Cartoonist

Nathan T. Wright is an artist. He has origins in the early days of social media, made impact inside corporate marketing, and now illustates remarkable art with drawings, cartoons, murals, and more. Ben and Nathan jam on The Adventures of Fatberg, the early (fun) days of social media, the speeds in-house at a large company, leading a creative process with clients, real skills for studying the arts, and understanding the business of being a full-time artist.

After the break that features a reading of Aphorism, Nathan and Ben dive back in by talking graphic recording at live events, the positive tension of smart cartoons, and extending value by reformatting great content into books. EP90 of YDNTP is an absolute bop – share with a friend!

EXTRA SHOT

Nathan T. Wright is the friend who illustrated the mug that has become part of a brand that is Ben McDougal.

What started as the caffeinated, community-driven cover art for You Don’t Need This Book, now extends through the Roasted Reflections NFT Collection, imprinted phygital clothing, the front of tiny ideabooks, temporary tattoos, a huge neon sign, and of course, the artwork for this timeless podcast! Cheers to this episode and another shared relic that keeps the fun brewing!

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BONUS MATERIALS

https://nathantwright.com

The Adventures of Fatberg

https://etsy.com/shop/ntwillustration

City of Santa Ana FOG Activity Book

Roasted Reflections Break: Aphorism

https://NewYorker.com/latest/cartoons

http://Cartoonist.YouDontNeedThisPodcast.com

https://MainframeStudios.org

EP21 – Pinball Wizards 🎙️ Ben Sinclair

EP44 – Do What You Love 🎙️ Scotty Russell

EP55 – Inextinguishable Light 🎙️ Jim Morgan

EP60 – Goosebumps 🎙️ Nic Roth

http://YouDontNeedThisPodcast.com

https://BenMcDougal.com/NFT

http://BENBOT.ai

Push Through

Alongside a career in finance, Steve Walsh is an investor and wrote Make the 10X Leap to help founders scale. We talk about choosing to push through the storm, raising strategic financial capital, collaborating with investors, signals for when it might be time to scale, and all that goes into writing your first book.

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BONUS MATERIALS

https://BisonEquityGroup.com

http://Push-Through.YouDontNeedThisPodcast.com

Roasted Reflections Break: Winds of Outrage

https://BenMcDougal.com/How-I-Wrote-YDNTB

EP59 – Agents of Change 🎙️ Amner Martinez

EP73 – Care Directly 🎙️ Jon Van De Veer

EP84 – Base Camp 🎙️ Jon Kallen

http://YouDontNeedThisPodcast.com

Storytelling

Humans are innate storytellers. We use (sequenced) stories to enjoy life, relay ideas, and network experiences. Passed over generations, the willingness to tell stories has helped our species survive. When collided, shared understandings then summon diverse environments connected to thrive.

As we narrow the narrative into an entrepreneurial lifestyle, the values of storytelling are felt as we learn, create interest, unite, and take action beyond the shared moment. Over a brew, in the office, at events, out with friends, or on-stage, leaders must be able to translate the story of a business.

The environment, industry, audience, and format effects how a story is told. The sentiment can remain consistent, but your story won’t sound the same each time. Agility, preparation, and awareness will keep a story genuine, truthful, and engaging. Preparedness also boosts our confidence to share our stories in any situation.

Internal storytelling between owners, co-workers, mentors, advisors, and customers is guided by listening, curiosity, data, understanding, transparency, and all that’s found in the Team chapter of You Don’t Need This Book.

Let’s expand the repertoire with a focus on storytelling with strangers. This is done by playing with styles and formats for the story. What’s your style? How casual can you make it? How nerdy can you go? What feelings do you evoke?

Alongside different styles, timing helps to format the story. One sentence is a sharp conversation starter. 42 seconds is ideal in a small group. 6 minutes delivers enough details to support a valuable Q&A. 10+ minutes creates space for more depth, but don’t numb the audience. 45+ minutes is leading event sessions and keynote speaking.

Along with talk, relatable assets bring a story to life. Such creation uncovers the flow for a story, so embrace branding, social media, website development, slide decks, one pagers, and endless types of physical and digital materials that connects storytelling with an audience that cares.

No matter the situation, honest understanding, energizing enthusiasm, practice, transparent vulnerability, intellectual humility, and concise simplicity will serve you well. Nothing pushy, but pops of persuasion curate attention along the way. As a remarkable story comes together, feedback will sharpen the business and continue to tweak transmissions.

Aphorism

Personal truths on health, life, wealth, and happiness evolve from entrepreneurial endeavors.

The pursuit of building a business causes people to be more contemplative about other aspects of life. Learning to articulate thoughts as a leader is transformative. Knowing ones self can be parlayed with mindful aging to create curiosity that can be mixed into heartfelt conversations.

How we explore big ideas depends on the environment, people you interact with, and knowledge you pursue. This makes me thankful for my own entrepreneurial experiences, but more important, the immeasurable blessing it can be to expand our minds by plugging into startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

A willingness to show up and the trust built through such generosity has allows leaders to become apart of so many other startup stories. As mentioned throughout YDNTB, consistent action over the long run is required, but insight learned along the way provides a path to understanding for anyone, on almost any front.

As we support entrepreneurs through the art of connection, the invitation to have more diverse discussions is unlocked more often. Whether it’s strategic, tactical or philosophical, what a gift toward open-mindedness this becomes.

Along with stimulating conversations with agreeable peers in a support network, Adam Grant reminds us that it’s important to weave in the perspectives from a challenge network as well. Challenge networks consist of disagreeable people we trust to point out blind spots. This helps to overcome weaknesses with critical feedback we may not want, but need. Peculiar interactions within a challenge network also unlock humbling opportunities to be wrong. Intellectual humility helps avoid misguided confidence and brings us closer to different forms of truth.

Extra Shot

Smart people change their mind all the time. Find joy in discovering you were wrong and now less wrong than before. This is not incompetency. It’s being honest, respectful, and willing to learn.

Rock & Radio

Max Schaeffer is an Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame Inductee jamming on a new kind of mic. EP79 features a professional conversationalist sharing insight from 40+ years in radio!

This influencer is also an award-winning theatrical director, actor, and producer. Ben and Maxwell discuss timely vs. evergreen content, regulations of radio, metrics that matter vs. opinions of estimates, and curating dollowers beyond passive followers. After the break, we explore how to lead by doing, radical ways for radio to remain relevant, and then Max… as he’s done so many times, in so many ways, closes things down in style.

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BONUS MATERIALS

Maxwell’s Iowa CoffeeCast

https://BenMcDougal.com/content-creation

http://Rock-Radio.YouDontNeedThisPodcast.com

EP48 – Consistency Counts 🎙️ Michael Libbie

EP59 – Agents of Change 🎙️ Amner Martinez

EP69 – Generative Humans 🎙️ Chris Snider

http://YouDontNeedThisPodcast.com

http://CollectorHardbackEdition.com

http://BENBOT.ai