Vicki Landers The episode delves deeper into how Vicki reimagined her professional life by moving out of her comfort zone, challenging traditional
In this inspiring episode, Jimmy, a small business owner who is also on the autism spectrum, shares his journey of overcoming challenges and building his business. He talks about his passion for motivational speaking and his desire to speak on stages all over the world. We discuss sticking to commitments and focusing on abundance to finding new ways to expand his business, this conversation is full of practical tips and uplifting inspiration.
Jimmy Clare is an Autism Advocate, motivational speaker, author, and founder of CrazyFitnessGuy.
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*What follows is an AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate.Â
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[00:00:00] Audra: good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Mess in the Middle. I’m Audra, your host, and today I’ve got Jimmy joining me from Pennsylvania, right?
[00:00:45] Yep. Okay. welcome to the show. I’m excited to get into a conversation with you and find out how it’s going for you with this mess in the middle. Please take a couple minutes to tell everybody about yourself and then we’ll dive into
[00:00:58] Jimmy: conversation. I’m a motivational speaker, autism advocate, author and founder of Crazy Fitness guy.com.
[00:01:06] Okay. And let me just say, my mess is all over the place.
[00:01:11] Audra: Okay.
[00:01:13] Jimmy: that’s an entrepreneur’s lifestyle,
[00:01:15] Audra: isn’t it? It is our lifestyle. Yep. Okay. So you’re working on a lot of different things. How long have you been an entrepreneur?
[00:01:23] Jimmy: you could pretty much say that I’ve, I feel like entrepreneurship has been in me since when I was very little.
[00:01:32] so pretty much my whole life. But, and the reason why I say that is because I had grown up around, I have some [00:01:40] uncles on the side of, on my mom’s side of the family who happened to run their own business. I had my grandpa when he was alive, he, ran his own business. It took him like three, or I think three times.
[00:01:52] So four times to finally get it off the ground. Okay. And. And then, and for me, it took me nine times to get it
[00:02:00] Audra: off the ground. Okay. Well good. You believe she stuck to it?
[00:02:04] Jimmy: nine is my lucky number. My birthday is October 9th. My, it took me nine times to stop my own business and yeah. And it’s been a, it’s been an up and down ride.
[00:02:17] Yeah. So to speak. last two years. Let’s just say because of the pandemic. my income has been cut more than half. Yeah. and so I’m, I just have pennies coming in at the moment, but I’m hope, I’m very hopeful that this year will turn around because. as an entrepreneur, your stuff doesn’t just go down and go down.
[00:02:42] Eventually has to go back up
[00:02:44] Audra: eventually. We definitely cycle, right? So you hit different stages. In business, you go up, then you may settle out a little bit. Then sometimes you’ll go down cuz you’re trying to catch up to all the new stuff that comes along with selling stuff. So sometimes it’ll go back down and then you’ve gotta cycle back up.
[00:03:02] So you’re just in a downswing. I gotcha, gotcha. Yeah,
[00:03:05] Jimmy: and and I remind myself that on a daily basis, not like in a negative way, but it was like eventually has to go back up. I was like, and I was like, I don’t mind. Like when I was, when I was [00:03:20] first starting out, it. Started out as a self-improvement project.
[00:03:24] Okay. Just helping me to be a better writer. Because my, my English professor told me, in order to become a better writer, you gotta write every single day. And what better way to continue writing. Then write on your own website because you have to keep coming day in and day out with right.
[00:03:44] New stuff. If I did in their Word document, you know how many times I’m gonna show up zippo,
[00:03:50] Audra: right? So you post new content on your website every day.
[00:03:54] Jimmy: from, at the mo I cut it down to a month just cause, but I still write stuff here and there. I’m actually writing for current different publications, Nice. I’m doing writing in that way because, they ask me sometimes it’s a written interview, so then I’m going to tell my story in a different way on. Being able to write, they’re coming up with questions that, oh, no one asked me this question before. Let me go think about this in a different way.
[00:04:24] So I’m writing in that sense. I used to write weekly on my website, but I only built up my readership to a thousand, and that plummeted over. The pandemic? the second year of the pandemic, because the first year I was like, Ooh, maybe I’m gonna keep going and keep going. Nah, it just took that elevator effect and it’s nah, we don’t wanna get you too excited now.
[00:04:50] Thank you. And I was like, please keep me humble.
[00:04:55] Audra: there’s so much competition out there. a lot of people did find, I mean if you think [00:05:00] back to the pandemic, everybody got online that wasn’t already. Optimized or utilizing that as a resource, and the competition just went through the roof.
[00:05:09] So it has been a huge effect. even still a problem for people today in 2023 now, I think all that’s gonna settle out, and especially with AI becoming now such a big part of what we’re doing. Are you using ai or where are you at with that? At the
[00:05:26] Jimmy: moment, I use AI for some stuff.
[00:05:31] Okay? Like maybe some people may agree with me, maybe not agree with me, but I find. Very hard, in my opinion, of writing SEO descriptions. Okay. And because it’s like straight to the point, you gotta make a short, yeah. Short and sweet to the point where somebody wants to come and read your stuff. And I’m a person who likes to give a lot of detail now, maybe not in the sense of the author talking who wrote the,the Lord, the Rings books,
[00:06:06] Audra: right?
[00:06:07] like describing
[00:06:08] Jimmy: the one piece of grass for six paragraphs, right? That I’m like, I go into detail, but it’s not oh, I’m gonna bore you with every little thing, nook and cranny of this one piece of grass. And it’s no, that’s not me. I’m not good at oh, let’s go, let’s go.
[00:06:25] Cut this into.
[00:06:27] Audra: One little short. 160 characters.
[00:06:29] Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. And that 160 characters to make a short and sweet is yeah, that’s definitely not me. I know. So I used it for a little bit for that, and then I used it [00:06:40] for a little bit of my opening of my articles. Okay. In the close end, because the conclusion pretty good.
[00:06:48] But I, I never use it to. Write the whole content. It might be, maybe it’s on some of my pages as an opener to what the page is about. Just to get people like, Hey, I wanna see what this page is about, but then I put my own words in it. It might not be the exact what the AI says. what I liked it.
[00:07:08] sorry, I might change a few words here and there. because inputs on my own style of my post, but I only use it for a little bit. I don’t. I agree with some people. I was like, oh, you can use it to generate those whole blog posts and say, and where do you get this data from? I’m not sure.
[00:07:25] Audra: And yeah, there’s definitely mixed feelings on both sides of that. I wasn’t a great writer before that. So what I consider myself as a kind of a T marketer, do you know what that. No. Now a T marketer is where, think of the letter T. across the top of the T is all the different marketing channels, so seo, social media, web design, content, all the different kinds ways you can market online.
[00:07:53] And then the. The stem of the T is things that you’re an expert in, so I can carry myself a hundred percent in any conversation about any kind of marketing channel. I’ve been doing this for since 2009, so I have a lot of experience when it comes to marketing a business online, but then I have a handful that I’m just really an expert in that I can go super deep.
[00:08:17] And so AI allows you to [00:08:20] explore those a little bit more. you know how I recommend that people use it is a lot of businesses are stuck. So say they’ve come in right before Covid or right after Covid. it’s a new landscape for them. So they don’t have any history like you and I do of.
[00:08:37] Life look like online before that, so they’re only learning to navigate it in this new place that we’re at. Many of them can’t produce content consistently. They just don’t have the bandwidth or they don’t have the skill. So they’re really good at their product, but they just can’t figure out how to connect the rest of these pieces.
[00:08:57] That’s where AI becomes a really handy tool for them because they can go in and just get support. I know what I wanna say about my product, I’m just not very good at saying it. And what it ends up happening is it’s actually teaching them to become better content creators. So yes, somebody else is creating it with their guidance, but I’ll find that, I’ve told people, take content that you’ve already written, even if it doesn’t sound great, and then have the AI work with that, because now it understands the tone of voice that you’ve got and the way you talk in your content.
[00:09:34] It’s able to produce content more like what you sound and then massage it a little bit more from there. And people are getting good results from.
[00:09:42] Jimmy: And what I also have done for myself is because I’m trying not to. Cut back a little bit on the, all the writing, everything, what I do on my business, because it’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.
[00:09:57] I’m not getting rid of it. But I, what I’m [00:10:00] trying to do is okay, I can’t hire people at the moment, to write content. So it is was like, I’m gonna have guest article, I’m gonna have guest writers. Yeah. I’m tired of doing every little neck and cranny myself, and it’s like I wanna be able to, okay.
[00:10:15] Hey, I finished everything early one day. Yeah, let me take the afternoon off and anyway, market and everything throughout the day. and like I use some automation here and there. Good. it’s all scheduled out. It’s
[00:10:28] Audra: not like good you’re doing it in real time. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:32] Jimmy: And so it’s not oh, 10 post in one minute. That’s not realistic. And so I schedule stuff out. I have my accounts going constantly good so that no one like loses. I was like,
[00:10:49] Audra: who’s forgets about who you are? I gotcha. Yeah.
[00:10:52] Jimmy: and I did that and I remember, I, I saw this, I remember reading somewhere, like three years, two years before the pandemic.
[00:11:00] It’s you should not use automation. and it’s it’s a bad thing. The,the social media companies will ban you and everything and then years later af during the pandemic, they’re say automation’s really good. Everything. It’s like way ahead of you.
[00:11:16] Audra: Well, and now we’ve come back to the other side of that.
[00:11:19] So you’re right, automation took off right a little bit before the pandemic, but then especially during the pandemic, cuz we couldn’t touch each. So communication had to be done, through automation. But now I think that went a little bit too far. And now we’re coming back to the other side of that where they say some automation is [00:11:40] good.
[00:11:40] The repetitive tasks that are not relationship building tasks, automate ’em. There’s no point in doing them if nobody benefits other than it showing up consistently for the audience that you’re trying to serve. But if it’s some kind of interaction that you can have with them, try to have real ones if you can.
[00:11:59] Jimmy: Yeah. And one of the, automations that I use, and not just for social media But I got tired of following up with all my live stream guests every single week on a Wednesday. So I was like, it’s gotta be a better way to do this. Good. So what’d you do? I created a, just a simple plain template aim, Gmail.
[00:12:20] Okay. and now I set it up with Zapier where once a week it will email that person coming up from my live show and it’s Hey, like, are we still on for this, the following week? Reply before, by sun before Sunday morning. Good. Because that’s where I schedule my stuff out for my live stream.
[00:12:38] I do on Sunday morning because. And I’ve been doing it like that for a whole year and a half. So I was like, I’m not gonna change it. And it’s no.
[00:12:46] Audra: And if it works, then good.
[00:12:48] Jimmy: Yeah. And I’ve tested myself before too, just to make sure it’s not like spammy or anything. And and I had to tweak it a few times because as a was a few people who didn’t reply to it.
[00:13:01] And I was like, okay, and like people were reading the whole thing of it. So now I put. Please reply right in the subject line
[00:13:09] Audra: so they know you’re looking for an answer. That’s good.
[00:13:12] Jimmy: I got tired of sending out that email every single week and it’s ah. And I was like, this is such a mundane task.
[00:13:18] I could have done this [00:13:20] some. Yeah. I was like, what? Some people pay, helpers to do as I’ll go find a, some automation way to do it.
[00:13:29] Audra: Yeah. my rule of thumb for automation when I’m setting up a client is if it’s done every week, if it’s done at least two or three times a week and it takes more than 30 minutes, you need to find an automation.
[00:13:44] There’s no point in just continually doing something or paying somebody typically staff is what, 20 bucks an hour or better, that ends up being a lot of money versus just automating it and turning it into some kind of form or some kind of repeatable, like Zappier or Make or Patty or any of those guys that you can use.
[00:14:05] Jimmy: Yeah, and I’ll admit that the test, that emailing didn’t. Very long. Good and just a copy and pasting stuff, but it just got annoying to me, honest a while because I had some guests to, not a boatload, I had more guests appearing than they did not appearing, but I had like maybe three, maybe four, who just didn’t show up, and it’s Okay.
[00:14:27] Gone on the days I’m, I was like, I’m gone on a livestream. And people was like, I was like, you better show up because if not, you can see it. you’re gone in the back of the line and you’re not coming back on my show.
[00:14:40] Audra: So what’d you do with the ones that no showed? Did you just hold the livestream anyways?
[00:14:45] Oh, I did the live
[00:14:45] Jimmy: streams. Good. Okay. and I make right on the live streams. Like my guest didn’t show up. I’m not sure why. Even though he is oh, I’m gonna be there. He is yeah, you’ll be there. And of course I don’t name them by name, but I did [00:15:00] point it down and was like, yeah, and I may have something and sometimes I just wing it and it was like, yeah, I’m not really happy that on how this went.
[00:15:10] and I just talk about it. It’s like I didn’t even, I’m not even prepared. I didn’t have a second whatever. So I’m gonna just ramble on about something and it’s okay, I’m gonna do this for 30 minutes because I know I’m already ticked off about the guest. So doing a whole hour, I’m just gonna Okay.
[00:15:28] 30 minutes and that’s done
[00:15:31] Audra: well. So first, kudos for you for sticking to your commitment to yourself to show up. Some people wouldn’t have, some people would’ve used that as an out to not go through with the live session. So that’s good. That is, that’s what I mean. That’s what small business is all about, right?
[00:15:49] Is that commitment to yourself, even if nobody’s watching to do what you said you were gonna.
[00:15:56] Jimmy: There, there was only twice that I did that. Yeah. Only did that. I’ve done it because it was either that I had to go somewhere like of the hour. So I was like, oh my guess it’s not showing up anyway.
[00:16:10] and I had to go somewhere in just a few minutes, Not even a point, or I would just, I got to a point where I worked myself up and very frustrated, so I was like, okay, I’m not going on camera looking the way I do. I was dressed and everything, but I was like, I was too far off.
[00:16:29] Emotionally. I was like, I’m not gonna go on because I know I’m gonna say something I might really gradually, so
[00:16:37] Audra: I was like, that’s a good filter.
[00:16:39] Jimmy: and [00:16:40] I tweet about later and say, Hey, sorry for the live stream. Not gonna happening today. and I say my group on my personal, on my private Facebook group of the real reason, but then in the front end I was like, Hey, I had to postponed due to, on circumstances and whatnot and not lying, but I was like, I only something characters are tweeting.
[00:17:03] So it was.
[00:17:04] Audra: there’s nothing that says we have to have transparency. If we’re not comfortable sharing what’s going on in your personal business, there’s exactly, there’s no responsibility there. So let’s talk about where your business is right now. Where are you wanting it to go?
[00:17:19] What’s lacking? Oh,
[00:17:22] Jimmy: where I want my business to go is I wanna be able to speak on stages all over the world as a motivational speaker. And at the moment, I’ve only spoken, I haven’t spoken on a physical stage yet. I spoken in front of a crowd. About let’s say 20, 25 ish people.
[00:17:45] Okay. I kept the whole room, so I’m just gonna say around low twenties, mid twenties to, to this rotary club that I didn’t even know existed and I didn’t know existed because it is not like they advertise somewhere and maybe they have a website, but. How do you know if somebody has a website if you never advertised it?
[00:18:06] I was like, I was like, this is like a secret cult I didn’t even know existed. And
[00:18:11] Audra: so there’s another one I’ll share with you if you want to try to do some speaking. Have you heard of an organization called Score? Oh yeah,
[00:18:19] Jimmy: I’ve [00:18:20] heard of them. okay. Yeah. my mom used to have a nonprofit organization.
[00:18:26] for people with extra challenges To help them, have life skills and everything. Okay. she had to shut it down, because other circumstances and everything, and I remember. She shared me, summary, a conduct from score. And it’s funny that you said that because it’s like, hey, I remember, actually meeting someone there and I went to one of the actually offices.
[00:18:53] It was we really weird because was it building because the building didn’t have their name on it. It was just some Oh. And it was like, this seems like a. Like, this seems like a scene out of a crime show.
[00:19:06] Audra: Oh no.
[00:19:07] Jimmy: it wasn’t like a messy place or anything, but it was like empty building.
[00:19:11] I was like, gee, how many times did it have I seen this in
[00:19:14] Audra: a crime show? Yeah. so typically the way it works is. commercial buildings will donate the space for the exchange, so they’ll get the tax right off if they’ve got empty spaces and score, because Score’s a nonprofit funded by the small Business administration, they’ll get a place to have an office where their mentors can come in and out.
[00:19:38] Now, the reason I mention it to you, Because I started volunteering for them in 2017, and I was started with one-on-one sessions where I would just meet with somebody one time. We’d talk about where they’re at in their business, and because my expertise is marketing, that’s what I helped with. Then you would do follow-up sessions and things like that, [00:20:00] but I couldn’t see enough people fast.
[00:20:03] there was just, I think my first year, now mind you, each session you have with somebody lasts an hour. So I saw 180 people my first year and it was just too many, running a full-time business. So I started teaching workshops and that’s where I’m going for you. So I would show up at my local here in, I’m in St.
[00:20:26] Petersburg, Florida, and there’s score chapters all over the country, but you volunteer to come in and teach something and typically they have a location and you’ll have anywhere from, I’ve had as little as 10 people to as many as 50 or 60 people depending on the topic. And they just show up.
[00:20:45] It’s free to them. It’s also free to you, but what it does is it lets you. Let you get in front of more people and then remember the people that are attending also work in businesses. So that opens up other opportunities for you to say, look, I do training, or I do coaching, or I do whatever your area that you wanna talk about.
[00:21:07] You’re allowed to tell people you can’t sell anything, but you can still promote what you want to do and then it’ll get you a lot more exposure from people that are actually witnessing you speaking in real time. So I would definitely check that.
[00:21:23] Jimmy: I’m definitely gonna jot that down after this just so I don’t forget.
[00:21:27] Hey, how many thoughts going on in this brain a day?
[00:21:29] Audra: Yeah, I bet. I
[00:21:30] Jimmy: bet. I’m, I have an autistic brain that has so many gosh darn thoughts that did. They, I, I literally wore my, uh, my energy down [00:21:40] yesterday, thinking of, what my podcast hosting company was gonna charge me Oh, no. From my upcoming bill because they changed their prices and.
[00:21:49] But I didn’t, I don’t remember getting a thing saying, Hey, your, our prices change and whatnot. I was like, oh, they’re better than I do this, uh, this, uh, like bait and switch kind of thing. And it’s like, I’m watching every single company and it’s like, I feel like I’ve been getting screwed lately on every little nook and cranny these days.
[00:22:09] Audra: here’s something to think about. When you get to a place where things are coming to you and they feel like people are taking from you, that means
[00:22:18] You’re not focused on abundance, you’re focused on shortage. So when I know your brain’s a little bit different than everybody else’s, but reason with yourself say, am I focused on losing everything and I gotta hold on tight because I’m running out? Or am I focused on being open because the universe really is abundant?
[00:22:40] There’s plenty out there. I just have to find new ways to. So maybe my current path isn’t supporting that, but what else can I do? Because there’s plenty out there for everybody and I need to focus on that instead of focus on losing. Cuz remember, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Whatever we think about is what manifests in our life.
[00:23:04] Jimmy: Yeah, I admit that like right now, since my, like I said to you, my. My, income has been like,
[00:23:16] Audra: pretty much not where you want it to be. Yeah.
[00:23:19] Jimmy: And [00:23:20] so I read this article all the other day. It was a, an article on Medium, and I do like to read some of the stuff on Medium because it’s ran by other content creators and whatnot.
[00:23:34] and I had didn’t read every single article, but this one caught my eye. And I was gonna check out their idea again because I saved it for later. Yeah. And, but their idea was, creating how people track their foods and everything. Written format or an app.
[00:23:53] I like the app version, but some, it’s Create additional and create a, product, a physical product. I do have physical products like my swag shop and everything, but Okay. But I decided, I was like, what if I take it a little further and create a, some kind of, planner for somebody, put it on Amazon.
[00:24:18] Charge a very low price. Like I, I forget what their pricing was in nor ago. It’s been a while to be honest. And they said prices. So that it’s not too expensive. Know your market. And it’s and it’s and it’s not stealing anybody’s idea because I was like, there’s trackers all over the place, there’s journals all over the place.
[00:24:40] And this, and I was like, I like this idea. and like the person even showed, screenshots of their Amazon dashboard of how much they made. Nice. Even just a couple, even if it was just like 50 or 20 or 30 or 40 or whatever, I was like, that’d be a lot, that’d be a big step up for me [00:25:00] because,
[00:25:00] when something becomes let’s say, depleted for, not really depleted, but when. Running low. It’s kinda,and I’m still paying out of pocket and It feels daunting at times. Cause it’s heavy. Yeah.
[00:25:15] Audra: So I wanna shift gears for a second and talk to you. The direction that you’re going.
[00:25:21] so take that planner idea that you just said. You got an idea what you want. You could go to chat g p t and completely map out the whole thing in probably an hour.
[00:25:32] Jimmy: I already have it pretty much. Okay. I was actually gonna, one of the things that the person in the articles had, she actually gave a template of what she used, and they said that they would, I was like, you feel free to.
[00:25:49] Audra: Oh, modify it for yourself.
[00:25:51] Jimmy: Yeah. And expand upon it. I was like, nice. I’m might do it. and I was like, and I don’t exactly remember what the exact page, how much pages she made. I think she said like 90, over 90 straight days. Something along
[00:26:06] Audra: the lines. Yeah.
[00:26:08] Jimmy: Oh man. I’ll double that. Maybe. or do. A hundred or something.
[00:26:14] cuz I like an even number versus a non number. I don’t know. I’m strange like that.
[00:26:18] Audra: no. But so what I would suggest is though, to keep you, sorry my allergies are driving me crazy. and they’ve done that too. To keep you moving forward. Try to focus on things that are revenue generating.
[00:26:33] Remember, it takes a long time to build brand new stuff. So look at everything that you’ve done, [00:26:40] everything that you have, access to websites, other programs, audiences, all that kind of good stuff, and say, okay, which one of these can get me to revenue faster? And then just, even though it’s not the long term one maybe that you want to do, once money starts coming in again, the conversation gets to change.
[00:27:01] But before that, we focus on what we don’t have or where we’re missing or where things are falling short. And we’ve all been there. Believe me again, everybody cycles through it at one point or another, but you don’t wanna stay too long here. Otherwise it’s super hard to get out of it. So look at, okay, these are my options on the table.
[00:27:22] Which one gets money fastest? Maybe it’s going on and doing lives every day and promoting that you’re a speaker, that you can come in and talk on this topic for this amount of time. And what’s your fee’s gonna be? And set your fee at a basic fee. Remember people are just now getting back to having speakers come in because of the whole covid thing.
[00:27:44] So some are like, eh, we don’t need to bring it back. Others are like, yeah, let’s start tipping our toe in and see, many of them, unless you’re a top headline, they don’t wanna spend the big bucks. So find ways to get out there and start letting people know that’s what you do. Yeah,
[00:28:01] Jimmy: and one of the things I’ve, I just did yesterday, and this is the first time I did it.
[00:28:09] And the reason why is because I wasn’t allowing myself enough time, and that’s one of the other reasons why I start. Writing weekly on my website because I’m not having enough time for this. I’m not having enough time [00:28:20] for this. And it’s what am I, what’s realistically, what am I gonna do?
[00:28:23] Yeah. On how to break this up into better pieces of my time. And so what I did, I found this. Speaking directory and I signed up for it on the free plan, and I pitched to,I was in the midst. I’ve been, creating this, TEDx TED Talk. Nice. And I found one on the platform that I was happening in Tennessee, Nashville, and August.
[00:28:51] And it’s okay, even if I don’t get accepted. I’m putting in my deadline, making this my deadline because it’s been going on probably too freaking long. Good. I know it’s not supposed to be rush. But it’s okay, you know I’m never gonna get this done if I don’t have any cash darn deadline.
[00:29:07] And I was like, I’m just being realistic to myself. And so I was like, okay, this is gonna be my deadline. And then I also pitched to this event in, California. Good. I forget the exact, the event name only because it was a very wordy name. And,and I pitched to them. They were looking for unique stories, inspirational stories, and it’s like my whole freaking life is an inspirational story.
[00:29:31] So it’s Hey. And it’s and if I get accepted, I can go to California, visit my cousin and and maybe turn
[00:29:37] Audra: it into a whole vacation. Yeah. there’s a website called HARO. Are you signed up on it? yes I am. Help a reporter out. Yep. Okay. Do you go in there and respond to
[00:29:47] pitches that come up? sometimes
[00:29:49] Jimmy: I do, sometimes, and sometimes I do it through this other one called Turco. Okay. And I’ve been through, I’ve been published on their platform and through their [00:30:00] platform eight times already. Nice. And, I’ve been, keep coming back to them because it’s like, it’s working, it’s like it’s working.
[00:30:07] These other ones, it’s like, not so much yet. Okay, but that’s okay. I actually got to meet with the, one of the, founders of Turco who told me a little trick on how to, once I get more, more of an acceptance, a higher acceptance rate, I’ll get, a lot more higher up publications publishing me without a doubt.
[00:30:29] And, Sure. I’m just gonna stick on your platform at the moment. and of course I’m using Source bottle too Good, to, pitch to other brands as well. I’ve had a few, I think maybe three articles or four articles do them good. But, but it all depends. I get their emails every single day, so If I find something that is interesting and if I’m not writing for a particular publication, Currently I’ll accept it or I’ll pitch to it, but if I’m already into a publication, I was like, okay, I’m gonna finish this one before I go into the next one. Because some of them is you have 21 days to write this.
[00:31:09] It’s okay. I was like, let’s go down this one first. Versus, whereas some of them might say, yeah, just take your time and. Please don’t tell me you gotta take my time.
[00:31:18] Audra: Yeah. You need timelines. most entrepreneurs do otherwise projects turn into weeks, turn into months, and then six months later you’re still having the same conversation.
[00:31:28] Yeah. We need deadlines. Yeah. That is definitely a trait of, many of the entrepreneurs I’ve met for sure. Fun fact. I
[00:31:37] Jimmy: actually, at the start of this,[00:31:40] this year, I actually revamped my whole schedule to make it more feasible and every good spectrum of my life. And I’ve completed 20 plus task within the three months, and it was like,
[00:31:56] I didn’t think this was possible.
[00:31:57] Audra: Wow. Good for you. Just we all gotta focus it the way that works for all of us. yes, you may have a little bit different brain working than somebody else, but I still have to find my way. Paper and pen. I’ve seemed to work better with, I have tried every platform online, so what they end up being is just storage containers.
[00:32:21] But my checklist and my active stuff, I wanna do it with paper. So it’s, everybody’s different but the point is we don’t need to be the same, we just need to get the stuff done. So however whatever works for you more.
[00:32:35] Jimmy: If you gimme paper, I lose
[00:32:36] Audra: paper. Do you? Oh, no.
[00:32:40] Jimmy: I was kid with my mom because she has so much paper and everything.
[00:32:43] I was
[00:32:43] Audra: like, she’s a paper
[00:32:44] Jimmy: person. Yeah. I was like, it was like, Hey mom. The paper company called They want
[00:32:48] Audra: their paper. Oh, no. so bef, as we get close to wrapping up here, what are some of the things that keep you going when you wake up in the morning? Or maybe yesterday you had a bad day. What, makes you wake up and say, you know what?
[00:33:03] I’m gonna keep fighting through this entrepreneur.
[00:33:06] Jimmy: it’s in my dna, blood, okay. Meaning that I pretty much had to fight for everything that I needed help growing up because I’m on the autism spectrum. I had a school district who [00:33:20] had a failed attempt at special education, and so I had to fight I nook and cranny to, get the support I need
[00:33:28] And then I also had to, and then I had other, like naysayers who told me I wouldn’t be able to, I wouldn’t be able to cook, clean,do my own laundry. I wouldn’t be able to, do anything. I’ll just be in nobody in life. 29 years later here I am running my own business, almost six years old.
[00:33:50] The business is almost six years old, and my podcast is almost three years old, man. Is it three? Yeah, almost three years old. and yeah,I’ve seen some, a lot of success. I’ve been publishing New York City Times Square,on the billboard. I’ve also been publishing my, in a co-author. I was only a page 1200 characters, and that’s quite hard because like I said, I’m a person of detail and I’ve been publishing 22 other publications, 22 or 21.
[00:34:26] I’m gonna go 22. I know. I just forget.
[00:34:31] Audra: No, you’re good. Most of us can’t say that, me included. I’ve not been published like that. that’s not been my goal. that’s something to be proud of. so does that mean that when you run into challenges, you just think about the stuff that you just said to me?
[00:34:48] Yeah. I’ve been through a lot. I can do
[00:34:49] Jimmy: this. Yeah. And I also have, a tough sense at karate. Good. And even though I haven’t spoken to him about a lot, everything that I’ve done [00:35:00] so far, not because I’m ashamed of it, but it just because, no, it’s just, it’s like right between classes and he is not always there.
[00:35:07] And that’s his business and everything, of course. but I, because he, even though I didn’t say all this to him, I know that if I ever give up, he’ll see it on my face. And even though we have not, went into a lot of detail about my business and everything. I just know that he’s like my little Yoda who sits on my shoulder and he is if you give up and it is you have to look at yourself at the, in the mirror at the end of the day.
[00:35:41] And and it’s. Who do you wanna sleep? He’s sitting there at the end of the day. Yes. Who do you wanna see at the end of the day in the mirror? hey, I’m really pushing hard and keep going with two, or, I gave up and. You can kick yourself in the ass later on and you’ll be the only one kicking yourself in the ass.
[00:36:02] Audra: Good, very good words of wisdom to share. So we’re gonna have down days and it’s gonna be hard, and some days we’re not gonna wanna get up and do it again. But the point is, we can, we have the power, we have the strength. We just gotta sometimes work with this thing to prevent us from getting up and being our best.
[00:36:22] And not every day is a good day. And that’s okay. That’s part of this journey.
[00:36:27] Jimmy: I’ll even met with you. I met Jeremy, yesterday. I honestly, I came home, from class Uhhuh and I stood, I just hung out downstairs just hanging out with,[00:36:40] with my parents and. Did nothing. I didn’t, I was like, yeah, I had all this stuff to do and whatnot, but I knew I had an interview last night and so I was like, okay,I only have what three things left on my to-do list.
[00:36:56] So I was like, I’ll get it done before the last, the interview. And then I’m gonna, and then last night, instead of me doing the same thing over and over again and getting myself in a guilt trip, I decided to watch a Big Bang Theory with my dad on tv. And so I. It wasn’t as productive, as Monday, but I’m not gonna beat myself up on it because I’m already ahead of, for my next article, my guest article coming out in two weeks and my podcast show notes on my website for next week.
[00:37:30] So I was like, I already have. Step done. And I was like, in my article, all I have to do is add images, add some links, and poof. Done. You’re
[00:37:40] Audra: ready to go. So good. We do need to take time like that though. and the other side of that, like you said, is not feeling guilty for it. Yeah. So yes, please give yourself some grace and even maybe you told me the scenario where you weren’t all the way caught up.
[00:37:56] Sometimes just taking a break for something allows us to refresh our brain and go back and fight a little bit harder. If we keep pushing through it when we’re already fatigued or not really centered in the work that we need to do, we typically don’t achieve good stuff. It’s not our best selves showing up.
[00:38:14] So take breaks like that. Good for you. Good. Like
[00:38:18] Jimmy: last week, last year I [00:38:20] waited to every possible second to finish up the last five or six tasks last. And it was annoying. And so this year I was like, new year, not doing it. Newest frame of mind. And I, I said to my mom yesterday and I was like, it’s really scary.
[00:38:42] I’m, I was like, I’m a head schedule of everything. and it’s funny, there’s one, video com, my, one of my video editing companies that I’ve used. And, and what’s funny that they didn’t want me to touch anything on their, while they were all troubleshooting this one issue, and it’s we hope you have something else to do.
[00:39:00] It’s thank you for your concern, but since I’m only a one small person entrepreneur, I was like, I have everything to do. Yeah, I was like, but thank you for your concerns. I’ll have nothing to do.
[00:39:12] Audra: Oh goodness. All right. Jimmy, this has been great. It’s been really fun to learn about you and learn where you’re at in your business and, your commitment to getting in front of the tasks and finding easier ways to do it.
[00:39:26] So good for you.
[00:39:28] Jimmy: Thank you. And, I hope you have me back on later on in the year or something because, I’m always doing something new. That’s just good. That’s just scary too.
[00:39:37] Audra: no. It’s good to expand and keep learning. That’s why we’re here on this planet, isn’t it? Yeah, I think so. To keep learning and evolving into our next version of us.
[00:39:47] Yep. All right. there’s another episode for The Mess in the Middle. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you again. Thank you. [00:40:00]
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