LEAN INTO SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS to Find the Motivation to Make Things Done w/ Jon Brosio

[00:00:00] Jon: Great philosopher of our modern day, a one Kanye West once said, ‘We’re all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it.’ For him to admit in a song that he’s also self-conscious, even though we can look at him and clearly think like, oh, he’s got it all figured out. When you lean into that self consciousness, and again, you put in the work, the universe wants you to win. 

[00:00:29] Amardeep: Welcome to the Mindful and Driven Podcast, where we help you to not lose sight of what’s really important whilst chasing your dreams. Today’s guest is Jon Brosio. He is the founder of tribeloyal. Jon originally was a server at high-end restaurants where he serves celebrities in Los Angeles before deciding that he wants to become his own boss for his online business world. He has achieved this and much more. Jon is now an established online writer with millions of views and thousands of followers.His mission is to help other people achieve the same transformation that he achieved himself going from a job that really didn’t make him happy to something that he loves and has full control over.  I hope you enjoy listening to today’s episode. 

[00:01:06] Welcome Jon. It’s great to have you on Mindful and Driven. 

[00:01:08] Jon: Hey, good to see you, Amar. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:10] Amardeep: So the first thing I ask all my guests is, what are some common advice you disagree with? 

[00:01:15] Jon: So I think that’s a pretty cool thing to talk about. I highly disagree with you need a formal education to be successful in this world. And part of the reason I believe that is I work for myself as an entrepreneur. I am a writer by trade. You know, that helps my entrepreneurialism and most people, when I say that they think, oh, you went to school for English, or you went to school for writing or something like that. I went to school for business. I got fired from the only job in the business realm that I had. And now I’ve been able to make something of myself where I had to teach myself. It wasn’t something that, you know, I was given this plan. I was given this formula or education that said, hey, this is how you do it. It was pulling the metaphorical machete out of my back pocket in the jungle and hacking away, making my own way. So I think there’s too much opportunity out in this world that if you’re just courageous enough to look for it and even more courageous enough to take a chance. There’s so much you can do that you don’t need. Of course, unless you’re going to be a doctor, maybe an astronaut, something like that, you probably need a formal education, but for many things you don’t. 

[00:02:25] Amardeep: Yeah, I completely agree and I’ve got a similar background to you. So I started at economics in university, then I went into tech consulting for seven years, which doesn’t really have anything to do with my degree. And then now writing is a big thing too, and it’s the exact same thing. Like I have no formal education or even real experience in writing. So my economics degree was mainly maths be honest, and when I was working the tech world, I wrote the odd blog for my company, maybe five and seven years, but it wasn’t where I built up the skills that I needed to be a writer or a storyteller. And that’s where I think sometimes people don’t think about experience in the right way because writing, working in business, it’s about how you look at the world. It’s not just about experience in that particular area. So I’ve talked to so many people over the years, I’ve traveled, I’ve done different things, and so have you. That gives you a unique perspective and that’s your experience, and that’s what makes you interesting, and it’s what helps you succeed. So the former education can help in some aspects, but in the writing world, as some people have got the basics down and you can use different software to help you, that’s more than enough. Like you don’t need to know, I don’t know the difference between proposition and preposition and all that kind of stuff. I have no idea. So, but that hasn’t stopped me and hasn’t stopped people from enjoying our writing. 

[00:03:50] Jon: Well, I know. And I’d be curious to hear, I guess, your viewpoint. Whenever I write something, whether it’s for my audience or for a client, when I’m doing ghost work or freelance work, there’s this voice in the back of my head that like tries to trick me into saying like, this isn’t good. You should give up. You should pack it all in and go get something that’s more comfortable. Until the client or the audience reads it and goes, oh, this is awesome. Like, thanks for sharing it or thanks for providing this, you know, piece of work. And it’s like, okay, I just needed that reminder. Like, and I don’t think it’s just unique to writers. I think creatives, engineers, probably programmer anything that you’re creating something, like there is that level of doubt that’s going to be there. But until you, again, I’ve used this word already a few times, but like have the courage to do the work and present it. Like the universe wants you to do well. And maybe I’m like just an overfilling optimist look, but the universe wants you to do well, but you have to put in the work to provide to the universe. 

[00:04:48] Amardeep: I think a lot of people struggle to do something which they’re really passionate about, because that little voice in your head, like you said. And because we’re sometimes our own worst critic and with writing and with whatever I’ve done, dancing, anything in the creative space, often I’m, I view it in a much worse way than other people do. And so I completely understand the way you look at that. You weren’t always in writing, you weren’t always an entrepreneur, right? So can you tell me a bit about an earlier time when you struggled with balance and what kind of made you go into the world that we’re in now? 

[00:05:17] Jon: So, what kind of got me into the world that I am in today was a time that I really struggled with balance. I was working in fine dining in LA as a server, and I was smoking cigarettes, which I don’t do anymore. And I was, you know, I’ll have an occasional glass of wine now, but I was drinking kind of heavily. And I was just working in a job that I knew I wasn’t, it wasn’t fulfilling me. My personal life, I was taking on behaviors and doing things that weren’t fulfilling to me. And I was trying to balance everything. And through my own, I won’t even call it serendipity, it ended up being positive, but the place I was working at burned down and everything was taken away from me and I had to kind of start from square one, I was 20, I was in my mid twenties, 25. I had to go on unemployment because my job literally burned to the ground. And I never thought growing up that I would be someone who went on unemployment. Like that was a kind of a stab at my pride. And I had to like reevaluate everything in my life. And so I chose to just start writing to make sense of it. It was really like journalistic writing, but I made it public and that kind of led me to the life that I’m living now. Just one kind of opportunity opened, another opened just through consistency of work. So the way that I was able to like, find the balance, was it’s strange because I felt like spiritually, everything was like shattered. Like I was making a living for myself, but I knew I wasn’t happy. I knew I was actually like miserable. Like the friends I had around me, you know, you’re the average of the five people in your life. Like my average was low. And I needed this, like kind of shake of like, Hey, you’re doing something that you hate and things aren’t working out, and that was taken away from you. Like life can take away things that are miserable. So at least try something that you enjoy and I’ve always enjoyed creativity and writing. And so that helped me kind of see how to get back to finding balance um, was taking a chance on something that I enjoy. When everything else was taken away, so. 

[00:07:27] Amardeep: I remember from previous conversations we’ve had that what you did before you working in this high end restaurant, it was in Hollywood, right? So you had all of these different people from crazy backgrounds that you’d mixed with, and that was in an education itself, right? So even though you might have hated that job, you still learned feelings there and it still helped you with your storytelling and some of the ideas you’ve had, because I know I’ve read some of your stories in the past where you’ve talked about some of the experiences you’ve had, and they were fascinating. Like it was so interesting to see that side of the world that you got to experience. 

[00:07:59] Jon: Yeah. Well, thank you for saying what you said about my, some of my stuff. My work, it is, I think an education that’s kind of hard to put into words of, like, for one, I grew up in middle class in the Chicago suburbs, like, and I was very blessed to have a lot in my life and like cleaning toilets after really rich people get really drunk on expensive wine and make a mess in the bathroom and cleaning up after them it’s like it teaches you humility and meeting someone who like came from nothing has built a life for themselves. Where money isn’t even a conversation anymore that these, some of these people that you meet and like Hollywood and you can pick their brain and say like, oh, I strive to be that someday. And then on the flip side, there’s these people that have everything in the world and they treat you like garbage, because you’re less than them. You’re a server in a restaurant and they identify you with the title that you currently occupy. Those lessons, I think again, like they’re outside of formal education, but they have led to success in my personal life. I could speak for me. Like they have led to a viewpoint, an experience that I think translates to the work that I produce. And I don’t know if I would be where I am again, without those like trials and tribulations in humility, or just seeing what’s possible in another individual and the work they put in and spending two hours kind of orchestrating their dining experience and getting to know them, so. 

[00:09:27] Amardeep: Yeah. How long has it been now? So writing in the creative world for you? 

[00:09:32] Jon: So I’ve been writing since, like consistently, since 2017. So we’re going on five years and actually I made nothing probably the first year and a half. It was just like, okay, let’s just keep exploring. Like, my life is really different right now. I monetized in 2018, I side hustled for a few years still. I was working in different restaurants, because it’s really easy, especially if you’re familiar with food and wine and just hospitality. It’s easy to find a restaurant or a restaurant job, especially in LA. And then I went full time almost two years ago and haven’t looked back, like it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it’s also one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done to be able to be in control of your own financial destiny, to some degree, to do the work that’s fulfilling and meaningful for you and have the freedom. I I’m sure you can relate to that, so. 

[00:10:27] Amardeep: What was the trigger that made you leave the restaurant industry and go full time into what you were doing? Did you have a sense of struggle there to give that up and to fully back yourself? Or were you just ready? 

[00:10:40] Jon: I was getting into my late twenties. I’m 30 years old and it was, do I want to be doing this for the rest of my life? Like if anyone listening has worked in, it doesn’t even need to be restaurants, but like the service industry it’s, you get home at sometimes two o’clock in the morning, depending on what your roles and responsibilities are and your knees are killing you. and it was like at a certain point, like, I can’t look back, you know, I can’t keep doing this. because I knew I didn’t want to own my own restaurant. I have so much respect for the people that do, but now it’s still kind of weird, but I love having a Saturday off because when you work in restaurants, like for I’ve been working in, or I was working in restaurants for so many years, you don’t have those days off. And I want a family one day and I want to like, it’s very Norman Rockwell, but I want to like throw a baseball around with my son. And like, if I’m working all day Saturday at a restaurant, like you can’t do that. And so it was looking forward in my life of like, who do I want to be? What do I want to have and do these things line up? And they didn’t. And it was like, okay, well, we’re going to put a lot of responsibility in making this business work, because it gives me that freedom and let’s not look back. And so far I haven’t. 

[00:12:00] Amardeep: Hi everyone. I hope you’re enjoying the episode so far. I want to take a quick break to ask you to check in with yourself. There’s many people struggling with balance and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. It’s tips that my guests might share can hopefully help you along the way, but if you already feel overwhelmed or burnt out, it’s probably best that you ask somebody for help too. For some, this might be a friend or family member, while others might feel like they have nobody they can talk to. If you’re one of these people, check out the link in the show notes, it’s for United for Global Mental Health. They’ve got health plans all across the world, with people willing to listen on the other side. It’s important to let somebody know how you’re feeling. Now, back to the show. 

[00:12:36] From what I understand, it’s going really well for you now and it’s, we’re both doing the same thing, right? Where our writing was maybe our route out of the world that we were in, but now we’re opening up to other opportunities. And for somebody listening today, it’s you don’t necessarily know what the opportunities are going to be that will make you get up in the morning, right? Where I never thought I’d have a podcast. This didn’t, I never thought I was the kind of guy to do this. But now I love it. And I get to speak to people like Jon and the guests that come on. So you can create the path as you go along as you have as well. And what’s happening with you now? So you you’ve been full time for a couple of years, and I know you’ve got digital products and other things going on. Do you find you have the right balance now? Or are you still struggling a little bit? 

[00:13:21] Jon: No. So there is, and I think struggle is part of being human, but one of the biggest struggles I’m dealing with now, and I know you can relate to this is having built something that, I mean, building a business is like raising a child. I’m not an actual parent, so maybe I’m little bit speaking out of turn, but it like, this is my baby and it’s hard for me to relinquish some control in certain aspects of growing my business. Like I’m looking to hire or contract work out, but I’m coming to a place and the balance I’m trying to find is I have to be okay with this individual that I package everything that’s in my mind and deliver to may not be on their best day, what I can produce on an average day. And you have to be okay with that. And so I’m turning to people like you, I’m turning to other people in my network to help me and coach me. And I think that’s a very important part of growth in any aspect of life that I was very reluctant to in the beginning of this world that I’m living in now is being receptive to coaching, but it’s finding out what works with other people in my network of again, maybe hiring employees or contracting work, virtual assistant because I know the direction I want to go and to have the trust in another individual will help me get there. it terrifies me in giving up that control and I’m trying to find balance there for sure. 

[00:14:48] Amardeep: Yeah. Because as you know, I’ve just hired a virtual assistant recently. And she’s going to be listening to this podcast, obviously. So hi, so what’s great about it is that for me, it came as a recommendation from another creator because I had the same problem as you, right. It’s difficult to give up that control because you have things that the way you like to do them. And a lot of the time we think we do it in such a correct way, but having somebody else look at it, they can come with new ideas that we didn’t think of because they are your audience. And sometimes your audience can come up with better ideas. And how they need to be served than you can. So that that’s one aspect aspect of the way I think about it is, but I think other people involved, it helps me understand how a potential listener could react to a potential audience member, whoever they are. So the nature of what we do is we need customers. We need people to react what we are doing, and it can’t be that we like it. It’s gotta be that other people like it too. So I don’t know If that thought helps you. 

[00:15:42] Jon: Well, yeah. And it’s a balance and because we do work that at times is very solitary. You know, and it’s very deep work oriented, very conscious. You have to tap into flow perhaps a lot and silence out all outside distraction. And sometimes that can, or at least I’ll speak through my own experience. For me, it takes me into places where it’s hard to ask for help because I’m so solitary at times. It’s hard to maybe connect and collaborate because I’m like, no, no, no, this is, this is the path I’m narrowed in on right now. And I know where I’m going and bringing someone else on board or having to teach someone else how I think could open up a whole new avenue. And it’s somewhere I think to what you said, like in this creative world, you didn’t realize you were going to be a podcaster, you know, and create that maybe a number of years ago. And now you did, and you don’t know what this person’s going to help bring out of your blind spot, but it’s really cool to see you, someone I look up to you know, almost in real time going through and I can’t wait to see what happens. 

[00:16:45] Amardeep: It’s one other thing I’m looking at as well in terms of that is trying to reduce the amount of work that I have because, like I said, it’s very conscious thinking. If you’re going to a creative industry, people might look and say, oh, you only work X amount of hours per week. And it’s one of the traps because in those hours each week, you have to think so hard and it’s exhausting. It would be draining. If you’re working in a job and it’s, you have to follow the. Instructions that your boss gives you, it might be a lot of hours, but it might not be as mentally draining as doing your own creative work can be. And it’s something which I’m trying to now watch out for is how can I reduce the cognitive load I have by having less small tasks, I need to do less decisions I need to make through this creating the systems, because the more I can reduce that, it frees up my mental space to then do the stuff that’s more high value and driven and makes a difference. So that’s one way I’m looking at it as well. And I think it eludes to what you’re saying there is how do we reduce our hours of what we already have enough so that we have the free energy and time to be able to take those next steps and to grow as well, because. It’s hard to grow. We’re so busy doing the things that we’ve already done. 

[00:17:54] Jon: Absolutely. I mean, you always want to move the needle, right? Like that’s kind of the aim, I think for any entrepreneurial or business endeavor is to keep moving forward and to keep growing. But when you’re also wearing the administration hat, you become the bottleneck and you see where you can easily slash tasks, but again it’s like, am I okay with giving up that control? Am I okay with it maybe not looking exactly the way I imagine it? Even if it can look better from that other individual or team or, 

[00:18:22] Amardeep: yeah, I think bottleneck is a good word. I do think I am the bottleneck a lot at the moment for myself. And if I can set up those systems properly, it reduces the need for me to do it because some things can’t get done unless I do it. But then I have other things to do as well. And it’s a problem I’m struggling with too. Right now, I’m going through the same thing. I’ve been, it’s been four months for me, and it’s been great being my own boss, but then I’m also now learning more and more about the downsides of that. And how do I continue doing the bits I love, but not holding myself back. And I’d be really interested to see what happens with you in the future as well in terms of how you do this, because I don’t think there’s one right way of doing it, but it’s one of these entrepreneurial struggles, which so many of us deal with. But sometimes people don’t get to see until they do it themselves, because I’m sure somebody listening that right now might be like, I’m going to quit my job and do my own thing and I’ll hire somebody, but it’s so different when it’s your baby and you want to let it go. It’s that emotional side of things. it’s irrational. It’s irrational, right? But it’s hard to let go. It’s hard to be, yes, you can do this. Even though logically, you know, you need to let go. 

[00:19:26] Jon: Yeah. And you know that like, if you can educate or translate processes to another human and humans are so remarkable, like it should be an easy thing. Like it’ll open up so many more doors, but that, to me, like in this like entre entrepreneurial game, like that actually lights a fire under me of, people talk a lot about life as a simulation. Like, I feel like entrepreneurialism is a simulation of like I’m leveling up almost on a daily, like at a daily rate of figuring out new things that I’m capable of or new opportunities that exist in the world. And it’s like, if I just keep following that, listening to my gut, asking for help when I need it, surrounding myself with an amazing community, like I’ll be level a thousand before, too long, you know? And then I’ll look back and just be like, dang, that was an amazing ride. And it already has been, you know. And I’m not willing to that up anytime soon, even with the struggles and the times where things are hard and you’re uncertain. It’s such a gift to be in a situation, I think that we’re both in. 

[00:20:32] Amardeep: You alluded to this earlier. So you mentioned about the dream is to be able to play baseball with your son on a Saturday. What’s the lifestyle you are working towards? What’s, to you, the ideal work life balance? 

[00:20:43] Jon: Yeah, I think that’s an amazing question. So we kind of talked about it a little bit where it’s, I’m focusing on bigger things, because right now I wear two hats and it’s slowly becoming like more percentage on my day as the administrative work, but it’s where I’m in like full destiny of moving the needle, of focusing on bigger creative things. Like, you know, when I focus on the writing aspect, it brings me joy. When I focus on working right now in digital advertising and that’s a puzzle under itself and that like the pursuit of solving that puzzle brings me joy, and I have aspirations to do a podcast as well in the future. You know, to work on that creative project, the idea of that brings me joy. But to also have time where, hey, I don’t need to tell anyone, me and my girl are going to go to Japan for two months, we’re going to start up north and work our way down on the train, have every single piece of sushi that the island has to offer us, and that to me is so much a dream, but also so attainable in today’s world filled with opportunity, especially in the digital landscape. If you can, again, reduce your own bottleneck and make sure that your business is still growing and impact a community impact, if you have employees. And I think it’s all possible. 

[00:22:01] Amardeep: I really like that point as well, because, so I’ve mentioned this before my little sister at a company, they have something called duvet days, which is where, you can wake up in the morning, have no reason whatsoever, call in, say I’m taking a duvet day. You don’t need to be sick. You don’t need a doctor’s note and you get two or three of these a year. And that’s why I want to be able do in my business. I want to be able to say one day, I wake up, I don’t feel in the mood, I want to go out and do something else. I’m not going to do any work. And I’m not at that point yet because there’s too many bottlenecks I’m part of. But that to me is the dream. Like you said, where I can just make these snap decisions, and I have people who work for me or have systems in place that that’s okay. I don’t need to overly plan every single time I want to take time off, and I think it kind of relates to your point about Japan. If you can do that where you can say, okay, I’m going to go to Japan. Last minute decision and I’m confident that everything’s going to be okay. That’s such a nice position to be in. 

[00:23:02] Jon: Wait. So you’re telling me you’ve been doing this almost six months and you haven’t taken a day off? 

[00:23:06] Amardeep: No, I’ve taken days off, but I need to plan in advance. I can’t just decide in the morning, I’m not going to go to work or I’m not, I’m not going to do anything today. 

[00:23:14] Jon: Got it. 

[00:23:15] Amardeep: I have to kind of think in advance, like, oh, let me make sure I get stuff done so that tomorrow I don’t have any worries? 

[00:23:20] Jon: Yeah. 

[00:23:20] Amardeep: I can’t just decide on that day. Oh yes. Screw it. I’m not doing anything. 

[00:23:24] Jon: Oh yeah. I think that would eat away at me for days afterwards knowing like the things that started to unravel as I just, you know, took the day off. Yeah. you have to plan. Okay. I gotta work extra hard so that stuff’s still going to happen tomorrow. 

[00:23:42] Amardeep: So this summer I haven’t really experienced it yet. I haven’t taken a long period of time off. Have you been doing that during, you’re are full-time so you’ve been full-time for over two years, you said, have you had an extended break yet? 

[00:23:53] Jon: By extended, it would be perhaps I did like a week last year and that’s really like the extent of it, but I’m still working the whole time. Don’t get me wrong. Like I did a road trip last year and like, while, when we got to the destination, there was still being done. Because I just, it’s like, it’s weird when you, when you work for yourself, because you know, like no one eats, unless you show up and do the work, and I don’t have certain things in place where I know it’s getting done or created or shipped or sent. So yeah, I was on vacation, meaning I was somewhere else, and I was enjoying myself, but there was still work getting done. I couldn’t get away from it. 

[00:24:35] Amardeep: How many hours at the moment do you think you work a week? 

[00:24:38] Jon: I mean, it’s really hard. I was thinking what you said earlier about like, you know, I only work X amount of hours a day, but I feel like that’s only you measuring actual output. because there are these like cerebral things that go into it, whether it’s planning, forecasting, things like that, that I don’t necessarily count as like hours worked. Though, if someone else were maybe to look from the inside out there, like, no, no, no, put in probably every day, six to eight hours of like conscious work, knowing, like the way I see it, and it generally comes out to that timeframe, is there’s three, like demons that face us every single day. Those demons can be health oriented. They can be work oriented. That’s a lot of my life right now is their work oriented. And it’s like, if you can slay or at least, acknowledge and approach and battle plan against those three demons, then the day is worth your while. Then the day has been a success. And in my world they generally take up a lot of conscious effort. That’s like deep work minded things, site building, advertising right now is a big part of my life. Writing email marketing. They take a lot of work, but it’s generally like three huge tasks and everything else. Maybe the other half of the day is the administrative stuff that I’m looking to slay as well. 

[00:25:50] Amardeep: So do you have three different demons every day, do you think? Or is it health, work and, 

[00:25:54] Jon: Oh, no. Most of it’s like three work demons. My health, like before this podcast, it’s in the morning for me. Like I went for a three mile run. That’s been pretty automatic in my life. Like health being proactive with my health has been pretty automatic for many years now. So I don’t consider that like a demon, but for another individual it easily could be. For me, it’s like the three demons I try to have it be work oriented. Like it’ll be write a thousand word article and pitch it to a publication in one day. Not pitch it, I mean I edit it the next day, once I’ve had a time to step away from it. But most of mine are like work related or it’s get the entire framework right now, like with digital advertising, let’s get the entire audience framework, set up, get my five ad creatives, get all the different copies, and start the testing phase over seven days, you know, that that’s like a big demon in my world. So today is the day where I analyze the testing, so it’s an exciting day. 

[00:26:47] Amardeep: Oh, hopefully it goes well. 

[00:26:49] Jon: Yeah. Hopefully. 

[00:26:49] Amardeep: What’s one mindset shift, you think that people listening today could make, that would make a positive difference to their lives? 

[00:26:55] Jon: When I was in college, I remember like just laughing with my friends and then it stuck with me ever since. I made a joke, and I was probably, had probably had maybe like a little whiskey in me and I’m like entertaining, like a small audience of my friends and stuff, and I was like the great philosopher of our modern day, a one Kanye west once said, ‘We’re all self conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.’ And like people get like laughed, because I was of course, like painting this picture. People thought maybe I was going to actually do a philosopher. But I think that that idea has held with me now for more than a decade in the sense that this guy who say what you want about him, like people say he’s crazy, he’s mentally unstable, for him to admit in a song that he’s also self conscious, even though we can look at him and clearly think like, oh, he’s got it all figured out, really hit me, like what we were talking earlier is I still get anxiety when I create something, whether it’s for an audience or a client in thinking that the work is sub satisfactory until I get positive comments or a positive email back, or the client’s like, this is exactly what we were looking for. And I think when you lean into that self consciousness, and again, you put in the work that’s, in my opinion, the most important part is it’s not just recognizing it, but it’s actually following through with you or personal commitments and doing the work. The universe wants you to win. And we’re all self-conscious. We all think that what piece of art or creativity that we put in front of the world is going to be just criticized, unbelievably, but most human beings, we all want the same thing. We all want to be happy. We want to do work that fulfills us. We want to build community. And I think, the way the world, especially like our space, is constructed now is like, there’s just too much opportunity that it’s not even a competition with other creators or writers, or it’s just a competition with yourself. Are you going to do the work that you promised yourself when you woke up this morning? And if the answer is yes, and you can show that work. Again, I hate belaboring the point, but the universe wants you to win. So lean into the self consciousness. 

[00:29:10] Amardeep: Yeah. I think that’s a really good point about doing the work as well, because it’s not just with professional things as well. Being self aware, people think that’s the end and it’s not, you can acknowledge you have problems, but just knowing you have the problem, doesn’t fix it. So that is the point about, work out what your struggles are, work out, what’s going on, but you also need to try and figure out what steps you can take to make a change to that. So I think sometimes people say, oh, you can admit you’ve got a problem. Great. And congratulations. But then if you still live with that problem and don’t do anything about it. You’re still having the same problem just because, you know, you’ve got it. Doesn’t make it any better. And that’s what you said about putting in the work afterwards. That’s what really makes a difference. So it’s a two step process. 

[00:29:55] Jon: Yeah. I’m no expert and I’ve never been an AA, but of course it’s like very famous that they say the first step of admitting or that knowing you have a problem is admitting it, what they don’t ever say is like, well, what are the 11 steps after that? Because those are probably equally as important and yeah, like. I was in this world where I was unhealthy, doing things that I shouldn’t have been doing, working at a place that was bringing me misery, and it was like, I could easily just go home, tell my roommate, hey, I’m not satisfied with my life. And he’s such a great friend that he would be like, okay, do something about it. because it just admitting it’s not enough, like I think people do that all the time and then they wonder, well, why am I still here? It’s because like you need to show up. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Stephen Pressfield, but he’s a writer. His like most famous work is the war of art. He was a truck driver. He ended up like being a lumberjack in like Oregon. He was living in like a shack that didn’t even have heating. And he says like every human being, while it might look different, for each human being, every human being is like, met with resistance every day. And resistance is, oh, I’ll get to it tomorrow. Or it’s not that important to call that person back or whatever it looks like, and as long as you can, again, like confront the resistance, but more importantly, do something about it and overcome it, things will start to take shape. I didn’t realize that I would have an email list of multiple thousands of individuals and have a following of almost 20,000 people on Medium and all of these things when I just told myself, hey, for 30 days, I’m going to write the world showed me opportunities as a result of putting in the work. But I didn’t really have a plan or now I have plans because I can see things more clearly, but when you’re at a starting point, just show up. It’s the most important thing you can do. 

[00:31:46] Amardeep: Sometimes people lose themselves in the massive dreams whereas you said, you just start at 30 days. So you liked writing, you knew you’re unhappy, so why not try something that makes you happy for 30 days. And I think that some people listening right now could try it. It doesn’t have to be writing. Maybe you enjoy painting. Why not do some painting every evening for the next 30 days. What’s stopping you. You can spend 10 minutes on it. If you can find something like that in your life, who knows where it’s going to take you, right? Like we didn’t realize by writing a little bit that we’d then quit our jobs and go full time and do all this other stuff. But it just taking those first steps and putting in the work afterwards. So you do a bit, you learn a bit, you do some more. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you, Jon, where can the listeners hear more from you? 

[00:32:33] Jon: You can go to my website, tribe, tribeloyal.com. Anything I have a lot of free resources things that can get you started. If you want to enter this world, that me and Amar in, I’ve recently started producing on bitclout, Jon_Brosio on bitclout and you can follow me on Instagram too, jonBrosio one word. I don’t spell my name with an H though. So it’s J O N Brosio B R O S I O. I’m not too active, but if you want to see what I do in my personal life, you can catch me out there too. 

[00:33:05] Amardeep: And the final thing to finish up on is, what’s one small thing that’s brought you joy recently? 

[00:33:10] Jon: It was the end of July of this year, into early August. I’ve lived on my own, what I mean by that is like away from my family. I live in Los Angeles and I grew up in the Chicagoland area. But before I lived in LA, I lived in Boston and I’ve lived away from my family for quite some time now being on my own and in July and August, I had the opportunity because I had to straddle a wedding for a close friend, my parents renewed their vows, and my mom’s 60th birthday, I had an opportunity to spend two weeks living with them. It was just the three of us and their dog, Jay, but It was the most amount of time I’ve had being like cooking with my parents and being really close to my parents for an extended period of time, even though it was only two weeks, first time in almost a decade. That meant a lot to me, and it brought me a lot of joy and to see, you know, after 10 years I see them on holidays and random trips, you know, to be a part of their life again was really awesome and something I won’t forget anytime soon, for sure. 

[00:34:18] Amardeep: If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, I’d love it If you could leave me a five star review, it really helps get the message out further. Wherever you’re listening, it would be awesome If you could subscribe and share in your social media channels. If you want to see more of my work and advice, you can find all of the links in the show notes. 

Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a lovely day.