Episode 314: Jeff Goins on How Real Artists Don't Need to Starve

Jeff Goins is a writer, keynote speaker, and award-winning blogger with a reputation for challenging the status quo. He is the best-selling author of five books, including The Art of Work, which landed on the best­ seller lists of USA Today, Publisher's Weekly, and The Washington Post. He lives with his family near Nashville, Tennessee. His website Goinswriter.com is visited by millions of people every year.

He is also an idol of mine when it comes to the fine art of combining writing with entrepreneurship and the even finer art of being successful at both.

In this chat, we got into the importance of patrons, why your network is like your neighborhood and how it takes years to promote a book. And of course we chatted about his top launch tips. Spoiler alert: it has to do with being a good neighbor.

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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: 

Anna: So we're going. So Jeff, I already got a little sycophantic before we started recording but you are truly my business idol. I have to tell you.

There's nobody out there who, who I know of who encompasses writing and business quite such a high level and encourages so many people to become writers and to see that it is so possible to have a career as a writer. Is that your mission?

Jeff Goins: Oh, gosh. Well, thank you. No, no sycophancy taken. Um, is that my mission? I think I'm trying to not get bored. I think that you know that. I heard Adam Grant interview Malcolm Gladwell recently and he asked him a similar question. And he was like, you know, what is your life's purpose? What's your mission, whatever. And he thought, you know, Malcolm Gladwell say something like I'm going to change the way people think. And he was like, I'm just trying to not get bored. And I was so relieved to hear that.

I am trying to share what I learned as a creative person with the world in a way that empowers and enables other people to do some of the things that I never thought was possible. And I'm trying to continue doing that work myself. So that's what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm trying to use my story to inspire other people and to allow my story to continue.

Anna: And so your story is basically you wanted to be a writer, you weren't you excelled in a marketing career and you hesitated to say I am I can be a writer. Can you tell us about how that transition came?

Jeff Goins: Sure. So I was working at a nonprofit organization. As a marketing director. I never thought of myself as a marketing person. I never thought of myself as a writer either. I just thought of myself as a person trying to figure things out my 20s. My first job was at a nonprofit. right out of college, I graduated college, and I toured the country with a band and then I moved to Nashville after I quit the band, which is not usually the order in which those things happen. I moved to Nashville ended up getting a job at a nonprofit and was hired as a copywriter. Because I was a writing tutor in college, I didn't even have an English major. But writing was something that I was always good at. And so I started writing and learning about marketing and blogging and social media. And this is 2006. And so as an organization, we didn't have a lot of money. And so we had to use kind of scrappy, free digital marketing tools like Facebook and Twitter and email and blogs to promote our mission projects. This is a missions organizations who are doing international relief and development all over the world. And I was trying to raise money for the organization and raise volunteers for our projects.

And so just had to figure out how to be a marketer without any money and became the marketing director of that organization. And I was telling other people's stories and sharing other people's ideas with these wonderful tools on the internet. And I started to feel a little FOMO. I felt like you know, I have some ideas. I have some stories that I want to share. What if I use these tools, blogging and social media to share my own stories and ideas? So I started a blog and use what I had learned as a marketing director online and started applying it to this side projects, just this personal blog, and it grew into a fairly large audience pretty quickly. And people told me that I could monetize that. And so I started publishing ebooks and sharing all that with the world. But before I did any of that, to answer your question, I had a conversation with a friend where I was like, really hesitating to call myself a writer. And as a result, I wasn't really taking this side project that seriously. And I started this blog, but I was kind of dabbling with it.

I was afraid to go all in. And I was talking to this friend and he asked me what my dream was. And I said, I don't I don't have one.

I said, I've got a good job. I've got a wife, we're going to start a family, like, I've got a house, so I'm okay. I don't need a dream. You know, that's good stuff. I was in my late 20s at the time. And he said, Really, because I would have thought your dream was to be a writer. I was like, Why? Why would you say that? And he was like, well, you talk about writing all the time. You write all the time you read books about writing, it seems like it's your passion. And he was right. But I was just afraid to admit it. Because I felt like if I admitted that this was something I wanted, then there'll be a higher level of responsibility associated with it. And so I said, Well, you know, I guess you're right. I'd like to be a writer someday. And he just looked at me and he said, Jeff, you don't have to want to be a writer. You are a writer. You just need to write.

And for whatever reason, there was a number of things that happened around that same time. This is in 2000. I, I was like, yeah, this is it like that was the moment where everything kind of came together. And then next day, I started this blog, I started writing on this blog. And I wrote every morning for an hour on it publishing about a 500 word blog posts for the next two years, every day. And I started calling myself a writer. People asked me what I did, I didn't say I was a marketing director. I said, I was a writer. And as a result, when you tell people, you're a writer, the next question they ask is, well, what do you write? And so it forced me to put myself out there in a way that I wasn't doing before. And because I was putting myself out there, I started to take the work a lot more seriously, and I got better faster as a result.

Anna: What are your tips for growing a blog? Daily posting is surely one of them. What else?

Jeff Goins: Well, that's what I did. I think now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, you know, the internet has changed a lot. But at the time, 2010 was not the beginning of blogging. In fact, I've been blogging since 2006, on a bunch of different platforms, and so this was a new blog, which was a personal blog just around me and my work. But the way to get noticed then was to make a lot of noise. Now, I think the way to get noticed because I don't blog daily Now, the way to get notice is because everybody's got something, you know, he's got Instagram or a Medium account or whatever, and they've got a platform, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, they've got a platform to share their ideas. And so the way that you get noticed now, I think, is that you have to do really, really good work. You have to care. If you care more than most people, you have to care about your work you have to care about your audience. So how do you get noticed today, I would say pick a platform, pick a place that you want to show up. It could be I would recommend a blog for writers but could be medium, which is a great platform. Could be Instagram, plenty of people are building large following followings on Instagram right now. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, I just really depends on where your people are.

Pick a platform, go all in on it, and do something every day to share an idea with somebody get it in front of them. So if it's a blog, I would write like one article per week. Or maybe it's a podcast, same deal, you know, publish one great piece of content per week. And pick when you're going to show up how you're going to show up, and then do something small every day to help that platform grow. So it could be promoting the thing that you've written, talking about it on a podcast, sharing it somewhere that you haven't shared it. When I was writing daily, that was the thing that I was doing. I think now it's better to create really, really great content, and then do something small every day to try to make yourself more findable. But really, the trick is to keep showing up. And a friend of mine says, do if you want to turn pro at something, you've got to commit to doing it every day.

For the next two years, and that's true, that's true for me, it took two years of doing the work every single day, sometimes only 30 minutes a day, sometimes a couple of hours, but consistently showing up, writing something for the blog, promoting it, figuring out online marketing, figuring out lead magnets and building an email list all the things. And I don't know how to do any of this. But I was committed to getting up a little bit early every morning. And at this point, when I was doing it, I had a wife and kid, I'm starting a family. And so it was a noisy household after about 6am. So I got up at five. And I worked on my blog for an hour every morning, and whatever I needed to do. And if I didn't know what I needed to do, I would do some research I would learn, but I knew that I wanted to get this message out into the world. And I would say that's good advice today do something small every single day and commit to it for the next two years. And my caveat to that would be don't expect any results for the first six months.

Which is what I experienced. My email grew by like a person every week for the first six months, and then the growth after that sort of the catapult, but you've got to be willing to just keep showing up. It's like dating or something, you know, like you go on one day, or like, whatever. But if the person keeps showing up, you keep liking them, you keep having good experiences with them, they're going to want to see more. And the same thing is true here with an audience, like if you show up once you write a great article. Cool. Have a great product, one great podcast episode, fine. But we're used to people on the internet ranting about something and then disappearing, fading into oblivion. So if you want to get noticed, keep showing up, prove yourself trustworthy, be consistent.

That was there.

Anna: You said so many things that I that I wanted to jump on. Yeah, I always tell people the most successful writers I know are not the most talented. They're the ones who kept doing it. They're the ones who started in the 90s and are still at it today. And I would say one of your one thing also that I noticed that that you did a lot and I think that you've talked about a lot is this guest posting, do you still think that works going on other people's platforms sort of borrowing their audiences?

Jeff Goins: I think the principle of it works. And I'm as a marketer, as an entrepreneur, as a writer. I'm always interested in principles over strategies because strategies change, fairly often principles change, almost never. And the tools to implement the strategies change even more often. So when it comes to where to focus, I focus on principles and then I figure out how can I execute these principles. So for example, permission is a principle in the world of marketing, meaning I need permission from you to communicate with you in a way where you're eventually going to pay me for something, buy something, buy a book, or pay your attention to me. So the strategy that works for a lot of people is I need to get you on my email list. That's the strategy is get on my email list and the tool is sign up for MailChimp or something ConvertKit. So the principle behind guest posting guest posting was the strategy for me that worked really well is

If you want people to know that you exist, you have to go where people already are. Right. So if I move into a new neighborhood, and I want friends in that neighborhood, at some point, I'm going to have to step outside my house and walk around the neighborhood and, you know, bring some brownies over to my neighbors or something. And that's what guest posting was, for me, it was showing up on other people's platforms where other people were already gathering the people that I wanted to reach. And it was offering a gift, hey, here's a free piece of content, and then link back to my website. Enjoy.

Now from a search engine optimization standpoint, if you want to get into that, does guest posting still work? Yes, because your link building back to the website, which is going to increase the authority of the website, which is going to generate more organic traffic over time. Again, that's that's a strategy that you shouldn't expect to see any results on for the first six months. So guest posting, should you write a bunch of articles and other people's websites and link back to your website. Does it work? Yeah, I think it still works does it work as well as it did for me back then.

I'm not I don't know, I don't think so it's a bit of an old hat strategy. So you've got to find new ways to adapt. So what am I doing? Podcast interviews, what you know what's really big right now podcasts. I have a podcast I have a blog people like listening to podcasts. So the equivalent for guest posting for me. These days it’s showing up on podcasts and podcasts interviews, but the principle is the same is the same like go where people are, and make a splash, do something, create something, do something generous, that's going to link some attention back to you bring some people back to your house so that you can you know, have your own party I think of guest posting I thought of guest posting and interviews is like going to a bunch of neighborhood parties, meeting people and then being like, Hey, here's my address. Here's my phone number like let's stay in touch. When you meet somebody at an event or at a party or whatever. You want to stay in touch with them and they don't know who you are because you're new in town. Same thing with starting a podcast or a blogger website, you've got to go find the people, a lot of people think you can just build it and people are going to show up.

And I guess maybe sometimes that happens more often than not, you've got to go find where people are and bring some of those people back to your place.

Anna: And so in terms of launching a book, all of that is a great, you know, no, in the whole neighborhood is a great way to get the neighborhood to buy your book.

Jeff Goins: Right. Yeah. Knowing the whole neighborhood is great way to get the neighborhood to tell all their friends about your book. So even more people buy your book.

Anna: True! In terms of what I loved about your book Real Artists Don't Starve is it's very kind of old fashioned. Like, all these people are talking about, like, you need a mentor. I believe you call them patrons. Yeah, right. There's like something about it. It's very quaint. It's this like, way of talking about marketing. But let's talk about mentors slash patrons. You know, Michael Hyatt was a huge one for you. Yeah. I met with Marian Roach, one for you. Let's talk about the role that is played in it linking it back to books and how that has helped with book launches.

Jeff Goins: Yeah, I mean, another word for patron is like influencer. So yes, these people were mentors of mine, but they were also people who let me borrow their influence, or rather who shared my work with their audience. And I would not be where I am today, if Michael Hyatt wasn't generous in sharing a lot of my message, often with his audience, especially in the early days. And I remember having an uncomfortable conversation with him one time where I was like, Hey, you don't have to keep doing this. This is making it uncomfortable. I'm overwhelmed. Because he would, he would tweet an article and you know, a couple hundred people go, click the link and go visit my article, like immediately and it was overwhelming. And I thought he was being super nice because we were friends. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about. He said, I like sharing good work with my audience and you do good work. So I'm going to keep sharing it and I was like, Alright, Alright, fine.

Patrons are people who believe in your work sometimes before you do, and in the old days, in the days of the Medici family in Italy, they often gave money. But they more, more importantly, also gave their influence. So when Michelangelo was living with Monday, he family learning how to be a sculptor. Every week, he would sit at the dinner table with his patron Lorenzo and all of his friends, including Machiavelli, and all these incredible people, all the people who are changing the world, not just art, but of politics, literature, philosophy, thinking, you got to sit at that table. By the way, growing up in that house, he was growing up in the house of future princesses, and Pope's, I mean, so he was really well connected as a result of connecting with an influencer. So the money was good, the influence was better. And so these days, there's kind of two types of patrons.

There's the influencer type of patron. And the best way to borrow that person's influence, so to speak, is to let them mentor you. And in the book, I talk about what I call the case study strategy, which is simply making yourself teachable, showing up over and over and over again in front of a bunch of master workers have masters of your field, and letting them know that you exist and letting them know that you're here to learn from them. What does that look like today? emailing 10 people whose work you admire and say, Hey, so and so, thank you for your podcast it this particular episode, help me do this specific thing. Now, do you have any other resources for me? Is there anything else that you have for me? And if somebody keeps showing up like that to you, not in an annoying way, like let me pick your brain, but I'm already learning from you. What else can I learn? Do you have a book that I can buy as a course that I can sign up for? I really, really want to learn from you.

What will likely happen is that you will want to give more and more of your time and attention to this person because it feels good. It actually feels good to have somebody take your advice because most people don't. And so what I experienced in my own careers right, or what I've seen lots of other people who have succeeded do is they engage with these mentors, these patrons, these influencers that are top of the field, and not everybody responds, but if you put out 10 emails to influencers in your space, whom you admire, and you use the strategy, dear so and so thank you for x and help me do y now what about z? I say it as if it's some formula. It's just a nice note, hey, you're working back to me. I want more. And some people go cool. Other people, their assistant will respond to that people won't respond. You do that with 10 people don't give up. You're going to see some people respond. And the trick is to keep showing up so that you can prove yourself as trustworthy as an apprentice. And when I was starting out, I didn't know much. But I also knew that if I could get some people to mentor me one, I would get better faster, too. I kind of understood that they would want me to succeed. And that's what happened.

Anna: Yeah, that's interesting. It's almost like when people recommend crowdsourcing material for your book, asking your audience what they want, you're crowdsourcing your mentors investment in you, because you're the material.

Jeff Goins: Yeah. And you'll have probably multiple mentors at different times.

Anna: And so when it comes to a book, how did those mentors help? Did they, you know, promote your book to their lists? Like what were the actual things that happened that helped the launch succeed?

Jeff Goins: So if you want people to promote your work, the best thing that you can do is form a real relationship long before you need something from them. And this is tricky these days, because lots of people are reaching out just to connect, and they're like putting your name on a list and two weeks or two months later, they're asking you for a favor. When Tim Ferriss wrote The Four Hour Workweek, he had no platform. He did not have a blog. He sold the book, a big book deal in 2006 and it came out 2007. It was a 100 page book proposal. Very impressive. But what he had done was he had built a network with hundreds of bloggers going to South by Southwest and these tech conferences and these blogging conferences 2005 and 2006 connecting with all these people who represented this lifestyle design that he wanted to promote to the world. And he knew that if he made friends with these people, and a year later asked them for a favor that a lot of them would say, cool. So what did he do? He formed relationships and created experiences.

Robert Scoble said that Tim’s marketing strategy was getting drunk with bloggers and that's not that far from the truth. Have you ever hung out with somebody at a conference, had a couple of drinks, had a good time. And then a few months later, they reach out and you're like, Man, that was a good time, like you're associating them with a good experience.

And so that's what he did. And his patrons were all these bloggers, all these people like Noah Kagan, who are in kind of the online marketing space, but newer voices, but had this very powerful tool called blogging. And 90 days before the book came out, he called in all these favors, and ended up guest posting and doing interviews and all these different blogs and podcasts and just kind of descended on the scene very quickly and became a big deal. So what does that look like for us? Make as many connections now create memorable experiences help people before you ever expect them to help you and help people because it feels good, not because they're going to pay you back someday. But what my dad taught me growing up is true. What goes around comes around. If you help enough people get what they want. Many of them are going to want to help you get what you want.

So for me, when I was starting my blog, I just understood that it would be better for me to help other people than to just go around asking for help. And yes, and when a book comes out what you want actually, is you want a list of people who are eager to promote your work. Because you've been a faithful student, you know, a mentee of theirs a friend for a long, long time. So that when you've got a project coming out, they want to help you. And if I've helped somebody, if I've given them advice, and they've taken it, and then they've turned that into some sort of project, like a book, I want that to do well, because I feel invested in that person, even if I've just been giving them advice for free over the years. I'm invested in their success, because in some ways, I identify with them. And so I think the trick to getting people to promote your work is to be a good friend, and to be teachable and to reach out to people whom you admire and solicit their advice in ways that demonstrate you're going to actually apply it.

Anna: And so, how long had you been blogging and building this audience by the time you reach you released your first book?

Jeff Goins: I started my blog at the end of 2010. And the first book came out in 2012. So 2011 was basically my year of audience building. I built the email list about 10,000 people. I wrote an article per day on the blog 365 days in 2011. And then I guest posted on about 100 different websites just trying to build the audience and build the network people that at some point, were going to promote my work and I didn't even really know what that meant. I was just trying to show up and kind of make a bit of a splash in the scene.

Anna: Did the success of your book surprise you? Were you expecting it? How did you feel about that?

Jeff Goins: I had two books come out in 2012 within six months of each other in 2011. I was growing my blog and I got a book deal a small book deal with a small publisher in Chicago. And I was elated. I was excited. So I started writing this book about my experience of working in the nonprofit industry. And it was kind of this personal development book. And before that book came out, as I was working on that book, my wife and I got pregnant, start, you know, basically started, started a family. And I quickly realized we couldn't afford for her to stay home and be a full time mom for a while, and she wanted to do that. And so I thought, well, maybe I can find a way to make some money off of this blogging thing, because my book deal was like a $6,000 book advance, it wasn't very much and it was nice, this nice little payday, but I needed more money. And, and I kept hearing about self publishing, and I had a friend who made like, $40,000 off of a self published ebook in two months. And I was like, I want to do that. And so I called her and asked her how she did it, and she told me and so in a month, I

wrote a book called You are a writer. So start acting like one. And then I spent like a month or two, editing and designing and getting ready to publish. And then I published it and I just bartered with friends. I didn't have any money. So I didn't spend any money on the book. And I published it. And the book sold about 10,000 copies in the first several months.

And I was selling it as a PDF on my website, and I was also selling it on Amazon, and every day, I would see money come in through my email, and I remember lying in bed one night going, we just made $100. You know, in the last hour, I've never made $100 in an hour, you know. And so when that started taking off, that did surprise me. And it started to excite me about what was possible. And I knew that my wife was going to be able to quit her job, but by the end of the year, I was also going to be able to quit my job and things were going to be different.

Anna: And what are your feelings on self publishing versus traditional publishing?

Jeff Goins: I think for most people, the option is self publishing, that is the smart option of publishers aren't knocking on your door, if you don't have a large platform, ie more than 10,000 email subscribers, I think your first option should be self publishing. There is no stigma or taboo as there once was meaning you can self publish a book, and then still be desirable to a traditional publisher. So if you have a large platform, or you're talking to agents, you've got publishers interested in your work, then it's worth considering. A lot of authors go Should I self published or traditionally published, I have a few hundred people on my email list. And I've got a book that I'm working on.

Well, you should really just self publish, you should promote the book, you should use the book to build your platform. So once a book comes out, you could you even if you have a big audience, you can still go promote it. That's what every author does. That's what I do. So get on the podcast, write the articles, get it out there. And then you can leverage that success if you'd like. You don't have to. I mean, I have plenty of friends who are indie authors who make a great living—making six and seven figures a year self publishing.

So it really just depends on what you want to do. But if you're like a lot of authors I talk to where you still think I'd really like to work with a traditional publisher someday, because there's some sort of prestige associated with it. That's fine. I've worked with publishers, I've self published books as well. It really depends on the project. But you can start by self publishing, and then if you want, you can eventually leverage that success into a traditional book deal if that's what you want to do.

Anna: And for you from now on, what do you plan to do?

Jeff Goins: Um, I'm at a point where it's easier to work with a publisher, the money is good, and they handle the hassle of printing the books and distributing them and all of that. But I don't know that that'll always be the case. There may be a time when I just go completely independent. There are pros and cons and I constantly weigh them with every book. And so I think the question for me is, what is the goal of this book and then what is the best means to get this message out there? Sometimes the goal of the book is to make some money so that I can pay my bills. Usually, that's one of a few goals. Another goal is obviously spread the message. But a goal of a book could be I'm going to spread this idea to help sell this other thing that I have, or this book is really a means to get more speaking gigs. Or I want to sell as many copies of this book as possible. Therefore, I'm going to self publish it so I can keep most of the royalties and I know that I have direct access to this audience. So self publishing is the reason for doing that.

For me, right now, books are about money. I think you should get paid to write books. There's nothing wrong with that, about spreading a message that's very meaningful and important to me. I would never write a book just for the money but if I'm going to write something, I believe and I also want to get paid well for it. And then for me, there's sort of like a back end side of it, which is if my book sell Not right now.

I sell online courses, some other back end product, often it's it's speaking and so it's easy for me to publish a book, sell a bunch of copies of it and then see kind of the trickle down effect with with speaking gigs. So, you know, it depends on the project, but but for me, because those are the goals working with a traditional publisher is often the best route.

Anna: And in terms of speaking gigs, is your speaking about becoming a writer, is that what your keynotes are about?

Jeff Goins: No, um, so, uh, I speak I speak at writing conferences several times a year, and I'll talk about that. But then, you know, the last book was about creative entrepreneurship essentially. So I'll speak at business conferences. I'll either speak on writing or on the topic of one of my books, I wrote a book called The Art of Work, which is about finding your purpose, and calling and vocation in life. So, yeah, it depends, but I'm usually speaking to business audiences or writing audiences.

Anna: Okay, so we're going to wrap up with your top three launch tips. And I did notice that you did something interesting, which is a lot of people will say, here's your bonus for ordering five copies or 10 copies, but you have an evergreen, hey, if you buy this book, you will get this worksheet, you will get access to this course. Is that one of your launch tips?

Jeff Goins: Yeah, I do think having bonuses for people is really important. And

remember that like when a book comes out to an author, it's a big, big deal. The first week, the first month, I mean, this has been a marathon by the time the book is out. You feel like the marathon is over. And it is but a whole new one begins to a reader. If a book is a week old, like that's a new book two weeks old, a month old, a year old. These are new books. I mean, how often have you heard somebody talk about a book and it's like a movie, or it's in the theater for like a week or two, or maybe a month is like, ah, I'll get to that later. It's a book, it's going to be on the shelf forever.

But to an author, it's really important to talk about it, get it out there sell a bunch of copies. So when people do you know, some sort of a launch week bonus, I think that's great. If you have a good size audience that makes sense. And I do that but then I also usually have some sort of evergreen—get the book and get something else that will help you with the book could be a worksheet could be an email course or video course or something that's relevant to whatever the book is. Because yeah, like give people a minute to learn about you and learn about the book and make a decision to spend $25 on a, you know, hardcover book or whatever. So I like that. I always like working with launch teams, getting people to read the book and talk about it.

And then get on as many podcasts as possible. I actually think a lot of times with launches, people try to get fancy, you know, they try to launch a new, launch a new podcast or do this new thing. And I've done that I've tried new strategies and new technologies, and it's fine. But really what it takes to sell a book is you got to get the book in front of a lot of people who are interested in the topic that you have to talk about it and not stop talking about it for the next two years.

Anna: Wow. Yeah. Okay. Well, this has been wonderful. If people would like to reach you, what is the best place they can find you?

Jeff Goins: Go to my website, Goinswriter.com. I have a podcast called The Portfolio Life. You can search that wherever you listen to podcasts as well.

Anna: Oh, and we should mention the portfolio life to you is to the way I see it is like it's sort of being a business person, as a writer having your income stream from many creative places. Is that it?

Jeff Goins: Yeah, your life your work is a portfolio. It's not just one thing, it's a bunch of different things that all work together. And so I don't look at my work as my writing, I look at my work as my life, I'm running a business. I'm a dad, I, I'm a writer, I'm a poet. I'm a marketer, like all of these things. I are my body of work. And so when I think about my work, I don't just think of one thing I think of this portfolio that I'm managing, like an investment portfolio, and my job is to make the whole thing succeed. Even when the various activities at different times the successes of them may flow, the goal is to manage the whole thing. And I think more and more that's what's required as creative people we have to live portfolio lives as writers. It can’t just be, I just want to make a bunch of money off of my writing. Well, that's great, but like that may look different at different seasons. And so being able to embrace the whole of your life and all of your work as sort of this integrative thing, I just think keeps you sane and gives you the freedom to try different things without feeling like you're selling out.

Anna: I love it. Jeff, thank you so much for your time. And hey, listeners, thank you for listening. How awesome was that? If you loved it, obviously throw a review up. Right. Okay. I will talk to you guys next week. Thank you.