Throwback Episode! with Jon Acuff

Julie [00:00:32]:
I feel like we have so many new listeners to the podcast, which is amazing. And because you’re new, you might have missed some of the episodes that were recorded before your time, so to speak, and one of those episodes is with my friend, John Acuff.

Now, John Acuff is an author, a speaker, and really a goal setter. He’s a New York Times best selling author, and since this particular conversation has published more books, he’s got communities around goal setting.

He kinda wraps his lessons in humor, and for over 20 years, he’s helped some of the biggest brands tell their story. He lives in Tennessee. He’s married. He’s got 2 daughters.

He’s just a really cool guy. And if you’re looking for a personal growth book to start, I highly encourage you to start with John’s books. So sit back, maybe take some notes, and get ready to listen to this throwback episode with my friend, John Acuff.

He’s a New York Times bestselling author of 7 books, including his most recent Wall Street Journal number one bestseller, Finish, Give Yourself the Gift of Done. He’s an Inc Magazine top 100 leadership speaker and has spoken to 100 of thousands of people at conferences and companies around the world, including one where I met him many years ago.

His highly engaged social media audience includes nearly 300,000 Twitter followers, more than 187,000 Facebook followers, and more than 125,000 Instagram followers. And he lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and 2 teenage daughters. Today on the podcast, author, speaker, John Acuff.

Transform Your Thoughts: Jon Acuff’s Guide to Positive Soundtracks

Julie [00:02:20]:
His latest book, Soundtracks, was released in April 2021 and is already a bestseller. And I’m telling you right now, you are going to wanna take notes in this podcast. John is relatable. He is knowledgeable. He is funny, and his books are gold. If you have not read Soundtracks, run. Do not walk. Run to your local bookstore.

We are talking with John Acuff today, and I think this book is your best one yet. I’ve read all of them. I think this is, it’s just so good. And the timing is good. It just couldn’t be better.

John [00:03:13]:
People go, did you write it during the pandemic? And I was like, no. Like, I didn’t have my most creative thoughts during the… I don’t know about the average person. Like, so for me, Yeah. I couldn’t wait for it to come out because I knew it was gonna help people.

And the way I’ve been saying it is I felt like in the pandemic, the world got covered with water, and I had spent 2 years learning how to swim. So I had all these tools about how I think, and I couldn’t wait to get them into somebody else’s hands and go, hey. Hey. Hey.

The world kinda went sideways, and it’s easy to overthink things right now. Even simple things are complicated, but here’s what you can do with your thoughts. And that’s been really fun to see people get it instantly.

I’ve never had a book people got so quickly, and that’s been really fun.

The Concept of Soundtracks

Julie [00:03:58]:
Well, I think people in general, but in terms of what this book is about, which is overthinking, often believe they’re the only ones who do it, or it’s a condition specific to them.

And when you wrote this book and, you know, the women that I work with too, as if they’re reading it and we’re reading it and for them to go, oh, oh, everyone has this. Yeah. And even a guy, I mean, it was so eye opening that I think that’s what makes the book so powerful.

John [00:04:29]:
Yeah. I think it’s interesting because it is one of those challenges that everybody thinks they’re the only one. And then, like, we did a study, this PhD, Mike Peasley, who helps me. And we asked 10,000 people if they struggled overthinking, and 99.5% of them said yes.

So it’s not a personality type. It’s not a gender thing. It’s not, oh, if I was stronger, I wouldn’t have this. Or if I was more successful, I wouldn’t overthink. Like, everybody does it to some degree.

Like, you could argue, oh, certain personality types might be more prone to it, whatever. But at the end of the day, everybody does it to some degree, and I think there’s real freedom in knowing that, and then kinda working through that.

And every podcast I do, I get another example. I was just on a podcast today, talking about soundtracks, a broken soundtrack. And a soundtrack is just my phrase for repetitive thought.

And the host said, yeah, growing up, his name was Scoggins. And he said, my dad used to say all the time, the Scoggins don’t get ahead.

How soundtracks affect personal perception and behavior

John [00:05:27]:
We get by. That was their terrible family motto. And as a kid, that has a lot of weight to it. And so he said I had to work hard to leave that broken soundtrack in the past. And so I think once you… this is a Trojan horse book because the stuff is simple.

Like the questions I teach you to ask, the processes are pretty simple, but if you sit with it for half a second, you go, oh, wait a second. This is hurting my business or hurting my diet or hurting my writing process. That’s what’s fun to me.

John [00:06:33]:
Well, think about, like but which parts? Like, you’re too much. Which parts? Which parts am I supposed to turn down? And which, you know, like and where, you know, where’s the line where it’s like too much Julie, not enough Julie?

Like, what you know, like, how do you even it’s such a confusing map for, you know, for for the day to go, hey. You just have to guess. We’ll let you know when you’ve, you know, and then you go, which parts do I shut down? How much do I leave? Like, what part do I leave in the parking lot when I go into this situation?

And so, yeah, it gets really complicated versus going like, no, like, I’m loud. Some people are quiet and we’re both great. Like, and we, you know, like, and I’m gonna express that.

Julie [00:07:10]:
And I know I’ve asked you this before, but I would love to hear you talk about this here because I work so much with females. Sure. I think this feels like a female-ish situation concept mindset, but in your book, there are so many male examples of it too, which means it’s a human condition.

John [00:07:30]:
Yeah. And I think that was what was fascinating. So we tested the ideas of thousands of people, and there were so many men that were like, oh, yeah. Here’s this thing I’m doing.

And it could be everything from, like, there was a great example from this guy, Sal Saint Germain, who one of the questions I teach people to ask is, is it true?

And so his company, he felt, like, handcuffed by the parent organization. So we’ve all been in a situation where, like, if my boss only got it, oh, if the leaders don’t we could do so much. So he said, okay. I’m gonna go ask if it’s true.

He asked his boss if it’s true, and they said, no. We’re waiting for you to tell us what to do. You’re the experts. And it changed them from being victims into partners, and they saved $14,000,000.

So that’s the, you know, one of my favorite examples of when I say creativity and productivity, like that’s an example, they were going to lose $14,000,000 until Sal was brave enough to go, we feel like we’re handcuffed. Is that true? And he said it wasn’t true.

And so I think that’s one of the things that I like about the book is there are a lot of examples from men.

And then you could argue that men have a harder time expressing their feelings or they don’t know they get access to those emotions. But I look at this and go, like, even say you are, you know, is an all male environment and it’s a bunch of salespeople and they’re hard driven and it’s like, go, go, go, go, go.

Like there’s things that you’re probably listening to that might not be helpful. So maybe for me, the one that I use as an example is I saved the day in this terrible situation with a company.

And I learned at that moment, it was like 12 years ago. I can function in a crisis. That’s a great lesson. It’s a great lesson, But soundtracks tend to deteriorate.

They never improve on their own without effort. Like, I never meet somebody who goes, yeah. I didn’t do anything, and I just got healthy. Like I just noticed one day, like I was in shape.

I just didn’t really just wake up one day… Same with your thoughts.

Your thoughts don’t tend to go positive. They tend to naturally go negative, and you have to take work that you know, I say fear comes free.

Hope takes work. And so for me, I can function in a crisis over time. I function best in a crisis, and that’s a small shift, but it’s a big one. And then that changed from I function best in a crisis to I need a crisis to function.

And there’s leader after leader who you work with. They’re great at putting out fires.

When there’s not a fire, they feel worthless, so they create a fire to feel worth. And so now you’ve got a fire starter in your midst. And so that, you know, so for me, I would say to a sales team, like, I guarantee that you don’t like, I don’t, you know, get overly emotional about it, but I go Google study this.

Here’s what Google found about kindness and Google makes bajillions of dollars a year. Maybe they’re onto something or like, hey, here’s a study that NYU did about how your thoughts shape your actions.

If you want to have better actions, we should look at our thoughts. You miss so much of life. If you decide thinking is a soft science that won’t help me improve versus going, I’m gonna get in there and really figure it out because I’m a grinder. I wanna succeed.

Like, I’m a high performance dude too. Like, this is book 7.

John [00:10:33]:
I’m working on book 8. Like, I get that. I’m never gonna tell you just light a candle and hope. Like, I’m not I’m not gonna it’s not gonna be soft like that, but I am gonna say, like, there’s value in doing that work, and that work does change your performance.

Julie [00:10:47]:
Well, the work not just changes your performance, it changes your life. So I guess the first step is maybe coming back to previous books or just coming back to research is becoming aware that the soundtrack exists, because it took me a long time to actually be able to crystallize, oh, that’s a, that’s a soundtrack that was put on me by someone else. I’ve internalized it.

I made it my own, but actually, it’s from someone else. So it took a while to figure that out. And then it takes the rest of your life to create a new soundtrack around that. So how do you suggest people start to become really self aware of what those thoughts are?

John [00:11:35]:
Yeah. I mean, I think the easiest way, the simplest way, if you said to me, okay, John.

How do I even know if I have a broken soundtrack?

That’s a great question. I mean, most of us have never thought about how we think, so it can feel a little foreign.

So the easiest path is you write down one thing you wanna do.

Write down a hope, write down a desire. It can be, I wanna start a podcast. It can be, I wanna move to a new city.

I’ve always wanted to live in Colorado. It can be, I wanna get married. I wanna have kids. I wanna start my own business. It can be small. I wanna walk around the neighborhood one time to start my fitness journey. Whatever it is, Write down a hope, write down a desire, and then listen to the first thoughts that come next.

Like, listen to your reaction because every reaction is an education. If your first thoughts aren’t propelling you forward, then there is a broken soundtrack.

So when somebody says something, you react a certain way, you’re educating yourself. Oh, wait a second. When this person says this, I just… every reaction is an education, so you start to pay attention to your reactions. If you find something that you don’t like and you go, oh, wow.

I didn’t even know I was doing that. Then you take it to those 3 questions that we’ve talked about.

3 questions to challenge and discard false beliefs and assumptions that hinder personal growth and relationships.

1. The first one, is it true? Is this thing I’m telling myself true?
2. 2nd question, is it helpful? Because sometimes it is true.
3. The third question is, is it kind?

Like, if you said, you know, maybe you say I wanna do a podcast and you say your first thought is, I don’t know how to podcast. That’s true. But is it helpful to say that over and over and over again? Does that make you more curious? It doesn’t. It holds you back.

If I said it to a friend, would they still wanna be my friend? And when I do podcasts, it’s funny because often in the middle of them, it turns into a one on one conversation, not a topical conversation.

A lot of podcasts, they get your bio, they get your book, and they think they’re going to talk topically. But then when you get into this concept, you’re like, wait a second. I have some of these.

John [00:13:28]:
My favorite example recently was a podcaster said in the middle of the conversation. Oh no. And I was like, what? And he said, I’ve had the number one podcast in my category for 9 months in a row.

And the soundtrack I’ve been telling myself over and over is you’re just lucky. You’re just lucky. You’re just lucky.

And he said if a friend came over and worked for 9 months really hard, I would never say, you’re just lucky. So if I wouldn’t say it to him, why ain’t that saying it to me?

And so if you can’t say yes to those 3 questions, you probably have a soundtrack you should retire.

Julie [00:13:56]:
Wow. I’m still processing the reactions as an education because that’s such a beautiful you know, I talk about that a lot in terms of fitness and health and in the tracking is just data.

It’s just data points for you so that you can make better decisions. And so your reactions become data for you to create a better soundtrack.

John [00:14:20]:
They’re trying to teach you it’s the, will we learn the lesson? You know, how many times will I have to have the reaction to learn the lesson? You know, and the faster you can notice it, the faster you can change. That, you know, that’s my opinion.

Julie [00:14:35]:
So this is your 7th book.

And would you say that the 6 previous were like, do you think that you write kind of in a vacuum, or are you or is this kind of a journey of what you’re what you had to write the others to kinda get to here?

John [00:14:54]:
So I think everyone builds on it. I think, yeah, just like life is always kinda stacking on top of itself. I don’t I couldn’t have written this book as a 27 year old. Like, I needed life. I needed interaction.

So I don’t think I write in a vacuum, but I think that, you know, my books tend to have, a bit of a personal story. I’m in the same trench as you are. I’m learning something. I wanna move you to transformation. I want it to be actionable. I want it to really help people.

I want it to be funny in unexpected ways so that it’s enjoyable to read. Like, you know, if you, you know, if you said what’s my soundtrack for how I write, I try to make people laugh so much they don’t realize how much they’re learning.

You know? How do I do that? So yeah. But the vacuum part, I would say I’ve opened up the conversation by changing the process from in previous books, I didn’t have the benefit of research. They’re great books, I just didn’t have that benefit.

So now what happens is I go, I have an idea in this office, and I think it’s an idea that’ll be helpful, and I work on it, work on it, work on it, and then I partner with Mike Peasley, this again, the researcher that helps me, and we share the idea with thousands of people and say, hey. Test this idea with us. And I have generous readers who will go, I’ll try that for a month.

Like, I’ll work on that. I’ll give you survey feedback and survey data. We try try try it, and then two things happen. I realize which parts are really good that I should amplify, which I realize which parts aren’t good and aren’t helpful.

And then I get real stories so they’ll know when it’s finally in a book, you can identify with somebody other than me. If I’m the star of the story, that’s really narrow. Like, but if I open it up and go, here’s what LaShelle did. Here’s what this single mom did.

Here’s what Colleen Barry did when she lost her job. Here’s what Mark, a CEO, did. All of a sudden, it’s a much wider story, and the ideas are better because they’ve been tested.

But the stories are easier to identify with because it’s not just another version of Jon Acuff story. That it’s super narrow. The only person that helps is Jon Acuff. But if I will be part of the story, but then invite other people into it, it’s a much bigger story.

Julie [00:16:57]:
So which stories that you encountered in the writing of this book are the ones that have stuck with you the most?

John [00:17:05]:
Easy. Colleen Barry. I just mentioned her. So Colleen was one of the first people like, I would go online and I’d say to my audience, hey. Here’s this thing I’m working on. Has this ever happened to you? And then if I found a good example, I’d follow-up with a phone call. We’d kinda dig deeper.

And so Colleen lost her job, during the dotcom kind of bust, in Boston.

She was a documentary filmmaker, like a sexy Austin job, who had to get a bunch of different jobs to survive, you know, making pizzas. She was a receptionist in an office, and she decided there’s not a path forward for me in this role, so I’m gonna make one.

I’m gonna figure this out. She changed her mindset. She wrote some new soundtracks, and today, she’s the CEO of that company.

I knew it when I interviewed her for the book that I wanted her to be in the podcast. And so I interviewed her for the podcast because she just has such a fresh way of looking like one of the things that she told me, she said, it’s like when anybody gets stuck, she goes, they run into some problem.

John [00:18:03]:
And they’re like, okay, I guess I’m going to quit. She said, if you’re in traffic and you had a meeting and you got stuck in construction, you don’t just stop there. You don’t turn the car off and go, I guess I live here now until this is done.

Like, this is it. Like, you find another route. And she’s like, so when the thing doesn’t work, imagine you’re in traffic. Go. Looks like we gotta reroute. Like, looks like we’re gonna, like you would never give up in that moment and be like, so, like, 3 months, I’ll just get my mail here. Like, I have to like, I ran into an obstacle, so I had to stop here.

And so, like, she just had so many bits of wisdom like that. So, yeah, that’s definitely the story that just knocked me off my feet, and that’s why she’s in the first chapter.

Julie [00:18:37]:
Well, and it reminds me of parenting too. If this was a parenting situation, you wouldn’t just say, yeah. I’m done. Like I’m just done. I’m a sucky kid.

John [00:18:49]:
I have a sucky 14 year old. I guess they’ll deal heroin. This is it. Yeah.

Julie [00:18:54]:
No, you would figure it out and you would work on you to help you figure it out. And why would that be any different in business, any other relationship, whatever it is. So that’s such a great way. Yeah. She’s a great example. I really loved her story. She was so fun.

John [00:19:10]:
The best. And so and then so and I learned so much from that. That’s the fun thing about writing a book is you get to learn a lot.

Julie [00:19:16]:
So when we talked earlier as well, we talked about how you wanna take this idea and really expand it into concepts for kids, concepts for families, concepts. Talk to us about that because I think that’s

John [00:19:31]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, that wasn’t anticipated either. That’s been one of the surprises is that how many parents have said, I’ve talked to my kid about it, and they’re already quoting back new soundtracks to me.

So, you know, versus going, I’m not good at math. That’s a broken soundtrack, like to declare as a 9 year old, I’m not good at math. And then you practice that for years years years years years.

Julie [00:19:52]:
You’re talking to me. Are you talking to me with that soundtrack right there?

John [00:19:55]:
Maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re not. I don’t know. I don’t know your relationship with math

Julie [00:19:59]:
To be honest it’s not a good one.

John [00:20:00]:
Sounds like it’s not a good one. But, like…

What’s been interesting is kids get this concept faster than adults because a kid doesn’t have 20 years of broken soundtracks to unlearn. When you tell a kid the truth, they sprint with it. Like, they get it and they’ll say it, they’ll say it back to you.

And so that’s been really, really fun. And that’s, what’s interesting is once you discover the concept, you, you start to go, wow, individuals have. Couples…relationships have soundtracks. Marriages have soundtracks, companies have soundtracks, you know, families have soundtracks.

Personal Life Enhancements: Using Micro Soundtracks 

John [00:20:32]:
And so, like, one of ours, a micro soundtrack for our family is we don’t show up hungry. So, like, when we go on a road trip, if we’re going to somebody’s house and we’re staying there that night, we don’t show up like hot mess hungry, like feed us dinner also, like in less dinners part of it, we don’t show up hungry.

We’ll stop an hour before and eat and then show up. And that’s a micro soundtrack for a macro soundtrack, which is to be considerate of others. Yeah. So the micro one is, here’s how we execute it. It’s an action. We don’t show up hungry.

John [00:21:01]:
That’s a family that’s a family soundtrack. But it’s really about we’re considerate of other people. And so you’ll start like every family has those just most of the time, just like a company. A lot of them are accidental.

You know, a lot of them weren’t put in place on purpose. And if you stop to go, wait a second. Like the lesson I teach companies is what’s the difference between the actual and the aspirational?

So, like, today, what’s our actual what’s our aspirational?

How big is the gap, and how do we close that gap between those two things?

A broken soundtrack is like, for example – never assume no for somebody. If you haven’t asked them, don’t don’t pre assume no. Give them the chance to say it versus going, okay, nobody’s going to want this. They won’t like that. We don’t, we don’t know.

Or like another soundtrack that you see in companies is, all our customers are mad and you go, all isn’t a number. Like, so how many? And, I guarantee in most cases, it’s 2 people because we’re being conditioned by, like, by, you know, Internet stuff.

Oh, there was a huge backlash. And if you read the article you read, it was 4 people with a total of 80 Twitter followers. That’s the huge backlash, and that’s seeping into corporate culture where we go Mhmm.

Or even your team. Like, you’ll have somebody go a bunch of people were mad. Like, everyone was mad. You go, everyone is like, it was 2 people. How many followers do you have? I have 1,000. 2 out of a 1,000? Aare they the president? Is it the are they the CEO of the 1,000? If they’re not, like, 2 out of a 1,000, forget it.

Julie [00:25:36]:
So it’s the same concept as, well, everyone’s judging me or everyone will think this if I do this.

John [00:25:43]:
Yeah. No. You don’t know. Not everyone. Like, you know, it’s not and if you’ll stop and be patient and go, has it happened before? Like, is that true? Or does it just feel like everyone, cause that’s different, like, you know, and then like, and then I’ll say, well, evidence beats emotion.

Evidence beats emotion

So you might feel like that, but like, let’s look at the evidence. And if you can kind of lean into that, I mean, it happened to me the other day. There was something that I, that I sell as part of my company and I was like, we gotta blow it up.

John [00:26:10]:
And my project manager was like, Hey, real quick. What was the revenue that generated last year? And like, we looked up the numbers and it was 3.4 percent and I was going to put all this time and energy into it. And I was like, yeah, you’re right. We try.

Because if I doubled it, it’s still only 6.8%. Yeah. What was happening was it was easier to deal with this small little thing that was a distraction than to do the hard work of writing a new book.

So, of course, I’m gonna be like, here’s this thing. Like, we gotta put a ton of time and energy, and my project manager called me out on it and said, I think that’s a broken soundtrack. I think that the whole product is a broken soundtrack, and I was so that’s where you start to see a company benefit from it.

Julie [00:26:49]:
And it’s, again, coming back just to that word, because there’s something about that word that feels better than saying, well, that’s outdated or that’s old. So it’s just so well, not just a broken soundtrack. 

John [00:27:02]:
It’s just a soundtrack and we can change that. It takes away the sting. I think it’s a shame free word. Like, it’s not like you don’t sit there and go, I’m terrible for having this. You know?

It’s a broken soundtrack, but guess who gets to listen to a different soundtrack? Me. So why don’t I do that? So, yeah, I think that’s part of that’s part of the gift of that word for me, and I’m so glad that was the word we landed on.

Julie [00:30:15]:
Okay. So someone just read Soundtracks. It was their first experience with John Acuff, their first book that they read of yours. Where should they go next in your series of books?

John [00:30:28]:
I think the next one is Finished because I think they’re closely related. I think there’s a lot of people that once they have new soundtracks will go, oh, now I get to work on all this stuff.

I got the thoughts part. Now I wanna work on the actions part because the whole model is your thoughts lead to actions, lead to your results.

And depending on when this goes live, we’re doing another challenge, around perfectionism. So we did a free challenge on overthinking, and we’re doing one on perfectionism because it’s one of the loudest.

So the page should be up in a week or so. But if you go to acuff.me/challenge, it’s a 5 day challenge, or I’m gonna teach 5 days in a row about perfectionism and what to do when perfectionism gets in your way. (At the release of this throwback episode there is a waitlist for the next challenge)

John [00:31:08]:
And there’s all this fun research about the 8 signs of perfectionism. Here’s what it does to cripple community. Because when you’re feeling perfectionistic, you can’t share your life with somebody because you think everybody else has it figured out.

It cripples the community. It amplifies comparison, all these things.

Meet Jon Acuff

Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including his most recent, All It Takes Is a Goal: The 3-Step Plan to Ditch Regret and Tap Into Your Massive Potential.

For over 20 years he’s also helped some of the biggest brands tell their story, including The Home Depot, Bose, and Staples. His fresh perspective on life has given him the opportunity to write for Reader’s Digest, Fast Company, The Harvard Business Review and Time Magazine.

Everything I do is based on one simple principle:

I believe in you and I believe in your goals.

If you believe too, let’s work together.

– Jon