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11 May

Ep. 105 – Jonas Koffler – Entrepreneur and Media Consultant – Creating Opportunities

“That time is the architect of life and life is the architecture of time. So, think about the architecture you want to create in your world. This is your world. Forget about people imposing their shit on you. This is about you imposing your will on the world and being unapologetically ambitious about it and treating people with kindness and dignity and self-worth and having gratitude for the time that you do have. Number one.”

Jonas Koffler – Entrepreneur & Media Consultant; the 4 P’s of the POP Framework; Taking small risks; Designing your life; Owning your time.

Segment 1: (Length :04:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Jonas Koffler and his journey as an entrepreneur; Creating a portfolio of opportunities; Taking small risks to expand your opportunities.

Jonas’ finer points:

“Happy to try to distill some more knowledge around our hustle work that Patrick and Neil and I developed. I hope that this POP framework is something that resonates because I think it authors a lot of value and, if nothing else, is always good for water cooler conversation.”

I think if we're just to distill this down to is the barest essence, the simple concept is this. That most of us frame our experience because of conditioning, whether it's parental conditioning, peer conditioning or pressure, societal or the things that we're told and that we've digested and accepted as true can actually all be thrown out the window.

“So, instead of saying, you know, yes, I’m on a path in school or I’m on a path of developing a skill set, which will help me move forward in life and pursue this one career, this one thing that I think will enable me to sustain myself financially and otherwise, spiritually, creatively.”

“Why not, instead of framing that vertical, narrow path, myopic closed, be a little bit more open, flexible, expansive in your thinking around. It’s not simply one path to fulfillment or to financial freedom.”

“Instead, think about a portfolio life meaning that the visual is instead of vertical ladder, it’s a horizontal ladder with many rungs and many ways to travel up, so that you’re de-risking risk. You’re de-risking the risk of staying on one narrow path when you can be downsized or cut off from your job or outsourced or whatever.”

“Instead, you’re saying, “I can develop these different buckets of opportunity much as I would in an investment portfolio.” If you think of the financial world and the kind of dominant thinking around what’s a safe bet or how do you de-risk the risk in the financial world.”

What you want to do is you want to place a lot of small bets. So, it's not into only one basket. It's into a lot of different baskets. And hopefully some of those convergence see some real value for you.

“And it’s not only that. It’s not simply the success component. It’s the fulfillment component, which I think is infinitely more interesting, right? So, you can pursue these curiosities. You can develop these skill sets. You’re developing your human potential, your human networks, your connections, your sense of confidence.”

“You got your community out there and then also your credibility and we’ll walk through all the different pieces of this, But, again, to frame it, it’s a portfolio. It’s not one thing, it’s many things. You’re a complex individual capable of incredible feats and creative capacity or output. So, why limit yourself?”

Remove the shackles of that limited myopic thinking and, instead, frame the world as a multi-colored basket or that blank canvas with infinite possibility.

“So, I think in terms of timing, I think we all have our own timing. I think we should be aware and be grateful for the longevity that we’re all afforded, some of us more than others, if we’re healthy and we can avoid disease and all sorts of terrible maladies or whatever.”

“And it’s not simply about the plan. It’s simply about starting to take more subtle risks and starting to orient this idea that you can create more space to try more things. Because if you don’t do that, then you’ll never have the upside benefits of starting to explore and not to say that it’s never too late.”

“It’s never too late to become the person you’re intended or destined to become. You can do that, but the sooner you start trying more things … You know, there’s this great expression. I think it’s Drucker or someone else, maybe Tom Peters. He or she who tries the most, wins the most. Right?”

“It doesn’t need to be you making this massive bet on 50 different things. Just a subtle shift toward trying one new thing, maybe one new thing a month. Could it be as simple as you going to a restaurant and ordering a new dish.”

I'm saying it's small, subtle changes and eventually that opens you up, it allows you to break the routine, to disrupt that pattern, habitual experience and instead say, 'I'm going to start living a little bit more through curiosity and perception of the world.'

“Creating your own world rather than simply mimicking or aping what other people are doing. There’s one path or there’s one safe way of going. You’re moving away from that low-risk profile and expanding a little bit. Why? Because you’re de-risking the risk.”

“So, in terms of timing, it’s up to you. You could choose to try on new thing a month, one new skill set that you develop, or one new thing a year.”

“Ultimately, it’s that basket you’re developing and it should be multi-faceted. Because, one, it’s going to give you a sense of what you’re capable of, but two, you’re going to find out pretty quickly if you have some talent and can be rewarded and you derive some rewards from pursuing or this sort of stretch experience. That’s what it’s about.”

Segment 2: (Length :08:00) – Talking with Jonas Koffler; Owning your time; Compartmentalizing tasks; Being present

Jonas’ finer points:

My advice would be to learn to compartmentalize. Learn to structure your schedules so that you're single-tasking. You're focusing on one thing at a time.

“The broader frame is still that the personal opportunity portfolio is divided into different buckets, but if you’re involved in multiple ventures whether you’re an employee or you’re starting as an entrepreneur or you’re a more seasoned entrepreneur, what you’re going to do is, rather than drive yourself crazy or to be completely ineffective, you own your time.”

“Basically, you have time blocks and you’re actively managing that specific project or venture within the space of that time, the context of that time. And that’s it. You’re essentially giving yourself a deadline.”

“You’ve got 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, whatever it might be. If you’re working on a book, maybe it’s writing for two hours. In my case, I’m shifting to focusing on my startup and will spend two hours, high-energy, super focused with a very clear outcome in mind and choose some sort of small goal every day.”

Or if I'm shifting over to thinking about the restaurant business or bringing in new investors for a new venture or where are we as far as the production and where's the team on the film? How are we doing? What needs to happen?

“What are the next steps? All of those things have their own buckets. Those are the baskets and I’m seeing them visually reflected on my calendar. So, I know that I am personally accountable to manage those things.”

“I also know that I have a team who also have their own accountability and I expect them to stay on top of it and be professional and be an adult about it and so forth.”

“So, there is a conscious psychological commitment to owning your time, staying on top of it, maintaining awareness of what needs to happen, and try to simplify as much as possible would be the short answer to that.”

“But you only know by pushing yourself to a point where you feel like is a healthy balance. And if you need to listen to your body and listen to your mind. If it starts getting super stressful, then it’s self-defeating and you need to take a step back and say, “You know what? I’m doing enough right now and this is what I’m capable of managing and that’s what I’ll do.”

You need to have the psychic energy to be able to commit fully, proactively to each of your projects. It's very important. But you also want that white space to allow for creativity. So, again, it's very much an individualized approach to owning, maintaining and managing your time and your projects in the most proactive, healthy way possible.

Segment 3: (Length :10:00) – The 4 P’s of the POP Framework; Finding inspiration; Leading with intention.

Jonas’ finer points:

Yes, he should focus on one thing at a time. Absolutely. Otherwise, you get to a place of fatigue and you're not productive or constructive, for that matter.

“So, you have leverage and responsibilities and accountability for each other and so forth. So, it’s the same with me. I have a tremendous leverage in my partnerships and in my different ventures. No one succeeds alone. It’s absolutely true.”

The main thing is this opportunity portfolio, the personal opportunity portfolio. It's really a guiding plan for organizing and making sense of all of our hustle efforts in the book. The four P's that come to mind.

“The first is around potential. So, it’s human potential. It’s the opportunity or capability.”

“The second is the people layer. The people layer’s all about the opportunity of community, community being one of the biggest factors that contributes to our happiness and sense of fulfillment in the world. Community, other people, the social fabric that we create.”

“The third layer is the project layer. The project layer is all around the opportunity of creativity and that sense of doing something interesting. That’s the project layer. It could be a career. It could be the side hustle. It could be the new venture that you’re drafting on the back of a napkin or whatever it might be.”

And the final and arguably the most important is the <strong>proof</strong> layer. The proof layer is the opportunity of credibility. It's the most important thing. It's the thing that you can point at and say definitively, 'I did that. That's my work.'

“And people will know you for it. So, whether you hold up a film or a book or a startup or a blog, that’s proof and no one can take that away from you.”

“Again, so it’s the potential layer, which is all about running experiments and anyone can run experiments, what we call ESP. So, experiment, storytelling and pitching.”

“You have to be able to connect with people. Storytelling is that sort of social lubricator, how you convey meaning or currents or ideas. Pitching is an extension of that. Anyone who can pitch generally can persuade. And if you can persuade, then you can in some way influence each others to either act or to accept your message or, hopefully, find your venture or partner with you, whatever it might be.”

Potential's about growth and power. And then innovation, that personal innovation layer. Huge piece of it. So, start seeing things in new ways or looking at ways, deconstructing them and reconstructing them, reverse engineering outcomes.

“All of that learning, learning, learning, that’s potential. The opportunity of capability. Hugely important. It’s something you should put on your calendar every day whether it’s listening to music or songwriting or taking a class through linda.com or whatever your preferred outline or course platform is or creating your own course, for that matter.”

“Again, you’re not putting yourself in this narrow, one creative bucket. You’re thinking expansively around the realities of the world and that’s ultimately going to lead you to success, to giving you more sense of self-confidence.”

“Again, another hugely important factor in terms of your sense of happiness and fulfillment. And then you’re building a community and this thing, when done well, when done right, leads you to a very much a harmonious life.”

“First of all, to create, even to have this conversation, is a gift. So, for people who can’t find inspiration or gratitude for the opportunities that are out there for them, I would say this.”

First of all, your time is finite. It's non-renewable. We've already covered that, but let's remind people. Number one, it's not in this second, I'm speaking right now, it's gone forever. I'm going to be taking a walk later, maybe I'll get run over by a bus, as I almost did earlier today when I was out on my walk. So, remind yourself of that, number one.

“That time is the architect of life and life is the architecture of time. So, think about the architecture you want to create in your world. This is your world. Forget about people imposing their shit on you. This is about you imposing your will on the world and being unapologetically ambitious about it and treating people with kindness and dignity and self-worth and having gratitude for the time that you do have. Number one.”

“Number two, I would say this. If you’re lacking inspiration, totally cool. I’ve been there, done that. Everyone experiences that. As creative, artistic beings, here’s how you start pursing things. You look for the small nuggets, the golden nuggets, listening to other people, looking around the world, looking for the unseen and finding inspiration in the natural world too.”

“It could be simply going to a quiet place and meditating. It could be seeing a beautiful person smile or listening to an amazing song that gets you going. Find those little nuggets. Watching a sunset. Getting laid. Going on a date. Having a beautiful meal. Having your friends over.”

“Find those nuggets of inspiration and let them fuel your journey because that’s what’s going to drive you from who you are right now to becoming that amazing person that you want to become.”

“And even if you don’t become that, and forget about perfection, you want to lead yourself on a path so that you’re constantly moving forward. Hustle is an energetic term and the product of hustle is what you’ve created in the world and what you’ve created in yourself as a good person in serving others and hopefully creating value and doing cool things.”

You ultimately have responsibility to find inspiration. And I know that times are tough right now. Many people, one out of four, even as high as one out of three, are mired in depression or debt or feel disengaged from their jobs. That's the vast majority of people in this country and globally.

“You need to accept that it’s going to be up to you to make the changes required to allow you to move forward. So, if you’re lacking the ignition piece, the activation piece, I would say look within and start, as we call it in the book, repairing the man in your heart. Take some small risks. Forget about avoiding failure. That’s not what you want. The better option is to start moving forward..”

“So forget about avoiding failure and start moving forward and it can be in very small ways every day. A simple conversation that you have with someone, the words that you choose, the attitude that you allow yourself to operate on, your sense of gratitude. It’s small shifts.”

“Then you start creating your plan and you start moving forward. Moving, moving, moving is key. Find the small doses of inspiration, or the small doses of pain, as we call them in the book. Because those will add up and fill the bucket to a place where it overflows and you’re like, “You know what? I’m in a state of flow and abundance. I’m creating amazing things in my own world and I’m going to do the same thing for other people as well.”

Segment 4: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:

The entire universe is conspiring to give you everything that you want. - Abraham Hicks

GENERAL NOTES:

Jonas Koffler – Entrepreneur & Media Consultant

  • Raised nomadically across the US by academics and artists, is a creative media consultant, producer, and writer. He advises internationally recognized thought leaders, TED speakers, and creative artists, helps organizations innovate, develops strategy and intellectual property for startups and billion-dollar companies alike, runs and invests in new ventures, and has contributed to multiple bestselling books, TV and film projects at his boutique storytelling consultancy.
  • In addition, together with his brother Alexander, Koffler produces documentary, narrative films and branded video content under Koffler Pictures.
  • Jonas is a stroke survivor turned yoga practitioner and meditator, a startup cofounder, a writer and film/media producer and an entrepreneur involved in numerous ventures. An avid traveler, he’s explored four continents (and is currently mapping #5). He and his wife Laura, a wildlife veterinarian, live in Austin, TX and elsewhere whenever possible.
  • He recognizes that our time is limited, our possibilities infinite, and our health precious. And thus, he sees each day as an opportunity for growth, creativity, and joy. He enjoys teaching and sharing his knowledge and gifts with others. In addition to advising organizations, high-profile thought leaders and creative artists, he speaks at conferences, like upcoming events SXSW and The Future of Work Summit, and leads and facilitates workshops.

 

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Matt Gottesman

Matt Gottesman is a global digital strategist and technology advisor, creator and editor-in-chief of Hustle & Deal Flow™ - an online magazine dedicated to the world's entrepreneurs, creators and makers, a Social Media Influencer and a consultant on New Media and go-to-market strategies for investments in digital marketing, technology, websites, mobile applications, eCommerce, social media and content.

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