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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the MarTech podcast, hosted by my friend, Ben Shapiro, brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes, the MarTech podcast shares stories from world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success. Recent episode, one of my favorite extending the lifetime value of your customer. You know, I love to talk about that. Listen to the MarTech podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:43): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Jacqueline Lieberman. She’s a former managing partner and the head of strategy for story worldwide and the co founder of Brand Crudo. So I guess we’re gonna talk about brands today. So Jacqueline, thanks for joining me.

Jacqueline Lieberman (01:02): Thanks for having me, John. It’s a

John Jantsch (01:05): Pleasure. I, I, I always like to get kind of to deeper than the tagline, shall we say? Uh, when, when I talk to people about branding, one of the things that, that you are talking about is making brands more human, putting purpose into practice, and I’d love it. If you would take that beyond the tagline.

Jacqueline Lieberman (01:22): Oh, sure. Well, I mean, I think one of the things, one of my goals is really, when I say I wanna make brands more human is when I think about brands, brands are really people’s introduction and their way to interact with companies. Mm-hmm so that’s what a brand is to people. So the more human that, that brand is the better that interaction’s going to be. So all the beloved brands that are out there, those are the ones that really just behave like a human being. They have a conscience, they have a point of view, right? They have a soul. So, so I think that’s, that’s what I try and help my clients to do,

John Jantsch (01:57): But they’re also probably telltale signs. They’re also able to communicate that effectively and deliver on it. If I, and, and people experience that it’s not enough to just have that soul, is it

Jacqueline Lieberman (02:08): Exactly, exactly. You have to practice what you preach. You can’t just say it. They cannot just be a nice phrase on the lobby wall. You actually have to walk the

John Jantsch (02:16): Walk. So I work, I work with a lot of small business owners and have over the years. And if I mention the, you know, I sometimes call it the B word because they’re, they’re almost like, oh, well I don’t have a brand that’s that’s for big product companies. And my contention is every business has a brand because it’s, it’s really just the collective perception of the people that you come into contact with good, bad or indifferent. So, so where do you fall on, you know, companies kind of ignoring that idea?

Jacqueline Lieberman (02:44): Well, I mean, I think even, even those owners, their brands, their personal brands walking around embodying. So, so even if it’s their company and just because they might have a, a business name doesn’t mean that they’re not a brand cuz they’re associated with, when they, when somebody hears the name of that company, somebody is going to have a gut feeling about that, that company. And so whether it’s the, the, person’s the founder’s name on the wall, or it happens to be a name that you just made up that has to resonate with people. And so you have to really pay attention to that and have some care and attention into branding, even if you’re small.

John Jantsch (03:24): So, so I wanna get into some specifics, but I will tell you this time of year, a lot of people are watching, uh, football. I don’t know if you’re an NFL fan at all, but uh, playoff season, a lot of people are. And, and of course all the ads are insurance companies that are bay, basically communicating a brand that has nothing to do with their product. Progressive Geico, even state farm seems, seems to be the trend with insurance companies is, is create personality. So we don’t have to talk about products. People don’t really wanna buy anyway. So, so talk a little bit about that as an effective approach. And, and is it for everyone?

Jacqueline Lieberman (04:03): Well, I mean, I think so taking insurance, just for an example, I mean, so that’s, that’s a tough, that’s a tough market to be in, right? So talk about like a low interest category. We’re not talking about automobiles that people look forward to having that purchase when the, when the time comes. So, so taking that tact is, is smart for insurance because they have to associate their brand with something that’s positive because for insurance, the flip side of insurance is that you don’t wanna need it. So the flip side is that there’s some sort of disaster that has happened to you, so they wanna make it a positive feeling. And I think that that’s exactly why of those brands are taking the tech that they are. But that said, I think that that’s a lesson, a lot of brands can, can take. And it doesn’t matter. A lot of, as you mentioned before, oh, I’m a small business and I’m not a big brand, but I think it doesn’t matter what category you’re in. You can still create a brand around what, because that has to resonate with people. And that’s the only way that you’re going to be able to connect with people is, is by doing that

John Jantsch (05:09): Well. And I think particularly today there’s so many channels and ways to reach, uh, consumers that I think a lot of that’s happened. I, I, I think brands in a lot of cases, what go back 20, 30, 40 years ago, I know you weren’t around, but it, but for some of my listeners, the brand was kind of the personality of your advertising in a lot of ways was, was the brand. But now you go on, you look at Google reviews and they talk about rusty, the technician that came to their house and did an amazing job. And all of a sudden that’s the brand. So how, how do, how do you suggest that brands? I, I wanna say deal, that’s probably the, the wrong word address. The fact that there are so many channels and, and so much of the, the brand in a lot of ways is certainly out of our control.

Jacqueline Lieberman (05:50): Yeah. And, and I think, well, I mean, I know that Marty Newmeyer, famous author of the brand gap, he, he basically says a brand is not what you say it is. It’s what, what everybody else says it is. And so that’s really, that’s really what a brand is. So in looking at those reviews and that’s the best social listening that a brand can do by the way is, uh, that’s the best consumer insight. But I think when looking at brands, I use usually the, the quickest, one of the quick tools that I always give to, uh, any client and even on social me, my social media feeds is saying, if you think about a brand in terms of three spheres of like you think of a ven diagram of you have mind, you have heart, you have conscience. And it’s thinking about a, is like in their mind, what’s their point of view in the conscience, what’s the soul?

Jacqueline Lieberman (06:42): How do you wanna be remembered? And the heart is what are your non-negotiable beliefs? So in saying those things, and, and when you’re talking about and how to deal with reviews, it’s the reviews fit under one of those things. Right? So, so it’s like in Howard ranch should respond is really about that. So if you’re always thinking in the realm of that, you have kind of those three facets of the brand, it really dimensionalizes it. And it gives you latitude to dial things up or down as you need to. So you could still be agile and respond. So it doesn’t have to be just here’s the advertising line. It’s like, well, no, what’s our point to view about this, or know, how do we help these people who are having the same problem in these reviews? And so I think it’s just like an easy construct that people can really wrap their heads around. Even if they know nothing about branding or marketing. I just kind of give that to them as a, as a framework. And it starts to lead people, even non marketers down onto a place of like, Hmm. How, how do I think about my brand as a conscience? Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:43): And so, yeah. So as you start getting into like, what would the brand do cluster, right. we can use that as a decision making. We need to get some of those little bands and put ’em exactly say that. So, so when somebody calls you in, and I know that you, I, I, I know that it’s very common for, uh, brands to have a marketing agency that is really doing a lot of the tactics, a lot of the execution, and they will typically sometimes call in a, an outside or a third party brand, uh, strategist what’s generally going, uh, is about a five part question what’s generally going on when that happens. And then what’s your process than for adding or, or I think you used the word excavating as a, as a, as part of the process. So, so walk me through what’s going on when somebody finally does that. And then what do you do to try to turn this up?

Jacqueline Lieberman (08:32): Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of times, so unfortunately what happens is, and I don’t know why maybe you can tell me why, in your opinion, I’d love to hear what you think about it is. I don’t know why, but there’s when management, there seems to be a, a change in management. Yeah. And it doesn’t matter, uh, really what the level is, but it’s typically at the senior level, they feel like that they need to completely blow up the brand. Yeah. And start over and put their own point of view and their spin on it for the sake of doing something new and relevant. And I’m not saying that that being new and relevant in and having a new marketing, the view is, is the wrong way to go. Because usually if there’s a change in leadership, there’s a need for that change. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacqueline Lieberman (09:22): But the, the part that I, that I always find so surprising is that they come in with no regard to the history of the brand, the origin story of the brand. So whether that origin was five years ago or 50 years ago, or a hundred years ago, it doesn’t matter. Every brand started for some reason, it was some somebody thought of it for a reason. There was a value there. So typically what happens is I’ve gotten called in now more, more than I can count for that scenario where there’s a change of a change. Of course, the rest of the team doesn’t agree. The senior management wants to go in one direction, but then there’s legacy people who feel like that they’re going, that it’s in their gut, that it doesn’t feel right. Yeah. And they need somebody, they need like a, a third party to come in to just kind of almost do brand therapy.

Jacqueline Lieberman (10:14): Yeah. To understand. So, so the, the excavating part is me talking to the CEO or the CMO and finding out. So tell me exactly why is it that you think that this part of the brand needs to change. And very often those are the conversations that’s when I start pulling out really the reasons why, because the reasons that they’re articulating is actually not it at all. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I start going in and asking those questions, well, tell me why, and tell me a little bit more about that. And then I also will interview the, the other stakeholders, the people who perhaps have been on board for a while, and I start to kind of marry those two worlds together. And, and that’s really the beginning of, of the new brand foundation. So it doesn’t mean that we’re forgetting the origin story. And it doesn’t mean that all we’re talking about is legacy stuff. It just means that we’re creating a new foundation starting from a fresh place that has everybody’s input at the table. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.

John Jantsch (11:14): But I, but you could see the, you could see the pressure, the internal pressure, the CMO just got fired. The new CMO is not going to make any head wide by saying, we’re just going, keep going down this path. Right. Exactly. They do have to bring in kind

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John Jantsch (12:28): This is sort of a weird question, but since we’re talking about bigger companies, what we’re role does politics internally play in, in the mess that gets made?

Jacqueline Lieberman (12:38): Yeah, a lot. Uh, it’s a huge role. And I think, and a lot of, a lot of my role I end up playing is I am the facilitator and I’m bringing all of these worlds together in a way that a allows them to all speak their mind right. In a safe place. And, and I’m the one. So if I’m the one that’s coming up with the insights and playing back, what I heard, then there isn’t, there, there are no enemies made because they can’t argue really with me because it’s like, well, I’m saying, well, this is what I heard. Yeah. And so that’s, so I become like the facilitator, the therapist, the marriage counselor, bringing everybody together. But at the same point, I’m also constantly asking questions to mind. Well, why, and tell me more about that. And when you say your values are, you’re a trusted brand, by the way, everybody says they’re a trusted brand, but tell me exactly why you think that. So that’s really a lot of what my role is, is to help get away from those politics and just kind of ask the right questions.

John Jantsch (13:42): How often do you get the chance to go deeper than marketing? So into sales, into service, you know, into, you know, pretty much every facet because I that’s all part of the brand. Whether people, people say it or not. So how, how often do you get that opportunity?

Jacqueline Lieberman (13:58): Well, when I do workshops, I specifically ask for the attendees in the workshops to be all representatives from. And I ask for, give me somebody from sales, give me somebody from R and D, somebody who sits in customer service. I don’t want all marketing people in that room. Right. So I say, if we have to make this a, a two part process, then let’s do it. But I do not wanna have all marketing people in the room because, because to your point, a brand is made up of all different facets. It’s not just what the marketing team dreams up. So I need to understand the points of view. And very often a lot of that insight comes from the people. Well, not in the marketing department, it comes from the people on the front lines or the people who are thinking about the brand in different ways.

John Jantsch (14:42): Yeah. Referrals rarely happen because of good marketing

Jacqueline Lieberman (14:46):

John Jantsch (14:47): Right. And, and, and yet most businesses, a significant part of their business comes by way of referral. And that happens because somebody had a great experience. Yeah. Not, not because they saw a fun ad. That’s true. So do you have, do, do you have any, I was gonna say examples that you don’t necessarily have to use, uh, concrete examples, but do you have any examples of where sort of typical gaps happen and it’s almost like there’s no internal communication and that’s creating a bad experience.

Jacqueline Lieberman (15:16): Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s, there’s one where there’s a, a human legacy founder person. Mm-hmm, , who’s either no longer with the company and the company is struggling with how to tell that story. So some with, do we tell it at all, or some are struggling with, how do we tell it and then tell it in a new way? Yeah. So there’s, so that’s, uh, that’s a typical problem that, that I tend to, to face with with clients. Another is they, they have a, a really great mission statement and all of the players are all kind of singing out of the same HYN books, so to speak, except they don’t know what to do with it. So they don’t know like they know why they’re there. And they’re really jazzed about working there, but they don’t have like that, that statement that actually, because it, it tends to be a mission statement’s also very long, typically as opposed to like a purpose statement, which could be very condensed and piffy, and you can remember it.

Jacqueline Lieberman (16:16): So really the recall is really how people start to embody it in their everyday life. So if you can’t remember what your mission is, then it’s like, then it’s probably too long and wordy and you probably need to revisit it. But the other part of it is taking that purpose into practice. And, and that really is going right down to, at the HR level of like, you need to put your purpose in your job postings, make sure you’re hiring the right culture. You need to put it in your performance reviews, that everybody needs to be accountable for living the purpose and embodying it and your everyday jobs. Because if, if, if you don’t bring it down to that level, then it really is just a nice statement in the lobby.

John Jantsch (17:00): Yeah. It’s interesting. I think they’re growing consensus among, uh, organizations that internal communications is actually where branding maybe starts. Yes. Completely. So talk to me a little bit about whether what you’ve seen or maybe how you sort of advise people on that.

Jacqueline Lieberman (17:17): Yeah. I mean, I think it’s it really, because, I mean, I think it’s the, it’s how people think about marketing. So people just think that marketing is this advertising box that you need to track in order to sell stuff. But at the same point, it’s really having a group of Evangel us who believe in it inside mm-hmm . So that’s why, when I talk about I, I came from the world of brand storytelling and of course I, I believe in brand storytelling, but I also really started to think about, and, and started my consulting around brand truth because no one can argue with what’s true. So if you could really, really believe it and believe it on the inside, inside the walls, that’s how the marketing really starts because then people are excited to be at work. They feel well compensated. They feel well respected. And, and it doesn’t matter whether you are part of the marketing team, you are marketing for that company because you’re happy being there. Yeah. So you’re creating evangelists inside the walls, and that’s the first step of marketing right there.

John Jantsch (18:18): Well, and it’s, it’s, it’s painful almost to see these companies, that transparency is one of our core values. And then when generally there’s no transparency , you know, going on. Cause I really think that’s, excuse me. I really think that’s the biggest disconnect is people sit around and come up with what should sound good rather than what, like you said, what is

Jacqueline Lieberman (18:37): Yeah, exactly. I mean, when it’s very, I mean, and I, I could see why it happens because businesses they’re myopically focused on the task at hand, right in front of them. And they’re trying to just get through what they need to get through, especially right now, everybody is, you know, having a hard time in, in all different ways, but, but you have to at least be in the regular practice of going 30,000 feet once in a while, once a quarter, once a year, at least, and start to look at your brand from that level and say, how are we really living our purpose? Is it really trickling down? Is it something that we need to reevaluate? How are we creating this world for the consumer? That’s something that they wanna be in, as opposed to us just selling messages

John Jantsch (19:26): 2021 is still gonna be a year where I think people are reeling from 2020. And so is there a, is there a message of trends or behaviors or things that people need to be aware of or looking out for, or doing more of or doing less of, or is it still, is it really just a matter of, of be true and stay the course?

Jacqueline Lieberman (19:50): Well, I mean, well, it’s definitely be true and stay of the course. I mean, for sure what the pandemic has highlighted, is it really highlighted the brands who did not, if they were not already purpose driven, it really highlighted the brands who were struggling with that. So it’s like, if you already know that and that’s already part of your marketing, then it’s, you’re ahead of the game. And the reason why is because consumers are really out there and they’re looking for, they’re looking for something like they’re looking for a little glimmer of hope and optimism, and that’s what brands and companies give each other. And so if you’re just giving bla platitudes and you’re not really doing anything of substance, then consumers are really gonna look at that and they’re making their choices because of that. And, and I think the brands who are winning right now are the ones that are, are really doing things that are, that are real and not just marketing because they’re trying to just hang on and survive. Yeah. They’re,

John Jantsch (20:50): They’re, they’re meaningful in some way to their customers think is a good way. Good way to look at it. So you have a podcast as well, uh, called UN do you wanna tell people what they could expect if they tuned in?

Jacqueline Lieberman (21:01): Sure. Uh, so I’ve been told that it’s, uh, NPR, like in terms of in, to the format. And I, I like to have guests on who either have a great brand story to tell. So if it’s a new up and coming brand, or even a legacy brand, I like to have brands on who have an authentic story and beginning that they wanna share. And I try to dissect that in a way that I extract insights that really, if you are a planner, if you’re a creative, a designer, uh, account person, if you’re listening to it, you can apply those insights directly to your work. And that’s really what I’m trying to do is, is give people kind of like a marketing insights, 1 0 1 that if you need, if you have 20 minutes from your day and you wanna listen, but you can listen to that and extract and apply to your work. Awesome.

John Jantsch (21:48): So you wanna tell people where, uh, they can find out more about, uh, brand Kuo and, uh, your work. Sure.

Jacqueline Lieberman (21:54): Yeah. Uh, so you can go to, uh, dub, dub, dub, brand crude.com and on there’s a link to uncooked we’re on apple, Spotify anywhere you, you know, get to podcast, but, but yeah, you can find everything there on brand crude.com.

John Jantsch (22:08): Awesome. Well, Jacqueline, it’s a pleasure spending time with you this afternoon and hopefully, uh, we can run into each other when we’re back out there on the road someday.

Jacqueline Lieberman (22:15): Wouldn’t that be nice. that would be great. Thanks so much, John, for having me.

John Jantsch (22:20): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and, you know, we love those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients, and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your client’s tab.

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Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the MarTech podcast, hosted by my friend, Ben Shapiro brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes, the MarTech podcast shares stories from world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve of business and career success. Recent episode, one of my favorite extending the lifetime value of your customer. You know, I love to talk about that. Listen to the MarTech podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:45): Welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jan. My guest today is Oliver Burman. He’s the author of the anecdote, happiness for people who can’t stand positive. Thinking for many years, he wrote a popular column on psych for the guardian newspaper. And he’s got a new book out that we’re gonna talk about today called 4,000 weeks time management for mortals. So Oliver, welcome to the show.

Oliver Burkeman (01:12): Thanks Very much for inviting me. I,

John Jantsch (01:14): I, I have to ask this. Do you, did you study psychology at all or were you just practicing on your readers?

Oliver Burkeman (01:21): uh, when I was studying things, I wasn’t doing mu I did a little bit of psychology. I mainly studied political science when I studied things. No. And then I was practicing on myself and on my readers. Yeah. Trying to be upfront about that. I wasn’t claiming to have certifications, but yeah. Yeah. It was sort of a, a constant work

John Jantsch (01:38): In progress. Well, I know it was very popular column. I went back and looked at a few and we’re able to work a little humor in which I think is probably always good in, uh, psychology study. First off, I’m gonna tell you, I love this book, but when I got into it, I found it a little depressing because unfortunately you tell us that, or at least all I hear is that pretty much, we’ve gotta give up the fight and I’m thinking, where are the hacks? And that’s obvious, that’s the point of the book, isn’t

Oliver Burkeman (02:04): It? Yeah. And I think I’ll accept depressing as a sort of initial assessment until you’ve let this viewpoint permeate you. I do very passionately believe that where this leads is not depressing. And I think it’s crucial. There’s a distinction here, right? Isn’t there because it’s, you should give up the it’s about giving up the fight when it comes to using time, but it about giving up the fight to do something that is not possible. Yeah. Which is to do everything, to become perfectly productive and optimized. Yeah. The reason you give up that fight, I think, or should give up that fight is in order to have the time, energy and attention and focus to do some incredibly cool things with your short time on earth. It’s you can tell it’s a question that gets me going, cuz I, I, I don’t want this to be a council of despair. Right. It’s kinda coming back down to earth. Yeah. In a way that lets you get roll up your sleeves and get down to

John Jantsch (02:52): Business. But I’m guessing there are some people out there that are challeng you challenging you a little bit because you’ve blown up what we’ve been conditioned to believe. and that sometimes that’s hard, even if we’ve come to the realization.

Oliver Burkeman (03:03): It’s true. I think I have spent a long time as a sort of a productivity geek, right? Trying to implement the latest cool system for doing ever more and becoming perfectly optimized and all the rest of it. And what happens is because of that, because the goal is impossible because we live in a world of infinite inputs, demands, ambitions, obligations, they’re all effectively infinite become perfectly optimized so that you can do them all. Yeah. You just become in the words of, uh, Jim Benson, the consultant, I quote in the book that you become a reservoir for other people’s expectations, you become what happens is, you know, never decide what you’re saying. Yes and no, to, and as a result, you say yes to everything that other people want need to do, whether it’s right for you or not. Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:46): And there’s plenty of people out there that would rather have you say yes. So another, maybe big dialup of good news is you put a number of 4,000, which is not a very big number, necessarily very defin of what a typical lifespan is. And I must admit I’m sure some people, that number was like, wait a minute. That’s all there is right.

Oliver Burkeman (04:08): 4,000 weeks is not quite 80 years, but I’m using 4,000. Cause it’s a nice round number. Yeah. And in fact, given that I’m talking to a marketing expert, maybe terrifying people out of their pants will prove not to have been why his strategy G for selling a book. But I, I really wanted at the front and at the beginning, get down to the truth of this, which is like, life is finite. It is alarmingly finite when you express it in terms of weeks, but this is reality. And if you can actually confront reality instead of actually I think so many of our kind of supposed productivity techniques and supposed happiness tricks are all basically about helping us avoid yeah. Reality. They’re enabling a problem instead of solving it. And I really think that the more that we can gently push ourselves towards staring reality in the face, it is actually liberating and it’s motivating and not in a kind of terrifying way. It’s okay. This is the situation in which I find myself. Yeah. Now what’s the most extraordinary thing I could do with it.

John Jantsch (05:07): Yeah. And I, I was half kidding about, uh, being depressing, but I do think that we do spend a lot of time shielding ourself from reality and, and pretending that we are in control of, of what’s going on sometimes. And I think that sets the wrong expectation, which then just sets is up for, for fail.

Oliver Burkeman (05:23): Right. And especially, it means that I, I think I’m sure some listeners will know what I’m talking about. Cause I think it’s very widespread feeling. It’s not that you are, it’s not that you fail to get on top of everything and get your life in control. It’s that it always feels like it’s gonna be next week or next month that you’re going to finally get your life in control. And so you’ve end up living for the future, right? You’re putting the whole value of your life at a, at a time other than now. And if you just do that until the end of your life, then you’ve

John Jantsch (05:53): Never lived. I’ve owned my own business for 30 years and I certainly came to the realization there’s always more to do. You’ll never get it all done. And that’s not, I’m not saying that in a depressing way. There’s always more, I want to do. And so I think that they, I think that a lot of what I believe you’re suggesting to people is we get to choose. We just

Oliver Burkeman (06:10): Need to choose. And in fact that you always already are choosing. And if you decide to work on your business for and seven in the morning, till midnight, then there’s something you could be doing with your life outside of those that you’re not doing. So I think once you, this is why I really do find it quite a relaxing perspective shift because it’s not like the advice is to suddenly start making tough choices it’s to suddenly see that you already were yeah. Making tough choices and then you can make them consciously. And I think in a world of when it comes to work, because everything is so endless, if you’re in a job where you’re getting demands from the boss, those demands are endless, but if you’re self employed and you’ve got a million ambitions, those ambitions are endless. It’s the same endlessness. Even though they have a sort of different quality. I, I think what you have to do really is say, okay, I’m going to AO amount of time in the day to work and give them that boundary. What makes the most sense to, to do. And then you really get down to business of weighing one task against another task and seeing what you care about the

John Jantsch (07:10): Most it’s scientifically proven. We will use whatever we will fill, whatever space we have with. And so I think you’re absolutely right. So now I have to tell you, I have, because I’ve own my own business for 30 years, I’ve been trying to run faster. I’ve been trying to do more, be more efficient. So everybody you mentioned in the book, David Allen, the inbox zero guys, the Pomodoro method I’ve done. ’em all dude. Yeah. And I think that you, you really do come to the conclusion that it’s, it’s just like turning up the feed on the treadmill. You run faster, but you are more exhausted

Oliver Burkeman (07:42): And because it’s a treadmill, you’re never gonna get to the end of this thing. Cause it goes right. You’re right. Yeah. I think one thing that’s worth saying, I, I have huge respect for David Allen’s work and I’ve actually found the podo technique recently returning to it again, to have something going for it. I think that it, it’s almost more a quest of the spirit in which you come to these methods than the methods themselves. And if you are adopting a new technique or a new way of organizing your tasks with this agenda in the back of your mind one day, this is gonna enable you to never have to make tough choices again, to be able to do every single thing you’d ever of and never disappoint anybody or make anybody mad with you or say no to anybody. That’s a recipe for disaster. But if you, if you don’t think that if you move through that, to this feeling of, okay, I’m finite, I’m gonna be able to do a few things and not most of the others, once you’re in that mindset, I think getting things done or the podo technique can be totally great ways to, to implement that.

John Jantsch (08:41): Yeah. I actually, I don’t find that I can’t use the por method in my, uh, day to day work because there’s just too many distractions and interruptions. It seems like. And for those that aren’t familiar, it basically you break your day up into 30 minute chunks. You work for 25, you take five off, maybe you put a couple chunks together, then you take a longer break. That’s essentially it. I will say that in writing my books, that I, I found it very useful for that because I would, I would say to myself, I’m gonna write for six days. There’s no six hours. There’s no, no interruptions. There’s not checking email. And so then having that sort of rhythm, uh, really did work for me

Oliver Burkeman (09:16): Also. It, it re I, I totally know what you’re saying. And I, I think it really reminds you that suddenly it becomes much less intimidating, right. Because it’s like, all I have to do is 25 minutes. Right. And then another 25 minutes and then another 25 minutes. Yeah. But that’s all life ever is you all you’re ever doing is spending 25 minutes on something. So I think there’s a really lovely, I think in that kind of time boxing idea, I would count PO as one form of time boxing, although it can be used in this sort of futile quest to become the productivity God or whatever. I, I think that there’s something really lovely there, which is just, okay, it’s it really turns you to the idea of like, I don’t know, tilling the soil or, or it’s like, you feel a bit more like a farmer somehow. You’re just doing the stuff for a little while and you’ll do the same tomorrow and gradually incrementally, like that’s how great things come

John Jantsch (10:08): To be.

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Oliver Burkeman (11:26): Yeah. Tell, yeah. Tell me how sort of Spacey and philosophical you want to get. But I do think there is this very basic shift that we made as a result of industrialization and all sorts of other things from just being time is something that you’re in. It’s like the medium that life unfolds in through to time being like a resource. It’s not the same, you’re separate from it and you’ve got to use it properly and you might be wasting it. And that’s when you, yeah. And it’s something you can sell in the same way that you could sell a physical possession that you had. And I’m not suggesting we should all go back to the lifestyles of medieval farmers cuz they died of horrible diseases.

John Jantsch (12:05): I’ve gone through my entire life without hearing about St. James fire, if you wanted

Oliver Burkeman (12:08): yes, there are some gross diseases, but I do think this, there is something to some wisdom to take from that time and, and unfold into our own very different lives, which is just that it there’s something a little bit, it’s useful to treat time as a resource to think about calendars and yard sticks and timelines, but it’s a tool to maybe pick up and use and then maybe you can put down at the end of the day and when you go onto your deck or walk down the street or go on a stroll in the Hills, you can actually just be instead of trying to maximize every minute of, of that time.

John Jantsch (12:46): So I should have just started with Oliver. What is time

Oliver Burkeman (12:51): Yeah. Is still talking about

John Jantsch (12:55): It. Right. So my grandmother used to say, and she probably didn’t make this up, but if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. And I used to believe that she used to say that about me because she, I would do things for her. And I used to wear those as a badge of honor. Now I realize it’s actually a curse, isn’t it?

Oliver Burkeman (13:10): Yeah. I think you’re talking there about an example of what I call in the book, the efficiency trap, this idea that if you get real, if you only focus on getting really efficient at doing your work in the absence of any sort of bigger sort of value that you are using to determine what you work on, all that’s gonna happen is you get more work, right? Especially you imagine it’s in a sort of corporate setting. If you are the guy in the office who gets ripped for doing projects twice as fast as anyone else, of course, you’re gonna get given more projects to do. What do you expect the reward for? Good time management, as they say is more work. It’s actually, it’s a fascinating, it’s getting us off topic maybe, but it’s a fascinating pattern that occurs in all sorts of areas of life.

Oliver Burkeman (13:51): Like when they widen freeways, they put an extra lane on freeway to ease the can. Yeah. And more cars start using that route. So the congestion goes back to how it was and it’s the same thing, right? If you, all you do to a system is make it more efficient. It’ll just get blocked up with more inputs. So what you have to do, there’s nothing wrong. I don’t think with being a bit more EF about how you do things, but you have to marry that efficiency to like some fairly clear sense of which things you’re gonna be saying yes to, and which things you’re gonna be saying no to. And sure. The person being pestered by the boss may not be in a position to refuse. But to some extent, I think we all have some freedoms to some room for maneuver to say, I’m not just going to focus on getting better at doing more stuff. Like why what’s the point of having done more stuff. There’s got to be some point. Yeah. Let’s talk

John Jantsch (14:41): About a couple of the, of the stuff. Thieves , um, email. That’s the bane of most of our existence today. And I actually, there’s another book in the category called make time. I think it’s called make time or make yeah, great book. And I think they share a similar philosophy. It’s not about getting more done. It’s it’s actually about them just being focused on what you should do. And one of the bits of advice, because that book is a little more about hacks , but one of the bits of advice is, is to just get in the habit of being really slow, to respond to email as you train people that you aren’t going to respond immediately, so they don’t expect

Oliver Burkeman (15:15): It. And again, obviously it’s gonna be different people, different contexts. There are some emails you can’t ignore. But one thing that I have found, I think a lot of people have found in many contexts is firstly, fewer people are going to demand that you solve their problems. If you are a little bit less responsive on email. And secondly, like lots of the things they’re worried about, if you just give it a few days. Yeah. Waited turns out that crisis was never a crisis. Turns out that events went a different way and they, and they, we didn’t need to have that discussion in the first place. And there’s partly, this is a little bit of a humorous point about trying to be strategically a progressed, but there’s something else in that about, I think about just the tempo at which we work, that there can be something counterproductive about working at a really fast tempo. And if you give enough time to see how things go to get feedback, to have time to think about things, you can actually get further faster if you’re

John Jantsch (16:11): Willing to of, uh, one of the original books probably on this, at least that I encountered was Stephen Covey’s seven habits. And he talks about the urgent, but not important. And, and how much of our life is sucked up by

Oliver Burkeman (16:21): That. Yes, absolutely. That’s the Eisenhower matrix. Yeah, absolutely.

John Jantsch (16:25): Chapter four that you just alluded to is probably my favorite chapter. And that’s about, uh, procrastination. And I think that in a lot of ways, what you’re S you, as you said, procrastination, cuz everybody’s, oh, I can, I can do that. What’s that chapter about? But in a sense, it’s really about getting good at what not to do, isn’t it? I think when

Oliver Burkeman (16:42): You live in the world that we live in and you, someone who wants to accomplish things, you’ve got to understand that the key principle time management is figuring out what to neglect when yeah. Rather than figuring out how to fit everything in that’s the treadmill direction that we were talking about. And although of course, on some level I say that I will honor Stephen Covey for having done some path breaking original work here. I’m also a bit rude about in the book because of this very famous, um, thing about the big rocks where you’re supposed to sort of idea that if you make time for your big rocks first you’ll fit everything in. But if you don’t make time for your big rocks first, and there’s a whole story about putting rocks in the jam jar that I’m sure people will be familiar with. Yeah.

Oliver Burkeman (17:30): And what I wanna say is that today, anyway, the problem is there are just too many rocks, right? It isn’t that we haven’t prioritized things in the right way. It’s that too many things feel like they matter and on some level do matter. Yeah. Um, so tough choices are required, but I also think that is quite liberating because once you know that you’re not going to find a way to cram everything in you, that’s a big weight off your shoulders. You can just say, okay, well what’s actually the most meaningful, exciting, lucrative, whatever it might be for you of the things that that I could do. And that is what I mean by being a better procrastinator. It’s like, you’re gonna be procrastinating on a lot of things at any moment anyway. So just try to make sure that they’re the right ones. I

John Jantsch (18:11): Wanna talk about two topics that probably do take us back into the philosophical realm. Again, the first one is mindfulness. I feel like so much of what you’re talking about is we’re constantly chasing the future, even if it’s just mentally chasing the future. And how much joy does that Rob from

Oliver Burkeman (18:27): The, I think that’s really well put, I, I don’t use maybe use the word mindfulness very much because I also don’t want to turn. I was quite deliberately, didn’t want to make this book where the main advice was just like, you’ve gotta meditate because

John Jantsch (18:40): Hang it. That’s what I wanted to hear.

Oliver Burkeman (18:42): people who can meditate and have a good meditation practice. That’s great. I’ve always been a bit patchy at it and I wasn’t going to preach to other people that they should be doing something I find so hard. But, um, yeah, I think a certain amount of instrumentalizing time, certain amount of thinking about what you’re doing now, because of where it’s leading is totally inevitable and necessary. And you can’t live in, you’re never doing that, but we’ve got to a stage, I think more generally by the economic system that we live in, where that’s really everything. Yeah. And you get to the point where it feels like an hour, can’t be well spent if, unless it’s storing, unless it’s working towards some big future accomplishment, even in the field of leisure. And I, by talking the book about how, like we all have we, of people who are always training for 10 K, but never just going for a run.

Oliver Burkeman (19:34): Yeah. And I’ve been that person in other domains as well. And there’s a real, there’s something really sort of ultimately insane. I think even though it’s a societal insanity about living that way, because like you, you just is life, right. You just, if you do that until you, the day you die, then you’ve never had the, you never actually had that moment. So I think it’s a subtle thing because I’m not suggesting that people don’t achieve like work on ambitious projects, but it’s something more about trying if possible to relish them in the moment. Yeah. You’re doing them. Yeah. Rather than just storing up the, the benefits for a later point, because that is a really no way to live. All

John Jantsch (20:20): Right. I’m, I’m gonna finish up on another heavy one. how much is the way we work that you’ve described contributing to, uh, this growing sense of loneliness and depression and all

Oliver Burkeman (20:34): I think, and that’s another sort of angle that I yeah. Get into is I think another of the mistakes we make in terms of what we want out of our time, as well as being hyper productive is this sense of individual sovereignty over your time. Right? So like the, the ideal goal seems to be the perfect life would be that I, I got to decide exactly what I did with any moment of my time. And in this idea of the digital nomad, the, the person who runs their business from a beach, from a top of a mountain, you find this, I, the sort of ultimate expression of this idea, they’re just completely free agents, but lots of them will tell you that it’s a really lonely life because you you’re checked out of the rhythms and the routines that we have commonly that, that make us feel that make life so meaningful.

Oliver Burkeman (21:24): And I think even those of us who are not digital nomads, there’s a lot of this going on in the modern world. If you are a self-employed person, I guess we both are, and you’ve run your own ship in one way, you have a lot of freedom in another sense, you’re not in a rhythm with other people. And there’s no particular reason why some friend of yours who you might wanna see is gonna be on the same rhythm. And so everything gets out of sync. And so I think there’s something to be said for that sort of traditional approach where everyone used to do the same thing on a Sunday, or maybe you even just, if you join an organization, if you join a sports amateur sports team or a choir or band or something, you don’t, you can’t run that schedule. Cause everyone has to agree. So I it’s useful to make a few commitments like that in life

John Jantsch (22:11): As well. You, you referenced a, a very large number of studies and books and researched some of which is quite old. I’m curious as a fellow author, was that, is that, uh, fun for you to, to do that because I, you really came up with some, I would say pretty obscure references in some cases.

Oliver Burkeman (22:29): Yeah, no, I really enjoy, I, I enjoy punching into all that stuff and I enjoy finding and collecting that stuff. And I, and I also sort of, I personally enjoy writing the kind of book that quotes Higer, but also Danielle Steele, I find it fun and interesting to show how these ideas yeah. Pop up in these different places. So yeah, that part of it is really fun for me. The writing process. I wouldn’t say I find that fun. Yeah. But it’s satisfying to have done it. Yeah.

John Jantsch (23:00): Speaking with Oliver Berkman, we’re talking about his book 4,000 weeks, which is available. If you’re listening to this show, it’s available, cuz it’s out. You can invite it anywhere. They get books in Kindle in, in audio book has, as you can tell, he has a very soothing voice. You might wanna listen to seven or eight hours consuming it that way, but, uh, is anywhere else that you’d like to invite people

Oliver Burkeman (23:21): To connect with you? My website, Oliver, burman.com has the rest. I do a, an email every coup couple of times a month called the imperfection, which I’d love people to sign up for if they’re interested.

John Jantsch (23:30): Awesome. Thanks for stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast. And I, I now have an entirely new appreciation for the fact that I can no longer manage time.

Oliver Burkeman (23:41): It’s wonderful. Don’t be depressed about it. thanks, John.

John Jantsch (23:45): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and you know, we love those reviews and comments and just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your client’s tab.

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