"If you’re so rich why are you selling courses?"

Last week's email talked about how humans are predisposed to use fear as a motivator.  The most common question I get after someone learns this is…

Well, if not fear, what can I use to motivate myself?

Conscious Leadership Group has two alternatives:

1) Genius

• These are the things that you are not only good at, but that bring you energy as well.

2) Empathy/Love

• This involves helping other people/improving human experience in some way.

I agree with both of these, and the most elegant portrayal of them can be found in the Japanese concept of IKIGAI:

Let’s break it down:

- What you love (1) and what you're good at (2) combine together to make passion. This is very similar to your “Zone of Genius.”

- What the world needs (3) directly correlates to "empathy/improving the human experience."

- Then, there is this final crucial piece: What you can be paid for (4).

Combining all 4 components, you get this concept of Ikigai, which literally translates to "reason for living."

From my experience building Ampush, I have a history of using a mix of fear and money/success as my primary motivators.

It was successful, but I was miserable.

I lived in day-to-day fear over clients leaving, employees quitting, or our software glitching.  I also wasn't a great boss, friend or spouse.  I was never truly present.  I knew this in my heart, but I told myself it "would all be worth it" once I made that $$.

Then I made it.  And I felt more lost than ever.

That's when I started working with a coach, Dave Kashen.  The journey of coaching started with recognizing how much I used fear, and then choosing not to let it control me.

After I built that awareness, my coach used to ask me a question:

"If there is nothing wrong and there are no problems, what do you want to do?"

At first, his question made me super uncomfortable.

I had built my entire existence around problems.  There wasn't enough money, or time, or growth was too slow, or etc etc.  Even though I was aware, I was still committed to fear as my fuel.  It's all I knew.

Enter: Content vs Context.

This is a framework that took me a while to understand, and even longer to believe. 

It goes like this:

Content is what's happening in your life.  The city you live in, the type of business you run, your hobbies. 

Context is HOW you are relating to that stuff.  It's the motivator you are using (e.g., fear, genius).

The theory is:

CONTENT is wholly unimportant for motivation. 

CONTEXT is the only thing that matters.

"How you're showing up" determines your happiness, energy, fulfillment etc.

At first, I said: “NO WAY.  If I was doing a healthcare startup instead of a digital marketing startup, I'd feel more fulfilled and, therefore, more motivated.”

Dave, my coach, shook his head with a knowing smile. 

He posed these examples:

1) A cancer-curing startup.  They are very mission-driven, and their founder is super worried about his next fundraising round and getting on magazine covers. He drives his team to work all night for the "mission."

2) A local insurance brokerage.  They sell auto and home insurance in St. Louis.  Their owner rarely talks about insurance, though. Instead, she talks about how their focus is helping clients with peace of mind. She also emphasizes helping employees thrive.  She’s always present with people and makes them feel safe.

In #1, the content may be "mission driven", but the context is all fear - we can imagine how that founder feels and how their team feels.

In contrast, for #2 the content is boring/commoditized, but the owner’s CONTEXT is very motivating.

It helped me that I had a front row seat to Red Ventures at that time, because they bought a stake in Ampush. Like Ampush, Red’s business was digital marketing services. But their team, business and founder seemed to have a totally different orientation and energy to the work they did.

 Ric Elias was super motivated by helping his people grow to be the best versions of themselves. So despite the same "content" as Ampush, their "context" created an entirely different feeling.

Still, I wasn't ready to let go of my fear.

I told my coach: "I need my fear to keep moving and to keep leveling up."

He's asked me: "What do you think you would do if you had no fear of improving?"

I said honestly: “It'd be like summer vacation when I was in high school.  I'd sit around all day, unshowered and watch Netflix, I'd go to Vegas and waste my money gambling, I'd probably pick fights with my wife…”

He stopped me: "TRY IT".

My response: WHAT??? Are you crazy???

But I was committed to being uncomfortable, so with my wife's buy-in, I decided to do nothing for a few weeks.

I tried Dave’s experiment

The first couple of days were amazing: I slept in, watched old Fresh Prince reruns, ate donuts for breakfast and avoided my phone. Then, I did Vegas for a couple days which was crazy!

But by day 5, I wanted to go outside and move my body.  I wanted to talk to people about something.

By day 6, I had like 3 new business ideas and found myself calling people to research them.  Not because I HAD to or because FEAR told me I wouldn't successful, but because I genuinely was excited about the opportunities.

Within a week, the experiment was over.

I went back to Dave.

Dave: "Jesse, you are a creative, energized human being. Did you really think that if you weren't afraid, that part of you would disappear?"

Me: “I did actually. Now I see that’s not true. I see that I can create from a place of genius and love.”

This was about 2 years into coaching, and it opened me up to the next phase:

For me, this started with a simple question:  "Jesse, what's the one thing you CAN’T NOT DO?  It shows up every time you show up. Something you can’t resist."

I love this question.  Before you read on, pause and ask yourself the question and write down ~2 sentences that answer this.

Got your sentences? Look at what you wrote once a week and see if it resonates more and more or if it needs an edit.  Do this for a few months, and you'll have extreme clarity of purpose.

My answer to my coach: "I can't not create space to help other people learn/grow to be the best versions of themselves."

As I reflected, I realized that had always been with me.  When I was most powerful, I was helping others learn and grow.  When former employees sent me thank you notes, that was what they highlighted.

It was my genius motivation and my love motivation, all in one.  It IS my Ikigai.

There's a lot more to this story for future issues, but this is a good stopping point because it answers the original question:

"If you're so rich, why are you selling courses?"

Because I love creating and building new things.  I love coaching and teaching people.  Bootstrapped Giants is letting me do both of those things.  Internally - with Andrew and the team - and externally, with you!

For me, there is no more purposeful business I've ever started than teaching founders all the things I've learned along the way.  Founders are my people, especially bootstrapped ones.

Deciding to start a business is one of the most courageous human acts, in my opinion.  And if I can support or make a difference in that journey, that is me living in my genius and in my deepest purpose.

I hope this email helped spark your interest in identifying YOUR ikigai.  And I think you from the bottom of my heart for participating in mine!

-jesse