Code Of Character
Michael Greenberg discusses ways to bring value to the market by employing versatility with Justin Bailey on the Code Of Character Podcast.
Justin Bailey 0:07
Welcome to the Code of Character podcast. My name is Justin Bailey. I am the host and founder Code Of Character. I want to take a moment like I always do, and I know this sounds repetitive, but I’m truly grateful for all the people who listen to this podcast truly humbled. Thanks for checking it out. And if you like what you hear, shoot me a message, let me know, leave us a rating and review on iTunes it would help to get the message out, so they tell me I don’t know if it’s true, but its algorithms and such. So I appreciate your taking the time to check this podcast out. We are the podcast, which gives a platform to people of high character to tell their stories and teach their lessons and hopefully make us all a little bit better in the process. Today I have an exciting interview with Michael Greenberg. He is a founder of Call For Content. And I’ll tell you a little bit more about him in a minute. First, I just want to let you know a couple of resources that I’d like to tell you about is our free Facebook group that’s Code Of Character on Facebook. facebook.com/groups/codeofcharacter. That is a closed free men’s group. And we’re having all kinds of conversations about what it is to be a man of 2019. And what it is to live a life of character and what that looks like for each of us. How we’re getting through the day to day life and sharing wisdom and sharing knowledge and all that fun stuff. So it’s a great group. We don’t do the arguing back and forth too much, a little bit here and there, but we don’t get nasty, and we don’t do the bickering. What we’re doing is trying to find common ground between men to support each other and the values that we believe in. So check that group out. If you’re not a part of that group yet. If you’re looking for something a little bit more. We do have the mastermind called The Code, and that is a group of us who are going a little bit past a Facebook group and really trying to figure out what it means to live that life of character and being intentional about it. And surrounding ourselves with a brotherhood of men who also feel the same and know what we’re about and can help us through the journey. We have a very loose curriculum. Each month. We do zoom calls every Wednesday at 9pm Eastern. We get on, and we share wisdom with one another and help each other out. And whatever the topic is that month, we dive into it. So today’s show is Michael Greenberg. Like I said, He’s the founder of Call For Content. He is also the host of Talk With The Top Denver, the podcasts out there. And we kind of spanned all topics on this when we talk about podcasting. We talked about marketing. Michael tells his story of coming from a tech background and cross it over to marketing slash podcasting and also teaches us how to be a lazy entrepreneur. There’s an asterisk mark there behind that, but we gotta wait till the end to hear that one. So that’s a good bit right there, the lazy entrepreneur, I like it. So here’s my interview with Michael Greenberg. Michael Greenberg, thanks for joining the Code Of Character podcast. How are you doing today?
Michael Greenberg 3:17
Doing well? How about yourself?
Justin Bailey 3:19
I am doing excellent. I’m excited to talk with you. As we were talking before we started here, you are a busy man, you’re doing lots of different things. Quite frankly, a lot of the things that you’re into are things I’m fairly ignorant of. So I’m excited to ask all the dumb questions and learn as much as I can in a few minutes here.
Michael Greenberg 3:39
Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks, it can be a lot of fun.
Justin Bailey 3:42
Yeah, so you’re the founder of a company called Call For Content. First off, just walk us through what you guys do there at Call For Content?
Michael Greenberg 3:51
Yeah, so Call For Content. We like to call ourselves a podcasting agency. And so we’re a digital marketing company. And we specialize in developing podcasts first marketing strategies for our clients. And then, we also provide white label podcasting services to other agencies and consultants and other podcast producers. So our focus is really on the business side, we do B2B lead gen, we do recruitment shows. The hobbyist stuff where somebody might be starting a show that is going to make no money is less our area, we like to focus on the business side.
Justin Bailey 4:38
So when you say white-label, what does that mean for those who don’t know?
Michael Greenberg 4:42
Yeah, so we’ll partner with, for example, another local marketing agency and be their provider of all podcasting related services. We’ll outsource the production, outsource the marketing. And what we’ll do is we’ll do all that work under their brand, so they own the client relationship. We do the work, and they just take a margin off the top.
Justin Bailey 5:09
Okay. How long have you been doing this work with podcasting?
Michael Greenberg 5:14
I’ve been working with podcasts for a little over three years now. I was a B2B growth strategy consultant before I started Call For Content, and I work with a podcast network there that sort of kicked off the whole idea.
Justin Bailey 5:29
So would that be coming from a marketing background?
Michael Greenberg 5:33
No, I actually come from a technical background. So software development, application development, and I was working with Come Venture Back Startup at the time, which is a small company, so you’ve got to wear a lot of hats. And one of the hats that I put on was heading up sales and marketing operations. And I get to see the real bottom-line impact here. I get to make a difference in the company where no clients are going to be yelling at me about, oh, these buttons in the wrong place, that sort of thing. And so it was a very easy decision to make. And I really enjoy focusing on the operations and the marketing of the organization. More than a lot of the other parts. And that’s sort of my favorite realm.
Justin Bailey 6:20
Not for me, and I could be very wrong here. But it seems like there’s kind of two different types of people that do sell for engineering and that kind of world and that do the marketing piece. Is that true? And how was that transition for you kind of moved over? Obviously, it’s working out for you. But what are the kind of skill sets that transferred over and maybe the skill sets that you had to change up a little bit?
Michael Greenberg 6:43
Yeah, so I actually got to bring just about everything with me from a tech side. I’d like to call myself, there’s a term that started to pop up for technical marketers within the technology industry and larger marketing organizations in particular. Because there’s so much marketing technology now that you really need somebody internally who understands how it works at a code level. And my background is not a creative one, I’m not coming from an agency. I built the software. And then, I moved into marketing. And so I come very much from the finance side from the technology side. And that means the marketing we do is very different. We’re all data. There’s no one sitting around in a room talking about how this might be a great idea. We’re going to get that idea to test as quickly as possible and see what happens.
Justin Bailey 7:40
Now, it’s interesting, you talked about how you didn’t come from a traditional creative background. I know you’re probably speaking as far as the business side of creativity, but what about your personal endeavors? Have you been a creative person? Would you consider yourself a creative person?
Michael Greenberg 7:58
I think so. Yeah. I’ve been baking and cooking for just about my entire life. And that’s something that I would say I am creative and I draw. So yeah, because I do creative things. I don’t really do much on the art side of creativity. And so that is where I see the distinction.
Justin Bailey 8:22
Yeah. And you seem to be putting out a lot of content yourself. You’re active on social media. And I think I saw you got a book coming out later, right. You’re in the middle of writing a book. So right.
Michael Greenberg 8:33
Yeah, so I’ve put out a few playbooks now, which each sort of walk through a single strategy that we use at Call For Content, those can be found at callforcontent.com. But those playbooks are the little pieces, and then we’re going to be wrapping all those together into a larger book, probably at the end of this year or beginning of next and those will give it a refresh as well. At the same time.
Justin Bailey 9:01
So I’m going to discuss as I said, I may ask some dumb questions. So bear with me. So I’ve been told that all my life. Then eventually I get to the point where someone’s like, Alright, that was dumb. We’re done now. So if you podcast as marketing, I’m kind of interested in it. How do you see that working for small business people? Should everybody that runs ads, would you recommend they do a podcast? Is that what we’re really talking about podcasts as marketing is another tool as an advertisement? Or how do you kind of view that? If a small business owner right now is listening. How can they kind of leverage this technology and planning?
Michael Greenberg 9:45
Yeah, so I booked it two ways. The first is if you’re in B2B sales, and your customer value is on the larger end, you know if a customer is going to bring you 10 000, 20 000, 100 000 in new business when you bring them on. Then a podcast is a viable channel for lead generation. And that’s by positioning your show, as a show that interviews potential prospects in the market. And using that show is the way to get in the door with high-value prospects. And that’s a model. I’ve seen work for years. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. And that works very well.
Justin Bailey 10:30
Can you give an example of that?
Michael Greenberg 10:32
Yeah, sure. Actually, I used to host a show based in St. Louis, Missouri, when I lived there, called Talk With The Top St. Louis. And at the time, I was primarily doing B2B growth strategy consulting. So the guests that I had on my show were almost exclusively owners of businesses in that one to 10 million range, which was my sweet spot for a consultant. They knew that I did that, just because people ask, how do you make money from this show? And I tell them, well, I’ve got this other business, and I really use this to meet people locally. And then those relationships that I generated from the show turned into referrals, turned into a strong network that, to this day, brings me business with just about anything I do. So I looked at the podcast almost as a way to create those relationships. And then, knowing that I was creating high-value relationships, I was able to sort of walk back into the actual lead flow and revenue for that show.
Justin Bailey 11:42
Okay, that makes perfect sense. So building that network through interviewing those.
Michael Greenberg 11:46
Yes, exactly.
Justin Bailey 11:48
Right on. Okay, so the first one was the B2B. And what was the second way?
Michael Greenberg 11:53
So the second way is for somebody who’s not in B2B or is in B2B but not with the same level of a purchaser who is maybe selling a $1,000 or $2,000 item, something like that. And what I would do then is, if you’re a small business owner, you should host the show. And use that show to get in contact with, not only some customers, but focused on the other people who serve that same customer base. So looking for the higher-profile people who might be adjacent to you in the market, and using those people to help build your profile to talk about things that might be of concern for your customer base, and to really have those conversations on-air, because that’ll show your customers that you care about what they’re trying to do because you’re taking the time to find to bring on those people, and it’ll give you a chance to show off how much you really understand their business and what they do.
Justin Bailey 13:03
So is the strategy to kind of position yourself as an authority there or really for? I guess I’m trying to see his positioning.
Michael Greenberg 13:15
Positioning first. Yeah. So growing an audience for a podcast is hard.
Justin Bailey 13:22
Yeah, I know that
Michael Greenberg 13:27
Growing an audience is hard. And you need to make sure do you have time or if you don’t have time to find out ways to take that podcast and turn it into other content. Because if you really want people to see it and use it, you’ve got to be continuously putting it out and keeping it in front of people. And so one of the things we’ve seen that works really well to help with that is when we have a popular episode, or when we have a high profile guest on. Then we’ll take some people’s Facebook ads. And we’ll take our audience that we normally target. And we’ll tune in a bit for that specific episode. And then we’ll run ads featuring that episode to the audience and use that to help boost our subscriber base and our listener base but in a very targeted way. So looking really only for those people who are interested in a specific episode you have already. Who are in your target market. And so then, when they click through that ad, when they subscribe, you can track them through that, and you can respond appropriately. And so that’s how we’ve seen podcasts move away from authority more into the lead gen. But really, the core purpose of the podcast is to position yourself for that authority.
Justin Bailey 14:49
And I came across a technique you were talking about. That was, I think you call it borrowing authority. Can you speak on that?
Michael Greenberg 14:59
Yeah. So when you have somebody who is already considered an authority on a podcast. Or when you create content with them. You get to borrow some of the ways that people view them. Because if they are willing to associate their brand with yours. To the customer, to the person viewing that partnership or that episode. They’re going to see that you’re respected by this person. And the respect of that other authority allows you to borrow some of their authority. So if I start a show tomorrow, and it’s only featuring accountants and the owners of accounting firms in three months, I bet I could go speak as an expert on accounting marketing, at a conference or something like that, even if I’ve never worked with an account myself. And that’s just because I’ve built up all that authority from talking with all those people. So if somebody goes and looks at that, they’ll see. Oh, this guy is, even if they don’t know if I know my stuff, they’ll see that, oh, he’s respected by people in this field.
Justin Bailey 16:16
So how do you suggest that people who don’t have any authority or don’t feel they have any authority in the field, reach out to these people who do have authority in the field? Whatever field is to, I guess, to eventually make that ask.
Michael Greenberg 16:35
Yeah, I like email. LinkedIn works well, too. I’ve actually got a whole process outlined in the authority marketing playbook, which I think will be linking at the end, to go through and reach out to people for these sorts of partnerships. And really, the hardest part is just doing it. Most people get scared or think that nobody’s going to respond. But if you take the time to write a personal email to somebody, they will almost never respond negatively. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve seen somebody send an angry email back to, a thought out, kind letter asking for somebody to come on their show. The worst they’ll say is no. And if you can’t handle a couple of no’s, you should probably not have a business.
Justin Bailey 17:23
Yeah, for sure. No doubt. I think that in the almost two years I’ve been doing this, I got what I thought was a no early on. From an author, I really respected, and it turned out to be it wasn’t a no it was he was working on something, and I ended up having him on the show later. I don’t think I’ve had any flat no’s. I had one other person who I’m still trying to schedule it. I’ve kind of been pushed back because he’s very busy. But I don’t think I’ve gotten any no’s. But it’s funny because even still, when I think about reaching out to some people, there’s that trepidation and there’s that fear of like, I don’t know what the fear is, right? Like, it probably all goes back to that I’m not good enough thing, right that we all kind of fight through. But when you look back, and you’re like, Okay, nobody has turned me down, and nobody’s definitely been angry or mean. The fear is just there, right? It’s really not based on any reason or logic. It’s just kind of that instinctual human kind of thing.
Michael Greenberg 18:23
Yeah. And that fear is the biggest hole.
Justin Bailey 18:28
Yeah, and everybody goes through it.
Michael Greenberg 18:30
Yeah, you just gotta jump.
Justin Bailey 18:34
So tell me about it. We were talking before we started here, and you kind of just got your first full-time job. Yeah, but I think there’s an interesting lesson in here, but kind of talk me through that. And then and then I’ll ask a question there on it.
Michael Greenberg 18:48
Yeah. So up until a month and a half ago. I had been working for myself and successfully for about five years. And at that time, I started as a consultant. And then I moved into Call For Content and launched that agency. And at the beginning of this year 2019, I decided that I was not the best person to run the day to day of my agency and that I should really step away. So I brought on a little more team to help handle the load. And I had trained people, and I started looking for a new opportunity. I explored some possible business acquisitions. I looked at partnering with some larger consulting firms to come on with them. And I applied to a few jobs as well. And what I found with the jobs was that I could not work for a technology company, I could not work for a marketing agency, because I have Call For Content. I would be serving their competitors through that vehicle, and so I had to go outside my industry. And what I ended up doing was finding a position as Director of Marketing at a construction equipment dealer. And so we sell construction and mining equipment. It’s the farthest away from technology that you can get. The issues that I talk with my peers and technology about are things that we can’ even think about yet as a company because we don’t have the base level of technology and operations in play yet. It’s still you know, there are guys here who have been here for 40 years and who have a literal little black book that they have their clients in and their contact information, and they call them up. And so, that transition and that decision. One of the big things for me with this job was that they gave me flexibility in my schedule. So I can come in at seven, or I can come in at 9:30. Or I can come in at eight. And that gives me the wiggle room to then schedule meetings for my other business for Call For Content around it. And it’s allowed me to significantly increase my income while maintaining what I had by adding to it.
Justin Bailey 21:19
Yeah, and most of the time, when you hear a story like this, I say, like this, it’s usually the inverse, right? It’s the story of breaking free from the nine to five on your own. And you’ve done that, but you’re maintaining that business. What I really thought was really worthy of talking about here, that I think everybody can appreciate. Is that you had those probably, Well, some people consider maybe a hard conversation, you know when you’re getting a new job applying for a new job and going through the interview process. At some point, you had to say, Hey, this is part of me, this company’s part of me and asking for some of that flexibility, which they ended up giving to you, and I don’t know how glad they were about it. I suspect that they probably wouldn’t be sitting there right now. But, you know, I think that a lot of us kind of don’t think that we have certain leverage points. And a lot of times when you just ask the question, the answer is, like we talked about before, people seem to be willing to help you and to work through most circumstances. And I think this is just another example of, if you want something, just ask for it. And worst case, they say no best case, you ended up with a job that you’re happy at, and also being able to continue to run your company. So kudos to you for having that conversation and doing that.
Michael Greenberg 22:40
Thank you. Yeah, it’s one we’re still working through the fine details on as we go through, you know, fires come up in the middle of the day. And there might be two different meetings I have to be at. But as we’ve gotten through those first weeks, it started to even out. And I think we’ve started to find a good balance. Everyone seems happy.
Justin Bailey 23:06
Yeah, I’ve had similar but different issues. I’ve been in the National Guard now for 10 years. And every employer I talked to them up for, because I don’t want somebody to hire me that doesn’t know the full story. And if there’s a conflict, I have to go away or whatever. My strategy has always been, first off, try to find places that are supportive of that, obviously. But second off is always just to be upfront, candid as early as possible, and to treat people with the courtesy that you would want and most of the time, not always, but most of the time. You know, as you said, there are some things that have to be worked out and maybe some continual things that you just have to keep open communication and keep moving forward. But I think most of the time if we’re open, honest and forthcoming, that people are generally willing to work with us.
Michael Greenberg 23:55
Yeah, definitely. And most of the time, if you’re at that, you know the final interview or you’re at the job offer, and you’re working out these fine points, they obviously want you, and you want them. You want to work for them, you wouldn’t have applied there otherwise, I hope. And that makes it a lot easier.
Justin Bailey 24:17
I know they bring out like the job numbers or the economic numbers and I know they wiggle those around however they want, to make things look good, but just from the amount of LinkedIn hits I’ve been getting over the past month, the job market must be on fire there. I would assume that people with skills do have some leverage because it seems to be that the jobs are plenty right now.
Michael Greenberg 24:44
Yeah, there’s definitely like, if you’re a technical marketer, for example, you can always find a job right now. And there’s a lot of different areas where you know, if you’re a sales guy and you can’t find it, job, you might want to consider not being a sales guy. Stuff like that.
Justin Bailey 25:07
Yeah, that’s an interesting life. I’ve never done sales, but I feel like you would know pretty quickly whether it’s the life for you or not.
Michael Greenberg 25:15
Yeah. And I still meet people from time to time who have difficulty finding a sales job. And that’s always surprising to me because I know so many organizations that will take somebody if they can sell. So that never goes away.
Justin Bailey 25:36
Yeah, and it applies to everything, right? Like communication is selling, so it spans every position.
Michael Greenberg 25:46
Yeah. And communication is the number one executive skill set. So you can even skip the sales part and go up to management.
Justin Bailey 25:54
Yeah, I was listening to a podcast, and they said that it was number one. I think the founder, the CEO of LinkedIn, said that that was the number one shortfall in the job market is communication skills.
Michael Greenberg 26:09
I’d agree with that.
Justin Bailey 26:11
Above everything else, If you interact with people every day, which we all do. It’s not hard to understand, but it’s kind of amazing because you don’t have to spend $100,000 to learn how to communicate with people. You don’t have to go to school for eight years to learn how to communicate with people. The information is out there, it’s just people aren’t obviously getting it for various reasons or being able to implement it, maybe is more so the problem?
Michael Greenberg 26:40
Yeah, well, I personally think there’s a secret army of communications majors out there who have just pounded this drum that, unless you have the degree, unless you’ve taken the classes unless you have some sort of verifiable rubber stamp skill set for communication. You’re probably not there. I think competence is really the biggest thing with communication. It seems like. I see too many people unwilling to make a decision these days, especially in bigger companies.
Justin Bailey 27:12
Why do you think that is?
Michael Greenberg 27:14
Because culture doesn’t promote it. Like decisiveness, especially in corporate America. Decisiveness is only valued at the highest level of executives. Because many times, what happens is decisiveness means that you have to be willing to make a wrong decision. And too many organizations, that’s a toxic issue where the person who makes the wrong decision, that could be the reason they get fired, that could be the reason they get passed up. And so a lot of people are more willing to make no decision, then make a wrong one. When in reality, the studies show that the best performers they’re the people who just make decisions.
Justin Bailey 28:03
That is a really interesting topic here? Because I feel like I’ve definitely seen the same thing. And many times, if you are the consultant, or you’re on that side of it, you’re trying to find, I just need someone that can make a decision, right? And it’s this person going well, such and such, maybe they might be able to help you, and they’re sending you that person. I wonder, do you think that this fear of, if I make the wrong decision, I’ll be fired or I’ll be whatever something terrible will happen to me. Do you think it’s a real fear or not? Do you think that’s legitimately something people should be worried about?
Michael Greenberg 28:52
I think it depends on the company. I think that is a fear for you at your company. Maybe think about looking for a new job. Because something like that seems like a great way for a company to die.
Justin Bailey 29:08
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I’m a network guy by trade and years ago when I first got out of the army and was working at a data center, and I screwed something up, but I can’t remember if I pulled the wrong cable or whatever, I probably ruined equipment or something. And I screwed some stuff up, and there was an outage, right? And the outage report came back, and nobody knew exactly why. Right? But it was this, why was this down? And I was like, I was in there, and I pulled the wrong thing. And I did shut down their own port or whatever it was. And somebody told me like, you didn’t have to admit that like why’d you tell yourself right. And I’m like, this is not going to be the last mistake I’m ever gonna make and if this is a make or break deal that I made a mistake I got to want to work here anyway. Now, I don’t want to be fired. But I don’t want to work in a place where I have to give up Integrity and not admit when I screw up, because it won’t be the last time I screw up.
Michael Greenberg 30:05
Yeah, that’s a really big one. Because now if somebody screws up the same way two or three times in a row, that’s an issue. But if you screw up one time, one way, my expectation, at least for my employees, is that you’re not going to screw up that way again. Yeah. Because you should have learned from it. And taking responsibility for those actions, the first step to being able to learn from them.
Justin Bailey 30:32
Yeah, that’s always my goal is not to do the same dumb thing twice. Do a different dumb thing, right? So before we close this thing out, I was really interested, you put an article out, actually on LinkedIn here, a couple of months ago, called Guidelines For The Lazy Entrepreneur. And so I’m reading through this thing, right? I’m expecting to see, I guess, like some businessy kind of these types of things that I would barely be able to relate to because I’ve never been an entrepreneur and this kind of thing. And I’m scrolling through here man and these are the most practical things in the world that you wouldn’t kind of thing I mean, you gotta eat natural food, you gotta have more sex, you got what else you have here? That no more than eight hours a day on screen exercise. You get down there in the division and some of that stuff. But a lot of this stuff is just really taking care of yourself as a human.
Michael Greenberg 31:29
Yeah, so the biggest thing entrepreneurs miss.
Justin Bailey 31:31
So that’s what it is. They just don’t take care of themselves.
Michael Greenberg 31:34
Yeah, and that’s actually an expert from a little guide, a longer guide called lazy entrepreneurship that I give to friends and clients that might be a book someday. I’ve got enough thoughts around it. But the real base principles there are, you should not have to do the research to find out what the best practices are in a lot of areas. And if you do these things, you will have more energy, you will be happier. And you’ll be able to go about your work better. Because sort of the cornerstone for me of lazy entrepreneurship is seeing a business happen without having to do most of the work myself.
Justin Bailey 32:27
I’ve known a few people who own small businesses, and they get to that point, and they’re working 80 hours a week, and they’re trying to figure out a way to make more money, but they can’t because they don’t have any more time and any more resources. And it sounds like kind of what you’re describing right. To get to a point where you’re not killing yourself and your business, and you’re figuring out maybe how to offload things and whatnot.
Michael Greenberg 32:51
Yeah, and starting from day one with that mindset. With Call For Content, I placed a hard limit on the number of hours I could work in the business or on the business in a given week. And it started at like 25. And then it went down to 10. And now it’s right in the five to 10 range. And so I try by forcing myself to limit my time working with the business. It put me in a position where I had to hire people to take responsibilities much earlier. And that hurt my profit margin. But it improved the business’s ability to grow and expand quickly. And so that trade-off made sense for me because I viewed the agency as the second thing I was building while I consulted. And now, it’s worked really well because the agency was very easy for me to make the final steps and transition really entirely out of the day today. Just in two years.
Justin Bailey 34:00
So I’m gonna ask you something a little bit philosophical here to close things out, you mentioned the word happiness, and you’re a guy who’s done a lot of different things, and a lot of different types of work. And you seem very intentional with your steps that you’re taking in your career, even though it’s not a linear type of thing, right. And so you have to be probably even more intentional when you’re kind of moving in a nonlinear fashion. But I’m curious to know how important you believe happiness in a profession is. I think, a generation ago, most people, hopefully, they got out of high school, maybe went to college or maybe didn’t. But if they could just get that job for 30 years, trudging along, doing anything, you know, at that job that they hated, come home and complain about it and then get that pension and they were set right? Well, those jobs don’t even exist, even if you’re one of them now for the most part, and so we have some more luxuries in life where we can kind of ponder, passionate about your work and happiness in your work. So what role does that play for you? Do you have some kind of encouragement for other people and how they should be doing that? Just from your eyes?
Michael Greenberg 35:17
Yeah, I mean, happiness is an interesting subject for me. I’ve looked at and read a lot about flow. Early on, when I was making the transition from working at a startup to consulting. And flow is this idea that there’s a special state you can get into that if you enter this state on a regular basis, you will consider yourself to have more purpose in your life. And I go back to the stoics and to Taoism, and I’m Jewish myself, which as a much older pre-Christian religion, has a very different viewpoint on things like happiness and suffering in life. And so I take the old school, that 3 000, 4 000 years ago approach, where I don’t expect my life to be happy all the way through. Happiness is not a goal I pursue outright. But I have a purpose in my life. And I try to live to my values and my purpose. And as a result of those things, I am happy often, but I’m still an entrepreneur. I’m still working and have lives and relationships, and bad things happen. So happiness, while not the goal itself. Happiness is something that I’ve tried to build in my life to have done it.
Justin Bailey 36:52
Yeah, and I think it’s interesting. I kind of led you down that question one way, and you answered in a different way. But the way you answered it was almost exactly how I feel about it. So it’s quite interesting. I definitely agree with a lot of the stoic teachings in those types of things, and you know a lot of that ancient wisdom is universal because it’s true, right?
Michael Greenberg 37:13
Yeah, that’s why if you look at like, all those things really do say the same things very much. And they’ve lasted longer than anything else. So that’s got to be some good ideas.
Justin Bailey 37:26
No doubt, man. So Michael, thank you so much for joining us for sharing your wisdom with us for this episode. First off, where can we connect with you know, before that, is there any last thing that you want to get out there in the world that we didn’t go over?
Michael Greenberg 37:42
Yeah, the best way to swim is to jump in the deep end. That’s just going back to the saying nothing, like just jump. That’s how I learned how to swim as I got thrown in the deep end.
Justin Bailey 37:57
Literally?
Michael Greenberg 37:58
Yeah, literally, with my backpack on. The counselor got fired at the camp I went to, but I learned to swim. I still swim pretty well. There’s something to a little fear of death. It gets you moving.
Justin Bailey 38:15
Yeah. Good final closing point. I like that. I would not suggest putting a backpack on before you go swimming, but you know.
Michael Greenberg 38:23
That’s a little dangerous.
Justin Bailey 38:25
Right on, man. So, where can we connect with you? Where should we go to check out your stuff?
Michael Greenberg 38:29
Yeah, so you can find me on any social media that I want you to find me on at gentoftech. And then you can find or connect with me. And if you want to actually speak with me. Or see any of the stuff that I’ve talked about. Go to callforcontent.com. And you’ll see in the bottom right corner, a little chat box that is going to ask you if you want to schedule office hours. And if you want to talk with me about literally anything, just go there and schedule. And I will be happy to help in any way I can.
Justin Bailey 39:13
Right on, and I appreciate you got some stuff going on on LinkedIn. I’ve not found a whole lot of people who really like following on LinkedIn. So when I came across your stuff, you have some good articles and some good content there. So thanks for that.
Michael Greenberg 39:31
Yeah, I’m hoping to put out more articles this year and also get some more of that lazy entrepreneurship book out into the world. Try to expand beyond just the business.
Justin Bailey 39:42
Very cool, man. Well, thanks for showing up, Michael. I appreciate what you’re doing. And hopefully, we’ll talk again.
Michael Greenberg 39:46
Thank you.