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145: The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur with John Jantsch

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If you’re attempting any creative or business endeavor, you know that it’s one of the great personal development journeys a person can undertake. Dips, mood drops, discouragement, disillusionment — these are all natural byproducts of forging new territory and taking on the vulnerability and uncertainty that come with creating anything new in the world.

John Jantsch is one of my longtime business mentors-from-afar, someone I’m now lucky to call a friend. In his latest book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur: 366 Daily Meditations to Feed Your Soul and Grow Your Business, he combines timeless transcendentalist wisdom with his three decades of entrepreneurial time-in-the-trenches. I hope you enjoy this conversation on luck, pivoting, and the spiritual side of business-building.

Check out full show notes from this episode with links to resources mentioned at PivotMethod.com/145.

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More About John Jantsch

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John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, Duct Tape Selling, The Commitment Engine, and SEO for Growth.

His newest work, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur: 366 Daily Meditations to Feed Your Soul and Grow Your Business taps into the wisdom of 19th-century transcendentalist literature and the author’s own 30-year entrepreneurial journey to challenge today’s entrepreneur to remain fiercely self-reliant while chasing their own version of success.

In addition to his own writing, speaking and consulting career Jantsch is a podcasting pioneer, with a continuous string of weekly podcast episodes dating back to the summer of 2005. He has interviewed thousands of guests and appeared on the other side of the mic, as a guest, hundreds of times.

 Topics We Cover

  • How different sources of inspiration produce their primary body of literary

  • Independent thinking and the period of unparalleled awakening in American literature

  • Romanticism and transcendentalism placed great emphasis on the individual as well as inspiration from nature

  • Spirituality as a founding aspect of the transcendentalist philosophy

  • John’s journey across 30 years — how faith plays a role in his CEO mindset and navigating ups and downs 

  • “[The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur] reveals a vital spiritual component to this awakening of the self-reliant entrepreneur. The Spirit of the entrepreneur is understood as much as a force of energy as an institution.”

  • How your inner voice and soul can speak up

  • Practices of meditation, journaling, solitude 

  • “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —RWE, 1803-1882

  • What does luck feel like? 

  • Blendingly is a word every entrepreneur should embrace as it perfectly defines the contradiction inherent as you struggle for progress, all the while holding your breath in fear of failure – – where does one end and one begin?

  • Everyone Pivots — “ Self-reliant entrepreneurs always pivot. It’s become trendy and start up circles to use the term pivot as though it was graded in the last decade or so, but it simply implies that you should question everything – always – and ask if there’s a better way to do it. Try, measure, learn is a universal truth in business, and your willingness to change your mind is what keeps you both committed to your dream and self-reliant. (don’t forget the measure part or you’ll feel the urge to pivot because you’re bored.)”

  • “Make sure you’re a product of your product.”

Resources Mentioned

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