Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

Steve Kamb on the Growth In Reverse Podcast with Chenell Basilio & Dylan Redekop
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[00:00:00] Steve Kamb: When you have an all or nothing mindset, all or nothing becomes all, then nothing pretty quickly. Don't just ask, is the juice worth the squeeze? But like, do you even like juice? I wrote two articles a week every week for 10 years, and that's how I built Nerd Fitness. I know so many people that don't like running, but keep trying to run and then beat themselves up when they can't stick with the running habit.

[00:00:21] Steve Kamb: We put so much pressure on ourselves to succeed and succeed quickly, and everybody wants to sell us that we can succeed very fast.

[00:00:29] Dylan Redekop: What does [00:00:30] success for Steve in this book look like?

[00:00:32] Steve Kamb: Yeah. Well, I-

[00:00:38] Chenell Basilio: We are so excited to have Steve Kamb from Nerd Fitness and from his new book, How to Try Again, on the show today. Steve, welcome to the show.

[00:00:46] Steve Kamb: Hi, y'all. What's going on?

[00:00:49] Chenell Basilio: Nothing. We're excited to jump in. There's a lot to your story here, and so, um, I feel like if we were recording this back in like 2015, everyone would know who you are because [00:01:00] s- Nerd Fitness was huge.

[00:01:01] Chenell Basilio: It was a, it was a big, uh, creator business at the time, and it still is, but I feel like you have kind of changed paths a little bit. So do you wanna give a little, um, intro into how you got into Nerd Fitness and how that became to be back in the good old days?

[00:01:18] Steve Kamb: Way back in the day. Yeah. Um, I actually bought the domain for nerdfitness.com back in 2007, so almost-

[00:01:26] Dylan Redekop: Wow

[00:01:27] Steve Kamb: almost 20 years ago. Um, [00:01:30] I was working a pretty terrible job that I was not very good at, and I walked into a bookstore and it was, I think, maybe the week of, just very serendipitously, it was the week that The 4-Hour Workweek came out. And- Wow ... I picked it up on the shelf and I saw the little, the, the silhouette of the guy in the hammock between the palm trees, and that was not the life I was living.

[00:01:52] Steve Kamb: So I, I, I read it cover to cover, and in it they talked about, you know, pick something that you're good at and a social group that [00:02:00] you're a part of, and like where is that kind of, where is that overlap? And for me it was simple. Like I'm a huge nerd and I like fitness, so I googled nerd and fitness and nothing popped up, and I was like, "Okay, well, we'll just buy that domain and see what happens."

[00:02:15] Steve Kamb: So I bought nerdfitness.com, had no clue what I was gonna do with it. Started training people in a gym and quickly realized that that was not my path or what I was good at, but I loved writing. So I just [00:02:30] started writing and kind of chased my curiosity on topics and wanted to make it interesting for me to read or write myself, so I tried to put as much humor and corny jokes and, you know, nerd pop culture as I could into the essays to make it interesting enough for me to write about doing pushups or eating your vegetables or whatever, so.

[00:02:51] Steve Kamb: Uh, and it, it worked. It, uh, I, I just kept writing and people started reading, and then Google updated some algorithms that [00:03:00] I was unaware of, and all of a sudden I found myself, uh, in charge of a website that was getting, you know, a million and a half hits of free traffic every month, um, through essays I was writing.

[00:03:10] Steve Kamb: And then I started hiring people to help with that traffic, and then those people hired people and, you know, fast-forward to 2016, 2017, 2018 in there, and I found myself in charge of a, like, 40, 45-person SEO-driven coaching company, which is not the path that I would've expected for myself. So, [00:03:30] well, I'll, I'll leave it there.

[00:03:31] Steve Kamb: Wow. Um, but yeah, it was, uh... That first 10 years was, uh, was pretty interesting for sure.

[00:03:36] Chenell Basilio: Wow. That's a big wild ride there that you went on it sounds like. Um, okay. So that was 2016, 2017, 2018 you said. It's been a few years since then. What does Nerd Fitless-- Nerd Fitness look like now?

[00:03:50] Steve Kamb: You know, in 2016 I put out a book called "Level Up Your Life," and I, I, I'd always wanted to, you know...

[00:03:56] Steve Kamb: I, I s- a book that I stumbled across in a bookstore changed my life, so I wanted [00:04:00] to kind of return that favor and had this dream of putting a book out onto bookshelves. So I did that. I wrote a book in 20- came out in 2016. Um, it did fairly well, and I, I was like, "Oh man, I really enjoy this, but I have this team to run and I have this company to manage," and, uh, I was-- had just moved to New York City.

[00:04:19] Steve Kamb: So like everybody, you know, I had this vision in my head of, "I'm gonna put my dent in the universe and build a big team, and, and then I can slow down, and then I can relax, and then I can do what I actually [00:04:30] want to do, but only after I've done all these other things." Um, the, the challenge there was I kept living until, right?

[00:04:39] Steve Kamb: Or living for this eventual future that I assumed would have made me happy, that would have made me feel enough. I am a recovering insecure overachiever, so I kept kind of doing more and more, and then I found myself in charge of a larger and larger team with more responsibilities, and burned out [00:05:00] pretty badly.

[00:05:01] Steve Kamb: Um , the funny thing here is I, I was, I was pretty burned out on health and fitness and, you know, you can only write about those things so much before you're kind of like, "Ah, I, I wanna chase some other curiosities." But when the pandemic hit- I think g- we were the number one search term for online coaching.

[00:05:19] Steve Kamb: Um, through no fault of m- I'd say through no fault of my own. You know, we didn't pay for it or there was no marketing spend, but every gym shut down. So all of a sudden, business, like, exploded, and I [00:05:30] found myself with even more responsibility and more meetings and no writing. And, uh, I was pretty miserable, and I found myself wanting to stop coming to the day job that I had built for myself in the company that I had started.

[00:05:48] Steve Kamb: And I, I, I realized that something had to change. Like, I couldn't be the guy that ran this team. I wasn't doing the one thing that I've loved, [00:06:00] which was writing. Um, and I was kind of chasing more and more of, like I said earlier, that thing of like, "I'll just keep doing this until some magical future with unicorns and rainbows and whatever, and everything works out."

[00:06:16] Steve Kamb: And like, just e- every week something new would happen. So eventually I said, like, "I have to change." I demoted myself first from CEO of Nerd Fitness down to head of marketing. I then [00:06:30] learned that I was not very good at being the head of marketing either, so I, uh, essentially demoted/fired myself from that too and said, "Hey, I, I'm, I'm burned out.

[00:06:41] Steve Kamb: I'm checked out. I, I'm, I'm not serving my team, this community, these people with my efforts right now. I am going-- I need to-- essentially, I need to try again at doing the things that I love." And for me, that was writing. So I went back to my book agent and said, "I kind of have this [00:07:00] idea." What about a book for people who-- Like, what about a book for people after they have failed at something?

[00:07:07] Steve Kamb: Which is what we do at Nerd Fitness, I think, better than anybody. It's like helping people after they've tried every weight loss strategy, every-- They've tried joining gyms and anyways. So that was the beginning of that idea many, many years ago. And while I did that, uh, other people stepped in to, to manage and run Nerd Fitness.

[00:07:27] Steve Kamb: Um, and I started work on this book. [00:07:30] And, and then Nerd Fitness ran into, uh, the buzzsaw that I think every content creator has run into lately, which is artificial intelligence, LLMs, um, Google essentially making their searches, uh, making it infinitely more difficult for people to actually click through to your website to get information from them.

[00:07:50] Steve Kamb: Um, so while all of this is going on and I'm writing a book about starting over and what to do when life, um, doesn't go according to plan, and I watched as over two [00:08:00] years or three years, Nerd Fitness, we lost 80-plus percent of our traffic. Um, and we-- I mean, we tried, uh, everything. We tried a lot of things, and not a lot of it worked.

[00:08:12] Steve Kamb: So Nerd Fitness these days is a lot smaller. It's, uh, I think there's a team of about 20 people. Um, we still have an unbelievable coaching program. We have a really great community, and it's just like a smaller, kind of sustainable business run by a gentleman named Matt, who [00:08:30] is been with Team Nerd Fitness for close to a decade, I think.

[00:08:34] Steve Kamb: Started as a coach and has just been working his way up. The community loves him, his clients love him, I love him. Um, and it's kind of turned into this thing where it's like Steve the author who writes about and chases his curiosities, and then there's Nerd Fitness, like a sustainable small business that serves a community of busy people who are trying to navigate, uh, an unpredictable, kind of chaotic life.

[00:08:59] Chenell Basilio: [00:09:00] Wow. That's a heck of a story, and I wanna say I didn't realize that you were also in the COVID burnout club. I had the same thing happen to me.

[00:09:07] Steve Kamb: Oh, yeah,

[00:09:08] Chenell Basilio: right? Business did super well during 2020, 2021, and then I was, couldn't handle it anymore and had to shut it down, and thankfully it brought me back to writing again.

[00:09:17] Chenell Basilio: So yes.

[00:09:18] Steve Kamb: It's, it's, it's so interesting, isn't it? Like-

[00:09:20] Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm ...

[00:09:20] Steve Kamb: there are ... I, I think for us as entrepreneurs or creators, you see opportunities, and you're like, "Well, somebody's gotta do it." And we're perfectly [00:09:30] positioned or I'm positioned, I see this opportunity, I have to do it, because if I don't, then I'm going to let it slip by.

[00:09:37] Steve Kamb: And I think my challenge is I see those opportunities and I get so excited that I will chase them and then end up down a path that isn't actually aligned with my personal strengths and things that I'm really interested in. Um, and as a result of that, you end up going down ... You know, you end up working on things that you're not, that don't light you up, at the expense of not having time to do the things that you really, [00:10:00] really enjoy.

[00:10:00] Chenell Basilio: Totally. Yeah, it can be such a trap. Yeah.

[00:10:04] Steve Kamb: Yep. And more is- There's a few things I- ... more is not better.

[00:10:07] Dylan Redekop: Uh- No. It's usually worse. Um, uh, I have a few questions for you, Steve, because a lot of people, uh, especially who are kind of on the beginning journey that you started on, like, geez, 15, 16 years ago, um, they're starting and they're creating a, a personal brand, maybe a business, a creator business, and one thing I noticed that you did that I think benefited you in the long run was you, you didn't position this as [00:10:30] Steve's, um, Nerd Fitness or Steve Fitness or anything with your name and your face necessarily, or maybe it was at the beginning, but, um, you had the name Nerd Fitness.

[00:10:39] Dylan Redekop: And so when it got to the point where you're like, you know, 10 years down, down the road and you're like, "I don't really wanna run this thing anymore," um, it gave you the opportunity to kind of step aside and let other people kind of run the show to some degree. So was that something conscious that you did back in the day or was it just like, "We're gonna run this thing with Nerd Fitness," and like, "Yeah, I'm [00:11:00] gonna run it, but I'm not gonna be the face of it," or, or how did that, how did that work?

[00:11:02] Dylan Redekop: 'Cause I think a lot of people kind of struggle with that. Should I have this brand after myself or should I have a, um, a creator brand?

[00:11:10] Steve Kamb: Sure. I mean, I think there's probably, like, the, the romanticized story I could tell in my head, the ... And, and then there's probably, like, actually connecting the dots looking backwards.

[00:11:19] Steve Kamb: I, I-- Early on it was, there was a big picture of me on, on the Nerd Fitness website, and it was me with my, you know, doing like the Superman pose with the Nerd Fitness-- with wearing a [00:11:30] Nerd Fitness shirt underneath.

[00:11:31] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:11:31] Steve Kamb: And I think probably most people, for the longest time, you know, I'd meet them at a conference or wherever, and I'd say, "Hey, I'm Steve."

[00:11:37] Steve Kamb: Like, "Oh, great," you know, "What's your..." I'm like, "Oh, a company called Nerd Fitness." They're like, "Oh, yeah, I've been reading you for five years." Like, they just don't know Steve and, and Nerd Fitness, which is, like, perfectly fine with me. Um, I think initially, you know, I don't even know if I had, like, the, you know, back in the day when Twitter was relevant, uh, like Twitter handle of, you know, I think I just had Nerd [00:12:00] Fitness, and I wrote through Nerd Fitness, and people maybe knew Steve, the Nerd Fitness guy.

[00:12:04] Steve Kamb: And eventually, like only in the past handful of years have I kind of branched out Steve Kamb as a separate creator. I, I think there's positives and, and negatives to both. I think maybe Nerd Fitness was really connected with me, and people really enjoyed my writing, um, which has allowed me to then kind of pivot my own career and be Steve the Creator, where it is me, and it's my [00:12:30] face, and you're reading at stevekamb.com, and you're getting my innermost fears and thoughts and, and awful corny jokes, and you know it's me.

[00:12:38] Steve Kamb: Uh, it's the same writing from Nerd Fitness that people came to love. But when people found Nerd Fitness- The team members that we hired, like, already resonated with the message or the, the, the journey that the company and the community was going on. A lot of the people we initially hired came straight out of that community because they already loved it.

[00:12:58] Steve Kamb: So I think Nerd [00:13:00] Fitness became something bigger than me, and I'd be interested to see, like, what Nerd Fitness looked like, you know, had the, the, uh, that, that craziness of LLMs and what this looks like, you know, what, what it could have been differently. Um, but I don't know. So a lot of this has kind of been-- There's been a lot of acceptance, uh, on my path of, "This is where you need to go, Steve, and this is where Nerd Fitness needs to go."

[00:13:23] Steve Kamb: And I honestly, for the longest time, I feared splitting them, and I think I probably did [00:13:30] Nerd Fitness a disservice by, by doing that. Uh, I would write, like, the Monday newsletter, but then Team Nerd Fitness would write the Wednesday and Friday newsletter, so people were getting, like, a little bit of both.

[00:13:41] Steve Kamb: And only maybe a year and a half ago did I finally say, "Hey, you're getting an email from me on Monday, and if you wanna get that, great. And if you wanna get an email about health and fitness, you're gonna get it from Team Nerd Fitness on Thursdays." And everybody was like, "Oh, great. Okay, cool. No problem." Um- Yeah

[00:13:58] Steve Kamb: and I was so [00:14:00] afraid of this for so long that I think I kind of gave half my heart to both, or I kept writing about health and fitness because I thought I had to. Um-

[00:14:08] Dylan Redekop: Right ...

[00:14:09] Steve Kamb: it's been, it's been wild. Uh, but a- as far as, you know, I, I wish I could say I had the perfect plan of setting up this brand, and y- maybe, kind of.

[00:14:19] Steve Kamb: It would've been cool. You know, I had ideas like- Yeah ... "Maybe we'll open a gym and make equipment, and we'll do-- We'll have these other..." And st- sometime- some of that stuff worked, and some of it didn't. And [00:14:30] then I branched me out, and now Nerd Fitness is just kind of its own thing. So I think there's a path to both, um, and you might not know which one is the right one when you start, and it's totally okay to move and change along the way.

[00:14:41] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Did you ever think about just, like, burning the whole thing down and shutting down Nerd Fitness altogether?

[00:14:45] Steve Kamb: Uh, yes, multiple times. Um-

[00:14:48] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Okay.

[00:14:49] Steve Kamb: Because I, uh, uh, because I... Like, mental, mental breakdowns, uh, I'm-- have gone through a lot of therapy recently and, and learned more about myself and [00:15:00] where my struggles are and the things that I love to do and not do.

[00:15:02] Steve Kamb: And, um, it's really hard, it's really hard for me to accept and realize that, like- I wasn't the guy to be running this. And, you know, a team of that size scared the heck out of me. And, um, so I, I, I, like, I knew where my path was headed, and it was like I need to go write a book. I need to spend a few years figuring out what this next version of Steve looks like [00:15:30] with complete acceptance of my faults and flaws and struggles and challenges and, and unique strengths.

[00:15:36] Steve Kamb: And I knew that was writing. And if I was going to go that path, there were, there were essentially three options. One was sell the company, right? Um, I've had offers for people to buy it in the past, and I've just politely said no every time. Um, mostly because I know when people buy health and fitness companies, they just slap a bunch of supplements on [00:16:00] there and, and ads and, and kind of suck the soul out of it, and I didn't want that for Nerd Fitness.

[00:16:07] Steve Kamb: Uh, the other path was just shutting it down or kind of taking it over, just saying, "Hey, this is Steve now." Um, and I chose that third path, which was, we have a great team. I'm-- I wanna let them fly. And, you know, so I now meet with the team once a week. Um, there's a lot of kind of synergy. Actually, Matt from Nerd Fitness is now coaching me for my [00:16:30] health and fitness through the Nerd Fitness app.

[00:16:31] Steve Kamb: Uh, which has been- Full circle, huh? Love it. Yeah. Love it. Which is a full circle moment, which has been great. Uh, that's the perfect amount of coaching for me is, is virtually and it's been, it's been delightful. And, um, yeah, so I, I think this is probably the path that I was-- that felt, you know, preserved the heart and the integrity of Nerd Fitness that I had tried to build for 17 years and honored that legacy.

[00:16:54] Steve Kamb: And hopefully, um, hopefully it's around for another 17 years. Uh, would be, would be great. But it [00:17:00] was, it was tough. There were definitely moments where I was like, "This is too much. I can't do this. I need to go live in a cave and, and write, and just shut everything down," because it's-- I give a lot of myself to my work, and I think I gave so much of myself to Nerd Fitness that I had kind of burned out and maybe even forgot some of who I was.

[00:17:18] Steve Kamb: So I had to go through that journey and hopefully give Nerd Fitness a chance to become what it is now too.

[00:17:23] Chenell Basilio: Wow. Thanks for sharing all that. I'm sure that was not an easy process to go through. Um- Oh, no,

[00:17:28] Steve Kamb: it was terrible. Sounds [00:17:30] like it. It

[00:17:31] Chenell Basilio: was

[00:17:31] Steve Kamb: terrible. But like I said, I learned a lot about myself. Do not recommend.

[00:17:33] Steve Kamb: Um-

[00:17:36] Chenell Basilio: I'm kidding. Okay. So now you've pivoted. You've, you've broken out your own personal brand from Nerd Fitness. Um, I think that goes out to about 135,000 subscribers at this point.

[00:17:45] Steve Kamb: Yeah. So-

[00:17:46] Chenell Basilio: Is that about right?

[00:17:46] Steve Kamb: Yeah. What, what I did was actually, uh, I took the Nerd Fitness newsletter, and we essentially, like, duplicated it.

[00:17:54] Steve Kamb: So it-- the people that had already opted in and wanted to read Nerd Fitness and said, "Hey, you're going to get, [00:18:00] um- Y- you know, you'll still get the same email that you've been getting from me for 17 years, it's just gonna come from a different email address. And, uh, you'll then still get the Nerd Fitness emails that you're expecting on Thursdays, it's just gonna come from Matt at Nerd Fitness.

[00:18:13] Steve Kamb: So essentially, we allowed people to opt in, you know, to, to keep both or to get rid of one or the other, and I think everybody stayed for both. So now they're just growing on, um, growing on independent paths. Uh, I haven't checked the numbers in a while. Um, you know, it might be [00:18:30] down to 100,000 or... It's, it's somewhere, it's somewhere in that, in that range.

[00:18:34] Steve Kamb: Like, to be honest with you, it's, uh, I, I haven't checked. Um, because right ... The, the, the focus at the moment hasn't been on growth, it's just been on getting this book done, and then also, um, trying to shine a spotlight on it, uh, which is so deeply uncomfortable for me, uh, because I would much prefer to be hiding and, and writing instead of, um, on cameras or up in front of a lot of people, which probably played into [00:19:00] why I didn't love being in charge of a large team either.

[00:19:02] Chenell Basilio: Totally. I can understand that. It's not easy to talk about your stuff, even though it's incredibly good. I've already read the book. It's amazing.

[00:19:10] Steve Kamb: Thank

[00:19:10] Chenell Basilio: you. Well done on all the, the dad jokes and everything, even though-

[00:19:14] Steve Kamb: Thank you.

[00:19:16] Chenell Basilio: It's, it's incredible, especially in a world of, like, with AI and LLMs. Like, I can tell that every single word came from, like, right out of Steve, and I love that.

[00:19:25] Chenell Basilio: So kudos.

[00:19:26] Steve Kamb: Yeah. H- honestly- Um ... when I, when I, when I've done meetups in the past where I meet people, [00:19:30] like, n- there was no greater compliment than when I would meet them and they would say, "You're exactly what I expected based on your writing." And that's what I've tried to come across. And, and you know, we could talk about this too, but I, I had to go on that journey with my book too where I tried to sound, you know, like, tried to sound like other people to feel more impressive because, again, uh, struggling with imposter syndrome and some insecurities, and had to learn that my writing and my jokes were enough, and that's what people were [00:20:00] going to say yes or no to.

[00:20:01] Steve Kamb: And that ended up, I think, making for a much better book.

[00:20:03] Chenell Basilio: Totally, especially because the topic is not, like, warm and fuzzy all of the time. And so, you know, I feel like you have well placed, like... Well, just when you start feeling like, "Man, this is hard," it's like, "There goes Steve again with one of his crazy jokes."

[00:20:16] Chenell Basilio: So you, like, pull people back in. It, it's well done. Yeah,

[00:20:19] Steve Kamb: I want to hit an equal number of eye rolls and laughs- Yes ... which is what I'm aiming for.

[00:20:25] Chenell Basilio: Oh, it was incredible. Well, okay. So writing the ... [00:20:30] Now that you've separated the two, do you feel like the topics are similar to what you were writing before, or you feel like you have this complete freedom now to just, like, write about anything you want?

[00:20:40] Chenell Basilio: What does that feel like?

[00:20:43] Steve Kamb: It has been really nice to not have to tie everything back to health and fitness. I mean, this book, I talk about stand-up comedy, I talk about science, I talk about, um, Polynesian wayfinders. I mean, I get real weird with it, uh, because that's where my [00:21:00] interests lie. And there is, you know, uh, there is still a, a good, you know, kind of connection back to the first 15 years of my writing.

[00:21:10] Steve Kamb: But having that freedom to explore these topics, I think has, has made for m- had made, rather ... It has improved my writing and also allowed Nerd Fitness to succeed in, in its own way because they can focus on their strengths. So for me, my, I think my strength is my, like, enthusiastic curiosity [00:21:30] and trying to find really interesting or funny ways to make challenging topics approachable and understandable.

[00:21:39] Steve Kamb: And I, I think by doing that, it's allowed me to dive way deeper into, you know, some mental health philosophy types of things that, uh, yeah, I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable doing at Nerd Fitness, for sure.

[00:21:52] Dylan Redekop: Hmm.

[00:21:53] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. That's gotta be, gotta feel nice, I'm sure, after such a long time of probably internally struggling with, [00:22:00] like, what are you gonna do with the company, and, like, how do I go back to what I feel like I'm, I was born to do?

[00:22:05] Chenell Basilio: And I think that's, it's awesome that you've gotten to that place, so.

[00:22:08] Steve Kamb: Thank you. Yeah. I'm so excited. Yeah. It only took 17 years, so.

[00:22:11] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:22:11] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:22:13] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so if you're on year two or three, just wait another 14 and you'll be good to go.

[00:22:17] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, yeah. You're almost

[00:22:18] Steve Kamb: there. It's

[00:22:18] Dylan Redekop: funny.

[00:22:18] Steve Kamb: Yeah. I tell, I tell this story in the book.

[00:22:20] Steve Kamb: Uh, I've, I've tried to meditate a thousand times and, and have always been like, "Well, you just have to do it once a day, every day for 30 days, and then [00:22:30] you'll reach nirvana." You know, you have to, you have to be disciplined and militant about it. And I stumbled across this book, uh, I think it was by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and he's telling the story about maybe just sit with your breath.

[00:22:40] Steve Kamb: Uh, try that for a few years and see how it works. And when ... And, like, very, very matter-of-factly. Like, yeah, like, this could take years. And it's like, sit with it more often than not. And I kinda realized, like, that's what we do with, that's what I do with writing. That's what we do at Nerd Fitness. Doing something more often than not for a long period of time [00:23:00] is kind of the, like, that's the goal.

[00:23:03] Steve Kamb: It's not perfection. It's not, um- It's not being you have to do it every day, you keep the streak alive. It's doing it more often than not semi-regularly for a long time is generally how you're gonna get those results, and that's ultimately how I started with writing. It's how... What led me to Nerd Fitness.

[00:23:21] Steve Kamb: Mm-hmm. It's what led me here, and it's kind of the, a theme throughout the book, too.

[00:23:25] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. It's like, it's funny 'cause you said, you know, you're gonna try meditation, and it's like I feel like [00:23:30] it's just always we're just trying. That's all we're doing with all this stuff is we're, we're trying to write, we're trying to meditate, and we're trying it every day.

[00:23:37] Dylan Redekop: And we're never, like, achieving necessarily that ultimate end goal because ultimately it's the journey that matters and, and where we get to. Um, I'm getting a little too philosophical here, but I, but no, you said that. I was just like, yeah. Oh, don't, I will never stop you there.

[00:23:49] Steve Kamb: Just keep going. Keep... Let Dylan cook.

[00:23:52] Steve Kamb: Let's go.

[00:23:52] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. It's just the, yeah, I guess the, the journey is the point, right? Like, we're always just gonna be trying and trying and getting better and trying and improving. And [00:24:00] so, um, you know, sitting with your breath for, for a few years and see how, how that works, right? Like, that's, that's kinda like this whole creator journey, the writing journey, this newsletter thing that, that we've all been doing for a while.

[00:24:11] Dylan Redekop: It's all trying and just doing it more often than not, so I really like that message.

[00:24:14] Steve Kamb: Thank you. Yeah. And, and I think a big part of the book, too, is we, you know, in that trying, it's not just trying. And the reason the book is called How to Try Again is because how you're going to try again. I mean, for so many years, I'm sure we've all done this, right?

[00:24:27] Steve Kamb: We- January [00:24:30] 1st, all right, this is the year I'm gonna run that marathon. And then they get two or three weeks into their training, and, you know, the way that I put it essentially is like when you have all or- an all or nothing mindset, like all or nothing becomes all, then nothing pretty quickly. And then-

[00:24:45] Dylan Redekop: I just read that post of yours this morning.

[00:24:47] Steve Kamb: Yeah. It's so true.

[00:24:48] Dylan Redekop: You- you- yeah.

[00:24:49] Steve Kamb: Right? Like- Yeah ... you, "Oh, well, I, I'm so good for three weeks and then my kid got sick," or, "I'm gonna write every day for my newsletter," or, "I'm gonna post every day on Instagram." And then you miss a day, like, "Well, streak's [00:25:00] ruined. It's over. All right, we'll try again next year."

[00:25:02] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. May as well stop. Yeah.

[00:25:03] Steve Kamb: Might as well stop. And, and I think-- So the, the way I think about this is, like before you just try again to run another marathon or to post again on Instagram, and that one's deeply personal to my heart because I've struggled to try to post every day on Instagram a bazillion times in the past.

[00:25:19] Steve Kamb: And I have to pause and ask myself, is this actually the thing that you want to be doing? I know so many people that don't like running, but keep trying to [00:25:30] run and then beat themselves up when they can't stick with the running habit. Of course, like you don't enjoy this. But maybe you enjoy dance or, um, you know, trying Pilates or, uh, g- picking up heavy things might be great.

[00:25:43] Steve Kamb: So it's not just trying again. Like if you keep trying at the same thing and failing, o- of course it's not going to work. So it's h- what are you going to try differently this next time? What's the different strategy? Maybe it's a different medium altogether instead of Instagram. Maybe it's, uh, [00:26:00] a, you know, maybe it's Substack or Threads or whatever.

[00:26:04] Steve Kamb: Trying differently is so important because we're just gonna end up right back in the same spot, except with way more guilt and shame and sadness when I couldn't follow through with it again. Like yep, not surprised. You didn't like it when you started it. Of course it's not gonna work.

[00:26:19] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I, um, I've always wanted to have like a 10,000 step goal every day, and I'm just one of those people, like the streak ends and I'm like, "Well, sh- close up shop.

[00:26:28] Chenell Basilio: Try again next year." Yeah. And so [00:26:30] this year I decided, what if I just average 10,000 a day? So like one day I might do 15, one day I might do seven, and that's okay. And it's been working incredible. I'm actually at like 12,000 average just because I'm letting myself have that flexibility of being able to like do it differently and not focus on like specific number every single day, and if you miss one you're, you know, you're done, you're finished.

[00:26:52] Chenell Basilio: So-

[00:26:52] Steve Kamb: Yeah.

[00:26:53] Chenell Basilio: Yeah ... yeah, I think there's something to that too.

[00:26:54] Steve Kamb: Yeah. The, the metrics that you choose to track certainly [00:27:00] matter. I think- Mm-hmm ... um, like for you, you said, "Oh, if I had to do 10,000 steps a day and I missed it, then the streak is broken and everything is over." But, you know, oh, 25,000 or 12,000 steps or 10,000 steps on average, okay, today was a little lower, I can make tomorrow a little higher.

[00:27:15] Steve Kamb: Or you go on a hiking trip, amazing, now all of a sudden you're ahead of the game. Fantastic. Yeah. I know so many people are like, "I'm gonna read 100 books this year," and then they get through like one book in January, and they're like, "Well, that's it. Year's over. Couldn't reach my goal." [00:27:30] Yeah. It's like, ugh, maybe, maybe a goal of 15 minutes a day would've been better.

[00:27:36] Steve Kamb: Or- Yeah ... maybe a goal of, yeah, uh, you know, when you pick certain goals with certain metrics, it might end, it might send you down a path that, or, or have you trying to succeed in a way that misses the whole point of why you're doing it in the first place. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, like, oh, if it's- Mm ... if your goal is to read 100 books, you might speed read a bunch of short books, and you will never- Totally

[00:27:58] Steve Kamb: tackle, you know, The [00:28:00] Count of Monte Cristo or War and Peace, because that could take you- Mm-hmm ... the entire year to read, but you might get way more out of it. And the whole point is to read for enjoyment and to learn something, not to get through a certain number of books. So I think matching the metric with the goal and really pausing and thinking about What am I trying to accomplish?

[00:28:22] Steve Kamb: Why am I doing it? And have I s- picked, like, a sustainable metric or path that allows me to keep doing [00:28:30] this more often than not for a long time?

[00:28:32] Dylan Redekop: Oh, man. Totally. In fact, we could go down so many goal-setting rabbit holes here.

[00:28:37] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:28:38] Dylan Redekop: Like it's...

[00:28:40] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. The one quote that stuck out to me from this book that I can't stop thinking about is, uh, "We're not doing ourselves any favors by waiting for life to be any different than it is right now."

[00:28:48] Chenell Basilio: And it kind of ties into this goal-setting thing is like, do we actually need to set another goal to change something in our lives, or are we just picking something because it's January and we're like, "Well, I need to do [00:29:00] something different." Where it's like, could you just be okay with where you are?

[00:29:04] Steve Kamb: Go- It's the hardest thing in the world.

[00:29:06] Steve Kamb: I mean, a- and it goes, it goes way, way, way back to like essentially like the Protestant Reformation and then the, you know, salvation through work, and then that gets transplanted to America. It's like a whole... A- and then that has all been transplanted into us millennials and c- coming of age during certain years and, and the uncertainty in the workforce, and then we have to perform on social media.

[00:29:28] Steve Kamb: All of this [00:29:30] combines to us being never feeling enough, and we need to... Well, you have to be more productive. And if you're more productive, well, then in your spare time, you're not, you know, you're not doing your work, so therefore you need to be more productive with your hobbies, and you can get through more hobbies if you're more productive there.

[00:29:47] Steve Kamb: And just slowing down, um, and accepting that where you are today, like the messiness of right now, is life. I think that's the, the... one of the most challenging lessons we've had to [00:30:00] teach most of the coaching clients at Nerd Fitness. Um, a lot of people keep apologizing to their coaches and saying like, "Oh, I'm sorry, this week was crazy, but next week things get back to normal."

[00:30:12] Steve Kamb: And then next week something else happens and they say, "Well, okay, well, I can't do it this week, but next week after that I'm... Then things will get back to normal." And we eventually get people to come around to the realization that today The messiness, the laundry still in the washing machine or the dryer that you forgot to [00:30:30] switch, switch over, the, um, you know, the fact that you're running low on certain ingredients, you can't cook certain things or you have to go pick up takeout because, uh, work ran late and the kids' soccer practice ran o- like, that's normal.

[00:30:45] Steve Kamb: And the sooner we can come around and accept the fact that today, this messiness, this reality is normal, the sooner we can finally start to prioritize like, okay, if this is normal, how do I do the things that actually need to [00:31:00] get done today with kindness and grace for myself and my situation? Because n- normal probab- whatever normal we think is, isn't coming back anytime soon.

[00:31:09] Chenell Basilio: Hmm. It's so hard.

[00:31:10] Steve Kamb: It's so hard. I, I remind myself every day. It's the most challenging thing for me, is to slow down and be here, and realize like, this is it. You know? Yeah. This is today. I'm not reaching for something else in the future. I lived so much of my life doing that for Nerd Fitness, and I think it did me a disservice.

[00:31:29] Steve Kamb: [00:31:30] And this time around I'm working so hard. Like I said, I recently started up therapy again, and um, have, have worked through a lot of these things of accepting that today, now, this messiness, you know, this book coming out, there will always be something that I could be doing that I don't have time for, and that's okay.

[00:31:48] Steve Kamb: And it is so, so, so hard, especially for us entrepreneurs and people building businesses.

[00:31:53] Chenell Basilio: And so I know in the book you walk through like a four-step process of like how to f- you know, essentially try again and [00:32:00] start over and, and do it better this time. What-- how do, how do you think that translates to, you know, an entrepreneur creator?

[00:32:06] Chenell Basilio: Like, what are some more tactical, I don't know, ideas or examples you can think of that-

[00:32:12] Steve Kamb: Sure ...

[00:32:13] Chenell Basilio: and I k- we've kinda tou- touched on a couple, but.

[00:32:15] Steve Kamb: Yeah. I, I, I essentially wanted to create a, a very simple framework. Like, it's not magic, it's not rocket sci- it's not like top secret. It's four letters that people can remember, and when they find themselves [00:32:30] spiraling or on the verge of burnout or beating themselves up, the four steps, uh, m- form the word PACT.

[00:32:36] Steve Kamb: So pause, accept, change, try. So I'll just use myself as an example. I'm burned out in my own company. I'm-- I keep waiting for normal. I keep trying to fix things that I'm not interested in fixing, and telling myself that eventually I can slow down, and I told myself eventually for [00:33:00] five years. Um, so what I did was I, uh, step one was pause, and I had to like take a breath and step back and really evaluate And decide if I wanted to keep doing the thing that I was doing that was making me miserable.

[00:33:17] Steve Kamb: And in order for me to do that, I had to move on to step two, which was acceptance. So accept. I had to accept that I was a writer and I loved writing and I hated managing people. And my skillset and personal [00:33:30] per- you know, my personality, my quirks, my weirdness, whatever was so much better served going down this other path than the one that I was on.

[00:33:38] Steve Kamb: So by pausing and saying, "You don't have to keep doing this," and then saying, "These are your strengths and weaknesses, and this is the new path you want to go down," um, that also comes with consequences, right? The team-- I, I wasn't there to fix some things that maybe I would've been able to fix, and that was really challenging.

[00:33:59] Steve Kamb: But [00:34:00] what I had been doing wasn't working, so I had to accept my new situation, and I had to change everything. It's been 17 years since I started. The old ways of building an audience and growing and doing things, that, that ship doesn't-- that doesn't work any-anymore. So for me, as a solo creator, um, as a writer, I've had to change and find new strategies.

[00:34:23] Steve Kamb: I found a f- and had a lot of success with Threads, something that didn't exist many, many, many, many years [00:34:30] ago. It's been super fun for me. I've been messing around with, um, Substack, you know, messing around with, uh, Kit's Creator Network and various things. Like, oh, these are new strategies that r- that allow me to be me, that leverage my strengths and are super fun for me, so let's change and try these things as an experiment.

[00:34:48] Steve Kamb: You know, I talk about the change aspect of this book a lot in the context of experimentation and saying like, "Let's try this for 30 days or a few months and [00:35:00] zoom in and just focus on this strategy," and then we can zoom out after a few months and say like, "Is this working? Do I like it? Um, am I gaining traction?"

[00:35:09] Steve Kamb: Even if it's a little bit, okay. As I know, a little bit of traction and a little bit of growth, um, can compound over time, and that's great. And then the last one is, is try. And for me, the biggest, most challenging lesson to this has been, um, I tell this lesson in the book, but the, uh, the [00:35:30] eventual result of the lesson is this idea of pre-accepting any outcome.

[00:35:35] Steve Kamb: And I tell it in the context of golf from my friend, um, uh, Josh Nichols, and he essentially helps me like back off of the expectation I put on really every golf shot. But it applied even more to writing this book. I found myself paralyzed at one point from working on the book because it had to be perfect.

[00:35:59] Steve Kamb: I [00:36:00] had a book deal. It was this new path for me. I knew there was a great book in there, but I was struggling to find it, and I felt paralyzed to continue working on it because I couldn't find perfection. So- I had to essentially let go of the outcome, which has been so hard, and just focus on the process of putting, I'd say put pen to paper, but really putting fingers on keyboard and typing, and relinquishing control of how this book may or may not [00:36:30] do.

[00:36:30] Steve Kamb: I worked really hard on it. I did the best I possibly could and made it the most Steve version of this book I could, in hopes that it helps people. But there are so much-- There are so many parts of life that are out of our control that focusing overly on that end outcome might keep us from taking action in the first place, or might make us water down the product or the effort because we're trying to achieve a certain outcome.

[00:36:58] Steve Kamb: So I had to try [00:37:00] without expectation on this book itself and give it the best possible chance to become a book that helps people first and foremost, and hopefully allows me to continue writing. Um, that's gonna be my plan regardless. But it's been a new path for me, so I had to pause and step back. I had to accept my strengths and faults and accept that the old thing that I had built, um, I was actively holding it back and not helping myself.

[00:37:28] Steve Kamb: I had to change [00:37:30] how I thought about myself and who I was and how I spoke with myself, and then I had to try without expectation on this new path that I'm still on and hopefully I'm on. You know, if Nerd Fitness was 15 years of my life, hopefully this new path is Steve the writer, the weird creator who just loves putting himself out into the world.

[00:37:50] Steve Kamb: Like, hopefully I'm doing this for another 15 years. Um, but there might be some pivots along the way too, and that's totally okay.

[00:37:56] Chenell Basilio: I love this. I think this actually ties in well with a lot of [00:38:00] things that creators and people writing newsletters often struggle with. It's like, what, what do I write about?

[00:38:06] Chenell Basilio: What am I doing? And it's-- One of the things I tell people often is like, pick something that you would do even if you had zero outcomes, nobody but your mom read it. Like, that is the thing you should go do. And I think it's harder to actually do that than it is for me to say it, obviously. But it's so powerful when you do that because people feel the passion.

[00:38:26] Chenell Basilio: They can feel how excited you are about the thing. And so I love that you're [00:38:30] talking about this because I think even if you're just picking a new social platform to try out, it's like, give it 60 days, 90 days, six months. Do it for a year and see what happens, and don't expect to have, like, 10,000 followers at the end of it.

[00:38:42] Chenell Basilio: Just try and have fun with it and do something that you enjoy.

[00:38:45] Steve Kamb: Yeah. I actually have a whole chapter in the book on success and picking the next thing to try, and the traps that most of us fall into of, "Okay, well, that's-- I see other people succeeding in that way." I [00:39:00] should probably do that thing because it worked for them.

[00:39:02] Steve Kamb: And especially in the, in, you know, the online creator, um, online business space, there's a lot of people who will tell you, "I have the one secret. I have the one way. I have the productivity hack that will change your life and make you a million dollars in your business." Um, and then when you do that thing, and shockingly it doesn't work and you don't make a million dollars, you beat yourself up.

[00:39:28] Steve Kamb: And I think the reality is, like, [00:39:30] that tactic worked for them because of who they are and their strategy, if it worked at all. Maybe, you know, if they're, if they're actually honest. Right. Um, which is- Yeah ... which is a big ask. Uh, but also it's so alluring for us to think that somebody else has it figured out, and we want to just do what they're doing and...

[00:39:50] Steve Kamb: Or, or we think because we want this end goal, we're willing to do something we don't actually like for a while until we can stop doing it. And the way I think about [00:40:00] this is like, don't just ask is the juice worth the squeeze, but, like, do you even like juice, right? Like-

[00:40:06] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. ...

[00:40:07] Steve Kamb: if you don't want to drink that juice, you don't have to.

[00:40:09] Steve Kamb: It's totally acceptable to do, to find your path, and I think that's the only way you're going to have 15, 17, 20 years of a career, is because you found the path that actually aligns with how you wanna do it, the way that you think and talk and interact with people, the products or services. Like, it [00:40:30] has to be aligned with how you operate as a person, otherwise it is gonna

[00:40:36] Steve Kamb: Man, it's, it's gonna feel like you're swimming, uh, I think swimming uphill, but that, that doesn't necessarily- Upstream ... make sense. You know what I'm trying to say. Unless you're a

[00:40:43] Chenell Basilio: salmon or something.

[00:40:44] Steve Kamb: Yeah. Yeah. Right, yeah. Salmon, yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, salmon seem like they're having a pretty great time swimming, uh, swimming upstream.

[00:40:49] Steve Kamb: Um, we are not salmon, so swimming upstream is probably a little more challenging for us. Yeah, it's like fighting a current. Um, so it's really important to really pause and get to know yourself and not [00:41:00] just get distracted by those really shiny, bright, beautiful lights and the allure of this somebody else telling you they have everything figured out if you just do exactly what they do.

[00:41:10] Steve Kamb: It's very unlikely that's going to work.

[00:41:12] Chenell Basilio: Do you have any tips for trying to f- re- like, figure out if it's actually something you want to do versus if you're just, like, paying attention to what other people are doing? Like, aside from going into a cave and sitting there for 12 days and thinking. Like what are some real tips we can use?

[00:41:28] Steve Kamb: Yeah. [00:41:30] I mean, that's a good tip. That's a good tip. Yeah. I mean, the, the way I think about it is imagine you're on, like, this... You're at this, you're in this buffet, right? And you can see all these different options available to you. And you walk through and you make your plate of food, and it's got a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

[00:41:43] Steve Kamb: Great. And then somebody else walks over and steals your plate and gives you a different plate of food and said, "No, no, no. This is how you have to eat, and you have to eat with your left hand, and you have to, um, you can only eat between 7:00 and 7:15 PM." Like- But I don't like any of the food on [00:42:00] this plate.

[00:42:00] Steve Kamb: That doesn't make any sense to me. I'm not going to do it. I think when you're trying to find your path, you're building your own buffet plate. It's perfectly fine to look on Instagram, to sign up for great newsletters from people that you love, um, to-- And then be okay taking individual tactics or strategies and treating them like a 30-day or a 60-day experiment without expectation.

[00:42:27] Steve Kamb: The experiment shouldn't only be like, [00:42:30] do I see number go up? But did I enjoy the process or did I find fulfillment? Did I enjoy the challenge of making this number go up or do I see positive progress in a certain direction? So I think it's perfectly fine to try a few different things. I would set some parameters around those, um, around those things like, uh, like I said, a 30 or 60 day experiment, um, where you're zooming in and just focusing on it without the results, and then you can zoom out and take a [00:43:00] look and see this is working.

[00:43:02] Steve Kamb: I felt good about it. I enjoyed it. Cool. Keep going. Oh, I didn't enjoy it? Great. Experiment still successfully accomplished. You learned what doesn't work for you or which path or strategy doesn't align with your goals. Great. Um, I think also we put so much pressure on ourselves to succeed and succeed quickly, and everybody wants to sell us that things take-- that, that we [00:43:30] can succeed very fast if we just go all in or whatever it may be.

[00:43:35] Steve Kamb: As I said earlier, this is a lo- we, we, we do live long lives. We have-- We can, we can It's amazing what we can accomplish if we can do, if we can do these things some of the time, more often than not, for a long period of time. So I think there's a lot of this that requires us to reset healthier expectations.

[00:43:58] Steve Kamb: It's to get to know [00:44:00] ourselves. I mean, for me it was-- therapy has been really helpful and joining, you know, groups with other entrepreneurs and writers. Some of my most powerful life experiences have come from being in small groups with other writers. So getting to know other people that are succeeding maybe in the way that you want to succeed, not just celebrities who are succeeding and following some 4:00 a.m.

[00:44:21] Steve Kamb: morning protocol or whatever, but like the person down the street who also has two kids and plays pickleball, but has built a really [00:44:30] cool little business. That's probably somebody you should be spending a lot more time with than trying to follow the Kardashian strategy for, you know, unbelievable billion-dollar success in marketing.

[00:44:43] Steve Kamb: Like find people that are like you, who are succeeding in the way that you want to succeed, and see if there's ways you can borrow from them. I think that's probably so much more valuable than chasing, chasing this amazing magic, you know, celebrities that are so far out of touch that we can't, we, we can't relate to what a [00:45:00] day-to-day life is like.

[00:45:01] Dylan Redekop: Relatable success- Totally ... I think is kind of like what I'm hearing is like, yeah, find people who are, who are living the life you want with, um, obviously some boundaries and a level of s-success that's, that seems achievable to some degree, and see what they're doing, and maybe pick up some notes, take notes, follow them a bit.

[00:45:22] Steve Kamb: Yeah. And, and people that, like you said, people that are We never really know what's going on in everybody's lives. You know? I think a lot of [00:45:30] those people that are preaching success and grinding 4:00 AM and working 80-hour weeks and who knows what they had going on. Maybe, like, they don't want to go home or they're-- they never get to see their kids, and, like, you just have no idea.

[00:45:44] Steve Kamb: There's this-- Uh, they tell a story of, um, uh, Ken Burns, the amazing documentarian who has put out some of the, the world's best documentaries, and he's getting interviewed, and the host says something like, "Ken, I, I [00:46:00] love your documentaries. I know you put so much time and energy and effort into them, but it also seems like you have, like, a really great work-life balance.

[00:46:06] Steve Kamb: Like, what is that like for you? What does work-life balance mean to you?" And he says, "You'll have to ask my two ex-wives about that." Um, and he was just so transparent and honest and was like, "Yeah, uh, this, uh, this job has taken a lot out of me, and it has-- There is a lot that most people don't see." And so when we romanticize the, the success of [00:46:30] other people, we might not realize what they're chasing or what void they're trying to fill or what sacrifices they've made.

[00:46:36] Steve Kamb: Mm-hmm. There's a lot of that that is happening, and we only get to see the bright, shiny front spot. So the more we can get to know those people, like you said, Dylan, the, you know, the relatable successes in our own town or people that we want to get to know on the internet, I think the more likely we're going to be to find peers or a group of people that we can then [00:47:00] spend a lot of time with over the next five, 10, 15 years.

[00:47:03] Steve Kamb: I mean, there's a lot of people that are going to help me promote my book that I met at a conference 15 years ago because we were all doing this at the same time way back then, and we stayed in touch because I like them as people. I think that is under-- That, that, that can't be replicated or replaced and, um- It really helps to be in this for the right reason and surrounding yourself with people that are chasing similar things or have succeeded in ways that we're [00:47:30] excited to try to succeed too.

[00:47:32] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:47:32] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And pick something you know you can do for a long time. I think one of the biggest things I hear from people who have made it in this creator space or in the entrepreneur space is like, just keep doing the same thing. Like, keep going, stop pivoting, stop doing all these things. Like, a pivot here and there is good, but not every six months.

[00:47:49] Chenell Basilio: And so what can you do for the next decade or more? And that's, that's how you're gonna win, is just like stick with the thing.

[00:47:55] Steve Kamb: And,

[00:47:56] Chenell Basilio: and endurance. I see so many people changing. Yeah,

[00:47:57] Steve Kamb: endurance. You can, um... I talk about treading water a [00:48:00] lot in the book, but you can tread water for certain things for a long time if you need to while you're navigating a bunch of other parts of life.

[00:48:06] Steve Kamb: So being able to do something for a long time. I wrote two articles a week every week for 10 years, and that's how I built Nerd Fitness to what it was. And as a result of all of that work, it is still a business that gets to operate because of a lot of that legwork, because I was willing to do it for a really, really long time.

[00:48:27] Steve Kamb: The other thing too is I got better over those 10 [00:48:30] years. My writing got better. It allowed me to become a better writer, a better researcher, a better communicator because I was willing to do it for s- for such a long time. There is some institutional knowledge, there is some experience that you just cannot take a shortcut on.

[00:48:46] Steve Kamb: So being willing to do something for a long time hopefully also means you are building on a, a better and better body of work and a, a strategy that does work over time that will help you succeed even if you do have to pivot in [00:49:00] the future. All of that work gets to count. None of it is wasted.

[00:49:03] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. It

[00:49:05] Chenell Basilio: compounds.

[00:49:07] Chenell Basilio: Amazing. Um, awesome. Steve, this was great. This is definitely a different episode from a typical one, but I think s- even more important- Hope that's okay ... than some of our other episodes. No, like fantastic. No, it's very good. I mean, the topic is something we don't talk about enough in this space, and I think just learning to be okay with knowing that you're gonna have to try again someday and start over and, and just- Mm-hmm

[00:49:28] Chenell Basilio: you know, have a good [00:49:30] process for doing that. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing that with the, the audience. Um, so the book, How to Try Again, go get it. It should be out by the time you listen to this. Uh, any, any other places people should check you out, Steve, or?

[00:49:44] Steve Kamb: Uh, yeah, the book is... So if you go to howtotryagain.com, it's all the details- There you go

[00:49:49] Steve Kamb: where it's available. It's available in countries all over the world, and hopefully, uh, other countries too. Um, I also recorded the audiobook, which gave me a slight panic attack the first day, [00:50:00] but ultimately being super fun by the end of the week. Uh, so if you enjoyed this conversation, I read the audiobook.

[00:50:06] Steve Kamb: I had a lot of fun with it. Um, I essentially fired myself to spend the last three years writing this book and distilling my life's work and writing into it. Hope you check it out. Um, I'm really, really proud of how it turned out. Uh, and um, I guarantee it will make you laugh at least three times and roll your eyes four times.

[00:50:26] Steve Kamb: Yes. So maybe, maybe even more. Um, but yeah, howtotryagain.com. [00:50:30] And then I'm everywhere on the internet, just Steve Kam. Nice. Pretty easy to find.

[00:50:33] Chenell Basilio: The book, the little subtitle on the book is one of my favorite sentences of all time. It says, "Some people wake up at 4:00 AM, run 15 miles barefoot, and then meditate in an ice bath.

[00:50:42] Chenell Basilio: This book is for the rest of us." Yeah. And I'm just like, "Yes." Well done.

[00:50:46] Steve Kamb: Thank you. That was actually the first line of my book proposal, uh, at this point- ... three and a half years ago. And- Incredible ... I think that was the line that, um, got the publisher to, to take a closer look at the proposal, and it was their suggestion- Mm-hmm

[00:50:58] Steve Kamb: to put it on the cover. And I was like, [00:51:00] "Let's do it." I love that, and it's the thing everybody has commented on.

[00:51:04] Dylan Redekop: Now that's a hook.

[00:51:06] Steve Kamb: That

[00:51:06] Dylan Redekop: is a

[00:51:06] Steve Kamb: hook. Got them.

[00:51:07] Dylan Redekop: As they say. You got them, yeah. Um, what I was gonna ask you was, what is, what is success... We've talked a lot about success in the last hour. What does success for Steve in this book look like?

[00:51:17] Steve Kamb: I mean, if I'm willing to allow myself to believe it- Mm-hmm ... I'm currently living it I got paid to write a book that I got to be myself w- in, [00:51:30] and I get to wake up and think about writing and helping people through my writing. By that metric, I've made it. So I am trying to sit with that, and again, I've pre-accepted whatever outcome happens for this book, whether it sells five copies or five million copies or somewhere in between, uh, my guess is somewhere in between.

[00:51:50] Steve Kamb: Um, uh, then I've, I've made it, and my, my... I'm living that success, which is I get to write a newsletter each week [00:52:00] that, uh, I chase a curiosity and connect with people, and I'll be able to walk into a bookstore in countries all over the world and see something that I wrote and is hopefully helping people.

[00:52:10] Steve Kamb: Like, that is success to me. Um, th- future success means me being able to continue to say no to a lot of things, to keep focusing on my day-to-day life, which is friends, family, um, taking care of myself physically, some hobbies, writing, um, volunteering, [00:52:30] just, like, doing those things. Like, I've made it. Uh, it's just really allowing myself to accept that is really challenging.

[00:52:39] Steve Kamb: Um, as entrepreneurs, we always just want, like, what's the next thing? How do we do more? So if I can accept it, it's here. I'm doing it. Um, and that's pretty awesome, and I, I think if you look back at old Steve and-- or brought this back to old Steve and said, "Look where you ended up," you'd be like, "Oh, he made it.

[00:52:55] Steve Kamb: You must be so happy, and everything must be perfect, right?" Like, no, that's not [00:53:00] how life works. But I'm excited to keep trying and to keep writing and to keep improving that craft and working on it and connecting with people. So I'm here. I'm doing it, and I'm really proud of that.

[00:53:11] Dylan Redekop: Wow.

[00:53:11] Chenell Basilio: Awesome. Congrats- Love it

[00:53:12] Chenell Basilio: on the past 20 years or so, uh-

[00:53:15] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:53:16] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:53:17] Steve Kamb: Long time. Yeah. It's crazy.

[00:53:18] Chenell Basilio: You've made it, Steve.

[00:53:20] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:53:21] Steve Kamb: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:53:24] Chenell Basilio: Uh, thanks again for being on the show. We appreciate [00:53:30] it.