[Transcript starts at 1:21]
Maestro: Hey, hello friends. Maestro here and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today's episode, we are taking a nihilistic approach to online business and we're talking about what actually matters. Does anything actually matter?
Of note before we get into the episode. Little, is this a bait and switch? I don't know. No, it's just, this is my podcast. I do what I want. Uh, but when this episode drops, it'll be Thursday, July 13th, which is very much in the future from now. Uh, but which is so wild. But I'm gonna be in Pennsylvania with my family. And the reason I'm sharing this is because maybe it's something that you wanna try. Not being with my family.
They're great, but still, uh, my good friend Jill, my bestie, JillFit, she does this thing called Christmas in July. And she has three brothers and they all get together in July. So this way they're not just getting together one time a year. You know, at actual July, excuse me, actual Christmas time. I've adopted this with my family.
I have three si- three, three siblings. I actually brought Justin onto the podcast. I should bring Cecilia on. I'm gonna try. Um, I dunno if Dan would wanna be on, but either way I have three siblings, two brothers and a sister. And I only see my family on Thanksgiving. We don't do Christmas. Christmas is my brother's birthday. If I can get him out here to, um, So Cal, that's awesome. I like to kind of share it because my birthday's New Year's, so if we can be hanging out, that's awesome. But we don't do Christmas, we do Thanksgiving. And it's getting to the point where I only see them once a year. I'm on the west coast, they are all on the East coast, and I'm like, this is kinda sucky.
My sister has two kids, they're like four and six now. And while I do FaceTime and I talk to them and I, you know, see them on, on, see my sister as pretty much on, on Instagram and I text, we have a text thread, I don't get to see them. And I was like this kind of sucky. So we're doing Thanksgiving in July, going to my sister's house, and uh, my mom should show up, my grandmother, um, and it'll be good.
So that's where I will be and I'll do an episode after that about how it was, but figured I put it out there for any of you that are maybe, maybe missing your family and like, Hey, I only see 'em once a year, like, I don't need to see 'em a hundred times a year, but twice a year would be nice. Uh, there's a, there's a little thought for you.
So second thing before we hop on in is the review time. I've been loving it. I'm gonna keep doing it until I run outta them, which may be soon. We'll see unless y'all submit some more. Thank you in advance. Uh, but today's review comes from Blair Watson. Blair, you to real MVP. Blair said, “Love this podcast.
Have been listening for years.” God thank you. “And have therefore been doing what Shante advises in doing the things one of the smartest in the biz.” Ah, I didn't read this before. I literally just copy and paste it and I read it like while I'm on this and I'm like, oh my God, this is so nice, so nice. “Grateful for this podcast.” Blair, thank you. I'm gonna keep doing this. It, it makes podcasting feel less alone. Y'all, y'all, you know, you message me and you DM and, and I see you share and that's awesome as well. I love all of it. Um, so any of you that, that are, you know, the spirit moves you and you feel called to leave a review. I would love it.
So the actual episode, we're gonna talk about an nihilistic approach to online business. What the hell does nihilism even mean? Let's start off with that. Well, the actual definition, by actual, I mean, what I got off the internet is: nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
It is often associated with extreme pessimism and radical skepticism that condemns existence. There have been different nihilist positions, including that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist or are meaningless or pointless.
That's a little aggressive. A little aggressive. What I'm actually talking about, and I went with nihilism, cause I think it's kind of colloquially understood as nothing matters, right? Or it's all, you know, in what I wanna switch it to be is it can all work, right? So what I'm, what I'm most specifically relating this to or speaking to as it relates to online business is that I believe that pretty much anything I can work. Any approach, can work.
So to that end, nothing is necessarily as important as the clever marketers would have you believe. Like you have to do it this way, you have to do it right now. Like do you? Cuz I think you're gonna sell me that thing again next year when the doors open up again. So is it that important? My true goal with this episode is simply to have you take action, as Blair said, I want you to do the thing.
So perhaps this is kind of like reverse nihilism because we're not pairing it with extreme pessimism, as it said in that definition, but rather, realism and perhaps optimism because the reality is it can all work. And maybe we should have some, we can have some optimism from that and be like, it can all work. Anything can work, try anything.
So this episode is also somewhat inspired by not somewhat a ton inspired by Brian Boorstein's episode from Eat Train Prosper. I've had him on the podcast, if we could link that, thank you, Courtney. Um, he, he's the one that programs for Paragon, um, Paragon Training Methods. If you're looking for a hypertrophy training program, it's Paragon or nothing.
I, I now program for myself. Um, I went with them for, I mean, two or three years. Two years. Um, and then when I started volleyball, it just made more sense for me to program for myself and make it more sport specific and be able to kind of change the days around, but, If you're looking for programming, it is Paragon, I should say, looking for hyper hypertrophy programming, it is Paragon or nothing.
But he did an episode, it was episode 100 for his podcast that he runs with, um, Aaron Straker. It's called Eat Train Prosper. Um, and episode 100 was Evidence-based Nihilism. Where he basically reviewed all the literature or a lot of the literature and showed that when it comes to the evidence-based approach, you can get hypertrophy, you can grow your muscles with basically any volume, any rep scheme.
And what actually matters are simply the things that matter for the individual. So it's kind of that like approach, well, like does it even matter because like it, anything could work. And that's exactly how I feel with online business. Like yes, a clever marketer's gonna really look to get you to subscribe to their approach, but the reality is, it all works.
I have no research to read you. Kill me. I I never wanna read another research article for my whole life. I hate looking at research, but if you've been in the online space for at least five minutes, you've seen, there's just a different, zillion different approaches where you'll get served an ad about this and you get served an ad about that, and this business coach is saying this and that email is saying that, and reality realistically, folks, they can all work and what's works best for you or what will work best for you, it's going to be based on you. Whether it's organic traffic, paid traffic, seo, email marketing, where you host your courses. If you have an online course at all, do you have a podcast? Do you use business card? They're still a thing. Do you have a website? How robust is your website? What kind of launch strategy are you using?
Do you have a funnel? Do you have a nurture sequence? You have upsells, downsells, webinar models, all of these things, they can all work. So this is that nihilistic, pseudo nihilistic approach to online business where, uh, I'm not, I'm not here to say nothing matters, but everything can work. And so each thing only matters as much as it matters to you and the approach that you want to take.
Oftentimes, I see folks that they just, they don't even start because they're fearful of doing it wrong. You can't do it wrong. It all works. They don't start because they're fearful of failing. You will not fail as long as you keep going. Literally, just keep going. Try this thing. It didn't work. Okay. Try it again.
You thought I was gonna say try something else? No, try it again. Take a step back. Debrief the launch. Debrief the thing you did. Figure out what didn't work, and then say, what do I need to fix? And then keep going. I watch people not start because they're concerned about time and I'm like, well, you're kind of wasting time by not doing anything.
Um, but they're like, I wanna get it right first. Okay. If you are concerned about the time piece, go learn from someone else. And who should you learn from? I did a whole episode on this, how to choose an online business coach. That is episode 484. Thank you, Courtney. But realistically, you're looking for someone that has shared values and someone who has helped other people achieve what you want.
And then you try it, you implement, you listen to them, you do the thing, you give it time. Anything and everything can work when it comes to online business.
I'm, I'm thinking about, um, I just had dinner yesterday with my girl, Christie Jenkins. She's a professional volleyball player from, um, Australia, and she, she has a, she's in the States right now looking for a job in, in venture capitalism, um, which I think is so dope, but, we were talking about volleyball, and you all know I'm like obsessed with beach volleyball and she's goofy footed.
Like there is a traditional or standard approach that you take with your feet as you're going to go up towards the ball to hit it. She is goofy because before becoming, this is wild, right? Before becoming a professional volleyball player, she was like a professional trampolinist. I don't know the exact word or name for it.
And so in doing that, you run up and the approach, because of that approach, it had her, you know, her cadence and her, her foot patterning a certain way, which is backwards for volleyball. Chick still crushes with her what's called goofy, her backwards steps. Yes, it makes, uh, something's a little bit more difficult at the higher level, but, uh, one of the best players in the world, Phil Doh, Phil Dalhausser, also goofy footed. Um, and when I say goofy footed, I don't mean like snowboarding or skateboarding, goofy footed. It means that their approach is backward from the traditional approach. But suffice to say, what I'm saying here is it still works. The reason I'm pulling this example out is because whenever I make an make an episode, or whenever I make, try to make an argument for something, I think about all the cases.
Like, does this apply? Does this, does this statement apply universally? Where does it break down? And there are, in my opinion, more objective things like sport, where there's like an efficiency to it with movement and biomechanics there. There's not a right, necessarily, a right, a wrong, but there can be things that lend themselves to more efficiency.
And so that's where I kind of leaned on it and was like, okay, what are some examples of this? And even within that, we see it can all work. All right, it can all work.
So hopefully this episode can help you cut through the noise a bit that's out there in the online business space, and get you to sit with yourself and identify your values, your needs, your problems, and then go and find a solution that matches.
You can also just go try things on your own and figure them out as you go. I, I can liken that statement again to volleyball as well, where there's plenty of people that play at a, you know, they're not, I'm not, we're not going professional, but there's plenty of people that are very good that, that I have no super formal training.
I had one in class with me the other day, this guy, he was like, yeah, I just watched a lot of videos and then I just like played a bunch. I'm like, oh, okay. That cool. That works as well, right? It can all work. It can all work.
So, as you're thinking about your own online business, or if you're venturing into an online business, start off with, and you're, there's a lot of noise in the space and you're like, should I do this?
Should I do that? This marketer told me to do this. Start off by figuring out what problems you actually have. Do you actually have a problem? Do you just think you have a problem because it's a clever marketer? Do you just need more time doing what you're doing? I identify your values, identify your wants, your needs, and then proceed accordingly.
Not here to say that nothing matters, but I am here to say that when it comes to online business, it can, and for the most part, all does work. What determines how much something matters is how much it matters to you. All right. That's all I got. Keeping this one nice and short. It was a little bit longer with the last episode.
Sorry about that, Emma. Uh, as always, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
ETP #100: Evidence-Based Nihilism
MOTM #484: How to Choose an Online Business Coach
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