[00:00] Jodie Cook: So I’d set up the business because I wanted freedom and I had this beautiful kind of vision of working like, from my laptop, doing all the work in the morning, being on the beach in the afternoon, going and traveling loads. And I was three years in, and I realized I hadn’t left the country. I hadn’t had a holiday in that entire time. Because rather than take all the freedom, I basically created myself a job and I was trapped in my agency. Every single client reported to me. I had a team of, maybe seven people who all reported to me. There was no levels in the business. It was just me as the bottleneck for everything. And there was a point where I was like, what have I done? I’ve created this absolute prison for myself that I need to get out of.

[00:48] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Welcome to another episode of Success Through Failure, the show for successful people, and for those who want to become successful, the only show that reveals the true nature of success. This is your host, Jim Harshaw Jr., and today I bring you Jodie Cook.

[01:04] I first met Jodie because we’re both members of the same mastermind group, and she was really fascinating, just kind of listening to what she has been building in terms of her new company, which is called Coachvox, and we talked more about that company in the episode here today. But I started learning more about her background. I subscribed to her email newsletter. And it’s a great email newsletter. I mean, she really thinks at a different level. That’s why I’m bringing her to you today. She thinks at a different level. She thinks differently than most people. She thinks differently about business. She thinks differently about sports and performance. She thinks differently about the world and success and failure.

[01:43] And that’s what we talk about today, is her thought process, or thought process that really helped her build a social media marketing agency years ago, build it to a point where she could sell it, and live life exactly how she wanted to live her life. She wrote a book about it called The Ten Year Career: Reimagine Business, Design Your Life, Fast Track Your Freedom. It’s a fascinating book. So I actually, I really encourage you to read that, but we talk about what are the biggest learnings from that book? What are the biggest learnings from your experience — success and failure — from your social media agency, and your biggest learnings from your life as an athlete. She talks about her powerlifting career. Really fascinating journey with somebody who I have so much respect for and really thinks of at a very high level. I think you’re going to get a lot from this, so.

[02:34] If you know any entrepreneurs out there or anyone who’s into powerlifting, they’re going to love this episode and you’re going to love this as well. So please give it a share, that’s how these podcasts grow. So thank you for listening. Here we go, my interview with Jodie Cook.

[02:47] Your book Ten Year Career, it suggests that people can retire in just 10 years. How’s that possible? Tell us about this book.

[02:55] Jodie Cook: So Ten Year Career was born out of massive impatience. So I wrote it when I was waiting for my agency sale to go through. So I was waiting for lawyers. And if you’ve ever waited for lawyers, you will know how frustrating that is. And there is no point following them up because somehow they just go slower when you do that. So rather than follow them up, I decided that I was going to make a plan of action to write a book and to take everything from what was then 10 years of running my own business of running a social media agency, and turn it all into lessons that could hopefully help someone else start, systemize, grow, and then eventually exit their own company.

[03:43] And it very much follows that process of beginning based on a very simple methodology, which is pretty much go and get clients, figure out who your ideal client is, figure out how to reach them, and figure out what your product is. Go do that. And then after that, figure out how to systemize stuff. And then figure out how to make it run without you. And then figure out what you want to do next, whether you want to keep it going or you want to exit. So it’s very much a method.

[04:09] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: So is that the four step — I know there’s a framework of these, the four steps in that framework, essentially at a high level.

[04:15] Jodie Cook: Yeah, exactly. So execute, systemize, scrutinize, exit. And execute is always the first one in any framework. It’s always, you’ve got to do this stuff first, like you can’t systemize stuff before you figure out if you even need to systemize it. So that’s the first one.

[04:31] Systemize was the stage I got to when I was three years into running my business. And this was a business that I started when I was 22. I was fresh out of college. I just had this idea that I could offer social media management to people, because this was back in 2011 when it wasn’t really the big deal it is now. And so, I’d set up the business because I wanted freedom and I had this beautiful kind of vision of working like, from my laptop, doing all the work in the morning, being on the beach in the afternoon, going and traveling loads. And I was three years in and I realized I hadn’t left the country. I hadn’t had a holiday in that entire time, because rather than take all the freedom, I basically created myself a job and I was trapped in my agency. Every single client reported to me. I had a team of maybe seven people who all reported to me. There was no levels in the business. It was just me as the bottleneck for everything. And there was a point where I was like, what have I done? I’ve created this absolute prison for myself that I need to get out of.

[05:37] And so my way of fixing that was just to throw myself in at the deep end. That’s kind of how I get out of those kind of situations. So I booked myself a five-week trip to Australia that was in three months time. And so I was in the UK, Australia was on a 12 hour time difference. There was no way I could have run an agency the way I was doing it. So it was like, I need to get this sorted. So that’s when Operation Systemize kicked in.

[06:05] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: So I work with a lot of clients who are in corporate environments, certainly different than an entrepreneur, but they find themselves painted into that corner where it’s like every — they’ve got a bunch of people reporting to them. They are the bottleneck, and they’re working out of their minds, and they’re working long hours, and working weekends, and cutting into family time. And they aren’t working out anymore. They’re stressed. They’re busy. They’re always on their phones. Does anything that you share, sort of I guess, mindset-wise more than sort of tactically — mindset-wise, does anything you share like, does that relate to anybody who’s working in a “job” job?

[06:44] Jodie Cook: Yeah, for sure. I think, especially if you have direct reports, there’s something about us flawed humans that means we like the feeling of being needed. And I think because we like the feeling of being needed, we can over-inflate how much we need to be involved.

[07:02] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: And that’s a deep thing. The listener, like if you’re thinking, ah that’s not me, I’m just busy and I don’t want to be busy. Well, go a few levels deeper here and you’re going to find something. It might be what Jodie just said, that you kind of want to feel wanted, but it might be something different, but you got to go deep for this kind of stuff.

[07:16] Jodie Cook: Yeah and I know that for sure, because there was a moment after I systemized everything and had everyone else running stuff. And I remember I was driving back from — I think it was — I saw a friend, I was driving back, and I thought, oh, I haven’t got any new emails. I haven’t got anyone in my team trying to get hold of me like, is everything all right? Should I like, should I call someone? Should I do something like what’s going on? And I had to remind myself like, this is what you wanted. This is why you plan this whole situation, so you wouldn’t be needed. So don’t start reversing it. Like, don’t start getting back involved. This is good.

[07:50] And then the second time I realized it in a big way was after I sold, because the small involvement that I had at the time of selling — it was, it went down to complete zero and it was like a whole kind of. Am I, no — no one needs me in that business ’cause it’s now got new owners. So that’s another like, oh this is strange. And then you have to remind yourself, no, it’s okay. It’s good. It means that like, no news is good news in this situation, but I think it involves retraining your mind in order to believe that. That whether you’re an entrepreneur or whether you’re in corporate, it’s still that mindset of empowering other people to do the thing and not holding onto this feeling that you need to do it yourself.

[08:35] And for me, a lot of that came from being more of a — trying to be more of a coach than a manager to my team, and trying to empower them and trying to — when they came to me with a problem, not saying oh, here’s how you solve it. But being like, you tell me how you want to solve it. And then being okay to let them run with the solution. And also telling the difference between their way of doing things and the wrong way of doing things, ’cause I think it’s easy to mistake different with wrong, but it’s often just different.

[09:09] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Sure. Big mindset shift there in one little phrase. I have a client, I was actually thinking of him whenever I described, sort of the corporate worker who’s kind of has a lot of people reporting to them and they’re just working crazy hours and super busy. And we came — we got to a point where I coached him around this similar mindset that you’re talking about, and he came to one of our calls — and he just said this off the cuff, he said, I need to train people to identify problems, propose solutions and take action. And I was like, write that down. And I wrote it down and he wrote it down and it’s — he literally put it on a note card and it’s sitting on his desk. I was in his office a while back and he showed me, it’s like sitting there on his desk. Teach people to identify problems, like let them empower them to identify problems, let them propose solutions and you can offer your feedback and thoughts, and then let them take action and follow through. And people want that. People want to be trusted, and want to be responsible, and want to be given more responsibility, and want to be empowered. And you’re just like, you’re freeing them up, but you’re also freeing yourself up.

[10:08] There’s also the problem of filling the void, like Tim Ferriss talks about in 4-Hour Workweek is like. am I needed here? Like, what do I do with my hands now? What do I do? And you talk about that a little bit. And you made that mindset shift, and I think a lot of people can really learn from that. And so I definitely recommend the book for any listeners, so definitely check out the book because I think there’s a lot of wisdom in there.

[10:28] And I’ve been lucky enough to be around Jodie and to kind of listen — I’m on your email newsletter list, like there’s so many email blasts out there that I just don’t want to be a part of it. Yours is like — yours is one of those, one of those few, they’re really — there’s a really a lot of useful stuff in there, so we can kind of get inside your brain. I do love how you think here, Jodie.

[10:47] Quick interruption. Hey, if you like what you’re hearing, be sure to get the notes, quotes, and links in the Action Plan from this episode, just go to jimharshawjr.com/action. That’s jimharshawjr.com/action to get your free copy of the action plan.

[11:02] Now, back to the show.

[11:05] You also kind of have a little bit of a unique background in the sense that you’re a powerlifter. Tell us about that.

[11:11] Jodie Cook: So I’ve been competing in powerlifting for about seven years. I’ve been competing internationally in powerlifting for about six years. And powerlifting is the sport of the squats, the bench press, and the deadlift. And I got into it through running, because I used to — before I did running, I used to just go to the gym and do what most girls do, which is go on the cross trainer for 20 minutes, pick up some dumbbells and, pretend to know what I was doing with them, and then stretch, and leave, and call it a workout. So I was doing that at first, and then I started running.

[11:49] And then I used to do half marathons, and then I thought I don’t want to do half-marathons anymore, I want to do 10Ks. So then I started doing 10Ks and then I was like I don’t really like 10Ks anymore, I want to do 5Ks. And then I started doing that. And then I was like, I should probably just stop running because I’m reducing the distance each time, I obviously just don’t really want to do this. Eventually running didn’t form part of the repertoire of what I did. But the really good thing that came out of running and doing races was I picked up a book called How to Run, and it’s by Paula Radcliffe, who she used to hold the marathon world record — the women’s marathon world record. And until very recently, I think — I don’t think she still holds it. But in her book, she mentioned cross training, as in not on the cross trainer, but doing other forms of exercise. So picking up weights, doing squats, starting to work with resistance as a way to improve your running.

[12:41] So, I went back to the gym and this time got some help, and started learning how to squat, bench press, and deadlift. Got my husband to help me because he’d been training kind of gym-based sports for a long time. I think the moment I said to him, will you teach me how to squat? He was like, oh my God, I’ve been waiting all this time. This is amazing. And then something interesting happened because as I started going to the gym with him — he weighs like 85 kilos, I weigh like 57 kilos and I — but I didn’t have this sense of, he’s loads bigger than me, he should be able to lift more than me. I just thought, if Ben can lift it, I can lift it. So when I first started training for each of those exercises, my ceiling was so high, or I believe my ceiling was so high because I was just like, I’ll just copy Ben. And that was brilliant because there were no other girls around in the weights room. I never saw someone who was stronger than me. So I just tried to keep up with the guys, and I think that helps so much for my mind and for seeing the numbers I could hit.

[13:46] And then the next thing I did was have a little look at the people who were competing, because someone had planted this seed like, oh you could compete in this. And then I started looking at the numbers that girls about my size were hitting and I was like, oh I could really do this. And then, I think I just got the bug when I went to my first competition. And I really enjoy being on stage. I really like the pressure of competing because it’s not real pressure, it’s just fun and you have an audience. And I really like having a goal to work towards. And that made, once the kind of newbie game started to wear off, the competing and the always looking forward to a competition brought the excitement back into it. And that’s when the whole thing started.

[14:30] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: You seem to have this mindset that you really don’t put caps or limits on your potential. I mean, it sounds like you’ve had that as an entrepreneur and also as a competitor, where does that come from?

[14:44] Jodie Cook: It probably comes from some kind of questioning of authority and not really liking the idea that someone could tell you what to do, or tell you what you’re capable of, or tell you what’s possible, and just always being like, I don’t have to listen to that. It’s like, seeing everything as optional, seeing rules as optional, and seeing limits as optional. And I think they often are. And maybe part of it comes from when I was 22 and when I was deciding what to do after college, all my friends were getting jobs. And I remember that starting a business didn’t feel like such a big deal to me because my mom had been self-employed since I was about 15, so I was kind of familiar with that as a potential option. And I remember hearing from so many of my friends who were trying to get jobs, like, oh you can’t start a business now. Like, we can’t do that, we’re too young or we don’t have the experience and all this stuff. And I was like, no we’re not, we just do it. Like, it’s not — how hard can it be? We’ll just start it. And if it doesn’t work, then we’ll get a job. So I think there were little seeds of questioning limits and questioning other people’s limiting beliefs that probably happened quite early on.

[15:52] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: How do you handle failure? In terms of entrepreneur, you talk about — you built your social media agency, and it sounds like, you started it and it grew, and you had seven people on your team, and it got stressful. And so you said, hey I’m just going to book a flight and go somewhere else and force myself in, and that was successful. And you started power lifting, and that was successful. So everything’s easy for Jodie, apparently. Were there any failures along the way?

[16:14] Jodie Cook: Yeah, for sure. So I think — firstly, I think that entrepreneurship is a giant game of reframing all the time. Every single day, there’s some kind of piece of news that you have to go, huh, what does this actually mean, and how could it mean something that’s actually really cool? And then, I think that it’s so easy to look back at a whole journey and think that it’s always going up, but actually it’s like a rollercoaster that gradually goes up, but doesn’t feel like it. It’s like in a day, you’ll go from everything’s so amazing, I can’t believe how lucky I am to everything is terrible. What am I going to do? And I think that that happens, that range of emotions happens and —

[16:53] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: It happened to me last week within one day. I was like, elated in the morning and pissed off in the afternoon.

[16:59] Jodie Cook: Yeah, but you have to love it because — so I’m quite interested in this because I follow stoicism and the idea that things happen and you can decide how you handle them and you just let them be. But sometimes, you just want to sit in that feeling of anger and be like, no it’s cool that I get to experience this because I also get to experience this intense elation where it feels like, oh my God, this is amazing. And then you experience stoic joy So I’m in two minds with whether I’d rather flip between everything’s amazing, everything’s terrible, or just be kind of steady in the middle. So jury’s out on that one.

[17:36] But yeah, the failure side, for sure. There’s actually two specific situations that I thought of that — there’s one in sport, there’s one in business. But weirdly, they’ve got the same lessons and they’ve got the same things to draw from them.

[17:51] So I competed in the British Championships in March, 2020, and I had a terrible competition. I was too heavy in the morning, and it meant that I had to do extra work in the morning to water cut, so —

[18:08] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Oh yeah, you had to cut weight. I’m very — I was a wrestler, so I’m very familiar with that. I didn’t realize that that was part of what you’ve had to do, but that makes sense.

[18:16] Jodie Cook: So I compete in the 57-kilo category. I normally walk around about 58 kilos. I think sometimes I push it a bit too much and this was one of those times. And it meant that I woke up in the morning about 58 kilos and then had to, you basically have to find out a way of sweating so that you can lose the water. So I remember we turned up to this competition. I had to wear a bin bag. I don’t know what that’s called in your country, but you know what I mean?

[18:45] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Roughly we called it a sauna suit or plastics, but yes.

[18:47] Jodie Cook: Yes, a sauna suit. Yeah, so I had to put one of those on and I had to run up and down in the car park at the competition venue. It was on the side of an equestrian center, so I remember I was running up and down in this car park and these two horses were just staring at me.

[19:04] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: It feels ridiculous, doesn’t it? Like, you’re like, what am I doing? I’m running around with a plastic bag on, there’s horses, I’m in a parking lot.

[19:10] Jodie Cook: It was horrible, yeah. So — and that’s also not ideal for a competition where you want to be — so you get three attempts at squat, bench press, and deadlift. So that’s not ideal for a competition where you want to be basically maxing out. I think I got six out of my nine lifts. It was my worst total in a year of competing. I thought I should have come back third or fourth. I actually came eighth. I missed two of my squats. I just had a terrible time. And the training block beforehand had been really good, but the competition didn’t reflect that at all.

[19:42] Another failure, in business this time, was the year before. So 2019, I’d say was a really challenging year. And part of that was because I had hired a general manager. I had been traveling quite a lot. I’d been really not involved in my agency at all. And I’m going to call it like a girl gang had sort of developed inside my agency. And it got to the stage where I don’t think we were doing great work. I think we had great relationships with our clients, but they were — it was like a house of cards. It was based on how well we knew them, and how friendly we were with them, and how fun our meetings were with them, rather than the actual work that we were doing. And I didn’t realize that this was properly going on until it got too late. So yeah, the powerlifting competition was just a terrible competition, but the business side of things meant that we almost started again when it kind of came to a head, when I realized what was going on, and when I had to kind of get rid of everyone, almost. And so, so that was — in the whole of 2019, and then March 2020. But so weirdly, the three lessons that I learned from both of those situations were exactly the same.

[20:56] And so one of them was that, for both of those situations, there was something in my head that said, this might not matter. And so, with the competition — before the competition was happening, there was this thing on the horizon called coronavirus. And it was coming up — it was kind of in the news. It was — people were starting to talk about it. And this competition was in March 2020. Things were getting canceled all over the shop — like events were getting canceled. The powerlifting competition was about 400 people coming from all over the country, training together in a tiny room. Like, sharing bars, handing off each other’s bench presses. It was very likely that it was going to get cancelled. And I think I had this thing in my head like, oh it might not matter, like, it might not actually happen. So maybe when I was making food choices beforehand, I was like, oh I might not be competing, or there could have been anything going on there. But there was something to do with it feeling futile that meant that it caused that failure.

[22:00] And then similarly on the agency side, we had, just about that time, been approached by a company who wanted to buy us, and I was kind of interested in that because I hadn’t really thought about selling at the time. And the people that wanted to buy us, they’d flown over from, India they were based, and they’d signed NDAs. They’d kind of put offers in, we were talking about stuff. And so there was something about knowing that things probably weren’t right at the agency, but believing it might not matter because we might sell anyway. That meant I completely took my eye off the ball and didn’t pick stuff up beforehand. So that was definitely the first learning.

[22:42] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: So what do you do with that? Like, should I stress out more because it all does matter? Of course, that’s not the answer there, but what do you do with that lesson today?

[22:50] Jodie Cook: I think just everything has to matter. It doesn’t matter if the sale might not happen, the competition might still go ahead. You have to kind of still act like it’s all going to happen, and that your success as a business owner or an athlete is still on the line, even though it might not be certain.

[23:07] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Like what? Yeah, I guess what I’m kind of boiling that down to in my head is focus on the process, not the outcome. Like, the process is still the process. Like, when you do — when you focus on the process, the outcomes will take care of themselves. And enjoy the process, stay in the process, focus on the process, because you really don’t know if the competition is going to get canceled, regardless of this thing called coronavirus or not. Like, just focus on the process because it could get canceled for some other reason, or you might get injured, or you might get sick, or you miss your flight or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Like, just focus on the process.

[23:38] Jodie Cook: And it’s also this sense of going all in and being all in. And if gray areas try to creep in, don’t let them because that’s going to compromise your performance.

[23:47] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Yeah. Okay, so that was your first learning. What’s the second one?

[23:51] Jodie Cook: So I think the other one comes down to intentionality — as a business owner and as an athlete. So I think that in the lead up to that competition and during the competition, I wasn’t really present. I kind of let my coach just take over and I didn’t really take ownership. It was more like, oh yeah, you put the numbers on, you tell me what I need to do and I’ll just sort of go along with it. But I wasn’t like, in charge of my competition and my journey. It was just leaving it to someone else. And then it was exactly the same in business. It was like, I was leaving my general manager in control. I was leaving her to make decisions. I wasn’t even involved in recruitment at the time, which was like, probably the worst business decision I’ve ever made to come out of recruitment. Because whoever you put in charge of recruitment, they basically clone themselves, and if you don’t want a clone of that person, then it’s going to — it’s going to happen.

[24:43] So what I do now is it’s like, I’m the athlete, I’m the founder. My name’s above the door. It’s my name on the score sheet. It doesn’t matter who else is kind of, sort of in charge telling me what to do. I still have to ultimately own it and be intentional about it being my competition or my business.

[25:01] The final one is kind of checking in before it spirals. Noticing before it spirals. Cause I think that in both of those situations, if I was really being honest with myself, I could have found the red flag earlier. I think that in a powerlifting competition, first you do squats, then you do bench press, then you do deadlift. And I was feeling terrible during squats, but I still went for the same numbers in bench and deadlift than I was going to. So I think some kind of, let’s regroup. Let’s look at what’s happened. Let’s plan it from here, kind of based on what’s happened would have been loads better. And then I think with the business side of things, it was like finding the red flags before they escalated as well, and then being able to fix them before it really spiraled out of control.

[25:48] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: It’s interesting what we learn by doing. We learn by going through the process, doing things that we don’t know how to do, failing along the way. It’s not what we seek, it’s not what we want. But when we fail, we learn. And now here you are, you have another great business that I want to talk about here shortly that you’re bringing these lessons forward to.

[26:06] I have a friend named Ruben Gonzalez. He’s been on the podcast a couple of times, and we’ve become friends over the years. He’s a four-time Olympian in four different decades in the luge, and he is now making a push to become a five-time Olympian in five different decades. He actually did not participate in the last Olympic winter Olympics. And I’m getting this inside look at a guy who’s well past his prime, and he’s striving for this big goal. It’s this big, hairy, audacious goal at his age. I think he’s around 60. Sorry Ruben, if I’m getting your age wrong, but he’s somewhere around there.

[26:46] But just yesterday, he texted me. He’s like, Jim, check out my Facebook posts. He crashed and burned on the track. Almost like there was almost a really, really bad accident that happened because of his crash. And then somebody else that screwed something up and his mindset — he’s injured, right? So he got injured. He’s going to have a cast on. He’s a international speaker. And he’s like, hey, I’m going to have a cast for this big talk I got to give here soon. But his mindset, getting to see and experience like what he’s experiencing in the moment, like we oftentimes on the podcast, look back at these experiences and we bring them forward into our lives now. He’s in the thick of it. Like, I’m getting to see how a world class performer handles massive adversity. I mean, this could literally have changed the course of his dream. I mean, this is going to be a huge setback for him, but I’m seeing and hearing the language that he’s choosing to use through this adversity, through this failure.

[27:41] I mean, he’s like, it’s going to make my story even better. I’m going to move through this and it’s going to set me back, but I’ve got this. I’m like, you know inside of them there’s fear, there’s doubt, there’s uncertainty, but he’s choosing to think a different way. And so. It’s fascinating to get inside the heads of people like Ruben and like yourself, Jodie.

[27:58] Jodie Cook: I have so many thoughts on this, because yeah, Ruben, it sounds like he’s doing it, but — so I think it’s very easy to tell a good story of a bounce back. I think it’s less easy to tell a good story when you are mid-bounce. But like, the mid-bounce is where it’s like, oh we can look at this and this really difficult thing’s happened, so what am I going to do with that? And then pulling that apart. Because how I like to view it is, if you imagine that one day there will be a movie of your life made, every bit of bad news you get, or every bit where like, something really bad happens or you have a bad competition or you have to — you break your arm or something else, it’s like, that’s a scene in the movie of your life. That’s the “all is lost” scene, that’s what people are gonna watch that and they’re gonna think, oh my god, it’s — everything’s terrible. And then your next move will dictate how the movie goes. I quite like taking myself out of it and seeing it as a kind of third person that then enables you to move forward without attaching too much to it, emotionally maybe.

[28:58] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Yeah, yeah. For the listener, that’s a great framework. It’s a great tactic to employ the next time you deal with adversity or failure or setback.

[29:08] Jodi, you’ve pivoted to another amazing business, really cool business, that I’m a client of yours. I’ve built an AI version of myself through Coachvox. Tell us about Coachvox.

[29:22] Jodie Cook: Yeah. Coachvox is a platform that lets influential creators and thought leaders create an AI version of themselves, and it can generate leads on their website. It can talk to their clients and engage their audience on their behalf, or they can charge for access and therefore it provides a truly passive revenue stream. And Coachvox started life as a different kind of company, but then we kind of pivoted into AI at the end of 2022.

[29:56] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: What kind of company did it start as?

[29:58] Jodie Cook: So before it was — it’s very much the same ethos. So the ethos is that entrepreneurs succeed better with guidance, and the more relevant the guidance that you can get, the better you will do. But what matters is who is giving you that guidance, because ideally you’re getting guidance from people who have been there and done it because their experience holds the most weight. But often these people are not that available. They either are expensive or they’re just busy. So it’s like, how can you get access to these people’s minds without having all the friction that normally comes with it?

[30:31] So the product before was coaching by voice note, and the product now is coaching by AI. And in the business model before, people would sign up and they would use our platform to coach people by voice note. So it was asynchronous, so they didn’t have to book time on their calendar. But now, they are not involved at all because it’s their content that they’ve already written that is helping other people on their behalf.

[30:58] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Yeah, it’s a fascinating tool. So for the listeners, keep an eye out for mine. I will be launching it very soon. Maybe by the time I publish this, this will be actually launched and available to you. So check in the Action Plan. You can always grab the action plan for all these episodes, as you know, and I will have the link to my AI in there.

[31:17] Jodie Cook: I think it’ll be so interesting when you see what people are talking to Jim AI about, because they will be asking you things that they probably wouldn’t ask you in real life, but it’s like they want you in their brain all the time. So it’s almost like they’re using you as their voice in their heads instead of Google or instead of just reading your book. It’s like a way of engaging with you that gets all your kind of values and vision and ethos, but in a way that’s very much tailored to them that they don’t have to think too much to access, which is, yeah it’s pretty cool. We’re seeing really cool results.

[31:53] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Yeah. Really cool tool. So everybody listening, check out mine and certainly check out Coachvox as well. If this is relevant for you in your field, if you’re — I think even, whether you’re obviously a coach is great, but whether you’re a manager or a leader, I think there’s even value there for you to download your thoughts and your thinking, and so you can empower people who report to you or work with you. So I think there’s so many use cases for what you do, Jodie.

[32:18] For the listener who is sitting here listening to you saying, okay, what’s one piece of advice Jodie would give me? What’s an action item, or two or three if you want, that the listener can take from our conversation today to move forward and make their lives better to start moving towards their goals?

[32:36] Jodie Cook: So I really like the idea of blank space in my calendar. Because there’s kind of a theme running through this, isn’t there? It’s like, try not to be busy with calls and meetings. Try not to have people dependent on you. Try and get them empowered so that you don’t have to spend time answering questions, the same questions again and again and again, but you can actually do the magic that only you can do. So I’m a big fan of blank space in your calendar looking forward, but looking back, I track what I do all the time. So like, it’s like 15-minute increments. I read my calendar with exactly what I did.

[33:10] And I use this system, this kind of framework called profession, obsession, decompression, and every one of those three things is in my calendar as a different color. So when it’s profession, when I’m working on Coachvox AI, it’s like, it’s yellow. And when it’s powerlifting, it’s blue. And when it’s decompression, it’s green. And tracking them all in my calendar and separating them out is probably the biggest productivity thing that makes such a difference and enables you to be world class in more than one area.

[33:44] So, what it also enables you to do is find out what gives you energy, like what you’re already doing that gives you energy and what you’re already doing that takes away your energy. So, if you started time tracking in your calendar and just putting blocks of everything you did, the next kind of progression from that is assigning everything a score. And so the energy score that I use is like , everything between -3 and +3. So if something fills you with energy, you absolutely love doing it, and it’s amazing, then it’s like a +2 or it’s a +3. If something’s like, oh I wish I didn’t have to do that thing like, oh I hate driving and I have to do this long journey, or I hate this and I have to do that, then it’s like a -2. And then, over time, you can look at your calendar and you can be like, how do I get it so that I’m removing all the things that take away my energy, and I’m only putting in the stuff that gives me energy. And then, over time, it means that you just enjoy your life so much more and you can free up your space to make more of a difference and do your art, because you’ve got the awareness and now you can take action.

[34:52] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: I think the key word there is awareness for the listener to really be aware of how you’re spending your time and what it is that you actually love to do, what brings you energy and what drains your energy. So Jodie, thank you for sharing your wisdom. Can you share with the listeners how they can find you, follow you, learn more about you, buy your book, et cetera?

[35:11] Jodie Cook: Yes, definitely. So I’m probably most active on Twitter or X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. And I’m there @jodie_cook. My website is JodieCook.com, and you can — you could sign up there, and I share chat GPT prompts every month. I also share five ways you can level up this month. And yeah, that comes out on the second Tuesday of every month, and you’d be very welcome to join up.

[35:40] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Yeah. It’s a great newsletter for sure. Jodie, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

[35:44] Jodie Cook: Thank you for having me.

[35:47] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Thanks for listening. If you want to apply these principles into your life, let’s talk. You can see the limited spaces that are open on my calendar at jimharshawjr.com/apply, where you can sign up for a free one-time coaching call directly with me. And don’t forget to grab your action plan. Just go to jimharshawjr.com/action. And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more ratings and reviews more often. You would totally make my day if you give me a rating and review. Those go a long way in helping me grow the podcast audience. Just open up your podcast app. If you have an iPhone, do a search for Success Through Failure, select it, and then scroll the whole way to the bottom where you can leave the podcast, a rating and a review.

[36:32] Now, I hope this isn’t just another podcast episode for you. I hope you take action on what you learned here today. Good luck, and thanks for listening.

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