Let's talk about how much I get paid

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Unscheduled CEO Podcast. Let's go. everybody welcome to the unscheduled ceo podcast it is tuesday the first of november still technically spooky season so what i'm going to give you in terms of spookiness today is how fucking unbelievably messy the room is getting where I'm recording this podcast. If you're watching on YouTube and if you're not watching on YouTube, I've got a ton of like open suitcases behind me because I've just returned from Oslo.

I spoke at the Why Oslo conference, which was on Tuesday. What day did I speak? Monday? month anyway um last week and um and then there's look look there's a lot of travel there's a lot of travel going on and this room's going to be quite Chaotic for a while. It's always been chaotic. It's funny because probably in the early days of this podcast, I was like, oh, maybe I'll make the room look a bit like better. But this room, this is my workspace, my homework space. And it's it's like.

where I'm making music, where I'm like, I've got all my tools for fixing things. I've got my podcast equipment. It's also where I dump all my shit when I go traveling or in between trips.

and we're just gonna have to work with that okay guys uh welcome to the unscheduled ceo podcast it is a weekly podcast every tuesday i'm your host jonathan courtney and it is a podcast for chaotic creative entrepreneurs who are just kind of people who are, who, I don't know, who like the vibe of this podcast. It's unedited.

And unstructured, meaning that there is no editing. You're just hearing this all in real time, the way I'm speaking it. And that also means there's sometimes technical issues. This week, I haven't been able to connect my synthesizer. As in I've physically been able to connect it, but no music's coming out of the... No. I can't get it to play inside.

I don't know. I downloaded some new software, Logic Pro, to just put some of the music together that I'm creating. And it's broken a lot of things, and that's fine. So, yeah, welcome to the podcast anyway. Yeah, so Oslo was very interesting. I haven't done a talk in quite some time at a conference. I'll show you guys if you're on the YouTube edition of this, but don't worry if you're not, if you're just on audio. Let's see if I can do the reaction scene and if it will work.

window capture open up the old google chrome why oslo there we go so this is um yeah it's a conference there's uh 400 950 people attended um i did like a one hour slot or maybe 55 minute slot and um i decided this time so i've spoken at conferences before But it has been a while. I want to talk a little bit about that. Why I don't speak at conferences, even though that seems to be the thing to do for people in my industry. And then why I spoke at this conference.

But yeah, there was 950 people. I decided to go with no notes, no slides and no super clear topic and decided to basically take the essence of this podcast and bring it on stage. to interesting results i guess um you can watch it yourself if you go to why just go to youtube type in why oslo and you'll find or why oslo on my name does this audio work where is this Guys, nothing, nothing's working today. Wait a second. Let's see if I can. How did I fuck the audio up so much today? Output.

If I put the output to this, then we maybe hear what I'm saying here. Hey, everybody. How's it going? Okay, yeah. So that's me on stage at Y Oslo. Actually, very cool stage. Honestly, I have to say most conferences are very bad at the tech setup. Why Oslo was very good. Very, very good. They did a great job. We arrived the night before. They set us up on stage. They were up for letting me do whatever I want, which I really appreciated for such a kind of large-scale conference.

Although I know a 950 medium scale conference, I guess. And what you can see here, I asked them for a flip chart because, you know, I like to go on stage with a king flip chart. And what they gave me was something much funnier. which was an old school overhead projector, which I had to sit on stage using, which was kind of fun.

So, but the big thing is I brought the, you know, on this podcast, I occasionally review water, like sparkling water. Well, what I did here is I decided to... augmented for the Norwegian audience, and I reviewed some of their best snacks on stage. And I want to bring an objective truth to all of this.

I think you guys have the best snack game. Okay? Best snack game. And so what I want to do, so I've been asking around. So I brought, I think I spent like 15 minutes when i arrived at the airport reviewing snacks on stage what was that if someone would peel it for me oh yeah i asked someone to peel an orange for me i didn't think the thing is like

I was getting a lot of like warnings that the Norwegian crowd would be a tough crowd. Because I was telling like I went to like this kind of speakers hangout the night before. And I was, you know, the organizers and everyone was asking me, oh, what is what is your thing going to be? And I was like, I don't really know yet. I think I'm just going to go up and like, I'm going to like chat with the audience and find sort of like a flow there.

and i was like you know sometimes you see someone like um there's this comedian i can't remember british comedian he like lets the audience heckle him uh you probably know who i'm talking he lets the audience shout at him And he comes up with jokes based on that. And so I was kind of inspired by that. I was like, I'm just going to let the audience sort of drive it a little bit. But everyone was like, Norwegian people are very shy and won't shout.

But I got them shouting. I found a way to get them shouting. They like to talk about their snacks. And so, yeah, it was a fun, it was a very fun session. I really appreciate the Y Oslo people allowing me, like I said, to just do whatever the fuck I want. Now, after my talk. You know, there was a speaker's dinner the next night or something. I also got up on stage for Jake Knapp's talk, which was fun. I dressed up like Jake Knapp, myself and Jake's son.

all dressed up together. We all went barefoot on stage and confused the fuck out of everybody in the audience. We're like, what is happening right now? Myself and Jake just had fun with this conference. Once you've been doing these things for quite some time. um doing the same thing over and over again doesn't really make sense you might as well just have some fun with it um so yeah for me uh it was it was fun uh oslo some really a couple of nice um

Laura and I checked out a couple of nice places there. Really, really enjoyed. I went to this cafe. It's well known. It's called Fuglen. and uh really like that place if i were ever to open a cafe in berlin um i would probably take some ideas from that this sort of hang out the the vibe of that place i really liked it um and yeah met some very interesting people but

But yeah, the the oh, yeah, I also mentioned, yeah, the the speaker's dinner, the kind of final speaker's dinner thing. So I haven't gotten the feedback yet from the audience, right? This is something that they do at these conferences. They give you like a. feedback form about what the audience said about your talk. And for me, I don't know, obviously I want to do a good job, but my...

just like with this podcast, tends to be kind of... It tends to be polarizing, meaning that some people will... say that was amazing I'm glad there was some humor I'm glad there was some fun and it was weird and whatever it was creative but then obviously there's just going to be people who are like I just wanted to learn stuff

And I paid for my ticket and I just wanted to learn stuff. And so I didn't learn enough. There wasn't packed enough with content. And they're not, I mean, I assume they're not going to like it. So yeah, it was interesting at the... final speakers dinners the organizers were all asking me like why did you do the chocolate review and like what was the significance of it and was it like kind of like a hypnosis thing or was it because i played some music and um

As always with my stuff, it has a sort of a culty vibe. And what I didn't realize is how much people were going to read into it. You know, I guess what I didn't think about is that, you know, I'm up on a big stage. Um, there's some authority that comes with that. Uh, some, obviously some people knew how much I got paid to do this talk, uh, obviously the organizers. And so, um,

they were very curious as to like, why did I do that? Like, what was going on there? And for me, if you listen to this podcast, you know, I just, I want to have, I want to make things. i want to enjoy myself and and for me to enjoy myself i have to be able to do it in a way that makes me feel excited and sort of you know in flow and so i just thought that idea would be funny I kind of enjoy going to these events that are very serious and very established and everyone is...

going up and putting a lot of effort into their talks. And they don't want to fuck up and they want to represent themselves well. And for as long as I've been on stage, even a long time before my career took off, I was always... I guess you could say taking the piss. I was just fucking around back in the days when I was in a band. Um, we were, you know, we would go to these kind of band battle of the band competitions and.

eventually we got to play in nice venues and stuff and we'd often get feedback like you guys just don't take this serious like it's it's all a big joke to you and I'm like yeah it is all a big joke to me life is a big fucking joke to me And so, yeah, I guess I just no matter where I go, no matter what I do, no matter what age or stage of my career I'm at, I just don't want to I just don't want to do it if I have to be serious. And so that was.

The reason I decided to do this conference, these guys reached out to me. I'll tell you honestly, number one, they reached out to me for a couple of years in a row and I'm not great at getting back.

to people so i didn't respond and then i got kind of like an a frustrated email from them which i totally understood and i was like oh shit i'm really sorry about this um and so we ended up chatting and um they were talking about the the talk and and i just said yeah i i would i'm interested in doing it if i can just do whatever i want if i if you just give me an hour and i'll go up on stage and i can do whatever i want

They were up for that. And I was like, cool. But then I also want to get my rate, my day rate, or at least something close to my day rate, which is a lot. And well, I can tell you guys, my day rate is 50,000 euro.

And most conferences are, well, they don't really pay their speakers. I mean, most of the time they're like, if you are on stage, you're doing yourself a favor by... promoting yourself and I think that's accurate like you know when I was younger and I spoke I've definitely done conferences where I've been paid nothing and that's that's fine I got in front of an audience I'm not against that right I'm not

against doing things for free if they increase my leverage and if there's something really i can gain out of it but because and this is this i think This episode is going to be a lot about this topic of leverage. People don't think about this. People really don't think about this when they're building their careers because I get more people listening to me every Tuesday just through this podcast.

it actually doesn't really make sense for me to take so much time off to travel and go do a conference, even if it's a one-hour talk. It doesn't make sense for me financially, even if you pay my full day rate. And so...

What was cool, I won't tell you how much they paid me because maybe they don't want other speakers to be referencing it or whatever, but... what i really appreciated about the why oslo people is i told them that i said look i don't want to sound shitty and i know this is extremely expensive but like for me to leave berlin um

where I have, you know, I've got recording my podcast, I've got the company, I've got all this other stuff, which essentially allows me to access bigger audiences than you're presenting me with at this conference. um there's no it's it's not that i am you're doing me a favor right that's that's the thing that's important there they don't feel like they didn't feel like they're doing me a huge favor by me speaking there

They get that this is a transaction where I'll do it if I feel like I'm being paid enough and if I can do what I want. And this comes only from a place of leverage, right? If I was, if this was like a crazy audience for me to be in front of, if this was like, if I was never marketing myself and if I had no. you know proof of the fact that I've been doing what I do for a long time obviously then I would do these things for free and I'd be delighted and I'd be you know really happy to be asked

I'm still always happy that people ask me. I appreciate it. But I now will almost always say, look, you've got to pay my day rate if you want me to come do that. I'll do whatever you want. I'll do a one hour. I did like a one hour talk and I did like a half hour podcast or something. And I also hung around and went on stage with Jake. Obviously, it's still a lot of money to have me there, which is silly. But at the same time.

It's not that I'm telling them this is how much my talk is worth. I'm telling them this is how much my time is worth. And I spoke with a lot of speakers. at the conference and there was like I don't know how it got around but people found out about how much I was paid for this talk like the other speakers found out like the The organizers were obviously joking about it because I think the joke was, you know, we paid this guy this much money and he went up on stage and talked about chocolate.

I'm also fine with that. I also see the absurdity of it. But it opened up some very interesting conversations with other speakers around like, how do you do that? One speaker just wanted to know, how did you... how did they allow, like one of the speakers said, I've been doing this speaking thing a lot, like it's a long time, but I've never been allowed to, like I've asked for.

Hey, can I do this? And can I, can I try this? And can I try it with no slides and this? And apparently they're never allowed to do it. And they just want to know, how did I get this deal? Like, how did I end up? on stage with no prep just doing my thing um i also changed lots of things in the last minute again appreciative of the the tech crew at yoslo i was like can i bring my own music up on stage and they were like

Okay. You know, I was just asking for stuff that no one else was asking for. At the same time, by the way, I'm very easy. Like if, if, if they didn't, if they weren't able to get the, they weren't like no flip chart was fine. If they weren't able to get the overhead projector, I would have been like, that's fine. If they weren't able to do the music thing, I'd be like, it's fine. So I'm not like a diva. Uh, once I'm.

Once I'm there, I'm open for whatever. They also ask me, hey, do you want to do this podcast thing? I'm like, yeah, sure, no problem. But... The questions from the organizers and the questions from the speakers were, a lot of them were just confused about how I'd managed to pull this off, the deal of this conference talk. both from a financial perspective and from a what I was able to do on stage perspective, what I was allowed to do. And I thought about this a lot.

myself and Laura chatted about this on the way back to Berlin. I was like, I didn't really even think about how weird it is. Like, I didn't even really think about the position that I'm now in.

And how I somehow managed to put myself in these positions of, I guess you would say high leverage. And the easy way to think about this, and I know because the other speakers were saying it like. One of the speakers like, yeah, you're only you're only allowed to do this because you're famous. And I'm like, first of all, I've been doing this since I was like, first of all, I've been going on.

Like if we're talking about pure conferences, I've been going on stage and doing conferences since I was like 22 or something when I was making no money and nobody knew me. And even then I was still... playing with how the whole thing worked right i think there's a couple of elements here that for me feel very natural but i think for other people

It's kind of weird. And I thought for you guys, it might be interesting for me to kind of just talk about some of the things that seem to create a lot of leverage in my life. And maybe... some of these elements could work for you or not. I don't know. Number one, I mean, the first thing for sure, like, because this is something that everyone.

will say if i don't say it i know i've been doing this for a long time that's one one element of leverage is i've been doing this for a long time i started aj and smart 15 years ago i've been working in you know design and facilitation for 15 16 17 years i'm 37 years old i've been doing it for a while okay so that's one element for sure now

Why is it that there are people who've been doing it for the same amount of time as me and are still not getting the same rates and still not getting the same flexibility? Well, you might say, well, because Jonathan... You have a big social media presence. You have lots of YouTube videos, et cetera, et cetera. This is part of it. So one element is time for sure. There's the more time.

that goes on i get but it isn't actually true the you don't necessarily get more leverage with more time like um like i said i know a lot of speakers who are who've been doing this a lot longer than me and who make less and have less freedom on those things. And this goes across all of the things, right? This is just career and life in general, I guess.

And so I hope I get to a point here because I'm just trying to riff on it. So yeah, one of the things, like I said, there's a time element. The other thing when you're talking about social media and building up a presence. Yes, that's an element of it, but it might not be the same element you're thinking. So for me, I've just been.

like if you look at this podcast right this come this podcast the one of the people at the conference were like yeah but your podcast your podcast just like you know the reason you have this leverage is because So many people are listening to your stuff and so many people are watching your stuff. And I was like, do you know how many people listen to this podcast? And I showed them the YouTube videos at the time.

We were close to a new episode that had just come out and there was like 200 views on it. And I was like, this podcast, this unscheduled CEO thing, essentially nobody listens to this. And yet it in itself creates huge amounts of leverage.

you and um the person i was talking to you know i'm showing her i've got okay every episode let's say um you know after two weeks or whatever more like sometimes more than triple the amount of people who are in that audience are listening to this so even if you have a very tiny audience very very tiny if you can find a

like kind of find your voice and find your people. You know, there's this concept of 1000 true fans. But if you just have 100 true fans, like 100 people who really like what you do. that alone can create huge amounts of leverage. And just feeling like you have leverage, like for example, if someone would ask me to do a talk now.

I have to think, is it worth doing this talk or is it just worth putting more effort into this podcast? And in 99% of cases, it's worth more of my time is better used growing this podcast. It is much better used growing this podcast. And how can I say that measurably? Well, I can give you some clear measurements, right? Two weeks ago, I announced a new company on this podcast, alreadythere.com.

And I announced the first product from that company two weeks ago, which is this retreat. And it's something I just wanted to try out. And this is... For all apart from just literally the final steps of making the calls for this product, it's going to sell out.

within the next two weeks and that's just because of the fact that we have to do a call with everyone who wants to buy the product and so one episode of this podcast that almost nobody listens to Just because it has such high intent can bring in, you know, this tiny podcast can bring in around five to seven hundred thousand euro per year.

So the summer camp was the last thing that I sold on this podcast that brought in maybe 120K. This retreat, even though it's not going to be a big moneymaker and we're going to spend a lot of money on it, whatever. It's going to bring in maybe 150K. And this is, and then the like occasional sort of like consulting project that comes out of this each time of.

Each of those is like 100K by itself. And that's this tiny, tiny podcast, which took a very long time to build up, you know, and build up. It's building very, very slowly.

So the leverage, I'm always looking for leverage. I'm not thinking about money. So the first step that I always think about is, will this give me... I'm not even thinking about it like consciously. It's just what I do naturally is thinking about is this a high leverage or low leverage thing to do? And speaking at a conference from...

for me, is relatively low leverage. You have got, you know, a lot of people in a room. They're watching lots of different talks. They're very distracted. And they're... not necessarily there to take action or buy things. And sure, you can make interesting contacts and you'll meet companies at these things, but I've never found conferences to be great ways.

of generating leads. I think conferences in some ways are just basically for the speakers, right? It's like the speakers are doing talks and the people in the audience many of them want to be speakers and it's kind of like a little ecosystem in itself but I don't necessarily feel like I've ever benefited in that way necessarily from conferences I'm sure if I was

only doing conferences like all the time you know of course that would be another way to build up some leverage especially if i would send them to a newsletter or whatever um but for me the podcast this tiny little tiny podcast has more leverage than going and speaking at a large conference and so this creates an ability for me on a call

when someone's asking me to do a conference, to very confidently ask for a number that no one else is asking for and not be bluffing, right? I'm not bluffing. I'm not just saying a high number to see what will happen. I'm saying the high number because, and again, it's not that I don't negotiate. I just want to see what, I just want to see what the offer is. But for me, it doesn't, it like, you know. packing my bags, getting on a flight. I hate flying. It's just a smelly, annoying experience.

then get you know checking into a hotel i prefer my apartment so like you know what i mean i checking into a hotel then all of the all of the stuff around it um i feel like for me like I don't feel like this conference should have paid me more. I think you guys paid me great and I appreciate it. But it's still something when I was flying home, I was like, yeah, I don't know if that's, like, I don't know.

if the number shouldn't be 100k you know what i mean uh for for the or just having all of the other stuff around it and that makes it really ridiculous right it makes it a really stupid number but um It's it's not about how much can I get paid at this conference? It's how much is my time worth and how much how much leverage is this thing really building?

And then there's the elements of it as I actually enjoyed it. Right. I enjoyed the speaking at the conference. I enjoyed hanging out with Jake Knapp and we just have a great time together. But I'm. thinking about it from the perspective of, I've got this other leverage and I can focus on that. And maybe doing this thing wouldn't be a great use of my time. And I think people get confused about leverage.

I'll give you a great example. A lot of people write books or think that writing a book is a great way to create leverage. Now, unless you have the ability to make this book pretty successful and you have that sort of promoter energy and you can get it to New York Times bestseller. Or you can build out a crazy funnel for it like we do. I don't see people writing books, doing the conference tours, making very much money at all.

Like, as in, I know how much they're getting paid and it's not, it's not, I mean, the difference between it's kind of, it's kind of, I guess it's like a Michelin star restaurant thing. The difference between. Someone with a book and someone with a New York Times bestselling book, we're talking about the difference of getting paid 100K for your talk or like 50K for your talk and nothing for your talk. I'm serious.

Like if your book isn't nailing it and you're not able to sort of build a machine around that, it's rare. Like the people I see who really do this successfully, who are not New York Times bestsellers are... What's this guy's name? And I know this guy is legit because we know exactly how much he gets paid. I just can't remember his name.

Alexander Osterwalder, the guy who wrote Business Model Canvas. But he's built a business around it, right? He's built a business around the Business Model Canvas. And he has a strategizer. The business is called Strategizer. And this machine of a business is the thing that is creating crazy amounts of leverage. for Alex Ostavala. And the book itself, like, you know, this, he's just very good at creating buzz around these things. But if you're, if you're looking at...

How do I make myself legit and an authority and build leverage and that kind of thing? Jumping to a book I don't necessarily think is going to be a very valuable experiment for you. Unless you really love writing books and you have some good connections and you love to promote, you're a good promoter. Otherwise, it's going to be... extremely difficult to get a book off the ground. Not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying most people who do it are not then explosively promoting it, right?

It's they're not thinking about it in that way. So leverage, I think what you're looking for with leverage is. where can i put i mean the literal definition i guess is where can i put the least energy in for the most output you know but i would reframe it and say where can i put the least energy and for the most output that's most enjoyable right this podcast for me is obviously less energy for me than flying to a conference um it's obviously completely my own world i don't

have anybody to answer to and even with a very small amount of people listening this podcast creates extremely high leverage for me as an individual the same can be said for learning how to do facebook ads that was that was for me and my company a huge leverage point for years where it's like We put $10 into the machine. We get $15 out of the machine. Well, and the input from me is just to record ads, which was taking...

One hour per month? Well, what do you think I'm going to do if that machine makes $250,000 a month? And I'm just needing to put personally one hour of my speaking time into it. Well, you're talking about extreme leverage there. You're talking about finding leverage points that are so high.

are so powerful that other things have a difficult time competing with them. It's the same with corporate work, right? People, when a corporate contacts us and they want to work. with me personally, then I tell them, well, if you want to work with me personally, you're talking about $50,000 a day. If you want to work with someone else, it's a lot less. If you want to work with one of our various five facilitators, it could be even less.

And I'm not telling them, hey, I'm not telling them this is because I'm the best at the best of the best, whatever. I'm telling them it's just because. If I do that, then I can't do the other thing that is working well for me. And nothing makes a sales call or negotiation easier.

than you having some fucking leverage. If you have no leverage, people know. People know you need... If you need something from somebody, you basically have... no leverage they can tell that you need it and then it's very hard to play any form of leverage and leverage can just be something as simple as well, do I really want to travel to this client or would it be better for me to just stay home and read these books I've been wanting to read? Will that build more leverage for me long term?

And I think that some people automatically think in terms of leverage. Like I know a lot of people like Blake, my mentor, he's very good at helping me figure out like, where can I find more leverage? Others are just more like brute force. I think most people are just like brute force. It's just I work, I get money, I work, I get money, I work, I get money. And don't think about where they can build up.

leverage where they can create these points where it doesn't make sense for me to speak at a conference even if it gets me half a year's worth of salary in one go because I'm building All of this other stuff that is creating leverage for myself and, you know, putting out YouTube videos, even if you're not getting results in the in the current moment, even if it takes six months to start.

getting the views you're looking for i'm speaking from experience here this is like i don't know this is like my fourth youtube channel even though this is not really the youtube channel At some point, I might actually start building a real unscheduled CEO YouTube channel with clips and all that kind of shit. But this podcast and even something like, if you think about it, think about this, guys.

Me going on Greg Eisenberg's podcast, which has generated, let's say, a handful of deals for my other business, AJ and Smart Partners.

Me spending 45 minutes talking to him in front of an audience will make me and my business more money than any conference can ever pay me. And so it's about... looking for these things right it's about where can i just put one and i guess that's probably what makes people kind of I guess that's a trait which separates people who kind of seem to have an easy life and everything sort of works out for them and people who are kind of banging their head against life trying to make it work.

And maybe I'll just caveat and say, maybe we're just talking about entrepreneurs, whatever. A lot of people... People ask me for business advice all the time or career advice. And most of the time I'm like, well, what are you doing? What are you doing right now? They'll tell me what they're doing and I'm like, oh, that's way too...

That's like way too hard. Like, why are you doing that? A great example is when, you know, I started AJ and Smart, the agency. We were doing UX design, like hardcore, just nonstop. execution work and eventually i was like fuck this is just so annoying what if we just did the startup projects you know and that's why we when we eventually discovered jake's design sprint

What if we just did the starts of projects and we just started doing that? We didn't ask anyone for permission, whether that was a good way to do it or not. And then still today, I'll meet agency owners who have like 60 employees. sometimes making less profit than my business and they're like doing all of this execution stuff that they hate and they find out we are not doing that and they're like oh but how do you guys like what do you do when a client says this

Honestly, I think most of my life and career is people saying, yeah, but what do you do when this happens? Because I'm like, I don't, doesn't you just tell them you're not doing it? Like you don't, you don't have, you can do things the way you want to do them.

no matter what part of your career you're at. I haven't thought about like how to, how to like, most of the time this doesn't like. Sometimes people will ask me this stuff. OK, most of the time what happens is someone will say someone will find out. Let's say let's say somebody with 36 employees. is making less profit than AJ and Smart at 14 employees. Okay, so half the employees, very little hardcore workload, me being very chill all the time.

and we're making more profit than them and we're in the same industry now you would think it would make sense for these people to be like oh fuck okay we need to rethink what we're doing but usually what happens is they're they're just stubborn and stick to they're like oh well our clients would never accept that that's just like that's just because it's you you know and it's true in a way it is because it's me it's because

That's the way I do things. I just don't want to do anything I don't want to do. I'm like a little spoiled brat or something. But sometimes people will tell me this stuff and I'll just be like, you know, you don't have to do it like that if you don't want to. And they'll be shocked at how easy it is to gain more leverage just by not doing things that are extremely unleveraged. And that's often...

It's often as simple as that. It's often as simple as, well, you don't really seem to have a system to be able to tell if what you're doing... has a lot of leverage or not um and it's okay to do things of course that don't have leverage right i mean doing this retreat this already there company

it's not that leveraged. I mean, it is in a way because, um, you guys are all buying individual tickets and to sell it out. All I had to do is talk about it on the podcast. Don't have to, I don't have to like, do like some, you know, hardcore selling to each individual person and invoice each person really, you know, like it has a lot of leverage to it, but it's not leveraged compared to like.

Facebook ads running into facilitator.com. But it doesn't really matter because I see that as something I want to have fun with. Even this podcast, right? I'm thinking... This is just something I want to, you see, I am just talking about what I want to talk about. But at the same time, I understand that having what could, if I visualized it, you know.

Sometimes a couple of thousand, a couple of episodes ago, maybe like three or four thousand people just listening to me talk about stuff. There's leverage there, right? It doesn't matter what I'm talking about. You know, the chances that one of you guys ends up connecting me with an interesting company for a project or, you know, there's just so much.

There's so many places where without thinking about it too much, I'm thinking about how do I make this so that I can put the least effort in for the most output? so that I can really do what I want. You know, in the end, I'm looking for control. I don't want anyone to tell me what to do. And when you don't have leverage, people can tell you what to do. This is the thing I'm always trying to get away from.

I really don't want anyone to tell me where to be, what to do, anything with my life at all. And I've never really had that, to be honest. This is a funny thing. I don't know if I should even talk about this, but it's so near to the end of the podcast. Very few people will listen to it. Maybe someone will clip it and then it will look really bad for me. Just like, you know, sometimes I'll be chatting with my guy friends and they'll say something like, oh, yeah, you know.

The boss won't let me out tonight. Or, you know, like they're talking about their girlfriends or wives. The boss won't let me out tonight. Or like, oh, I don't know. Let's say I... i buy something or something or like a playstation and i'm like oh man you should get one too we're not talking about money here we're talking about being allowed to do things and then it's like a we're talking about a grown 40 year old man being like god

yeah, I'd have to, I'd have to do some serious work to convince the wife to allow me to get one of these. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I don't, it does not compute at all. Like, I don't tell. my girlfriend what to do and she doesn't tell me what to do. We're adults. What is happening here? Um, yeah, it's a very, I thought guys, I find that weird.

I don't understand that at all. I've never understood it. Even as a teenager, I could just not understand these concepts of having... saying that someone else is not allowing you to do and we're not talking about like no one's allowing me to break into people's houses or murder people we're talking about just like general life stuff right i i even have friends who um i remember

When I was younger, I was completely shocked that their parents decided what they are going to study in college for them. And they had no option to change it, even if they wanted to, which I just found shocking. I guess I was lucky my parents.

were not in any way interested in telling me what I should and shouldn't do in that way. But I guess that's also just... run through my life now where i just expect to my my priority is i want to make sure that i'm doing something that that i enjoy and that i feel like i have a lot of autonomy in

And so, you know, when someone asks me at a conference, one of the speakers asked me at a conference, how did you how did you how did they allow you to do this on stage? I'm like, I didn't I didn't fucking ask them if I can do. I just did it. I just wanted to do it. And I gave them the heads up that I'm just going to do an improv session. I explained to them what that kind of might look like, but obviously I couldn't have guessed that.

I was going to do a big long chocolate review session. Um, I don't know where I'm going with this guys. I just, um, this conversation comes up all the time. People want to know, especially if we're at a situation like a conference where it's kind of harder to keep my rate quiet.

And people just start talking about it. People, people are confused. People are like, and then they just sort of sometimes don't think about the deeper reason behind them. They're like, Oh, it's just because Jonathan's famous. And I remind them. I'm definitely not. I'm very sure a small amount of people in that audience knew me. And there were speakers at this conference who are a lot more classy, if you want to use that fame term.

There are people who are much more famous and well-known than me who get paid less than me. But they just don't always try to build leverage in the same way as I do.

And I think you guys should think about this. Like, I have no, I guess I don't have so much practical advice on how to do it. Maybe read up on it. I don't know. I don't, I think like for me.

Um, the four hour work week has a great, or it might be the four hour work week or it might be tools of Titans. Um, Tim Ferriss's stuff is all about leverage if you really look at it. But one of the things he says is like, Hey, if you want to find out where maybe the most leverage is in your business or in your life, or well, business and career, think about what would you do if you could only work four hours per week?

And if I could only work four hours per week, I would only make this podcast and maybe one video for the AJ and Smart YouTube channel. That's probably what I would do. Um, but, and because I know that that would generate, no, no, no, no, actually, if I only had four hours a week, I would do one episode of this podcast and I would be a guest on if he wouldn't have me every week, but.

you know, Greg's podcast or something else. Like that would just generate the most amount of leverage for me because then I can just speak about my stuff to the most amount of people. Or I guess I would do this podcast and record Facebook ads. If I only had four hours a week, I would look for what are the highest leverage things. I would not be thinking about like...

I would not be thinking about things that are low leverage. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I hit the point on this podcast. Maybe sometimes there's sometimes it's a dud. Sometimes the podcast is a dud, you know.

But I hope some of you guys got something from it. I do get frustrated when I'm talking to people about this topic because, you know... I hate when people say, yeah, well, that's you. Or, yeah, well, that's because this... People have been saying that since I was... Like when I was in the band, right? People would say, oh, that's because it's...

It's you guys, right? And I'm like, no, you don't understand. I've always been like this. I'm, it hasn't changed at all. I just, I play the game like this, right? I'm always looking for.

the most leverage i was i was telling laura that i worked at a large so i started aj and smart and then i got a headhunter contacted me within within the same month and offered me a job at a company um and honestly i was so broke i couldn't i couldn't say no to it because i had no money and this was the biggest amount of money i ever heard of in my entire life at that time

And so I was like, fuck. So I was like, can I do this project as an AJ and Smart employee instead of an employee of that company? And she was like, no, that doesn't work. And I was like, fuck, okay. So I accepted the job and I went and started working at that corporate after starting AJ and Smart. So there was a period of about three months where I was... running aj and smart but actually working full-time at another company um so basically i didn't have time to really run aj and smart and uh

uh a lot of the people there were people who wanted to have their own companies and do their own thing but they were kind of stuck at this company golden handcuff style like the the salary was too big the salary it was It was too easy a job and the salary was too big to do. You couldn't leave, right? It was just too good. But for me, I guess, you know, my boss had been there for my boss who...

wanted to start his own thing for quite, quite over a decade, had been there for over a decade. And so everyone around me was just kind of like, I guess, trapped in this corporate. you know, wanting to do other things, like I said, but like, why would like they, and, and another example of that was this required me to commute actually like, um, Monday to Friday to a different city.

I'm not going to say the name of the company, but I had to commute to do this job. And I was just like, I don't fucking like doing this, you know? And so. Already one month into it, even though I need desperately needed the money, I needed it. And I was very thankful for having gotten the job. I just knew. Yeah, I'm not going to like I don't want to be.

I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to fucking travel. I don't want to be like living in a depressing hotel five days a week. So I just, for me, it got to the point where I was like, If I can't make this, if they basically don't let me do this job from... The AJ and smart office in Berlin, which was just a shared table. If they don't let me do this as AJ and smart, I'm done. I'm quitting. And so I went to the person who hired me, the headhunter.

And I told her, I was like, look, I don't want to do that anymore. I'm not doing it anymore. I'm going back to Berlin. I would love to keep working with this client, like as a client. But I'm not traveling five days a week, even though the money is amazing. I'm not doing that. And so she was like, yeah, but they don't really have this option. It's not really possible. And I was like, I know my boss told me it's not possible.

But I do know that they have an office in Berlin. Maybe you could just see what they say. Just see what they say. So she got back to me and she was like, yeah, they don't. That's not possible. but you can visit the office in Berlin if you want to and meet the team, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, fuck it. Yeah, I'll go meet the team. So I went to the office in Berlin, chatted with the team.

um and i was like hey guys like i'm currently working in this other city uh and i don't want to do that anymore and um well like is there is there anything i could could i transfer the project whatever uh long story short uh eventually they just kind of gave up on that rule Like within a week, this rule of I had to work from down in that other city disappeared and I could now not only work from the Berlin office, but change my contract to make that company my client.

And I no longer had to be a full-time employee or an employee of them at all. And I think the reason for that particular situation, keep in mind, I didn't have much leverage here. I was 22 or 23. I was a junior UX designer. You guys got to listen to this carefully. You're not going to, no one's even going to get to this part. Maybe I'll have to do it. Okay. So.

I was a junior UX designer, junior, right? I'm not a good, I'm not, I have no connections. I have no portfolio. I have nothing to show. I'm a junior UX designer. I just been at one other company. for six months as a junior also. And I had now changed the rules of how this company works with designers completely.

To the point that every single person at the office in the other place was like, what the fuck? How the fuck did you do this? This makes no sense. And then the general consensus was like, ah, that's just because, you know, that's just because of you and kind of. Maybe it's because you had this company and they're impressed by that and whatever. By the way, the company was just me and one other person as freelancers. But the truth is...

The actual reason I got what I wanted is because I pursued what I wanted and I was willing to lose the thing I had. That's the actual reason. The same thing with the conference. I was willing to, I said what I wanted. And I was willing to also not go and speak if I didn't get what I wanted. And I don't want to sound like a shithead, but it's better for everyone when you want something and you're irritated and you're annoyed.

You take action and just see if you can maybe get what you want, right? Because when you get what you want, often that's better for everybody because you're not irritated and resentful. So for me, that meant instead of... just resentfully working at that company and hating them and like just hating my life and whatever i got to work with that company for like five years as one of our best clients and had a great relationship with them

as AJ and Smart. And I think I mentioned this already. I also managed to convince the team to come work with us at our office in Berlin when we expanded a little bit. And so not only so in the very beginning, here's how this went, right? Day one, I have to be in this office hours away from Berlin, where I'm also not allowed to use a MacBook, by the way, I had to use their laptops.

which by the way, I wasn't allowed to take out of that office. Within three months, I had changed the rules so that I could work in Berlin and that also... everyone could use their own MacBooks and get like...

I think just no one was asking. I think sometimes people just don't ask more than one time. Whereas I'll ask multiple times and not, I don't ask in an angry or shitty or resentful way. I'm just like, Hey, um, with the macbook thing i asked my boss he said look no i would love to use a macbook no they don't allow us to use it because we've got this blah blah blah and then i went to like i found out who the the boss boss of the whole thing was and i just said to her

I was like, hey, this is the design department of this company. Every single designer wants to use a MacBook Pro. What can I do? Like, what can we do to not have to use these fucking Dell computers? And she was like, here's the workaround. The Dell computer is where we do the delivery from, meaning that I send the files from the Dell computer.

But you can do all the work on your MacBook. And I'm like, done. Perfect. Thank you. I think that a lot of life is just. First of all, kind of feeling that you don't want something and then.

thinking about what you want and then pursuing like asking for it in a, in a way that doesn't feel like, I think what people do, which I don't appreciate as a boss, like when, when the resentment builds up enough, people try to like, use leverage in kind of a shitty way like I don't know like you know what not a way to do it that wouldn't be good would be like you know like getting really important at the what people try to do is they try to become really

indispensable at a company and then they're like well actually I need to have more money because I mean I'm basically controlling everything here and by the way for me that just makes me want to get rid of them immediately and it's the same for people working at companies, they don't want you to use some sort of power over them. It's just they need to see that you're being kind about what you want, but that you also truly do have leverage and you are willing to walk.

in a very nice way and i think that's that that is like nothing is a better negotiation than just being like hey look i really i really want this i understand if you can't give it to me But if you can give it to me, I do have to go. And I just want to let you know this. And I want to work. I want to work here. I want to do this. I want to work on this stuff. But.

I just need you to know that this is happening in my brain and people appreciate this in companies. When I was working at my very first company in Berlin, I mean, I was like junior, junior, junior, right?

straight out of college um a couple of months in i was like i just don't want to work the full week and i asked can i work a four-day week i never even heard of a four-day week before but i was like logically for me this is the day where I just want to read and focus on my own stuff and my own art and my own movie making and they were like no we don't that's not really possible because it's a full-time position and I was just like well

what if I just, can you just pay me less? And then I just take the Friday off and they're like, ah, we'd prefer you to have, we'd prefer you to be full time. And then I just said in the moment, I was like, look, to be really honest. It's very important for me to be able to work on my own things, on my filmmaking. It's important enough for me that I'm willing to talk about when this starts.

But I am going to need this, basically. And otherwise, an alternative will be, how about I'm a freelancer for you guys? Because they didn't want me to be a freelancer, they changed my contract to four days a week. I'm not like coercing. We're not having a fight. We're talking like adults in these situations about like what we want. And honestly, it would make my life. My life as a boss would be a million times easier if people did this instead of just.

kind of waiting around and being resentful. If people just thought about what they wanted, asked for what they wanted, and were 100% ready to get a no. And we're fine with that, you know, or, you know, it couldn't be like often when I can tell someone's frustrated at AJ and smart and you're like, oh, I could, you know.

Maybe I could make more money somewhere else. And I've been here this long and blah, blah, blah. In my mind, I'm like, I often do the work for them. I'm like, hey, I know you're frustrated. Here's what I would do if I was in your position. I'm like, I want them to have a good career, but I can't wait for them to like figure out how to ask me this stuff. You know what I mean? And it's funny because almost like I don't know any boss who wouldn't want their employees just saying.

what they want in a non... The problem is the people who ask for what they want give a bad rep for everyone else because often those people play weird political games to get what they want. And then if you notice that the bosses don't like that and then you think you can't ask for what you want. No, you can ask for what you want as long as you just do it like a normal person and don't play weird political games.

Um, so yeah, that's the, you leverage a lot of leverage is just about figuring out where, where is the, what are the things that you can do that. are not just you delivering work, but are you sort of extending your network, exposing yourself to more people? I don't mean nudity-wise, although it could work. um and kind of spreading the word about yourself like how can you do more of that in a way that is high leverage and then in the situations you're already in how can you get more leverage

just by asking for what you want and actually in the end giving everybody what they want. And that's, I'm very hungry. I need to go now. I'm really hungry. See you guys next Tuesday. Bye-bye.