true one, as you're walking us through that I like, yes, I'm just thinking back to the last six months last year, hell the last, what 15 months now, just how the world in, in many positive ways, I think has been completely flipped on its head, for inclusion for diversity for every in all walks of life to be a part of the walk of life, and especially when it comes to the professional aspect. So yeah, I cannot agree more, I absolutely want to get to kind of the problem solving. Now I know that's a big part of what you do and you were talking about it as the second component in your book. What are some of the key problem solving approaches here that you provide? And that people should be really keeping in mind when it comes to thinking creatively or the self employed life? 

Jeffery: I think you know, and I interpret your question, does it mean specific because I referred to it earlier, what kind of business strategy? 

Chase: Yes so some of these tactics,

Jeffery: right, so, um, I can't, I tend to flip things upside down I, my previous book, which was called lingo, when I first started doing a lot of podcast, people would describe the book as being a bit disruptive. And I'm like, I am not cool enough to be disruptive. Like, I don't think of myself as a disruptive person. But I definitely think my creative nature and just being an introvert and an observer, I think, you know, I've just been looking at life for, you know, so long, and you just realize, like I said earlier, so much of life is backwards. And this definitely plays out in business, particularly when you're a small business or a self employed business or a business of one is that the problem is one of the core problems is most business strategies don't fit us they don't feel right. You know, and it's what I refer to is being right sized. So my approach to business or what I teach in my book, are very specific marketing and business strategies that are right sized. And right, you can even say, right sized up, you know, for small businesses, and one of those tactics, I'll get more, I'll get specific, one of those tactics that people are loving is what I call hug marketing. This is B turning the world of marketing funnels upside down, because I know for myself, and I know from years of doing this work, your typical self employed, or business have one kind of is creeped out by the idea of marketing funnel, right? We know what it is, we know to follow its protocol to get clients. But energetically it actually it's always creeped me out. I'm like, there's something about this that I just don't like because there's a if you think about it visually, the idea of a funnel is that it's very wide and welcoming at the top. But then we're taking people through this process of narrowing down, narrowing them down, narrowing them down and kind of squeezing them through the small hole at the bottom. Right. And I marketing is full of bad words like tripwire, like you know, in our marketing funnel, we'll have a tripwire, like it sounds awful. And we talk about like Target clients, like we're gonna shoot an arrow at them. And it's, you know, it's the energy of marketing words are so disturbing to me that I had to turn that upside down to and I think we all need to turn it upside down to match the energy of what people want to receive. This is what's critical. You know, I I'll even say it this way probably the biggest, not even probably I'll say the absolute biggest shift that I've seen in business and my 37 years is people make an energetic decision about who they do business with today, more than any other time I've ever seen. They primarily whether they want to do business with you based on whether they think you get them or whether they like you. It wasn't that way in the 80s and 90s. Right, I can guarantee I mean, I, as a photographer for affluent families, I used to go into these big mansions and beautiful homes, and they had professional decorators and I would hear these families very highly educated families, complaining about their designer being a diva he or she, right. But they were they were the name to have. They were the person. And honestly, as a photographer, I was one of those people, too. I was never a diva, I don't think. But I built a business. I'm being like the go to photographer for affluent people because I was loved. It meant something to have my name on your photographs. Sure. I'll be honest with you, like I built that was a brand I built. And that's, you know, that's why I have eight week waiting list. Like there was a 15 years and an eight week waiting list because I was like, you know, people wanted my name on their portraits and their holiday cards, it meant something to them. Try getting away with that today there's no way dry being an awful person to do business with or even just think about how I don't know if you have this for yourself. But there are brands that I won't support because I know where their money goes. 

Chase: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Right. And I versa, like I've, I found the story of a brand to be so just heart melting, that you have a customer for life. Like the product is good, but like your story's better. And I'm sold.

Jeffery: Yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, I mean, we there are business, this is what I think is so intriguing about this is that there are businesses we will do we will do business with and businesses we won't do business with because their values are aligned or misaligned. But there's also a respect for just having a position. I don't know, are you are you familiar with the company Penzey’s spices? 

Chase: no, doesn't ring a bell.

Jeffery: They're the largest spice distributor, at least in the US at least I mean, they're a huge business. Bill Penzey is the founder and CEO of the company, and he's the most politically vocal person you will probably ever meet, like, no holds barred. It doesn't matter what side he is on but I'll tell you, this guy will say anything. And has actually and it's which is what that has always been rule number one in business, you don't mix politics and business, right. This is his business has grown exponentially and I truly believe it can't be just people that agree with him. It has to also be people that respect him for taking a stance. And I feel the same way. It's like, you know what you're speaking His truth. You know, like I said, I mean it, there's no way for as much as his business has grown. He's actually probably almost as well known as a leader speaking his mind as he is for his product. Like he's, he's extremely well known in the business world as someone who just will say anything, because he really believes being in a business comes with a burden of responsibility for standing for something. And, and, and knowing, you know, and letting your buyers know where their money is going, what their money is supporting, what type of person what type of employees, what type of mission that their money is supporting and I have to believe it's more than people that just agree with them has to just be people that respect that. So I think the bit without a doubt, the biggest shift in business I've seen in 37 years is that people, people no longer hire you because you're the best at what you do. They hire you because they feel like you get them and it's the human connection of it that I think, you know, really matters the most. So I think as businesses, we need to step into that even more.

Chase: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I thought it was just me being in LA here and LA rubbing off. But it sounds like it's all over. You know, it's a vibe, it's how you feel around somebody that I think solidifies your decision now more than ever, to not only want to be in their life, but to support their business and try to create with them.

Jeffery: Yeah, oh, there's absolutely I'm very careful to the best I can be I'm careful about where my money goes so that I'm supporting things that are aligned. And this is why I did again, this is why to back to your question like unique strategies. This is why I introduced this idea of hug marketing, because it is it flips the idea of marketing funnel upside down that instead of the goal being how do I appear to be loving and broad and open minded at the top only to squeeze people through a goal or to meet my objectives. Hug marketing and is a visual in the book, which is a series of concentric circles. So instead of looking at as a funnel, if you look at as a series of concentric circles one inside of another, the burden of responsibility for the business is to understand that people are starting on the outer circles, right what I refer to as the lurkers right there people are following on social media, you don't you don't know them by name. They're just lurking right there. There's they're out there. And it's our burden of responsibility to compel them to take the next step, which is to become curious.

Chase: Come closer. Come closer.

Jeffery: And once they become curious, maybe they maybe at that point, they start engaging with your content, right. So then they become engaged. And then they're likely to the next step in is they would become connected, that's probably when they're going to opt into your list. Right. So now this agenda, it's there's a surrender element at the connection part which you need to respect as a business, you need to respect that nothing is free to the consumer, because they're surrendering their email. The goal, then, of course, is then become a customer. But we don't want to stop there. And that that tends to be the end game. For so many businesses, the next step is the hug, right? Because what you want to do is you want to, you want to create such a relationship with your customers that they not only become your repeat customers, your loyal customers, they also become your biggest advocates, they're the customers that if you saw them in person, you couldn't imagine not giving them a hug. So now we have this whole different vibe around marketing that actually fits the small business owners so much better, because they feel good about who they are as people, when they think about marketing as a goal towards a hug, not squeezing people into a marketing funnel. So that's, that's just one example. This strategy after strategy, and a book that is chock full of, you know, marketing strategies that are really looked at from a different perspective, someone like myself, which, you know, we didn't touch on this, but I'm probably, I'm a rare individual in that I've never had a traditional job, I have literally been self employed by age of 14. I've never received a paycheck from anybody. So what I teach, and what I write about, is the real deal. It's all I know. I mean, I think it was so ridiculous now, because it was in 2000 and I was doing my coach training, I think in 2008 and there are a lot of corporate people in this coach training, and they're all talking about C suite, this and C suite that and I had no idea what the term C suite meant. I mean, this is, you know, 2008 seems like a long time ago, but I was a very mature adult, I'm 57 now. So even though that was a very mature adult, you know, and I had to ask somebody, what does C suite mean? And of course, they explained to us, you know, a CEO, CMO, CFO, somebody with a C in their title, you know, but that's how self employed I am. Right, I'm so self employed, that I actually don't know a lot of that corporate jargon, because it's never been in my world. And most of the time I hear and I'm like, that's absolutely useless information. You know, self employment, to me is just so real. It's like, this is the real deal like this, you're in it. And you're living your life, and you're designing your life. And yes, you are creative because you're probably even if you've bought a business, like you're making something from nothing, like, that’s amazing.

Chase: Well, listen, or take note, if you've ever wondered, who to listen to, what resource to dive into, when it comes to the self employed life, when it comes to life on the other side of your corporate or just the mentality that you can develop the self employed mentality that you can develop and apply to your career why not take it from somebody who has known literally nothing else, but the thing you're seeking? That's incredible. Jeffrey, um, I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation here today and I think, honestly, you given me so many things to just think about, I love this hug marketing approach. And I think that's an important concept for the listener as well, because I go back again, not to keep making this about me, but just you know, as a relation point into the person listening is probably maybe one of your initial or biggest, like, a key points is like, I maybe I love what I do, but it's just the business, the culture, everything around it, I feel so disconnected, I feel anything other than like, warm and fuzzy and in a hug mentality for the people that I'm here to serve and I think for a lot of people wanting to get out of that environment or out of that job into another one or into one of their own that's really one of the things that probably after the most is how do I get in, just get connected to the person that I want to serve that I know I can serve the most so that it doesn't feel like such a big disconnect. It doesn't feel like this cold cut off culture but rather we can get back into like, yeah, I'm going to serve you I have a product, I have a service and I'm going to live my best life doing it but like we should want and feel like we have this kind of hug mentality and there's this value exchange going on simultaneously.

Jeffery: Yeah, I think the whole you know, if the goal of business is we know like and trust, you're not trying hard enough.

Chase: Damn, well, well, Jeffery, I'm gonna have all of the information down in the show notes for everybody to check out, you've got to get his book and it's just been, it's been so valuable to have you here and I think your work is coming at the most necessary time it could have. You didn't predict the pandemic or all these changes but wow I'm sure it's so applicable now?

Jeffery: Yeah, I think so It's, uh, I can, I can name but I have a long list of times in life when my timing was off. Like, I've got this, I think I may have gotten this right.

Chase: Well, I have to ask them, you know, kind of hearing your expertise and the truth that you've been living your entire life how can it be applied to our theme over here at Ever Forward Radio, living life ever Forward is just bringing attention and awareness to these little key areas of our life or our life overall, that show us the next step that can help us take a step towards the direction of you know, wanting to give herself a hug, but also to create a life and create a business where we can just get back to feeling good and serving others along the way. So I'm curious, what does that mean to you, Jeffrey? How do you live a life ever forward?

Jeffery: I think that's the beautiful thing is I believe life is ever forward now. I think we need to retire the word retire, right? Because we have these weird, you know, definition, we have these weird defining moments, whatever retirement means if retiring means golfing? That's great. It's certainly doesn't to me, you know, retirement to me. It doesn't mean stop doing what I love, it just will probably it'll just take a different form. You know, I'm thinking I plan on writing a lot of books someday can just live on the royalties, right? So I actually recently did this work. As we've learned, I always do the inner work first and really looked at like, what does retirement look to me? Like, what's the difference? And I think the difference for me is, retirement means to me keep doing the work that I love to do, but probably not under the demands of somebody else's schedule, or the schedule of serving to serve clients, or even probably having to pursue clients that instead I can put content out that has monetary value, and the money comes in. But I don't plan on stopping. So to me life, the way society and life has shifted is that it is ever forward. I don't think we have to live our lives under this false notion that there's some stopping point, be it retirement or yes, there's a stopping point of death. But let's live our fullest up to then. And I think that's so important right now, because I get I devote a whole chapter to it in the book, which I refer to as bid life self employed people, because we have so many people, their 50s 60s and 70s, that are just now stepping into their most purposeful work. They're the ones that are leaving corporate world in droves. Maybe they've even put in their 30 years and they've technically retired from their corporate job. But now they're passionate about this thing that they're doing in the world. They are absolutely moving ever forward. I just one of my favorite podcast guests was a gentleman Chip Conley, Chip wrote a book called wisdom at work the making of the modern elder, so but the point he made about midlife is was so well taken, he said the fact matter is that we're the fact that the lifespan is increased and life expectancy is longer. It's not that we're old longer it's that we're in midlife longer. We're still only old the last 10 years, right? But we have this much broader span of time, which we can move ever forward. And I don't know about you, but I think a lot of people live their lives right now in a way that I'm going to live my life ever forward until it stops.

Chase: things in motion stay in motion. Is that the law of physics? Right? Probably butchering that, but I mean, it applies to us. Absolutely. So yeah, just stay in motion. Stay in motion until until the big wheel stops turning, I guess. Yeah,

Jeffery: yeah, I still challenged my three kids in their 20s I still challenged them to keep up with me. They can outrun me but not in not in life stamina, I can probably still do them under like I just don't stop.

Chase: That's the goal. That's the goal. That's amazing. So Jeffrey has been a pleasure having you on the show here and again, all his information, his book is gonna be down in the show notes for everybody to check out. I would encourage you to do so. And what a conversation Thank you so much.