strings too short to be saved

Summary

there’s a phrase, “strings too short to be saved.” it means the bits of stuff you keep because they used to be useful, that are no longer useful, that you keep anyway. most of us are carrying beliefs like this.

1. mine on social media. I watched a few loud people misuse Instagram and decided the whole platform was beneath me. cost me a decade of audience growth. the belief came from a real observation, then I generalized it into a rule, then I forgot why I made the rule.

2. mine on online advertising. I read one line in The $100 Startup that talked dismissively about ads and I never ran any. for years. while every business around me used ads to scale. the line wasn’t even wrong in context. I was wrong to make it a rule.

3. the practice: pick a strong stance you hold. ask where you got it. ask if it still serves you. if you can’t remember why you adopted it, that’s a tell. cut the string.

beliefs ossify into identity. then you defend them instead of testing them. growth requires letting go of the old answer. try harder.

Transcript

introduction to the podcast and the concept of “strings too short to be saved.”

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. Do you have any strings too short to be saved? This is the Better Human Business Podcast. I’m Jerred Moon. And I want to talk about that a little bit. And you might be asking, what is a string too short to be saved?

If you read my book, Killing Comfort, I talk about this idea. And there’s a story behind strings too short to be saved. And it goes back to this guy who was going through his mother’s stuff in the attic after she had passed away. And there was a box. And in the box had several pieces of string and the box was labeled strings too short to be saved.

exploration of personal experiences with social media and its impact on perception

And that has taken its own life in the productivity world. And telling people to focus on what’s most vital and throw away and discard what’s unimportant. But I think the bigger picture idea of the story of strings too short to be saved are ideas in general. Ideas are our strings too short to be saved that we’re saving anyway.

So I’ve had this happen to me a few times. One thing I’ve really struggled with over the years as a digital online entrepreneur is utilizing social media. And some things that popped up for me just coming up in the world and watching how social media has evolved, it’s really been crazy from where it started to actually trying to be social and sharing food pictures and trying to be artistic to everyone trying to make an income from it and everyone selling their soul in the process.

And you can probably even hear how I’m talking about it. I’m not a huge fan. And two big things stuck out to me. There were these two massive influencers in the health and fitness world a couple years ago. One, I’m not going to mention any names because I’m not trying to throw shade on them. This is more of my perception of what happened.

discussion on influencers and the psychological shift in social media interaction

But one, he had just recently, this fitness influencer, he had just recently broken up with his fiancee. They had been boyfriend and girlfriend for a very long time. Then they were engaged and then they decided to break it off. And they had just finished the conversation of breaking up. And then they both collectively decided to do an Instagram live to go to hash it out.

And I just couldn’t wrap my head around why that was a good idea. Not that they did anything embarrassing or whatever, but I just, why was that your next train of thought? Why is that your next logical step? That’s what was so baffling to me. Can we not just live in a moment and experience a breakup or experience a hardship without having to show the world that we are being transparent and you can get to know me better so you can buy my products?

It’s such an odd thing. And again, I don’t mind the sharing of the story. That’s fine. If you want to be an open book to the world, that is 100% okay. It’s more the psychological problem that I had that is the next thought. The next logical thought was let’s break up. What’s next? Oh, how about we share it on social media?

insights on old business beliefs and their impact on growth

To me, that was like a huge disconnect in the psyche of what’s happening to the human race and it caused a lot of problems for me mentally. I’m wanting to share anything in social media because I didn’t want to become that person. Another similar story, I saw a different fitness influencer. He was out of town traveling, doing a speaking event at some large conference and in the process of doing this, to attend this event, he was missing his son’s football game.

It’s a very important football game. He had to miss it. And he’s sitting in his hotel room and he has his phone open. He’s doing an Instagram live. He’s crying about missing his son’s football game and he wants everyone to know how hard it is to be an entrepreneur like he is. And now I could go back and forth on whether or not that sacrifice even needed to be made or how he could prioritize things differently to make sure he attended the football game, but that’s neither here nor there.

The point is, again, I’m starting to see this disconnect in the human psyche to where when we’re having these emotional conflict moments or we’re going through something, it’s like the next logical step is, oh, I have to communicate this to my phone, my following, my fans. They have to know what’s happening.

methodology for reevaluating and letting go of limiting ideas

And I just think it’s a little bit odd. I think that we’re headed in a weird direction. But because of that, I have my own ideas about social media. Whether I’m wrong or right is irrelevant. What has happened from that is it’s made me not want to really do anything on social media. It’s those kind of posts and stories and Instagram lives that I’ve seen over the years that I’m like, oh, I don’t want to be a part of that.

I don’t want the next logical step in my brain after something emotional or hard happens to me. I don’t want the next step to be, hey, here’s what I have to do. I have to share this on social media. I don’t like that. I just want to be a human. I want to be with my people. I don’t want to have to share everything.

What has that cost me in the possible growth of my business where I could be an agnostic social media user who really just uses it from a business perspective, has a posting schedule, is very unemotional, and just does the work and doesn’t get into the weeds of it affecting my psyche. I absolutely could do all those things.

conclusion and encouragement for listeners to apply these insights

So what I have is a string that’s too short to be saved. It’s not worth saving. And it’s an idea that only I have that I don’t need to have that doesn’t serve me that I can let go of and I can start posting on social media. To help my business, not to do anything else, not to, I don’t have to share those stories.

I can still post my message and things that I’m passionate about. I don’t have to be like them, right? So I had this story that just affirmed, yeah, you don’t have to do social media because look at these idiots. But that’s not serving me. It’s only hurting me in all honesty. Another time this happened, and this was a string too short to be saved, early on in my business career, I read a book, it was one of the first books I had read on building an online business.

I believe the book was called $100 Startup, the $100 Startup by Chris Gilbo. And it’s a pretty good book, it’s probably outdated at this point for starting an online business, but he had some good information in there. But I’ll never forget a line in the book when I read it, and it was, advertising is like sex, only losers pay for it.

So just think about that for a second. So early on, I have no idea what I’m doing. This is the first book I’ve ever read. I’ve never, haven’t done anything with online business, and this is one of the first things I read, and it’s, oh, if you do online advertising, you’re a loser. Like you don’t need to do online advertising.

What he’s saying is, honestly, you just want to be popular. Like you want to be viral, you want to be popular, you want to strive for those things because if you can achieve those things, then you don’t ever actually have to pay for advertising. But that’s incredibly hard to do. That held me back from advertising for probably three years.

And if you know anything about how I’ve grown businesses over the years online, it’s in large part due to online advertising. Am I a loser? Absolutely not. But I had this string, too short to be saved, that held me back. It didn’t let me advertise for a long time because I thought I just, if my message wasn’t connecting, if my blog or podcast wasn’t growing, I just wasn’t good enough.

But in reality, the market’s so saturated, you have to advertise to amplify your message. If you aren’t viral, if you aren’t getting on the Joe Rogan podcast as a guest or whatever it is, all these things that could really launch a career, you have to probably advertise. And there’s nothing wrong with it.

It’s just who we are today. But what he said may have been true 10, 15 years ago. Luckily, I let go of that string that was too short to be saved. I let go of that idea, and I really embraced online advertising, and it really helped my business grow significantly. So all that to illustrate a simple thing.

Look at, just review anything that you have a really strong stance on right now. Whether that, that could be social media use, that could be advertising, that could be email marketing, and I’m just keeping this in business right now. You could do this in your personal life, too. But it could be on any of the marketing strategies that are out there, it could be on any of the sales techniques and strategies, it could be about wealth, it could be about finance, it could be about basically anything.

But if you have a really strong stance on something, you have to do a self-analysis to find out what that is. But after you realize it, ask yourself two questions. Where did this come from? Where did this stance come, why do I, I had to sit there and think about it, I’m like, why do I hate social media so much?

Like what is it? And I could think back to these specific stories I’ve seen, like I think that helped develop the stance that I have now, and that’s not good. So I went back and then also on the advertising thing, I’m like, why did I wait so long to advertise? And it was one specific line in a book that I read, it was the first book I ever read on online business.

I had to go back and find those things, why do I have a strong stance here? You find the strong stance, and then you have to ask yourself the second question. After you have identified where it came from, you have to ask yourself, does it serve me or does it limit me? Because it’s not bad to have a strong opinion or a strong stance, because what I’m not saying is, hey, compromise all your values and principles and be a chameleon and just change all the time, because you just need to do whatever is best to make money.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, does it serve you or does it limit you? So if you have a really strong stance about something and you’re like, hey, here’s where the idea came from, I have this strong stance, I don’t feel like it’s limiting me because I believe fundamentally I should be this way or I should do business this way, and that’s perfectly fine.

There are some sales techniques and strategies that you just, like personally, I don’t want to go down that road. If you’ve experienced or done anything, you know how sleazy those things can get. So it might be a principled stand about, OK, it serves me because it keeps my reputation, it keeps my integrity.

Does it limit some income? Maybe. But it serves me ultimately, it serves me more because I have integrity and I can go to bed at night, I can go to sleep at night knowing I’ve done the right thing. Those are the ones that you want to keep around. But if it’s something stupid, somebody said advertising makes you a loser when that’s like not even true at all.

You can let go of those ideas. Same with me and social media, like I can start posting more on social media. It’s not going to be a bad thing, right? And that’s what’s kicking off in Q3 of this year. But I had to like really, I’m like every time I’ve started over the last couple of years, I’ve always stopped because I’m just like, I just don’t, I don’t want to do it.

I’m not that person. And what I’ve realized and I’ve had to dive deep into why, what’s the resistance here? Like, why don’t you want to do it? And I finally figured it out and I realized, hey, it’s just limited me because I can do this in my own way without having to be those people. And so that’s all I want you to do.

If you have a strong stance on anything, any of the topics I’ve talked about, maybe even in your personal life, ask yourself, hey, where does this come from? Can I identify the source and does it serve me or does it limit me? That’s it. But to change an idea, a deep rooted idea in your subconscious, in your mind, you are going to have to try harder.