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How to Build Momentum in Your Business and Your Life · Mortgage Marketing Radio

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In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
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the real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
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can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
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To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now.
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Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
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Hey, hey, hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the mortgage marketing radio.
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All right, that's my lame attempt at I don't know, just trying to change up the intro.
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So you hear something different from when you normally tune in.
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So I can capture your attention and get you to listen and hey, if you're here and you're
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here because you're listening.
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So of course, you're here.
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I'm here.
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We're here.
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So let's talk.
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Let's have a great conversation.
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How is that?
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The day is about having a great conversation and speaking of conversations, if you checked
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out the mortgage marketing radio Facebook group, that's where we go deeper on the conversations.
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So go to Facebook, type in the search bar mortgage marketing radio.
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It's for you, the podcast listener, if you want to go deeper, if you want to have more
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meaningful conversations, if you want to take the some of the podcast sessions and have
2:05
a deeper dive.
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If you want to get some additional coaching and training support around your initiatives
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and goals and marketing and digital marketing, and you want answers to questions, get in
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there and type your question, we will answer it for you.
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And just join the group.
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We've got a lot of cool stuff happening in there.
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All right.
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So conversations today is a conversation.
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Oh, welcome back to my, a guest, a returning guest who I'm thrilled to have, especially
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since he's super busy, he's a multiple author, bestselling book author.
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I'm talking about Mark Schaefer, who last time I had him on was pre COVID-19.
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And since then, let's just face the world has forever been changed.
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And so Mark and I have a conversation that is largely focused on his new book, which is
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cumulative advantage at a build momentum, your ideas, business, and life against all odds,
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cumulative advantage.
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Put a link to it in the show notes, go check it out on Amazon if you want to.
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But Mark is, as I said, the previous, he's a bestselling author of marketing rep, Belian,
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why the most human company wins.
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He's also a bestselling author of known, which is what I know we're all trying to do.
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cumulative advantage, however, is answering the one question, right?
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Which is how can we be heard?
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How can we rise above the din of infinite options to create sustainable meaning with an
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audience or a group of customers?
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And I just found this a great exercise in critical thinking, right?
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Especially when we're all trying to get, quote, engagement on digital, right?
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And it's not enough.
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Even being great is arguably insufficient in the face of overwhelming competition, right?
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So Mark, in this book, begins to basically provides a practical guide book, right?
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For today, for the modern world, showing us, number one, how to get cumulative advantage,
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how to build momentum.
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But also, on number two, it's filled with motivating ideas and fascinating case studies
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from the likes of Blue Black Keys, who Mark and I talk about for Springsteen, Tim Ferris,
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author of Before Our Work Week, Stan Lee, the creator of the Marvel Comics, and all that
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kind of stuff.
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So there's lots of good sources of inspiration in this book.
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Once again, the cumulative advantage.
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Check that out.
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It's available in paper, book, audio, and Kindle versions.
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And Mark also writes a blog.
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You might want to check that out.
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His website, businessgrow.com is one of the most insightful, thought-provoking, you know,
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writers and thinkers, I think, for our time.
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And always a great conversation when I have this with Mark.
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So I don't know what else to say other than sit back, listen, have an open mind.
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This isn't a, you know, how to be a successful loan originator.
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This isn't how to build a team, how to do another three loans a month.
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This is more bigger than that.
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This is critical thinking for you in understanding, right?
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How you can build personal momentum for yourself, identify what advantages you might already
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have and creating significant awareness for yourself, so on, how to build momentum.
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Like I said, maybe I said a momentum three times, but, you know, and I'm talking about.
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So let's just get into it, okay?
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Let's bring on Mark and let's get into this week's show.
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Mark Shaper.
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Welcome to the show.
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Jeff, I'm delighted to be with you again.
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So it's, we're talking, but I'm also seeing you on the Zoom call.
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So I'm seeing your face and then it's making me smile to see you again.
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Yeah.
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Last time I had you on, we're talking about your previous book, Marketing Rebellion,
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which I know a number of people have got.
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You've since, I don't know if you've gone crazy or whatever, because you came out with
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a book like shortly thereafter, the new book, cumulative advantage, before we talk about
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that, since you and I last spoke, I thought I'd open up with this a lot has changed in
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the world.
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Everything has changed.
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I mean, what's the biggest change for you that's happened since COVID-19, other than
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the fact you obviously, you know, publicly.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, you know, when, when the pandemic hit, really in the early days in March of 2020,
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my wife got the virus and she got it on a family ski trip, brought it home to me.
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And so we were both pretty sick for a while.
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And then I was, I was in this haze, literally I was in a haze because I had hypoxia, I wasn't
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getting enough oxygen to my brain, so I couldn't think, I couldn't read, I couldn't concentrate
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on anything.
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And so I was, I was really in this haze.
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And when I got out of it, I was feeling better.
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I kind of looked around and my business had crashed, I'm a speaker without an audience
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and a teacher without students and a consultant without customers.
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And so I was, there was a period of disorientation to really figure out, where do I fit in this
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world?
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And it took some self-reflection to realize that I'm a teacher in my heart.
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I'm a teacher in everything that I do.
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This book that we're going to talk about today, cumulative advantage was about halfway
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written.
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And I had to rethink the book to think, to consider, is this still a book?
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Does this still matter right now?
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And there's a very close friend I have who's a brilliant, brilliant man.
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And I said to him, the chapter is three or four chapters I had written.
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And I said, it was just a simple email.
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I said, is this still a book?
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And he read what I had wrote.
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And he said a very simple email back.
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It was yes in all capital letters with three or four exclamation points that said, not
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only is this a book, this is your legacy.
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This is going to be, this is the best thing you've ever done.
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So that helped a lot to know that I could create something meaningful in the context of
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this crazy world that we're in.
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All right.
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So with that, what's then the premise of the book, better to let you kind of explain that?
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Well, I think the reason that this is so meaningful is really for two reasons.
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Number one, I think this will resonate certainly with you and the fans of your show, is that
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the number one question we all struggle with as professionals, either for our business
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or for a personal brand, there's one burning question.
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And it's this, how can we be heard?
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And I realized that everybody's working on it on social media and content and SEO.
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And that just isn't enough.
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And even if we're great and we're doing our best work, there's still so much stacked
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against us that we may not be heard.
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And Jeff, I'm the kind of guy that just isn't going to say, oh well, it's hard, too bad.
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I want to figure it out.
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I want to figure out what do we do?
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So the first reason I think this book is a significant now is it, I think it gives us
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a hint at what's next.
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And that is momentum.
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How do we close that gap if we don't have some of these advantages that maybe some of
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our competitors have?
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How do we close that gap and build momentum on our own?
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And we have to understand what are the dynamics of momentum and let's break it apart and
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see how it really works.
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The other reason why I think this is important and we'll resonate with people now is that
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there is nothing in this book that is not doable and accessible to everyone.
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You don't need money in the bank.
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You don't need an Ivy League degree.
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You don't need connections with super influencers that if you just understand the mechanics of
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influence and how it really works to build momentum, then you can have, make this work
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for you.
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Anyone can do it.
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Yeah.
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So that's a key phrase you said there, the mechanics of influence.
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I would think that a lot of my listeners are looking to have greater influence.
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So how would you advise those that are looking, we're talking obviously in the context of
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online, typically we're looking to grow our brands and our presence.
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As you said, become known, get attention.
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So what are those elements of building a momentum?
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Well, I started by really doing a lot of research going down rabbit holes of what have
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people written about this and what is out there.
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And I found that actually there's quite a significant amount of research that's been
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buried.
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It was started about 50 years ago.
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It's been built on over the years, but it's kind of stayed in the halls of academia by sociologists
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who have studied this.
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And so again, I went down ridiculous rabbit holes trying to figure this out and ended up actually
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interviewing the wife of the person who did this original research because she was his
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researcher back in the 1960s when all this things started because the thing that tantalized
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me is they said that people will continue to build this unstoppable momentum.
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Once they have this advantage, unless there are countervailing processes.
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So for me to figure out how anybody can make this work, we've got to figure out those
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countervailing processes and these researchers never really specifically said what they
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were.
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So I had to dig, dig, dig and go to the original sources to figure it out.
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And I think I've unlocked the code and that's what's in the book.
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Everything starts with an initial advantage.
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The initial advantage, which is something unique or could be an idea or could just be something
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happened to you that hasn't happened to anybody else.
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For example, for Bill Gates, why is Bill Gates Bill Gates?
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When he was a teenager, he was the only teenager in the country that had access to early
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computer prototypes.
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He was coding before anybody else.
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So what is that initial advantage?
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You apply that to a seam of opportunity again for Gates, computers started to blow up.
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He was had this opportunity, had this advantage at the right time.
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So this is a really important part of strategy today is pursuing these ideas, bursting through
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a seam of opportunity to create momentum, then you need to create what I call the sonic
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boom of awareness.
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And this works a lot differently than people would expect.
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Those go viral in a way that research shows in a way that we never really considered before.
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One of the important things in the book I talk about is looking for help from other people.
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And it's redefining mentorship.
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Mentorship is classically considered to be here as someone, a relationship with you have,
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you have with someone who can teach you over time.
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And I reframed that to say, you know, today, if you need to learn something over time,
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you need a Wi-Fi connection.
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Just go to YouTube.
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You can pretty much learn anything you need to learn there.
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What mentoring means to date is creating, helping you create momentum by opening doors,
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opening opportunities, making introductions, maybe even just a word of encouragement at
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the right time.
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And then the momentum continues.
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How do you keep it going?
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Constancy of purpose.
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Every time you launch something new, an idea, a movement, a new career, a book, a business,
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something is going to go wrong.
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And you need to make solid decisions that you keep the momentum going, even when things
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go wrong.
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What was Jim Collins, the author, he talks about this thing called the doom loop.
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When things start going wrong, people start panicking and they grasp for anything they
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can hold on to.
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They said, you got to remember what created that momentum, and you got to just hang in
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there and keep it going.
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I think that's particularly relevant for the period we're in right now.
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It's sort of intoxicating to pivot.
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And I tell everybody, if you've got momentum going, you just need to get through this year.
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That is the goal.
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Land on the other side.
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Don't do anything too dramatic right now.
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If you can hang in there and land on the other side, keep that momentum going in the right
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direction.
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Why is that?
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Is it the old, if it ain't broke, don't break it kind of thing?
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Now I think that's really the long term opportunity.
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The biggest thing that disrupts momentum is that people quit too soon.
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They give up too soon.
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There's no such thing as an overnight success.
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If you're an overnight success, if you become famous overnight, it's probably because
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you got arrested for something, right?
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It's not something you would really pursue, but really fame occurs over time and there's
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a story I have in the book about the ban, the black keys.
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They were just starting to burst out and I got to hang out with these guys.
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I said, what was the pivot point?
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I just really made you go to the next level and Patrick Carney told me he said there was
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it one.
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We just do a little bit better.
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Every album, a little bit better, every concert, a little bit better.
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Two years later, they were selling out Madison Square Gardens in 15 minutes.
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That's a real lesson for all of us.
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Yeah, I love, I just, any book that mentions the black keys to me is a cool book, right?
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They're so cool.
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Yeah, I've seen them two or three times.
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As a matter of fact, that was one of my last shows before COVID hit when they were coming
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through Vegas here.
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Fun fact.
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Fun fact.
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Please.
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My son fronted a band that opened for the black keys in arenas.
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Really?
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What's on there?
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That is a bit too cute.
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The royal bangs.
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Seriously, that's cool.
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Awesome.
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What's he play?
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He plays everything and wrote all the songs and they had some some grid success, but it
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just got to the point where to make money, you had to tour and he just wasn't sustainable.
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And so he ended up starting an electronics business and he makes high-end guitar, guitar
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pedals.
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Oh, really?
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That's cool.
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Hallogram electronics.
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Yeah.
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Hallogram electronics.
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I've got a couple of pedals myself.
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I'm one of those struggling guitarists, you know what I mean?
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Yeah.
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It's been working on it for too many decades.
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So there's so many good things you talk about in there and I've got some notes from
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the book.
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I'm scrolling these to find out where to reenter of some of the things you mentioned.
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I want to go back to the seam and clarify for those listening.
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So this is straight from the book.
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A seam is a undefended or under-defended opportunity.
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As you go on to say, it is a fracture in the status quo.
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Seams of opportunity are open continuously as the world changes.
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Like you said, we can talk about some seams that have opened since COVID.
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But one example or two examples you give is like about enterprise renter car.
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First company to deliver cars to you.
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That was a seam, right?
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An opening of something unique they could do to get noticed, right?
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Right.
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So it's really about sort of being aware.
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I mean, anybody can have an idea, but you need to pursue that idea and see if it's relevant
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in the context of today, not 10 years from now or 10 years ago.
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So timing, the idea that strategy today is really a function of space and time and speed.
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And when you find that fracture in the status quo and all of a sudden you're relevant in
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this moment, you have got to go for it.
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You've got to burst through the seam with blinding speed and go as fast as you can and as
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far as you can before the competitors can catch up.
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And if you can do that and again, build awareness, keep the momentum going, you have an opportunity
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to really create unstoppable content.
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So some seems work created because of COVID-19, right?
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100%.
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Jeff, I predicted last March that we would have more startups than any time in the history
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of America.
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And that has come true.
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There are more startups right now than the businesses that have failed through this pandemic.
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Because there are undefended or under-defended seams.
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There are unmet or underserved customer needs.
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All of those are seams of opportunity and there are going to be millionaires made out
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of this pandemic because people see a trend, see an opportunity and they go for it.
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One of the obvious seams, if you will, that was created because of COVID, is that taking
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our ability to get together in person, face-to-face, and of course, zoom.
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In your book, you talk about how there may be some existing technologies or whatnot that
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because of COVID-19, this external force, bursts open this seam or creates a seam that
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wasn't previously there.
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Case in point, this thing we're all on too much.
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Zoom, they're somebody who have pivoted because of the seam called COVID-19, right?
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Well, I'll give you a beautiful example.
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I had a coaching session today with a woman who had a business in France and for personal
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reasons, she moved to Miami and she's now disconnected from this business in France.
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She moved, I think, in 2018 and she's trying to figure out, what do I do, how do I reconnect?
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And I was able to show her that in 2018, there was an expectation if she was helping people
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in France, she'd better be in France.
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But today, everybody's on Zoom, you could do anything anywhere and she needed to reconsider
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what the world is like right now.
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So specifically for her, the pandemic has created an opening, has created an opportunity because
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her business doesn't have to be showing up at conferences anymore.
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Nobody's doing that.
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She can reinvent herself and reimagine her business taking advantage of this technology that
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everyone's using.
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In 2018, nobody was serious about working from home because companies really, they didn't
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know what to do with it.
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They didn't know if they could trust it.
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They didn't invest in training.
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They didn't invest in technology.
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Now, it's a must have and a lot of it is going to be that way forever.
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Business is going to be changed forever, expectations are going to be changed forever.
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She can ride this wave and reimagine her business and take advantage of that scene.
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Yeah, and I think about that in the context of my audience, as you may recall, largely mortgage
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professionals, mortgage brokers, loan officers, that kind of stuff, some real estate as well.
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And I try and bang that drum of using Zoom more for communicating during buyer consults
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or referral partner relationship.
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But you referenced it, I've heard you use this term, I think in one of your blog articles
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being zoomed out.
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And I'm hearing some of that feedback as well, one of the things I help people do is teach
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classes to real estate agents virtually over Zoom.
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They were previously in person.
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But that's some of the feedback.
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So my answer to this is that if people are zoomed out, air quotes, it's probably because
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those meetings suck generally and aren't worthwhile.
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I don't know if you agree with this, or how do you respond to the whole, I'm zoomed
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out, in terms of the appetite for people to continue doing that.
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Yeah, well, I think one of the reasons that people are zoomed out is because you don't
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have these sort of important human, random human interactions that make life more interesting
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and fun.
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It might just be getting up and sharing a cup of coffee with somebody.
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Today we're sort of locked in this box, we're sitting in one place and we're looking at
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a certain way and there's a certain behavior and there's a certain sort of pattern of
24:50
courtesy that goes with Zoom meetings and so forth.
24:53
And I was reading an article recently about just the little habits of the world like saying
25:02
hello to the janitor every day or picking up your paper on the way to the office every
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day or listening to a podcast on your commute.
25:15
And there's these certain rituals surrounding the work environment that really reinforce
25:23
someone's life and maybe their esteem and their lifestyle and all of that is going and going
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away.
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And so now we're sort of locked in this box and then we go to the next box and we go to
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the next box without all these little things that become part of our ritual.
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And I think that's hard to articulate, but that's really what's missing, the randomness
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and the ritual and the comfort of being in a space with other humans.
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Yeah, I think that's a real thing for sure, comfort of being around other humans.
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We obviously crave that and there is an element missing on Zoom.
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But let me ask you this, I've asked this of other people that you've had a lot of experience
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in the corporate world and things like that.
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Virtual selling has been around a long time, but is the virtual selling up to like how important
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do you think being able to quote sell virtually, whatever that is, convey your message virtually,
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right?
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Has the importance of that now just skyrocketed?
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Thousand percent, you know, one of the things, you know, you asked me early on in the program
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about what's changed for me.
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And one of the things I realized is the things that I was writing about and speaking about
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seemed totally unimportant and irrelevant when people are locked into their homes and
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they can't get food, you know, I would go, you know, I was trying to, I saw this thing
27:00
coming before we even got sick and I started to try to stock up on a few things and I
27:04
would go to the grocery store and there was no meat.
27:09
And so what I was doing just didn't seem relevant and I realized right now, I still have
27:19
to teach, people expect me to teach this, what I want to do, but I need to teach something
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different.
27:23
I need to talk about anxiety, I need to talk about uncertainty, I need to talk about
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just a survival strategy, personal and professional to get us to the next day, get us to the next
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week.
27:41
And so that was, you know, essentially my, you know, my, my pivot, I had to connect in
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a different way, I had to teach in a different way.
27:54
And one of the things I encouraged people to think about is if you depended on face-to-face
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interactions, like a banker, insurance broker, mortgage broker, how are you going to
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be relevant now?
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How are you going to connect in this way?
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You almost need to build a new competency in connect and using technology because we've
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got no choice.
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And that may transcend the pandemic, I think it will in many ways.
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Okay, cool, let me get back in the book.
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I was going to keep asking you these questions, but I'm thinking of my listener's audience,
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come on, this is for you.
28:34
Okay, so how do you know I'm going back through the book here here in terms of how do you
28:40
know when you have, what do you call it, a spark, right, the click moment, this is a collision
28:45
of people ideas and circumstances.
28:47
Right, how do you know when you have one?
28:51
Well, there's really two questions there is how do you know that you have one and how
28:57
do you know that this is something that could mean something.
29:02
And there's a great insight in the book from a fellow named Rajee Thomas.
29:09
He's the founder and CEO of a tech company called Sprinkler.
29:13
And he's a multiple company founder, he's been very, very successful.
29:19
And he said, you know, ideas happen all the time, you're bombarded with ideas.
29:25
And in the book, I have some very specific processes you can go through to sort of put
29:30
yourself in a position to create those spark moments.
29:35
But he said those, there's millions of great ideas out there, but they don't mean
29:40
anything unless you pursue that your curiosity, it's more than idea, it has to be a quest.
29:51
How do I act on it in a meaningful way?
29:54
How do I know if this can really apply to a scene that means something in the world?
30:02
So I think one of the benefits of this book, Jeff, is that I can almost guarantee that
30:08
anybody that reads this book will see the world in a new way.
30:12
They'll start to see this pattern of how success operates, how momentum works.
30:21
And I think the key is to be aware that, you know what, I do have all these ideas.
30:26
I do see these patterns.
30:29
And maybe I need to be more intentional about them.
30:32
Maybe I need to write them down or research them or talk to my friends about them rather
30:38
than just let these opportunities go by.
30:44
There's a story in this book.
30:46
I got to spend time with a great man, Harold Berson.
30:50
He was the founder of Berson Marceller PR.
30:53
I met him.
30:54
I think he was still in his 80s.
30:56
He was still coming to his office in Manhattan every day at 7 a.m.
31:00
And he was working on his life story in his book.
31:03
And he said, really, the story of my momentum is just every day doors are opening for me.
31:12
And it's just momentum is a series of decisions knowing, do I go through that door?
31:18
Do I go through the door?
31:20
It's happening to all of us all the time.
31:22
It's really a combination of luck and wisdom when you get right down to it.
31:28
We all have these lucky moments, but are we wise enough to go through the door?
31:33
Yeah, well, I love the fact that you mentioned Walter Isaacson.
31:38
You had a conversation with him, I think?
31:40
Yes, I did.
31:41
I got to meet him.
31:42
He's incredible.
31:43
He's written some of the most amazing books.
31:44
Oh, I love his work.
31:46
Steve Jobs, he wrote books about Einstein as you talk about.
31:51
What's the little snippet that you took away from him that you put in the book about
31:55
the genius insights?
31:58
Well, it was such a wonderful time because Walter is certainly one of my literary heroes.
32:06
He's also a college professor at Tulane University, a very famous historian.
32:12
And he's had an amazing career.
32:15
And he's written these books on geniuses.
32:17
And I said, what makes a genius?
32:21
And he said, really, there's two things.
32:24
One is this insatiable curiosity.
32:26
It's a pursuit of curiosity, not just having ideas and observations, but pursuing it.
32:32
And then he said, it's this ability to see patterns.
32:36
So it's exactly what I talk about in the book.
32:39
It's like, it's not just enough to have an idea, you have to pursue that curiosity and
32:46
see how that connects to a pattern.
32:48
And if you can do that, it's a light bulb moment.
32:53
But it's inspiration, it's an insight, it's an innovation.
32:57
Yeah, it's to me when I hear curiosity, it comes back to always asking the question
33:01
of why.
33:02
Why is that?
33:03
Why does that happen?
33:04
Why do they do this?
33:05
Right.
33:06
Over and over.
33:07
Don't let it go.
33:08
Yeah, for sure.
33:11
And I'm thinking like in the context of our listeners, there are certain patterns that
33:16
you, I'm sure, recognize repeatedly with either your partners or with your clients.
33:21
And perhaps the takeaway from you is this, get curious as to why those patterns reoccur
33:26
over and over again.
33:27
And is there an opportunity in there, right?
33:29
Yeah.
33:30
And then there's also the opposite of that, which I point out in the book, that if you
33:35
expect patterns to, you know, if you expect something to happen over and over again,
33:40
and all of a sudden it doesn't, that's an opportunity too.
33:45
Don't ignore that.
33:47
If you see something that's supposed to happen, but it doesn't happen, find out why there
33:53
could be a lesson, there could be a clue, there could be an opportunity there.
33:58
I went, I had a coaching session actually today.
34:02
This has been a busy day, I could just keep on telling stories about just what happened
34:07
to me today.
34:09
But there's a woman that saw this unusual pattern in the open rate of her professional
34:18
newsletter to her clients.
34:22
And what she, what she saw, she thought she saw this decline.
34:27
So when I did the statistical analysis for her, what I showed was that the, the, the
34:34
operation wasn't the low point, the aberration was the high point.
34:40
That really the change was not that she's at this level, but that for a few months, she
34:46
was at a level that was unusually high.
34:48
I said, we need to go back and figure out what did you do in those newsletters that
34:54
created this excitement?
34:56
And we were able to see this pattern that sure enough, there were certain themes she was
35:02
writing about that resonated more than what she's doing today.
35:07
So we're able to sort of like reenergize her momentum by seeing it was like a disruption
35:13
in the force.
35:14
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
35:16
That's similar to, you know, think about if you're, if you're talking like you have a
35:20
certain script or talk track that you use and the people say, yes, more often when you
35:24
say this specific sequence of words or not, same could be for YouTube channel.
35:30
What I do is I look at people's YouTube videos and I, and I, you know, try and teach
35:34
them.
35:35
Like, okay, look at these videos and these titles.
35:37
They have the higher view counts.
35:38
Why is that?
35:39
Yeah.
35:40
You know, there's a pattern there too.
35:41
Sure.
35:42
Around the topic.
35:43
All right.
35:44
So in cognizant of the time here, a couple of more things before we wrap up.
35:49
Part of your book, I have to be like honest with you like, you know, it's a journey and
35:54
starting off, I wasn't necessarily feeling great reading it.
35:58
And what I mean by that is because things are stacked against us, right?
36:03
And one of the things you say is that digital engagement is not enough.
36:06
And a lot of what I'm talking about is like, you know, engage on digital, right?
36:09
That's your virtual networking at scale.
36:12
But what you say here, being great is insufficient in the face of overwhelming competition.
36:17
And the world is stacked against us in big ways, right?
36:20
So I'm like, huh, okay, all this work, man, you know what I mean, like, can I, and you
36:25
start reading the stories about the, you know, the Vincol, Vincol was twins with a
36:28
different.
36:29
Vincol Vos.
36:30
Vincol Vos twins.
36:31
You know what I mean?
36:32
It's like all these advantages, right?
36:33
And, you know, you can, well, what's my advantage?
36:36
How can I win if the odds are stacked?
36:38
What do you say?
36:40
Well, first of all, you know, I'm sorry if I scared you to me, upset you in some way.
36:47
But I think this is, this is the core, just the, I'm sure you feel it.
36:54
You know, I feel, I mean, everybody I talked to is like, dog, gone, what more do I need
36:59
to do?
37:00
Yes.
37:01
You know, I'm already working as, as hard as I possibly can.
37:05
Right.
37:06
You know, I think what I'm doing, I can remember the early days when I was blogging and
37:12
I saw some of these people at the top, it was actually now that I think about it.
37:17
It would have been a perfect example of cumulative advantage to put in my book.
37:21
These people were like the early adopters.
37:23
They were the early bloggers.
37:24
They had some advantage and had propelled themselves so high and so fast.
37:32
And I tried to honestly compare the work I was doing with what they were doing.
37:38
And I was, I was doing so much better.
37:40
I mean, my blog posts were so much more meaningful.
37:44
They were putting out what I thought were very mediocre things.
37:49
But I couldn't be heard.
37:51
I was just lost in this, in this noise.
37:54
How do we come, become the signal in this world of noise?
38:00
And those odds are stacked against us all the time every day.
38:05
So we've got to find something else.
38:08
We've got to figure out how to change those odds.
38:12
And at least part of the solution and I'm not saying that this is the total solution.
38:16
And I would never claim something like that.
38:19
But part of the solution is to really understand how did that momentum work?
38:24
How did that fellow do that?
38:27
And that's what I explained in the book.
38:29
And it's something that's accessible to anyone.
38:31
Anyone can do this.
38:33
And that's why I think it's really a book of hope.
38:36
Yeah, it is.
38:37
Hopefully I didn't steer you wrong on that.
38:39
It's just look, those are some of the realities of life.
38:41
You know, and some people have advantages.
38:43
It can make you down.
38:44
It really can.
38:45
Yeah.
38:46
But there are ways to circumvent that worker.
38:49
Like you talk about the five factors to countervailing processes.
38:54
You know, I think that'll be relevant for our listeners as well.
38:57
But I think when I hear you say, how did that momentum?
39:00
How did that person get momentum?
39:02
You know, I think about some of the examples in your other books like Marketing Rebellion
39:05
and Known and things like that.
39:06
It's like that I've definitely shared some lessons, which is, you know,
39:11
how a unique personality, how a unique viewpoint,
39:14
go all in on one chat.
39:16
I mean, all those are potential ways that we can get.
39:19
Exactly.
39:20
Yeah, exactly.
39:21
These two books really do kind of go together.
39:23
They really do.
39:24
Yeah.
39:25
Because Known focuses a lot on this idea of your uniqueness, your initial advantage.
39:31
And then this book kind of says, how do you blow it out?
39:34
Yeah.
39:35
So that's a keen observation, Jeff, that they really do kind of go together.
39:39
Yeah, that's what was coming up for me.
39:40
Yeah.
39:41
It's no surprise to anybody who's read your stuff before.
39:44
Great material, well researched, of course.
39:46
I don't know how you do it, man.
39:48
Like you said, every book is like a two-year project, right?
39:50
Yeah, that's for sure.
39:52
So are you already starting on the next one?
39:55
No, you know, it's sort of like, you know,
40:01
whatever they interviewed Tom Brady after this Super Bowl.
40:04
And they said, oh, wow, you know, are you going to be back next year?
40:07
What's next?
40:08
And you know, he said, look, I just want to enjoy this one a little bit.
40:11
Right.
40:12
Just won this Super Bowl.
40:14
And you know, this book took a lot out of me.
40:17
It really did.
40:18
Yeah.
40:19
As you know, the last chapter of the book is quite emotional, quite personal.
40:24
It literally took me three months to write that one chapter.
40:28
And because it was, it was very, it's very risky.
40:34
And writing a book is really the riskiest thing you can do for a personal brand,
40:40
because you can't take it back.
40:41
It's not like a blog post that you could, you know, eliminate or take it down.
40:46
You can't say, oh, whoops.
40:48
Sorry, I didn't really mean that in the book.
40:50
It's out there forever.
40:52
And it's got to be right.
40:54
It's got to be bold.
40:56
Right.
40:57
It's got to be beautiful.
40:59
And it has to mean something to people.
41:00
So this, it really, this book took, took everything out of me.
41:04
And so I need a recovery time.
41:08
For sure.
41:09
And I won't, I won't, yeah, only write a book if it's, if it's, if it's going to be unique
41:15
and bold.
41:16
Yeah.
41:17
Yeah.
41:18
You want to do meaningful work.
41:19
That's awesome.
41:20
Yeah.
41:21
That's why I love having you on, because I think your message resonates with kind of the
41:22
vibe of my audience.
41:26
Yeah.
41:27
It's interesting.
41:28
You mentioned Brady to pause there for a moment.
41:29
There's a study in momentum, right?
41:32
I mean, if you look at like where he started, ground zero, so to speak, but I mean, yeah,
41:36
to me, I would love to see a interview with him all about like mindset, right?
41:40
Mm-hmm.
41:41
Is this phenomenal.
41:42
So anyway, to close out here, I love that.
41:44
Once again, you've, you've, you've got the black keys in the book, you've got Bruce Springsteen
41:47
in the book, right?
41:48
I do.
41:49
Yeah.
41:50
I've got Batman in the book.
41:51
I've got Spider-Man in the book.
41:52
That's right.
41:53
What's not to like?
41:54
Real quick, tell the story, the origin story of Stan, you know, let's look at that on
41:59
that.
42:00
Oh, so that was one of the, because again, I was like geeking out, trying to find these
42:05
unexpected heroes, these people that's like zero to hero.
42:10
And when, when, so there's this teenager Stan Lieber, and he won a writing contest, and
42:20
he won this writing contest like three times in a row.
42:24
And the editor of the newspaper said, Stan, you really need to be a writer.
42:29
So, you know, I think he's like 19 years old or something like that.
42:32
He's at a high school.
42:33
He doesn't know what to do.
42:34
He keeps applying for jobs.
42:35
And the only job he could get was at this little comic book company.
42:41
And he was so embarrassed to be writing.
42:45
He said, I don't even want to use my name.
42:48
Do not call me Stan Lieber, call me Stan Lee.
42:53
And here he was 19 years old.
42:55
And the creative team of the comic book company quit.
43:00
And the owner of the company said, all right, Stan, it's you.
43:04
And that's how we, you know, became, this is the guy, you know, at the right at the foundation
43:10
of the Marvel universe, Marvel comics, Stan Lee and, and it's these random things.
43:18
And it was not his plan.
43:19
It was not his strategy.
43:21
He was embarrassed to be there.
43:23
But that was the click moment.
43:26
That was the initial this random thing that happened that created a legend.
43:31
And that's that opportunity is there for everybody.
43:34
You just have to be aware that these random opportunities are coming at us all the time.
43:40
And then being willing to jump in and go for it when that opportunity presents itself.
43:46
Well, I'm going to close out on this just because it's a reminder, I think for my people,
43:49
because this is relevant to what most of my listeners are trying to do.
43:52
So you're quote from Bruce Springsteen, getting an audience is hard, sustaining an audience is
43:57
hard.
43:58
It demands a consistency of thought, a purpose, and a action over a long period of time.
44:05
That's social media success 101 right there.
44:07
It really is.
44:08
It's successful with anything.
44:10
And unfortunately, there's this mythology that pervades social media, especially in this era of
44:19
influencers that, oh my gosh, it's like striking oil that all I have to do is do this and be
44:28
at the right place at the right time.
44:30
And it's really never that way that you just have to commit.
44:35
You have to just keep on plugging a little bit just like Bruce, right?
44:40
Bruce work.
44:41
I saw Bruce when I was a teenager playing at a ballroom at a university, right?
44:49
He's playing in front of probably two or three hundred people.
44:53
And that's really when my life long obsession, not obsession, but really love and devotion
44:58
of Bruce Springsteen started.
45:00
And I mean, he was not an overnight success.
45:03
He was one album away from us, never hearing of him again.
45:11
He had to make born to run work or was going to be over for him.
45:15
But he had worked for years and years and years, playing the ballrooms, playing the dive bars
45:23
before he made it.
45:24
And that's an analogy for all of our careers and all of our lives.
45:29
It's constancy of purpose.
45:31
Absolutely.
45:32
And remember, again, from your book, everything good and great starts with something small.
45:36
Right. Take that first step.
45:39
Exactly.
45:40
And take the next step of getting Mark's book, Cumulative Advantage.
45:44
We're going to put links in the show notes, Cumulative Advantage,
45:47
how to build momentum for your ideas, business, and life against all odds.
45:51
Mark, I know you're a busy man, especially today.
45:53
I can't thank you enough for being here.
45:54
Jeff, thank you so much.
45:56
And I want to just tell you how much I appreciate the preparation you put into these shows
46:03
and the great questions that you ask.
46:05
And I know that your audience really appreciates it.
46:08
And as someone that does a lot of shows, that makes a lot of difference.
46:12
And I hope you're rewarded for that.
46:14
Great job.
46:15
I appreciate it very much.
46:16
I try and remain one of those elements is constantly curious.
46:19
You know, for you.
46:20
Thanks, Jeff.
46:21
You bet.
46:22
All right.
46:22
So listeners, you know what to do if you like this episode.
46:24
Hey, leave us a review and I appreciate you tuning in.
46:26
As always, we'll see you on the next one.
46:29
Bye for now.
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