Joel Comm has a Formula for Fun | Episode 123
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Joel Comm is an entrepreneur, NY Times bestselling author, and new media innovator.
An expert on harnessing the power of social media and mobile applications to expand your brand’s reach and engage in active relationship marketing, Joel is a sought-after public speaker who leaves his audience inspired, entertained, and armed with strategic tools to create a new media campaign that will explode their business. He is also the author of The Fun Formula.
Each day for Joel is different and that is the way he likes it; he left the workforce decades ago and enjoys keeping his life spontaneous and unique. Every day for Joel is the same in the sense that it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is, he doesn’t follow the same calendar the rest of the working world does, and he loves the freedom that comes with this.
He believes there are always far more failures than successes and he considers those more worthy to be modeled after than successes as this is where you learn the most. His favorite fail comes from 2009 when he made a couple of bad hires and was too hands-off and went down building a system where his heart wasn’t really in it. This ultimately never went anywhere, and he ended up pulling the plug on the project but ultimately, he thinks this is where he learned the most, for him it was a write-off financially and experientially and was incredibly valuable for him. He learned not to become involved in things he’s not all in to and not to become attached to a product or service you’re working on because there are always more opportunities out there.
When Joel reverse engineers his successes and fails he realizes he couldn’t have predicted the successes when they’re happening because whenever you try to attempt something your hope is always that it will work and so many times it hasn’t. He has found his successes have come from when he was following his own creativity and curiosity, when he was willing to take a risk, when trusted the process. Joel always has the same mindset when going into things and it’s only in hindsight you can see why certain ones hit and certain ones didn’t. An example of one of these successes for Joel comes from 2008 when he was brainstorming ideas with his team and someone suggested the iFart app, it made his team laugh and Joel decided to put the resources to develop it, never thinking it would be anything big. It ended up being #1 on the app store and was a major success.
Joel’s process of deciding what to do next involves following his own curiosity, taking risks, understanding the opportunity could fall flat on its face, trusting the process and not forcing something. He likes to say ‘nothing is anything until it’s something’ and so he won’t get excited until it’s actually happening as it helps alleviate disappointment and eliminate expectations.
His best practice would be to just do you: don’t listen to what the world throws at you and the expectations it has of you. He believes the biggest world changers didn’t conform and it’s of utmost importance to understand yourself and be your authentic self.
A book he would recommend that has helped him in both his personal life as well as his business is a book called Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend and this is a book Joel always recommends.
Joel has been playing video games since the ’80s and has never been as immersed and intrigued by a game like Red Dead Redemption 2, he played it first on his PS4 and is now going through it again on his PC. He finds this game incredibly immersive, the storytelling amazing, great characters and finds the gameplay repeatable, this is definitely a game Joel would recommend.
joelcomm.com He is @joelcomm on Twitter, @joelcomm on Instagram and Facebook. Of course, also his podcast show The Bad Crypto Podcast.
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Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,
Rob
