Jon Acuff's Blog, page 38

The Career Savings Account Event with Jon Acuff

It took me sixteen years to write Do Over. That breaks down to a brisk twelve words per day. But it wasn’t the writing that took so long, it was the working.

I had to work at big companies and small companies. I had to get hired and fired several times. I had to find my dream job, then walk away from it. But after all that, I can now say the following with absolute certainty: You already have everything you need for an amazing career. In fact, you did from day one.

Starting on the first day you got paid to scoop ice cream or restock shelves, you’ve had the chance to develop the four elements all great careers have in common: relationships, skills, character, and hustle. You already have each one of those, to one degree or another.

I’m hosting a fun, free event on December 12th in Brentwood, TN called The Career Savings Account Event to talk more about those four elements and how you can apply them in a new way by creating a Career Savings Account. This unique approach will give you the power to call a Do Over – whether you’re twenty-two, forty-two, or sixty-two.

The event is from 7am-8am so you can attend in the morning and then get on with the rest of your day. We’ll be meeting at the Well Coffeehouse in Brentwood. Though the event is free, attendance will be limited, so register to secure your spot.

Just as a bank account protects you during a financial crunch, a Career Savings Account protects you during a career crunch. You need a CSA to face the major transitions you’ll experience in your career, and I hope you join me on December 12th to discover how to do that!

The event is free, but you must register to attend: The Career Savings Account Event with Jon Acuff.

Hope to see you there!

The post The Career Savings Account Event with Jon Acuff appeared first on Jon Acuff.

What can you do with 1,000 candles?

That’s an interesting question.

If you’re just a random candle collector, the best you can do is probably terrify neighbors. Imagine how weird it would be to live next to someone who lit their house with 1,000 candles. And what if they were all the same scent? “What can I say? I like the smell of clean laundry. A lot. I like that scent a lot.” (There are 7 candle aficionados who just got mad on my email list.)

But I’m not talking about one person owning 1,000 candles, I’m talking about 1,000 of us each buying a candle from Thistle Farms.

For more than 18 years, they’ve helped women escape the bonds of trafficking, prostitution and addiction.

I’ve worked with them for years and starting today, we’re launching a “Stand on New Ground” campaign.

The concept is simple, more candles = more light = more women finding their way home.

I’ll never forget the story one survivor told me about her childhood. Her mom sold her to her drug dealer when she was 12. Can you even begin to think about what that’s like? As a dad of daughters, I will always use my platform to support organizations like this.

The candles are amazing and are such high quality that Whole Foods carries Thistle Farms. (I need to do a whole post on why having a big heart isn’t enough to be a great non-profit, you need big execution and excellence too!)

If you need a gift idea for someone or just want to do something kind for a stranger, buy a candle today.

My goal is to sell 1,000 for them. That feels like a lot but who ever said it was fun to play it safe?

Thanks for being part of this adventure with me. There are a lot of women in Nashville and other parts of the country who will sleep inside tonight instead of under highway passes because you cared. You gave them the chance to stand on new ground.

Buy one here!

The post What can you do with 1,000 candles? appeared first on Jon Acuff.

The dumb thing a famous person said.

I once saw a famous author say that if you didn’t love 90% of the things it took to be in your industry, you were in the wrong industry.

That is so dumb.

That sounds nice on the surface and since she said it on Instagram she didn’t have to back it up with any degree of reality or fact.

That’s the nice thing about social media. You can just post a photo of Leonardo Dicaprio’s character from the Wolf of Wall Street with the caption, “Circle got smaller and the yacht got bigger,” and no one will bat an eye. (It’s scientific fact that the less friends you have, the bigger the yacht you’ll own. Lonely people have gigantic boats.) But there’s a problem with the idea that you’ll love 90% of what it takes to be in a certain industry.

Let’s run the math on that idea. In a 40-hour work week, that means there will only be 4 hours you don’t enjoy. For 36 hours each week you will be lost in bliss, dancing about your office with unabashed joy on your face, love drunk on the work you get to do. That’s ridiculous.

Most people have commutes that take longer than four hours each week. I’ve never met anyone who said, “You know what was awesome? Filling out my LLC paperwork!” I’ve never met anyone who said, “My favorite part of the year is when we have to prepare our budgets for the next year! Pulling together the numbers for the entire year and predicting with accuracy what next year will look like, knowing that the CEO is going to grill me on each line item, is heaven. I especially like that it happens at the end of the year so that Thanksgiving and Christmas taste like Excel!”

I work for myself and enjoy what I do, but I’ve never had a single week where I loved 90% of the things I did.

One day I had a 7PM book signing in Austin, Texas. I showed up at the airport for my 8AM flight and they told me it had been cancelled because the tower was flooded. (How the tallest facility at the airport got flooded is confusing to me.)

I called customer service and they said they could get me on a flight that left at 9PM. Given that I’d miss the book signing by a mere four hours, I had to come up with a different solution. Instead of flying to Austin, I had to fly to Dallas and rent a car.

I then proceeded to drive 220 miles across the plains of Texas. Because the rental was last minute they gave me a Toyota Yaris. It had crank windows. I didn’t even know they were still installing those on new cars. When I leaned down on the arm rest I just kept falling to the floor. There was no armrest, that’s also apparently a feature.

The third dial in the dash was empty and just said “Yaris.” One can only guess what info that was supposed to contain. There was no cruise control so for 220 miles I just had to constantly stay on the gas so that I could propel this sewing machine like vehicle across the desert.

Who knew that for all these years I had been driving luxury vehicles? I had no idea that when I used my push button windows and fancy armrests in my 2002 Toyota 4-Runner I was balling.

At no point during that drive, did I think to myself, “I am living the dream! This is what it’s all about right here! I love this!”

No, that sucked. It did. It took me about 24 hours of work to do a two-hour book signing.

If judged my day by the famous person’s standard of 90% love, I would have failed. A lot of weeks would be failures if I used that as my measuring stick.

But you know what?

Chasing a dream is hard.

It’s not all fun.

It’s not all enjoyable.

It’s not all delightful.

But, it all matters.

That’s the difference. Even the sucky parts matter when it’s something you care about.

Author Simon Sinek said it better than me:

“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.”

He’s right and more than that, it’s important to remember that great lives are very rarely created in great comfort.

Great lives are very rarely created in great comfort.
Click To Tweet

Some days, it’s going to be rough. Some days, it’s going to be heartbreaking. Some days, you get the Yaris.

Keep going. We need what you’ve got.

And, if you’re an entrepreneur, I dare you to do this with me.

The post The dumb thing a famous person said. appeared first on Jon Acuff.

Don’t waste your anger.

I’m sitting in the Richmond Airport as I write this. It’s a small airport, but it might be an international one, which often means they fly to Canada and Mexico.

They are playing Chicago over the loud speakers. Usually, I like Chicago. Who doesn’t like Peter Cetera? That dude crushed the theme song for Karate Kid 2. I am the man who fight for your honor!

Today though, I don’t.

I almost jumped on an early flight home. I could have been home at 5pm instead of 9pm.

As a dad, that’s a big difference because it means I get to see my kids.

Why did I miss the flight?

Because I booked the later flight.

I was lazy when I picked the flight and didn’t realize I could get on the early one so I didn’t make the standby cut. So, I am sitting in the airport frustrated.

When we’re mad, it’s easy to take it out on other people. It’s not my fault. It was Delta. It was the gate attendant. It was the traffic on the way here. We have a thousand targets for our anger.

But here’s the thing, when you get angry you have two options:

1. Blame someone.

2. Fix something.

Anger offers you two options: 1. Blame someone. 2. Fix something. Choose 2.
Click To Tweet

Blame is easier and to be honest at first it feels better. It doesn’t cost you anything. You don’t have to change. You don’t have to do anything but point your finger.

The second option is harder, but infinitely better. In the second option you roll up your sleeves. In the second option you funnel all that frustration, all that anger, all that angst toward a solution.

In my, very tiny personal example, I decided to fix my next flight. I decided to make sure that I picked the earliest flights home. Instead of casually picking one, I’m going to become a machine of efficiency that carefully checks each detail.

What’s funny about that approach is that fixing something makes you feel better. That burst of anger leads to a burst of hope. Blaming others feels gross eventually, fixing just feels better and better the more you do it.

Get mad.

Get angry.

Get frustrated.

But when you do, use it to fix something, not blame someone.

P.S. If you’re an entrepreneur or want to be one, you need to do this ASAP.

The post Don’t waste your anger. appeared first on Jon Acuff.

Is Facebook dead?

Sometimes, people tell me Facebook is dead.

They say, “Millennials don’t use it anymore. It’s not growing like it used to be. It’s mostly for your aunt.”

Articles from experts have said this for years.

I can’t tell you how many new platforms have been labeled “The Facebook Killer.” This isn’t unusual. For years, NBA experts called people “The next Jordan.” Harold Miner, who played for USC, was even labeled “Baby Jordan.”

If you’re building a business, writing books, trying to be a photographer or doing any sort of freelance work, it’s important to put your best effort into the best social media platforms.

So, is Facebook dead?

Let’s look at some data real quick.

On October 13th, I posted a photo about Ken Bone, the mustachioed man in the red sweater from the debate. Here’s how it performed on Twitter:

I got 36 retweets and 71 likes. That’s not bad and maybe to be expected considering I didn’t actually post the photo into Twitter. Let’s imagine if I had, the results would have been five times larger. So, around 200 retweets and 350 likes is what we could expect.

How about on Instagram?

In addition to likes, there are three other things that Instagram measures:

1. Impressions

2. Reach

3. Engagement

Impressions = The total number of times your post has been seen.

Reach = Number of unique accounts who saw your post.

Engagement = Number of unique accounts who liked or commented.

On Instagram, my photo of Ken Bone was seen 48,600 times. Almost 34,000 unique accounts saw it. And there were 3,671 points of engagement.

 

 

That’s awesome! Remember, 36 people retweeted it. On Instagram, 3,671 people interacted with it. That’s a 100x difference.

Last, but not least, let’s look at Facebook.

It’s dead. It’s for grandmas and people who love cats, which is probably redundant.

How did the exact same thing do on Facebook? I didn’t change anything. In fact, when I posted it on Instagram it just automatically went to Facebook too.

On Facebook, it was shared 7,384 times. It was liked 18,000 times. And most importantly, it had a reach of 2,899,540 people. Let me repeat that. On Facebook, the post reached 2.8 million people.

If you’re an entrepreneur, ignore Facebook at your peril.

Facebook might not be the coolest platform, but it is the most effective.
Click To Tweet

Are there cooler platforms? Are there sexier technologies? Are there higher tech ways to grow your business?

Sure, but 36 people shared my tweet on Twitter. Around 50,000 people saw it on Instagram. And it reached 2.8 million on Facebook.

If you want to grow your social media platform, I’m teaching what I’ve learned in 15 years of online exploration in a new 90 Day Business Video Course. The lowest price ends Friday.

Sign up here.

The post Is Facebook dead? appeared first on Jon Acuff.

This was an accident.

I never meant to be an entrepreneur.

Sometimes you meet people who always knew they would run their own businesses.

“I had a company when I was 13! We sold mollusks. I had a business when I was 5. I had a home based business when I was in the womb too! I was a fetus-based business!”

I was not one of these people.

I started freelancing, in part, because author Jim Collins pointed out something scary. He said that when you have a full time corporate job you think you are safe and secure. The reality is that every egg is in one basket and if you lose the job you lose everything.

That happened to me a few times. One day you’re at work, the next day you’ve been downsized and are carrying a sad office plant in a box to your car.

So I started to freelance write on the side of my job.

One of my clients was a laser hair removal clinic, something I obviously know a lot about. (The key was constantly referencing bathing suit season.) I wrote radio jingles for them and then barber shop quartet songs for a tire company.

It wasn’t glamorous, but something happened to me.

I fell in the love with the faucet.

What’s the faucet? It’s the magical spigot of money and freedom you get to turn on when you freelance. When you work a standard job, you can’t decide that this week you want to make $1,000 extra. Sales teams can, but even they don’t have complete freedom.

When I freelanced though, if we wanted to take a vacation, I could turn the faucet on and accept more clients that month. More clients meant more money which mean more freedom.

Ten years later, I’m still in love with that simple idea.

If you work hard, if you are smart, you can make a lot of money and have a lot of fun being an entrepreneur.

After years of freelance, I became a full time entrepreneur. Over the last three years, I’ve learned a few things.

I learned a simple trick that had a 17 to 1 return. I invested $1 and made $17. Insane.

I learned how to build a social media platform reaching millions without being annoying.

I learned how to communicate exactly what I do, boiling it down to just five words.

I learned how to hire designers and developers.

I learned why an assistant is critical to your success.

I learned why being ashamed of success is dumb an expensive.

I learned how to take care of customers.

I learned how to say no to friends who wanted me to work for free.

I learned how to take 5 weeks off in and not freak out that my business would implode.

I learned how to dream as a couple without having the business destroy my marriage.

If any of those things sound interesting to you, I invite you to join the 90 Days of Business Hustle.

For 90 days, you, me and hundreds of entrepreneurs from around the world are going to learn how to make more money and have more fun.

I’ll walk you step by step through the techniques I used to triple my salary, double my vacation and quadruple my fun.

There are a billion entrepreneur resources online. They tell you things like “You gotta grind 24/7” and “You can sleep when you’re dead” or “Treat every friend like a possible sale.” Ugh.

You don’t have to be annoying to be an entrepreneur. You don’t have to be cheesy. And you don’t have to burnout.

If you’ve got a business, part time or full, check this video course out.

If you’re a writer, don’t forget, you’re an entrepreneur too. If you don’t sell books, you don’t get to write books.

If you haven’t even started a business yet but just want to make sure you build a solid foundation, this is for you.

The early bird rate ends Friday. To get the lowest price on the best 90 Day Business Course, sign up here.

If you don’t love it, I’ll give you a full refund.

There is a faucet and it’s really fun.

Ready?

The post This was an accident. appeared first on Jon Acuff.

The #1 reason you better be at least a little weird.

I bet you can’t guess what I did right before writing this?

Is your guess “lifting weights” because I’m huge?

I appreciate that, but that’s not what I was doing.

Prior to sitting down to write this short blog post, I was watching clips of the best blind auditions on the show “The Voice.” (Did you know Keith Urban is a judge on the Australian version of the Voice? That felt like he was cheating on American Idol.)

Why was I doing that?

Because I needed to get inspired to write.

I spent the day I wrote this flying from Nashville to Philadelphia and then driving to Lancaster. It was a dreary, grey day and writing is the last thing I wanted to do.

So, I went to my old standby for a quick hit of inspiration, Voice auditions.

I don’t just watch the US versions either. I watch every country. I’m like the Pitbull of YouTube Voice clips. Call me Mr. Worldwide!

Is that weird?

It is.

So is watching the, “How you do you like dem apples” scene in Good Will Hunting. So is listening to Guns n’ Roses when you don’t feel like finishing a run.

I do a lot of weird things, but here’s a secret. They work.

Getting motivated isn’t a science. It’s an art, a messy art.

On any given day, there are about a billion things that can bring you down.

Quarterly taxes.

Arguing about politics.

Internet trolls.

Your bank account.

That sound your car started making that you pretended was just other cars near you but you can no longer deny it.

The list goes on and on. Demotivators, not technically a word which in and of itself bums me out, don’t play fair. Why should we?

So do something weird until you get your hype back.

The truth is, it’s not weird if it works.

In a few days, I’m going to launch the next round of the 30 Days of Hustle video challenge. Is it weird? I guess. Maybe hustling on your goal with a community of people from around the world who support you is weird, but it works. More than 5,000 people just like you have already used to it lose weight, start businesses, write books, declutter their houses and much more.

Sign up for the early list to get the lowest rate possible.

Don’t be average.

Be weird.

It’s a lot more fun.

Don’t be average. Be weird. It’s a lot more fun.
Click To Tweet

The post The #1 reason you better be at least a little weird. appeared first on Jon Acuff.

Play big, even if you’re small.

Musicians that play festivals quickly know where they stand in the world.

If your name is at the top of the poster in large font, things are going well.

If your name is at the bottom in small font, you are an up and comer.

Take the poster for the Pilgrimage Festival in my hometown.

There are multiple font sizes here.

Daryl Hall is the largest.

Anderson East is smaller.

Ralph’s World is the smallest.

There’s a temptation to think that small font is bad and big font is good, but that’s just not true.

Regardless of your font, you have one job, to rock hard.

Whether you’re microscopic or larger than life, you better bring every bit of you to that gig.

Your business might not be blowing up right now.

Your book might not be jumping off the shelf.

Your online store might feel quiet.

That’s alright, you’re just in the land of small fonts.

Me too.

I was briefly a bigger font when I worked with Dave Ramsey. He generously shared his platform with me and for a minute I had a bit of big font experienced.

I am a small font now. I am an entrepreneur. I am in the same trenches you are.

I love it.

I’m going to rock my small font so hard.

I’m going wear my tiny font like a tiny little badge.

I’m not going to ever shy away from the small moments.

Will I be a big font someday?

Will you?

I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.

I’m not sure if it matters.

You’ve got to play big, even if you’re small right now.

You’ve got to play big, even if you’re small right now.
Click To Tweet

The font doesn’t get to determine how I work.

I do.

And I choose loud.

I choose hustle.

I choose to act big even if the font says I’m small. For now.

P.S. I’m starting something new for entrepreneurs like us. Sign up here to be the first to know when it launches.

The post Play big, even if you’re small. appeared first on Jon Acuff.

The one sentence secret to loving your job.

According to Gallup, 70% of people are disengaged at work. That is crazy, because loving your job is not complicated.

Here’s all it takes:

Find something you love doing so much you’d do it for free and then get so good at it that people pay you for it.

That’s it.

If you do that, you will never dread another Monday again. I promise.

How do you do that? Read this.

Find something you love so much you’d do it for free. Then get so good at it that people pay you.
Click To Tweet

The post The one sentence secret to loving your job. appeared first on Jon Acuff.

17 reasons you should get a 2017 Do Over Calendar

I’m so excited to be partnering with NeuYear wall calendars again this year to offer the 2017 Do Over wall calendar!

Why do I think you should get one too? I’ve got 17 reasons, thanks for asking!

1. The Do Over Calendar is big and beautiful. 36” tall x 25” wide in tall orientation.

2. The Do Over Calendar is reversible. If you turn it over to wide orientation, it’s 36” wide x 25” tall.

3. The Do Over Calendar will never share its political opinions on Facebook.

4. The Do Over Calendar features no space between months so you can easily plan across months and see the distance/days between any two dates in the year.

5. The Do Over Calendar is recommended by 4 out of 5 dentists.

6. The Do Over Calendar is also recommended by 4 out of 5 chimney sweeps, 4 out of 5 assistants to the regional manager, and 5 out of 5 falconers. (Falconers are ALL IN on the Do Over Calendar.)

7. The Do Over Calendar comes in two versions. Traditional Paper and Dry Erase.

8. You can put your Do Over Calendar up on the wall or you can mount it on foam core (like I do) and use it as a portable planner that you can take room to room.

9. The Do Over Calendar will never attack you in your sleep. No other wall calendar on the market makes that claim.

10. Studies show that planning WHEN and WHERE you work on your goals DOUBLES the chances that you’ll achieve them. The Do Over Calendar helps you do that.

11. The Do Over Calendar has never made an inappropriate Harambe joke.

12. Awesome years happen when you start with awesome plans. There is no better tool to make those awesome plans with than the Do Over Calendar.

13. The Do Over Calendar has 12 challenging/encouraging statements on it designed to help slingshot you into a great month of dreaming and doing.

14. The Do Over Calendar comes with a 100% guarantee against malware, viruses, and crashing. What’s more amazing, when the internet goes down your Do Over Calendar still works.

15. When you can’t make time for what matters, you need to take time away from something that doesn’t. (Less Netflix = more hustle.) By planning your days and weeks ahead of time, the Do Over Calendar helps you do that.

16. The Do Over Calendar contains no gluten, GMOs, sugar, or calories.

17. The Do Over Calendar won’t be available forever. Now is the perfect time to pick one up for you, your friend, your family, or your business.

Over the last six years, no tool has helped me plot adventures, keep commitments, and finish projects like this wall calendar.

It truly has become an integral part of my creative process and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Get yours today: The 2017 Do Over Calendar

The post 17 reasons you should get a 2017 Do Over Calendar appeared first on Jon Acuff.