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The Stories That Hold Us Back with Jon Acuff

one of my favorite speakers of all time, you know when you go to a trade show in someone's on stage in front of a few 1000 people, one of my favorites of all time is a man named john a cough Now john is a guest on the show today here at the chase Jarvis live show on Creative Live and if you're new here, this is a show where I sit down with the world's top creators, thought leaders and entrepreneurs and I do everything I can to unpack their brain with the goal of helping you live your dreams. And so today's guest is john a cough john among many other things and being an amazing speaker. He's also got a new book called Soundtracks and in short, if you have self talk that doesn't always work for you and I want you to know and john wants you to know that you can change that. You can reprogram those thoughts, those words into actions that help you in this conversation. We also talk about a few things like if you have childhood trauma or even adult trauma, there's all kinds of ways that that...

is those, those that baggage can be things that we carried forward that don't serve us. He can think john talks about helping change the soundtracks to that trauma and right now there's a very organized person saying, well I don't overthink, I just am very, very organized, meticulous. JOHN gives you a formula for identifying whether you are overthinking or not. And he also covers among many other things again, three really important critical skills for now. So I'm going to get out of the way and let you enjoy this conversation with yours truly and Jonah cough again incredible speaker, brilliant writer, author of seven books, new york times bestseller. I can't wait for you to spend some time with john a cough. Yeah, I love you. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Mr john Markoff. Welcome and thanks for being here bud. Yeah, thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this one. Well, it's been a long time. We had a short recap right before we started recording but I wanted to put the brakes on that because the last time we were together was in Portland, Portlandia with our dear friend chris gill abo uh was a dinner me, you chris gill abo. Vanessa Van Edwards, uh Lewis House. Uh there were, you know, and a handful of r and my wife was there, I think maybe I was right, was there? It was a, it was a great table, made me so happy And I look back on that picture every once in a while, it pops up on my feet or my timeline or whatever and it brings me a lot of joy. Uh, that was a long time ago though, so it's been a minute since we got together. Yeah, I, I look back on that. Um, I was telling you, I love that you shuffled the table. Um, and it was one of those things that I took away because I got to sit next to people that are orbits don't cross often. And I think new ideas happen when orbits they don't cross off and get together. And so I just look back back on that and go, you know, the conversations I got to have, I got to know you, jeremy Cowart was there. So I came with me because he lives in my town and we flew together. Um, and so yeah, it was a really, and the event, I love chris Colombo world domination summit, like it felt like 3000 artists doing secretly amazing work in the city of Portland. Yeah. We took a town over, I think he's 10 years in, right. This is, he was going to do it last year and that was the 10th season and I was on the schedule. I was going well because he invites the best people back notice. I didn't get a call. He said, don't mention it. That's kind of ticket. Yeah. You want to buy a book ticket Sitting Real 49 d. I'm gonna say one other thing before we uh, dive too hard court. I do. I want to start off by saying, Hey, everybody John has a new book. It is incredible. I think John, it's your best work yet. Uh, and we're whatever. We're just a couple of weeks into your launch and you've already got like 500 reviews on Amazon. So apparently the universe, uh, and they are eaten up. So congratulations what I'm talking about that. But before we do my takeaway from our first time spending weekend together there in Portland was your keynote. You may have even been the closing keynote, which is like the slam dunk spot and you absolutely crushed your talk. I was getting off a stage left and I don't think I've been uh, that close to someone crushing it that hard at any of these. Um, you know, I've probably given 50 speeches at these big trade shows and whatnot. And you just had the, had the audience had all, all of us in the palm of your hand. So I thought that's an interesting way to start out because it does have to do a little bit with your book, a little bit with one of what you called your favorite things in the world, which is speaking in front of people. Um recap that that event. If you would real quick your particular speech there and like why do you love it so much? And is that why you're good at it? Yeah, So I mean that particular speech, I remember it. I mean I remember the shirt I had on, I had my kind of go to purple plaid shirt. It was like my I call, I think I called it Prince's picnic blanket is the joke. I referred to it as um and I, the speech was really about being an artist, finding your voice and being brave. So I started with the idea of if the eight year old me wrote me a letter today, would they would they cheer or would they cry? So if they saw the things I was doing, what would the response to be? And if I said ah but we're building a platform, the eight year old maybe like what's a platform like but are we doing stuff that fills us and lights up? And I'd be like, but we got twitter followers, an eight year old me would be like again, I don't know what that is, these words you're using, are we using our gift or re stewarding the things we've been given? And so that's what the talk was about and it's my favorite thing because I might be on the stage but I'm on the front row of life change. Like one of the most amazing things that happens in a speech is that you give the speech and then you step off stage and somebody will say, oh I love that thing you said and you go what did I say? And then they'll say something that you didn't actually say, but they heard what they needed to hear. So like when I say a speech is magical, I mean that like, I think the best storytellers, in my opinion leaves space for you to finish the story. So what I mean by that, like look at a Porsche. A Porsche has tons of white space, A money shot, a simple headline. Too, little paragraphs because a Porsche and a car Porsche is a story and good storytellers. No, if I stop start the story about the ocean and I don't overfill it, then I'll tell myself the best story because I have 45 years of vocabulary memories. And if you give me room to tell my my Ocean story. I remember growing up in New England, I'm in the third grade, my dad's in seminary, we have no money, he's painting houses on the side and he would set me up on the roof and we could see the ocean miles and miles away. And it was this thin little blue strip and I remember that moment and that's what a good speech does is it creates a setting where you as the chase, you get to tell the chase story. Vanessa gets, tell Vanessa story and that's what's fun for me. And then when you get to take them in unexpected places that they're not expecting, like you're going serious, serious, serious and then you throw in a joke and you go, you know, every time I see the bumper sticker that says, my dog is smarter than your honor student, I think. Where did you go to school? How bad was your honor students? Like I get that your dog is smart, but I've never known an honor student to eat their own throw up. Like that's not a thing. Honor students do. Your dog isn't smarter than honor student. Like I've never known somebody go Kyle's great, He's an ap calculus, but he, you know, freaks out if he hears thunder. So we put a thunder shirt on all the calculus students, like if I, and then I can kind of weave that together. That's why I say it's my favorite thing because it feels like magic. Well speaking of magic, uh, you've got a new book and the premise of the book with the title soundtracks, the surprising solution to overthinking. Um, and it's absolutely magical. I was just sharing with you. Also for those of you can see, I just got a bunch of dog eared pages, john and I had to reschedule the recording one time because I had a something come up on my end that was rather unpleasant that I had to manage. And uh and so this has been my, in my backpack going everywhere with me and went down to Palm springs with me not too long ago. Ah, Congratulations on the work. But before we get to the details of the book, this concept of soundtracks of the way I like to think about it and share it is the most important words in the world are the ones we say to ourselves. So before we get to some of the punch lines, let's go back to when you started telling yourself stuff as a young person embarking on this career. You have a background working with other people writing for them. Um you started to see a world for yourself where you could, you know, as you said, you're on the front in the front lines of human transformation for the folks who don't know as much about you or your work as they should go back way back and and say, how did you get your start? What are some of the core principles, first principles that you thought of then? And how did it get to now? Give us a way back machine? Yeah, so it's 2000 and eight. I live in Alpharetta Georgia, beautiful wife. I've got two kids under the age of four and I feel stuck. My career has plateau. I'm in my early thirties and you hope a plateau happens in your fifties. But I am an advanced learner apparently because I had already reached a plateau. Um I was a senior content designer for a company, which is just a fancy term for copywriter. And there was no super duper, senior content designer, I had reached the top of the ladder, it was really intimidating. and I would sit there in the parking lot, you know, in the dark, waiting to go in the building listening to jimmy eat world the middle, which is definitely a song about a high school sophomore girl. But I'd be like, hey, this is my song. Like I'm going to edit parts where this is clearly about software girl, like whatever, this is johnny cash song. And I felt really stuck. And in that season I started a blog and I started to write on the internet and I felt like there was this whole other world where you got to kind of create the rules. Um, and you got to have a voice where, you know, in the fifties, like you had to have a radio station, you had to be kind of, you know, nominated to have a column in the paper and all of a sudden I was like, I can share ideas. And in that season, somebody reached out an event planner from Oklahoma and said, hey, would you ever come speak at our event? And I had never done that. I didn't know you got paid for that. I didn't know that was a thing, but had this tiny thought for what I'd call a soundtrack now, just a repetitive thought that said, I think I can do this and I didn't have any evidence, I didn't have any financial proof. I didn't have really anything other than the thought that I think I can do this. And I started to kind of water that thought with action. I started to lean into that thought and that's what took me on this this really fun journey where it moved me to Nashville and helped me write books that helped me, you know, be in Portland talking to amazing people. But it started with the seat of a thought of I think I can do this like I don't know what it means yet, but I think I can do this and I'm going to try to do this. And that thought like even like when people would say okay, but you failed so many times, I did. But I remember there was one time this event, I wasn't speaking at the event because the only person who knew I was a speaker was me, so I wasn't even speaking at the event, but I said, hey, can I have a room for a meet up? And they're like, yeah, that's fine, whatever. And so I prayed 1000 stickers, I have this meet up, I bring all these snacks and I'm there for 90 minutes and two people show up like and one was a friend who just said like, good job buddy, you're doing your work. And like the other was a dad who walked in for 30 seconds and was like, I don't read your blog, my daughter does call her. And I didn't awkward 32nd conversation and I remember even that moment. I was like, I'm going to share this. Like one of my soundtracks is it will be a success or a story. I'm either going to get a success from this or a story. So I had my friend take a photo of me in a sea of chairs sitting there. I had a shirt. I printed up like based on my blog like Chase. I was all in, I had like my in laws printed 1000 stickers because I'm like, it's gonna be massive. And it was a huge failure. But I shared it and I was willing to do that again and again and again, because I had this thought, it was like, I think I can do this. Like, that didn't go well, but I think I can do this. And that's kind of where I started to lean into overthinking as a superpower. Well, it's either a success or a story and sometimes successes or stories too. So I think that's a great way of looking at life, the thing that I want to start at around the soundtracks, and I've had countless conversations, either getting off stage or feedback on social or face to face small groups. I find that one of the barriers that people struggle with is their ability to a dream, that the thing that they're doing right now is this these are just simple trappings that we've either cultivated for ourselves or agreed to either, you know, overtly or unintentionally. And so before we get into overthinking or maybe this is an angle on overthinking, what, what is it that allows us to get unstuck? What was the thing or series of things? You shared it as a phone call? But I'm that's an external impetus, you know, and but they're clearly had to be some, some narrative that shifted inside of you in order to see that phone call as an opportunity versus, you know, a fear response or an abandonment response or like I'm not gonna do this or like what changed in you. And I'm asking this because I think that nine out of 10 people who are listening or watching either have had this or are currently experiencing it because there's this gap between where we are, where we want to be. There's a bunch of stuff that's keeping us, there one of them is the soundtrack, but there was like some click in your brain I'm guessing and I'm wondering if you can identify what that was. Yeah, it was a series of clicks. I would say it was small steps. I think one of the hardest things is that culturally speaking, when we talk about dreams, when we talk about goals, we often go, you have to begin with the end in mind, which I think is a good principle. Like it's not but like we've overdone that to me and you have to know the final destination before you take the first step, you have to know where you're going. Like modern goal setting, those specific smart goals. The s is specific. Make the finish line super specific. And I think that puts all this pressure on people that have barely gone. I didn't know I'd write a book When I started my blog when I said you got seven books now, by the way, I've written seven, but I didn't know that. Like, and if you had told me chase, if you had said John it's going to take you 12 years to get to this mark that would have been so discouraging. But like what I had was I like these ideas. I think when I share them, other people would like them to. So I'm gonna try that. Like not in a big way, not in a massive way. Like I didn't say I'm, you know, I'm going to have a radio program in year or whatever. I didn't come up with this massive goal. It's just like I think this is really funny or interesting. I bet it's interesting to other people. Can I go find those other people? Like we put so much pressure. That's one of the things I tell people like a really simple soundtrack you can use if you want to write a book is to write on a post it note, it's just a book. We overdramatize already difficult goals. So I'll meet people that will go, I've been working on my book for seven years and I go, whoa, they go, you have the book is like and I go, what's the goal of the book in the safe to prove to my dad that my choices are good. I'm like, whoa, Like no wonder it's been challenging or they'll go, you know, to capture my voice on paper. Writers say that kind of stuff all the time. You go, right, it's easy just open up a vein and lead on the page. Like come on, like we're putting so much pressure. So for me, I didn't sit there and go, this is the launch of a new adventure. I said, I have an idea. I think it's funny, interesting, serious whatever version would be for somebody else. I'm going to share it. I'm gonna get my toe in versus going, it would have been too intimidating for me to go all in right out of the gate. Like that's why I talk about side hustles. I still had a full time job. I was still doing freelance clients. I was writing jingles for like, um, like laser hair removal. Like I was doing all these radio jingles like, or like dog daycare centers or like tire centers. Like I was writing radio ads. Like I was doing all this stuff and then on the side I had this tiny thing and I was like, I love it enough to get up a little bit early and try it. And so it was a series of switches like that and every time it worked, I go, okay, like let me try a little bigger, let me try a little bigger. It wasn't, I didn't have an all in moment until much later, until much later. So at some, at some point there wasn't all in moment. Yeah. Moving to Nashville, like when Dave Ramsey said, hey, we like your ideas. We want to show you how to do this on a bigger level. That was one of my transitions from, I'm in a cubicle with a side hustle writing a blog to I'm now going to move my entire family from Atlanta and say my ideas are now my full time job. So I'm going to speak on his stages b on his radio show like I'm gonna go to kind of this greenhouse and figure this thing out and then leaving. There was another one. Okay. I feel like I'm ready to try this on my own, which everybody thought I was crazy. Like, you know, why would that's the biggest platform? Why would you leave that? But I think I can try. And that was eight years ago. So there were, there were definitely all in moments, but they came after a whole lot of small little bit in moments. Well, I appreciate you sharing yours and for the folks who are listening right now, like john's john's story, you know, there's the, I think it's the James Joyce quote in the particular lies the universal or is contained the universal and why I'm retracing your steps and connecting it to the pleased that I've heard from so many folks across the internet and in person is that this, this is it's very natural. It's very pervasive this idea that there's something that's keeping us from the things that we want in life. And in your new book soundtracks, you talk about that as overthinking and share with us why this is not actually a personality trait, this is not like this is this is again go back to in the particular lives universal, this is a universal thing. And what we all have to do, we've got this thing between our ears, it's a multi million year old Oregon, It's not there to make us happy or inventive or wildly joyfully in love with their life, it's there to keep us to survive. So if overthinking isn't a personality trait, what is it? And how did you latch onto this as the mechanism that unlocked your life? Well, the thing I'd say is whether you're gonna launch a podcast, write a book, start a business, I think there's three things that every successful idea have in common. They have a deep personal connection. So the creator is deeply connected to them. The second thing is people actually need them. You're seeing an express need in the market. That could be from conversations. You've already mentioned that a number of times I've stepped off stage and these are their needs that people express me. The third is there's a spot for you in the marketplace. So with overthinking, Um I had a personal connection to it. I had seen it changed my life in 2008 that when I chose to choose my thoughts, it changed my actions have changed my results, like in the simplest way, new action, new thoughts like the new actions, new results. Um, and then I said, okay, well, let me test the need because I think people are overthinking. And so I commissioned a research study with this PhD mike Peasley. We have 10,000 people faced with overthinking 99.5% of them said yes. So then I had to like the Venn diagrams coming together. Third one is a spot in the market. I go to the marketplace and I realized there's a lot of great books on overthinking, but a lot of them say, stop it, stop it, stop it. And I look at that and go, why would I ever turn off this amazing thinking machine? I'm really good at thinking, what if I just fed it with good thoughts, not bad thoughts, thoughts that pushed me forward, not thoughts and pulled me back. That's where I like to be counterintuitive. Like can you imagine if your if your thoughts are working for you versus against you? So now I've got the Venn diagram and I can go okay, I'm willing to invest years of my life and really trying to help people with this. And so that's where I got kind of excited about the ideas when those three things were easy to see and then what happened, which I just benefited from, it was accidental. Then 2020 was catnip for over thinking like the way I've been telling people is everything is a thing, everything in life is now a thing. And my example is always like the other day somebody went to shake my hand and right before he shook my hand, I thought should I refuse, should give an elbow, should get my fist bump. What am I shaking? And dip my whole arm into a vat of hand sanitizers and to say just scrubbing off the deadly pandemic. You just tried to murder me and my grandparents with like, and then I looked around the room and I was like our other people shaking, is this a hand shaking things? Like what does it say about us politically? Like you know what I thought about two years ago when someone shook my hand nothing. I just shook their hand. So now everyone is overthinking and so that's where the book launched into in my opinion, a time where everybody has more thoughts they've ever had before. And I want to say there's something you can do about them and when you do like your life changes like chase. We had somebody, we did this thing, we were like okay what's your old broken soundtrack? And somebody said I can't be a good dad to my kids because I didn't have a good dad and he said my new soundtrack is I can learn to be a good dad to my kids regardless of who my dad was. Those kids will have a different childhood because that dude just Gottfried, like so many of the people watching this listening right now we're going I can't start a business because I didn't like to hear the story of like Mark Zuckerberg had a business at four, like you know Warren Buffett as a site goat was you know, he had a business in the room and he was doing well, business like and you know it's too late for me. So how many of your listeners, your viewers have believed the to late soundtrack and then you get some freedom and go, oh that's not true and I get to change that and I get to like write what is True and live according to that. That's where I think this idea is so powerful because I've seen it changed my life and I've seen it change other people's lives and I just think it's really fun. Speaking of changing lives, there are so many amazing stories, amazing stories including several about Dolly Parton. Mm Her. Well, you got a connection with Tennessee where I talked about that. My question is of all of the stories that you shared and this alignment that that the fact that this is such a universal. I'm wondering if you can identify one of your favorite stories from the book or maybe something that wasn't in the book, just that exemplifies what we're talking about here. Yeah, the answer is actually the same. My favorite story is Colleen Barry the first she's in the first chapter. My books changed Chase when I started to invite research and other people into the conversation. What I mean by that is instead of just having an idea in my office, I have the idea and then I go test it and then I go, hey, I have these generous followers, generous readers will go, we'll test that for 30 days with you. Like, we'll fill out surveys, will. And then what happens is when you read the book, it's not just another version of my story. Like, God forbid if I write another memoir where it's like, I'm I found another interesting part of my own life and you go, oh, finally the next chapter of Jonathan's life, like we've been waiting, like it's just, you know, another memoir book. But what's great is that like when we were putting together the list of people, we wanted to send a free copy too, because we use their story, There were 35 people emailed a book too. And that just got me, because then if you're a single mom, you read about another single mom who changed her overthinking because that experience is different than my experience. And so Colleen barry. Um she was in massachusetts, lost her job during the dot com bust. She was a documentary filmmaker. She had shown a film at com, like she was killing it dude, she loses her job, has to get all these jobs to put together kind of her life. And one of them is being a receptionist. Another one was making pizzas, but she was a receptionist and she realized there's not going to be a path that shows up, I have to create the path and it's going to start with the thoughts I create. So I'm going to decide. My new thought is I'm going to create the best customer service experience in this lobby. You come in this lobby, you're going to be wowed. She figured out how to get like an espresso machine and she changed the entire approach and now she's the ceo of that company. So the idea of she went from receptionist to Ceo. It's an amazing story. And she, she was my favorite interview on my podcast, a podcast called All It Takes is a goal. Because when I interviewed her, I was like, oh, she has so much more story. But I think that's really and what's encouraging to is it took her 15 years. I don't think it's encouraging when you read a story that goes and she did it in an hour and half. Her coffee was that good chase. She went from barista the Ceo in an hour and a half. So if you're not on that same pace, your life is clearly a failure. Look at Colleen, that's how good she is an espresso, like I love that, she said no at this level, at this level, at this level, at this level, so that's probably my favorite story. So right now I think we have as, as creators, different guests have had on the show, so many of our mutual friends, we end up using um a different vocabulary to identify things that make us stuck blockers and I think you've really hit on something with overthinking uh to me, it resonated um you know, even just reading this subtitle before reading the book, so let's assume that everyone overthinks but to address the doubters because right now they're like, I don't know if I over think, I think, I think the right amount this is I'm someone or someone in their underwear in Ohio right now, so like I think the right amount, what are signs that people are overthinking and I love this question. I love this question. So the push back, I often get like one of my favorite things in the speech because we have to talk about speaking. I love to find the push back and then address it before you've had it because then it's me taking care of the audience. Some people say I'm not an over thinker, I'm detailed. I like to be prepared. I like to analyze and organized, whatever. That's great. I love that. So here's how you tell the difference, being detailed, being organized, being prepared, always leads to an action overthinking, always leads to more overthinking. So if you're a detailed person, there's a trail of actions you wrote the book, you launch the podcast, you ask the girl out, you moved to the city, you did the thing. If you're an over thinker, you've just continued to overthink and it really is the example of that is when a leader says, okay, I don't want to make a decision until I have all the information like Chase. We haven't lived in an all world for years. We live in an enough world. Like trade the word all for enough. I have enough of the information to make the decision. If you say, I can't make the decision until I have all the information, You'll never make the decision. You're going to be overthinking. So that's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is if you want to figure out, if you have what I call a broken soundtrack here is the easiest test, write down something you want to do. It doesn't have to be massive, could be small, big medium. I want to, you know, start a podcast. I want to write a book, I want to lose £10. I want to do a five K, whatever right down a desire and then listen to the thoughts that come next. Listen to the reaction. Every reaction is an education. So what's the reaction you get? Is it a reaction that's going to move you forward? If it's not that it might be a broken soundtrack? And if you identify a broken soundtrack, there's three questions you ask and these are the simplest. These are trojan horse questions. I'll just be up front. You're going to hear the words like those are simple words, but if you actually sit with them, there's truth hidden inside. So you ask every broken soundtrack, your loud ones, three questions. Is it true? Is this thing I'm telling myself over and over and over? True. Second question, Is it helpful when I listen to? It doesn't move me forward to pull me back. And third is is it kind when I say it to myself, is it kind to myself what I say it to a friend and they still want to be my friend. Like that's been the blast for me during podcast. They've also often changed from a conversation about a topic to a conversation about the podcast host and I had a podcast host in the middle go oh no. And I said what? He said, well, I've been number one of my category for nine months and my podcast and my soundtrack says, you're lucky, you're lucky, You're lucky. And he said, I'd never say to a friend who spent nine months working on something really, really hard, you're just lucky. You're just lucky. So he said, why am I OK saying that to myself? And so those three questions when you ask them and actually sit with them will change the thoughts you're listening to. You're going to be shocked how many untrue, unhelpful unkind things you've allowed to play in the background of your life. Let's unpack this kindness vector for a second totally. My wife Kate is a mindfulness and meditation teacher. It's about training your attention and being kind to oneself. It turns out is really helpful for a living life and for feeling fulfilled and connected to your community. Why did you I know why Kate is because we've talked about it for hours. But I think this is I don't see kindness popping up in a lot of places. And so what attracted you specifically to kindness? Why that as one of the prime ingredients or diagnoses for for what it is that you want to be or become in this world? Yeah. So somebody asked me what was the, what were the biggest surprises in the research and the writing? And I said honestly it was how many of my sentences to myself ended with you idiots. Like how like my punctuation to so many thoughts in my own head, my own heart were you idiot. And I think that's a really good activity for anybody is check your punk, check your punctuation. How are you ending the sentences you talk to yourself? And so for me, the first thing was just going, wait a second, why do I do that? Like what does that mean? Um on a personal level and then I kind of expanded it out to say, okay, does it have value like to speak kindly to yourself? Because it feels initially like too soft and I want to know that's why I'm pushing on it right? It's like, so it's like I need what got me to where I am right now and I'm kicking ass is that I'm hard on myself and I work my ass off. And it's like, so like for me, so then like, It was a couple of things to like my wife four years ago said, um you're a jerk for the two years when you write a book and you're a jerk for the two years when you sell a book and that's not gonna work like in our marriage, that doesn't work. Like I'd rather you be a happy plumber than a miserable writer. So this can't be it. And so I realized, wait a second part of it is I have to you, I've been using fear and stress and anxiety as a fuel to get stuff done and it's a good short term few like I'd be lying if I said otherwise, but it's not sustainable. It Hollows you out. And like so then like one of the activities in the book, as I always say, pull the thread like what's the thought behind the thought? And when I started to pull the thread, I realized About 12 years ago I had an ad agency that just went sideways small little ad agency. Um it failed and I had to swoop in and save the day and I learned in that moment I can function in a crisis. That's not a bad thing to learn. That's a fine soundtrack. But it mutated over time to I function best in a crisis and then it mutated into I need a crisis to function. So in order for me to get a project done, I had to like save the day and stir up all this chaos and we've all been around leaders who can only lead through fires and so when there is not a fire they feel useless so they start a fire. And so like it was seeing all of that. And then for me finding out that the value of kindness like there was a big study google did called Project Aristotle And they spent millions of dollars to answer the one question what do the best teams here have in common, highest performing, most successful teams, what they have in common. And they did 35 different statistical models they studied I think over 180 teams. And the one thing that the best teams all have in common is what they called psychological safety and psychological safety is three things on the team. You can ask questions, you can suggest new ideas and you can admit you're wrong without being judged unkindly. And so for me that was like when I go speak to a really high performing sales team, if I try to be kind, they're gonna laugh me off the stage. But if I go, hey, here's why I like the most successful teams in the world because like tie at the innovation, if you can't suggest new ideas, innovations gone, it's gone. People hold back their best ideas. If you can't admit you're wrong, responsibility is gone, mistakes never get fixed. And that ties back to kindness. So that's where like the convergence of going, okay, every religious practice, every mindfulness thing, google who like is about like google is not telling you to be kind because they want you to be kind, they're going, okay, we see this as a real way that teams can win together. So they all came together and they all pointed back the kindness and so that for me was that just felt like I'd stumble upon this treasure, like the most obvious treasure ever. Like I still haven't found somebody who told me. Yeah, john I got my life together when one day I woke up and said, I've got to get my life together, you idiots. So I just berated myself to life change and it feels great like, and there's motivational people that you bump into and you go, oh, they're running from trauma. Like they're still on the run and it's, there's, there's not a joy there. Like they've accomplished a ton, but like they're staying one step ahead of their trauma and there's never a time to pause and enjoy it because they're not speaking kindly to themselves. And so that, that's what got me really excited about that word. Well, that's one of the things about trauma, right, is that the content might change. But the the cycles, the process does not process is the same process and you can just insert all kinds of different kindness, all sorts of different content in there. Speaking of trauma, I'm guessing that in your research, 10, people, I know you commissioned that study, but I'm guessing in your research generally what role does trauma play in keeping people from their dreams? And can you tie that to changing soundtracks? Yes. So I would say that, um, I think trauma, one of the things trauma does is it puts handles on broken soundtracks so that they're easier to pick up again and again and again and again. And I think that, you know, the handles from trauma are really sticky. So you would say, you know, one of your listeners could say, you know what? I got my kids out the door. I worked a full time job. I scheduled carpooling and I was three minutes late to the car writer pickup line and immediately heard you're the worst mom. You're the worst mom. You're the worst mom because somewhere there's probably been some trauma that I attach some handles to that thought. And so I think there are thoughts when it comes to trauma that you go, okay. This is going to be time consuming for me to change it. You know, the book has really three simple premises. If you retire the broken soundtracks, you replace them with new ones and you repeat them so often they become as automatic as the old ones. So there's sometimes chase where you bump into truth and it changes everything almost instantly like that does happen. And we've seen that, like we've all had a co worker who we couldn't stand and then we realized, oh, his wife has cancer, and like, the stuff he's putting out of the office has nothing to do, like, and that changes that, that sentence, knowing that changed it. So, I do believe there's times where knowing the sentence changes it, but I also believe there's times when you take this baby new thought and put it up against this trauma thought that's been doing push ups in the prison yard and you go, it didn't, like it was a really tough battle, and the thought one, and so there's been times, I'll tell people, like, you know, I love going to counseling, I love working things out, I love working them out in the community of conversation. Like, one of stories that happened to me about six weeks ago, I've got a friend named Ben um and we go on walks, you know, once a week, we're going on this thursday for about an hour, hour and a half. We just talked about life and so six weeks ago he was like, hey, what's going on? I said, man, I was just reminded of this opportunity that I had missed, like I missed it and it made me feel sad that I missed it. It made me feel dumb because I felt like everybody else would have seen it and and been able to execute it. It made me feel afraid, like it's the last opportunity, it made me feel jealous because I know who got it instead. And so Ben got quiet and he said if you had gotten that opportunity, what would you have more of that you don't have now? And I was like, oh, that's a good question. And then he said if you had gotten that opportunity would you have gone deeper into your ego or deeper into your heart? And I didn't have to wait for a second answer that one. Like it was an ego opportunity. And he said, because that makes me sad because I don't think he would have valued these walks and I would have missed this friendship and I don't get to get that gift from him if I don't share the truth, if I don't say I feel sad about this, feel scared about this, I feel excited about this. And so I think that with trauma, especially it takes a community, it takes, you know, wise people to walk alongside you. It takes kind people to walk alongside you. So I think that there's a ton of soundtracks you can change and there's some that you go, you know what I'm going to bring in some people who are going to tell me the truth about this and and walk this road with me. So this is a super powerful framework for something that's so simple. Uh you just identified the three identifying soundtrack, um writing a new one and then replaying that soundtrack for yourself until it replaces the other one. So let's go through. Just do a little Um a little workshop here for the next five minutes. Help me identify my soundtracks. Yeah, I mean I think the first thing I questions that you ask one. Yeah, I mean, one of the questions would be, tell me about the thing you want to do and then tell me about the things that you know, the reasons you can't do it. Like I would listen, I would listen for also absolute So I try to get to your absolute. Never, always everyone, you know, I never succeeded this diet. Everyone else thinks this way or you know, I listen for your absolute So I go, let's let's find some absolute because there's probably a broken sounds right there. Um we might say, okay, chase looking at the next seven days ahead. Where do you want to win? What's something you want to win it? And every week has two parts people and projects. So I might say to you, okay, let's let's talk about people because you have a soundtrack for every person in your life. So we get real tactical. Everybody has a friend or a coworker that when they see the text, they don't even have to read it. They get furious or they get so we might go, OK, let's identify a person. What is it about that person? And you might go, you know what? Their unqualified? I don't like them because they're unqualified for the job. And if we pull the thread it might be, well maybe they've just done more with less and you're actually, you wish you are as brave as them to ask for opportunities. So new, you need a new soundtrack. I get to be brave or it's time to be brave or maybe they ask you for favors and you feel like you can't say no because the mom told you have to be accommodating 20 years ago. So now you don't have any boundaries and you feel like you can't say no and this guy always reminds you of that. So the new soundtrack is I get to have boundaries or I deserve boundaries. And so we kind of walked through that and then we go, okay, let's talk about replace. How do we replace them? And we make it really simple? I'd never sit you down with a blank piece of paper. I don't believe in writer's block. I believe in idea bankruptcy. I always bring ideas and friends to a blank piece of paper so I would never start and go, okay, chase it down. Right, A bunch of new soundtracks, I'll go, can we borrow some. Are there people in your life? Are their lyrics? Are there questions? Let's borrow. Some of the best definition of creativity in my opinion is Dorothy Parker who said creativity is a wild mind in a disciplined. I the wildness is you fill your head with all these different topics. A song layer. Something chased it on a podcast. You know, a book you read and then you have the discipline to see the connection. So I go, hey, you know, like what's lighting you up these days? Let's talk about that. And then if that was still like, it's a little intimidating, I'd get you to flip it, I'd say, okay, like one for me was I realized I was the worst boss. I was a terrible boss to myself. So I didn't go on this long vision quest. I just said, what would the best boss do like in this situation if I flipped it for more spots? The best boss, what was the best boss do? And I've had good bosses. So it wasn't impossible for me to go remember Suzanne, she was so kind and she'd always, you know, I remember, you know, Mark, he did this. And so I go, ok, well let's discuss. What does that look like? Is there a soundtrack there? Um and and for me it's, you know, it ends up being about self awareness, but it ends up being about paying attention to the world around you. The world is crawling with soundtracks just most people don't understand. They get to change their thoughts. You get to choose your thoughts like thoughts happen by two ways. Choice or chance and they go so much better when their choice brilliant. I love I love to me the most powerful frameworks are Like brutally simple. The four agreements. The four agreements isn't a 900 page book. Like you don't go I got a graph chart like you go it's four agreements. That's why I think the best frameworks again our trojan horses you go like no one watching this has never heard the word true helpful or kind of like those aren't even fancy where they're not even long words like nobody's gonna be impressed by it. But if you actually sit with him for a second you're like wait a second. I mean I even use the liberation like retire replace repeat. Like you could easily say it's alliteration but then you get into and you're like okay that's what's fun. You talked about bankruptcy just a moment ago and more conceptual nature. But it makes me want to reflect in preparation for our conversation today, I read an article that was written about you and one of your philosophies that I think is really timely and I wanted to get your take on it. And it's the concept of a career savings account because again, people come to the show for lots of reasons, A lot of the people come because they want to get unstuck and 50% of those unstuck cases are cases in life and 50% are in career. and so for that 50% who are stuck in their career, we are in case you hadn't noticed. We are emerging finally slowly but finally from a pandemic. And if this idea of a savings account for your career isn't very prescient for you right now, that you're one of the few people that I know because we've just gone through, you know, without going into the weeds economic devastation for so many careers and professions, the requirement of reinvention. And so I just thought again in reading this, it was from, I don't know, like 2017 or 2018. And I just, it was almost like you were seeing the future. And so talk to us about this idea of a career savings account because it's not in the classic sense that you're talking about it. Yeah, so here's the reality. Um we're all in the midst of a ton of change and change can feel overwhelming, but I always say like think about change like a vertical line and at the top is the word voluntary and the bottom is involuntary. Those are the two types of change. You either started or you you know it, you experience it outside of your control. And so then I start to think, okay, but that's too simple because not every voluntary changes. Good. Not every involuntary is bad. We all get surprises. We've all voluntarily dated people longer than we should have and made mistakes. So you had another line to that to create kind of this plus sign and that one goes from negative to positive. And when you do that, you see these four really simple change moments that everybody goes through. So a voluntary negative moment when you're willingly going towards something negative is a ceiling you climb to the top of ladder, you get stuck. And you know, 72% of Americans don't like what they do for a living, but they don't know what to do next. So they just keep banging their heads against the ceiling. Um, I mean there's drink specials around the country on Sunday night for the Sunday, scary because people feel stuck. The, you know, a negative, unexpected moment is a bump where life catches you off guard. Like think about every music I live in Nashville, every musician 15 years ago used to do tours to sell albums. The goal of the tour was to drive album sales because album sales matter the most and then consumers like nah music free, so they had to flip and now they do a tour and they released an album trying to get you the tour and then the pandemic pause that. And so then on the plus side of things, a voluntary positive decision is a jump when you read a book, when you get a mentor, when you listen to a podcast, moved to a new city as a jump and then a voluntary um our involuntary positive moment is just an opportunity. And so there's these four change moments and what you need in those moments are what I call a career savings account which is skills, relationship character and hustle. Really simple investment skills, character, relationships and hustle and what you learn is that one of those investments that you continue to make will help you in each transition when you hit a ceiling. The thing you need the most are your skills why? Because it's impossible to get stuck somewhere old. If you keep learning something new skills of the hammer that helps you break through a ceiling, I'll tell you through like there's three skills right now in this season that we all need number one critical skills and the way I like to say it is what's your take out sign every restaurant in America is critical skill was to print a sign that said, we do take out as you look at your career, as you look at your future. What's critical for me? It was figuring out how to do virtual events. I'm a live event speaker last March. Every event got either canceled or postponed, 70% of my business was that I had to figure out, well I better figure out how to be a good virtual speaker. The second type of skill, you need our new skills. Um, you know, here's the question I'd ask you to say, what would have made this easier? What would have made this this year easier and then go build death, what would have made it easier and they don't feel shame, don't feel regret. I wish I had this already. But maybe having a work from home policy for your team would have made it easier. Maybe being better at social media because like every sales team lost the pop in. I know so many sales men and women that were like I was the king of the doughnut delivery. I would, you know, put me in a room, I'll crush it. And then the popping became a legal dude. So what would have made this season easier? Being amazing at weather is being amazing at zoom. Like go figure that out for me. That's why I lost the podcast because I was like, would have made this easier having a podcast where I can communicate with people where I can build ideas that way. So I built the podcast. Third type is classic skills. When we get busy, we put aside the things that got us there. When we get busy, we put aside things that still matter. So you've got a classic skill to dust off and say, I used to be amazing to follow up. I used to be the thank you guy. I used to be amazing to reaching out, I'm going to do that. So that when you hit a ceiling needs skills, when you go through a bump, the thing you need the most of your relationships. If you want to figure out who your friends are, go through a negative, unexpected moment and what you find out is that people you thought would show up often disappear, That keyser Soze a but then people, you didn't even know newly existed show up outta nowhere to link arms with you. Like people don't stay with businesses. People don't stay with churches, people don't stay with brands that people stay with people. So relationships get you through a bump when you have a jump moment character, you need your character because when you jump to a new city, new skills, your skills aren't there yet, your relationships aren't there yet. But when you jump and jump with you and my favorite example that is Up to 80% of people who moved from mainland us to Hawaii move back within the first year. Why? Because they thought the problems they had in Ohio wouldn't follow them to Hawaii there. Like as soon as I have better access to academia nuts and pineapple, like all my problems and they get to Kona and they unpacked the boxes and the same insecurities in there. When you jump, you bring your character with you the last one when you get an opportunity, that's when you need your hustle because this tiny little windows opened up. and so what I encourage people to do is think about those investments, think about that and go, okay, I feel really like I'm stuck, that's go get some skills, go work on your skills, or hey, I feel like I just went through a bump, reach out, you're not supposed to do this alone, like you're not like reach out to a relationship, okay, wow, I just this window open up and I get to do it okay, you better pull on the hustle, like, so that's what a career savings account is. It's investing in those four things deliberately. And here's the thing, everyone listening has more in their career savings accounts and they really know you have more relationships than you're remembering. You have more skills and remembering you've been working on your character. So a lot of what I do is try to get people to remember the things they already have, because when you feel stuck after a pandemic, you kind of get blind to the things you're already good at, and that's when you feel really stuck as you kind of get in that spiral. So I love to remind people like, no, you have more than you think. Let's figure out what it is. There was a lot of words Chase. I know, like there's a lot of, like, I'm just fucking words on you right now, that's why I'm here, but I'm here to get your, your voice over for uh an incredible book. Speaking of um this idea that we you mentioned earlier, uh borrow from the Best, us looking at a blank page and what are some things that we tell ourselves or that we ought to be telling ourselves, You don't have to reinvent the script from scratch. And that was a chapter. I think it was the title of chapter. Actually, I've got the book right here. Far from the best bar from the best chapter four. Um it's thank you again for the very, very useful framework. Um the idea of soundtracks is not new, right? We've got the soundtrack of our lives. We've got movies have soundtracks and yet I don't think we think of those things as um as prominent as they are. There is basically a soundtrack Um playing 24/7 in most people's heads. Now, this is a question where I'm asking you to reconcile something that is sort of digging at me a little bit. Now, this idea you said earlier also that, you know, we're thinking people and and you know, thinking has got us a long way and so we want to build a master are thinking mm but is there a world where is there room in your system for not thinking? I just you know, an exercise that I like to do that is like between now and now did you think rethinking between those two nails? How about now and now? No, there's no thinking happened. So, so is there room in your world? Because I'm trying to quiet my brain and what I love about your system is this idea that you were trading out the old songs that no longer work for you for new songs and then you're playing them so that they become the messages that you wanted to hear again. If the words that we say to ourselves are the most important words in the world. That's good. But is there room in your world for quiet? Yeah. So I think that, you know, one of the most fascinating things about researching the book was a conversation I had with David thomas. So David thomas is this brilliant author. Speaker therapist here in Nashville. He works for Day Star, this, this great center for Kids. And I was talking to him about that. I was asking him that question essentially and he said, john the problem with negative thinking is people want there to be a switch. They hope there's a switch, a single switch I can find. And when I turn it off, I remove all my thoughts and remove all my negativity. And so what happens is we go yoga is my new switch and it works for a week. It works for a month. But then guess what things get loud again? You feel like a failure. You get into a perfectionistic loop and you go as the wrong switch to diet, as a switch, moving to a new city as the switch and you keep looking for switches. And he said, it's not a switch, it's a dial. And when life gets the dial up, you get to turn the dial down when life gets the dial up and there's so much freedom in that because you feel like a failure when you live a switch world, you feel like I'm one switch away and then you discover you weren't and you try all again and you feel like a failure versus going, Wow, like my switch and may like, I mean my dial in May is that an 11 and so I'm going to do what I call my turn down techniques to get it back down. So 100% my version of that chase is I love road running, not trail running. Why? Because road running, I can turn off my thoughts. My feet can just go trail running. I have to pick every step carefully. I need more thought. I can't turn off my thoughts if I'm coming down the side of a mountain, but I run the same 3.1 mile loop in my neighborhood. Every people probably think I'm a media like that is my, like when people go, I like to run a bunch of different spots and like I am a boring runner. Why? Because I get to turn off. So for me, that's one of my turn off techniques. Another dorky one is I love doing big lego sets. Like I, I got my daughter's harry potter castle christmases ago and I realized I like it more than they do. And so I get big like 5000 piece car sets that are Porsche 9 11 because there are no directions or steps. There are instructions to life for what I do. Like how do you be an author? Like how do you be a small business? Like how do you be a speaker? And so doing a lego set with a big thick book of instructions and following it step by step Is the same as somebody who knits and turns off their thoughts. So I 100% believe that there are specific things you can do. What I'd say is that I think they need to be your things, not somebody else's. And I think when you try to use somebody else's turn town technique, you can tell pretty quickly, like all that ain't like for me it was cycling, I was like, I'm gonna become a cyclist and dude, I hated road biking, I just hated it. And some people, they're like, no, that's what I love. Like my joke always do is like, I don't like any sport that occasionally ends up with me getting hit by a car. And like if you read a real road cyclists, they're not even that dramatic about the story. Like, yeah, I've been hit a couple of times, not a big deal. Like you got hit by a car, like I would tell everybody that story, so I think it has to be connected to who you are. Well, part of one of the, you know, I just to me that was a lingering question because I work so hard at quieting my mind through meditation and mindfulness and awareness and just like how to be present in the moment versus you know, when I'm walking through a doorway or in your example, I see green tennis shoes, I try and have these cues to myself for presence and so much of our lives when we're not intentional about it end up being, oh, how is that conversation to think? I wonder if they like what I had the same, They like my pitch or I'm going to think I'm late and how I'm going to get there, which roads, you know, it's just like how do I quiet the mind? Um, but it was, I mean I felt like I had a little insight into what your solution might be and that that more than answered it, I just have to, for anyone who is thinking about this book, it is I would call it critical reading, especially in this sort of post pandemic world where we created a bunch of new soundtracks, most of them not being all that healthy for us. But what I love about you, this is just specifically to you as a thank you and I think this is a wicked inside a wicked hack is You're essentially hacking the biology because we this thing between our ears is an active dialogue or I just said I'm working to quiet my mind, but I can't say that I'm enlightened. So my mind basically runs 23.75 hours per day. But what you've done and my experience in trying to apply this was that it seems like we're just hacking and using this biology and instead of programming us with fear, which to be fair, that's what overthinking is, right, it's fear. And you were you were clear about that in the opening of the book and in the marketing stuff. I'm looking at the jacket right here, it's the sneakiest form of fear is that you're using that fear or that thing that has historically been a fear vector, and you're empowering it with positivity and with intention in a way that I just think is brilliant. It's been hiding there in plain sight for us all along. And so I wanted to say thank you personally. Very, very effective. Any time you can make use of that, that's why you keep you called it a trojan horse a couple times. Um, All right. So what of the stories we talked about? Uh, there was the story that you shared early on about calling barry? Uh, you had said someone else asked you some of the things that were surprising. Is there a surprise from the research that you haven't shared publicly yet? Because I'm just imagining research, you get to tap into people's hearts and minds and brains and fears and the lies that we tell ourselves in order to uncork some of this stuff. Is there anything that was people thought was weird or obtuse that it turns out is probably pretty, pretty common? Or what were some of your favorite? Their surprise to me was how many people do it and how few people think other people do it. So it's a unique situation where everybody does it, everybody thinks so they only want. And so I'd say, have you ever, have you ever read a sent message? Like an email you sent and like a week later you've reread it and you're like, yeah, like that's overthinking. Like the message is gone. Like you're not changing it. So that was surprising. But what's been really surprising um after the launch, because it's been out for a couple of weeks is how many parents have said, well, you do a version for parents. We do a version for kids. And what's been really fascinating is how many like that kids get this faster than adults because they don't have 20 years of broken soundtracks to unlearn like when you tell a kid the truth, they sprint with it. And that's been a really fun surprised. Like I didn't go in thinking, okay, there's gonna be a lot of parents that apply this to how they talk with their kids. Like to have parents go, my 15 year old just read your book. He's pointing out soundtracks, you know, a gym teacher, what you told him he's fat and he's never felt like an athlete because that was like a pronouncement on him and now he's realizing that's not the truth. Like that is something I didn't see coming. That was a surprise, 99.5% of people said Yes that they overthink. And we got dozens of emails from people that said I kept overthinking the survey. I'm sorry, I would say it was like six questions. That's probably a fairly good sign that you're that you're overthinking. Um So yeah, that was, You know, you want to say like as an author, if you ever find a subject, 99.5% of people identify, with like. you need to be like, turns out I need to jump into that because that's a really big conversation. Uh kudos to you man for just uncovering something or crafting, you know, you talked about Venn diagrams and just seeing the overlap and how useful and valuable this tool is. Again, I've said it a couple times already in this thing. Again, the most valuable words in the world are the ones we say to ourselves and when we look across our culture, we don't really have a system for um for programming. And so I should also point out for um those who are curious. I also enjoyed in the book. It's very Prescriptive, there's a thing, you know, writing a soundtrack and looking in the mirror and we're hurting every day for 30 days. There's some very, very tactical things right now that if that just sent a little twinge of fear up your spine when I said that, that probably means you need it. Um, last question and it goes back to in a full circle moment here I opened the conversation with sharing that you're one of my most entertaining speakers I've ever watched live and um, I had the good fortune to spend some time with you that weekend in Portland. Um, I want people to pick up your book because I think it's valuable. I also want people to want to see you speak. I know you speak at a lot of conferences and um, as a stand in because there's not a lot of that happening right now. Are there a few places that you would point people to on the internet where they can see you in action. You cited it as one of your favorite things on the planet to do, to give speeches, where would you steer the people who are watching and listening right now? Yeah, I mean I've got a ton of Youtube videos, so I have a Youtube channel. It's, I think it's youtube dot com slash author john a cough. Um, so I've got a bunch of Youtube content that I think will be encouraging. Um, and then, um, one of the things I've learned to love to do is teach online, like we did this big free challenge about overcoming overthinking, where I taught for an hour every day in a facebook live group or facebook group and it was it was free and so I'm constantly doing that. I've got one coming up. I don't know when this whole air but I'm doing one on perfectionism because I think perfectionism is one of the biggest soundtracks people get. So yeah, I would say um you know, a cough taught me is where I keep all my stuff. Um And then I'm loving like I'm loving the community app because like texting people feels like how twitter used to feel to me like twitter has a different field now and so like if somebody is like, oh man, I want to know about the next time you're speaking, I'll just share my number. That's all right. Um Yeah please do 615 and this will be in the show notes I assume. 615 And I love encouraging people that way. Um And then my goal is to get back on the road um to get back out there. Um I'm starting to see stuff open up like you said, we're starting to, you know, kind of go through it and then I just soundtracks of course, we've got a six part video course about soundtracks and so it's my favorite thing. Um I just love doing and I hope it returns soon and it's so kind of you to say that chase, I've been such a big fan for so long. I told you off camera every time we get to do this, I'm like why aren't we doing like 15 things together. Um It feels like there's eight years in the gap I think right now and that's eight years too long agreed. I remember seeing your, you and your book in my DMS on twitter, I think it's a year ago and I'm like, I cannot wait for that episode. Um Thank you again. The same sentiment is in my head and heart right now, I'm looking forward to it. I've already like cranking on a few things Um made me want to say, uh give me that number one more time and for community. I'm also on the thing, I'll give you nine months to a (630) 951 77 so you can text with me and John I don't really want to share it that often, but there's isn't it fun though? So fun. And I mean my little thumbs can't type all that fast, but like, and then like I like when people go, okay, you're not like, is this really you and I get to go make a video. Did you make a video? I'm like, uh huh, that's why you're so dope. Okay, so the two things I'd say, and now I'll do videos. My number is 615 And then soundtracks course dot com. If you want to, if you're like, I want to see some videos. I'd love to see this in a like a video format. I think that's a really fun way to do it. We've had a bunch of people go, oh, that was practical in front of me. That's the thing. The book is, people ask me all the time are the story is true in the book and like there are 100% true like I did by 48 haircuts at the same time. It so many coins to try to learn how to not text and drive like I did leave my pregnant wife of six months down at the bottom of the duomo because I started overthinking how tight the tunnel was in the tower and I started sprinting sprinting because my dad before I went to Italy was like hey that's uomo is real claustrophobic and that became a soundtrack. So I got in that tower and I started going, man, there's barely any windows like man barely, you can't even feel like where's the exit, You can't even tell if you're getting higher because it's so dark in here and I sprinted to the top and I burst out the door like tim Robbins at the end of Shawshank redemption and like 20 minutes later my pregnant wife came up and was like what was that? Um And so hopefully the book is really helpful but also really fun at the same time. The 48 haircut story made me laugh. I reread that 24 left. 24 left. I'm going to get one this week. And every time I go, she told me, the lady said we're no longer selling that package. I was like, you think you think you're no longer because dude, I bought the haircuts and I swear to you. Three weeks later, the world got shut down for cove. And I was like, I might have just lost out on 46 haircuts. And my wife was like, how much did you spend on haircuts? It was like to think of the savings. It was, yeah, it's just talking about that makes me a little bit sweaty. All right. 22 things. One again. Uh, john your new book here. I'm showing it for the people who are listening. Sorry, you can't watch the video here. It's beautiful coverage, soundtracks the surprising solution. Overthinking and I'll close with speaking of your wife jenny, I love the dedication page in here. Where is it? If I'm not mistaken? The dedication is John, I think you might be overthinking this quote jenny, that is 100% accurate to. Are you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show. John, congratulations on an amazing book. And more importantly, just weaving all of these thoughts data that you packaged in a book is natural to you and is of no surprise. I encourage everybody out there to pay attention. You know, he gave you a few places on the Internet to go check them out. If you just google john and some speed Jon, Acuff, john with no H J O N A C F. Uh, and some of his speeches uh prepare to be blown away. I just remember the standing there and how watching you just work the crowd and uh just the most playful, joyful, insightful, heartfelt way is unforgettable. So until next time. Thank you so much for being on the show. The answer is yes. The answer is yes to chase. So awesome. Alright well let's let's support john and go out there and pick up some new copies of his book and show up for him and those online courses. Um Thanks again, but appreciate you and signing off everybody out there in internet land. Thank you so much for listening, watching and being a part of it. I'm yeah. Yeah. Mhm.