Mastering Creative Business w/ John Mike, Producer: Future-Proofing Your Career and Facing a Major Health Scare

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What is success if you're not around to enjoy it? That question should hit you hard. Because if you're listening to this podcast, if you're not new to God and gigs and you know that we are here to help you achieve this great creative life from the inside out, following your Godgiven dreams of success. In the creative industry, as a musician, author, as an entrepreneur, as a content creator, then you know that yes. We want you to be successful.

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Successful. But there's a problem here, because success can't be success if you don't have a life that will support it. And what you're going to hear today in our part two of this incredible interview with our good friend, mentor, entrepreneur, producer, someone who has seen it all, John Mike. This is a part two, so you might want to go back to part one if you're listening to this intro and realize you haven't heard part one, but because we're dividing this up, I want you to realize that this is maybe the more important of the two episodes. Not that number one isn't important.

00:00:57
But when you hear what John Mike. Is going to share about his health challenges and how he has now reprioritized what really matters in his creative life, you're going to realize that there is a bigger, deeper message to everything we do here at God and Gigs and that's you must take care of the temple that is producing all these things for you. Because if you lose out on one thing, you lose everything. Just give me a moment to welcome those of you who are new to guiding gigs and then we'll get right into this extremely important conversation.

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Artists, musicians and creatives of all kinds looking for help bAllencing your passion to create with your everyday life. Not sure if your faith can coexist with your profession? Welcome to a place where real artists discuss real life. You're listening to the God and Gig show. Visit Godandgigs.com for show notes, links and more information.

00:01:53
Hello and welcome to our show. Thank you so much for making this podcast a part of your creative day. If you're new to God and Gigs, you are in the right place at the right time. My name is Allen C. Paul.

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I'm a musician, creative coach and author. And I am here along with our guided gigs community, to help you transform your creative life from the inside out. We help you solve those temporary creative problems you're facing with timeless spiritual principles. And we do that through our podcast. We do that through our membership, we do that through our social media channels.

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Everything here is to help you to become that creative that you have been created to be. So thank you for giving us a chance. You have found your tribe. Follow us. Subscribe via the app that you're listening right now to this podcast and make sure you don't miss anything.

00:02:40
There's absolutely not a week or a. Month that goes by that I don't say I am so grateful, I have the guiding community behind me. And I think you'll say the same once you join us. Well, this is actually, again, as you maybe heard in the intro, this is a part two. We very rarely do this, but this episode was so impactful and so much was in this interview that we decided not to put half of it in our membership.

00:03:05
So that'll be kind of like behind a wall. We'd have to join the membership to hear it. We wanted this to be for everybody, but we couldn't get it into one episode, so we split it up into two. Now, if you listen to the last episode before this, you'll hear John Mike, our incredible guest who has built multiple creative companies, who is a guru of all things tech production, gospel music, gospel tracks, you name it, he has done it. But you heard him share about his incredible mindset when it comes to building a business, building a brand, building a creative life, and leveling up even when you've already achieved success, that there's next levels that you have to go to.

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So first things first, if you did not hear part one, go back an episode. Go back one step. Just go back to your app and just scroll up and you'll see right before this one, the last episode is the one you want to hear. Now, that doesn't mean you can't listen to this one separately. It just means that when you put them together, it makes a complete picture of what we're sharing.

00:04:05
So I've already introduced John Mike a little bit in that episode, but once again, he is the leader of gospelproducers.com site. He's created creatingstems.com. He once had loop gospel. So everything in his area is about bridging the gap between technology production and the musicians and the creators that make this music. And he's also been on the show before, by the way, way back in episode 43.

00:04:30
So you might want to go check that one out because that was also incredible. You could hear his entire backstory. So we cannot get enough of John. Mike, but in this episode, he is going to share something incredibly impactful that you may not expect. We're going to dig a little deeper from the entrepreneurial side into the personal and the health side.

00:04:50
The story he's going to tell you is absolutely going to maybe shock you because you may not realize that this happens on the outside, but my friend, Von V, keith Henry, if you go back and listen to episode 231, he said this, and it's really impactful in this particular episode. He said that musicians are not immune to life. And that's exactly what you're going to find out when you hear John Mike testimony of what happened during this season that really rocked his world. You're going to find out that we. Want you to be more than just creatively successful.

00:05:21
We want you to be successful in every area of your life, and that includes your health. So this is going to take a turn, a serious turn that I really want you to pay close attention to. It's why we included it in this part two of this episode. So make sure to send this to someone that you care about. Make sure that you share this episode on your socials.

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This is one of those things that could not just help somebody level up in their creative life, it could actually save a life. So with that, I'm not going to go any further. I want you to hear it straight from him. Here's our part two of our interview with John Mike.

00:06:04
And I was going to ask you next is really it seems to me that you are also in a different place in your personal, not just your business development, because that's clearly developed, but also how do you enjoy success? Because here's the other thing. We see the hustle and grime mentality. Even your shirt has that little hustle under the humble there, right? Yeah, I caught that humble.

00:06:24
Nice graphic work, as usual. But there are some people that are falling off that train because we see the people that are burning out, the people who are like, man, I just do this twenty four seven and I never turn it off. I'm number one, like I always say. These are like coaching calls for me because I have trouble turning it off. I walk right over there, that bedroom, and take the laptop with me.

00:06:42
My wife is like, you said you were leaving the office, but you brought the office with you. Yes. I appreciate your candor and we're being transparent on this podcast. Tell me, how are you now helping yourself and evolving to enjoy and actually sustain the success in your other areas of your life? Because this is all about God and gigs.

00:07:04
It's all about the entire picture, right? Not just the business, which we want. To see people grow and become great. Creators, but you also want to enjoy it once you get it. So how is that working for you or what are you doing to make sure that happens?

00:07:16
Well, it's funny that you talked about and I'll get into the health, health stuff that I've been kind of journeying on lately, but it's funny that you talked about the separation of the state of which you're supposed to be after you get off work, working that state. But no, me and my wife, that is the source of every argument. I'm telling you, our marriage is perfect outside of this one thing. And it's the fact that I am an absolute workaholic and so I don't know how to turn it off again, going back to feeling stuck, those are the things that get me stuck in life of trying to figure out how to turn that thing off. And so here's an interesting piece.

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I think I may have shared this in the previous podcast. I can't remember. But my name some people just know me as John Mike, and Michael is actually my middle name. My actual name is John Williams. No, I love this news flash, everybody.

00:08:20
No, you did not share this. I had not heard this. Here's a news flash. My actual name is John Williams, and this will probably pop up somewhere down the line. Somebody grabbed this as a sound bite.

00:08:30
But Michael is my middle name. So, yes, John Mike is where is always a nickname, and I say it so much, and people say it so much that it's literally become like, what I answer to. And I have to remember what my actual government name is when I have to put it on a check or teleport check out to or whatever. And so how that's relevant is this is that me and the wife was talking about this just the other day, is like she said, when you come upstairs, I don't want John Mike, I want John Mike. And so I have to learn how to turn that off.

00:09:14
That's the real transparent, candid space that I'm in, is figuring out the separation of the two, because those are two different people. John Mike is the businessman, he's the YouTuber, he's the creative entrepreneur, he's media for musicians, he's gospel multitracks, he's gospelproducers.com, he's this, he's that. But then there's John Williams, who is the father, who is the husband, you know what I mean? The provider of the house, the priest of my house, all of those things. I'm the normal person.

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So the biggest thing that I'm in right now, the mode I'm in, is learning how to be John Williams. That's the biggest place that I'm in. And then I turned 40 this year, this past year, back in December, we. Got eight years on you, and it still feels like that was an eternity ago.

00:10:10
I kissed 30 goodbye. 30, 50. Look, I'm just going to buy into all of them. Yes, because aging, whatever. But to go on what you're saying, because, yeah, that milestone to me again says, hey, were you supposed to be successful by a certain age or whatever, who cares?

00:10:30
What does that mean to you? Like, to reach that age and say, hey, now my perspective is changing. I've built something. But I heard somebody talking about, even in terms of your progress as a man in your 20s, how you try to build something. I can't do it.

00:10:43
Exactly. I'll have to put a post and see if I can link to it. But in your 20s, you're trying to build something. In 30s, you're trying to find what that thing is all about. And 40s, it becomes your legacy.

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In 50s, it becomes sharing that legacy with the next generation. Every generation or sorry, every decade breaks down into that thing. And I'm feeling it coming up on my 50s, that same thing, whatever it is for you. I know that there's a shift coming, whether I like it or not, that I need to be more aware of this thing that I'm building, even in my family with my kids. My kids growing up and moving out at this stage is like, who is this guy?

00:11:19
What is he going to do? Because the identity that I set up for myself is not going to sustain itself through the next decades of my life. Yeah, and I'm sure it's the same for you in another form of capacity, unique to you. I'm pretty sure you're feeling something like that in the same way in your life. Definitely, man.

00:11:38
I'm trying to figure it out. I had a health scare last year. This is one of the things that put things front and center for me, was I got diagnosed with diabetes. But how I figured out that what was going on with my body was I woke up in well, I've been feeling crazy for, like, two or three weeks before this incident, but I had just been feeling off, and you write it off, especially us as men, we write these things off. As, I'm working too much, I'm tired, okay, let me get through this last project, and then I'm going to take a break, and I'm going to do this.

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We'll go somewhere or do something. Let me just finish this or let me do this. Or next week I'll take a break or whatever. Everything that doesn't involve going to the doctor. Exactly.

00:12:34
Everything but the thing that actually would help. And so I had all these things going on. Man dizziness Lightheadedness the biggest key, especially this, is for somebody that might help somebody when it comes indication of diabetes that your blood sugar is kind of way out of whack and out of control, is that I was urinating like, 25, 30 times a day. I didn't know what was going on. I thought, like, maybe I had a urinary tract infection or something like that was going I didn't know what was going on, but I didn't think diabetes.

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I didn't think that. So what happened was I woke up one night in the middle of the night, which was a custom, and it should not be a custom that I know. Now. That's another sign, an indication that you might be dealing with high blood sugar and stuff, is that if you're waking up in the middle of the night two or three times and urinating and things like that, then that's a key indicator that something's off. You should be sleeping solid seven, 8 hours a night, six to 8 hours a night if you can.

00:13:44
So I got up in the middle of the night about 02:00 and went to use the restroom, came out the bathroom, and it was like something slapped me, like, out of nowhere. It's almost like somebody punched me in the face. Like, I don't know what happened. And it's like the whole room started spinning. I mean, like, hot.

00:14:04
This is the craziest part. Hot flash on top of chills at the same time I'm talking, my entire body started sweating. Like, sweat started pouring out of everywhere in my body, on top of chattering teeth. My teeth chattering because I was cold. So that's the craziest way to explain it.

00:14:27
Hot, sweating and cold at the same time. Never experienced anything like that in my life. Hope to never experience anything like that ever again. But this went on for about five minutes. Scariest time of scariest thing of my life up to this point.

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And then all of the strength fell out of my body. That was the biggest part of it. It felt like I had 20 pound weights on my legs. I was just trying to make it back out of the bathroom, back to the bed. That's what I was just trying to do.

00:15:00
We have this couch that sits in front of our bed. I made it to the couch, and I was able to sit there and kind of rock and kind of try to get myself back together only to get bAllenced out after about five minutes. And everything went back to like, okay, I think I'm good. But I did not go back to sleep that night. I stayed up most of the night just researching everything I could research.

00:15:24
But I didn't go back to sleep and woke up the next morning or got up the next morning, rather. The wife, she sleep through all of this. She had no idea anything happened. She was just like, Why are you on the couch? And I was like, I told her everything that happened.

00:15:39
And she was like, you need to go to the doctor or something. You need to go to the hospital or something. Are you all right now? I'm like, yeah. She was like, yeah, you should just run up to the emergency walk in clinic up the street or whatever.

00:15:51
And she had to take my son to work, so she couldn't go. It was like one of those things she said, but you should go right now. The doctor, they take my blood, they do the urine, they do all of this stuff like that. And they came in and they said, man, they said, your sugar is 300 and your blood pressure is like, 150 over something. The high number was high, and the low number was low.

00:16:16
It wasn't good. Everything was high. And they said, you drove yourself up here. And I was like, yeah. And they were just like, yeah, you need to go straight to the emergency room.

00:16:26
And they checked my urine too. I had, like, 1000 sugar in my urine. It was crazy. Everything was all whack. And so I'm getting myself together out of there to try to go to the hospital, take myself to the hospital and tell my wife to do that.

00:16:41
And I walk out the doctor's room, and then the whole episode happens again. The room starts spinning, the hot flashes, everything starts happening again. And I almost pass out there in the doctor's office. They're able to kind of get me straight. And then we call my wife and they just take them straight to the hospital.

00:16:58
My wife was literally five minutes up the road. So she comes back up there, picks me up, we go to the hospital. And then, like I said, that's where we go through all of the stuff. Yeah, you got diabetes, blase blase. So that thing, I'm kind of fast forwarding through it to get to it, to make the point.

00:17:14
But that changed my perspective instantly. And a friend of mine said this past a friend of mine lives down in Mississippi. His name is Darren Leach. And I was talking with Darren, like, maybe a couple of weeks after that incident, and he said this to me. He said, one of the things that make people change is what they call a significant emotional event, causes people to change.

00:17:44
And he said if you break that acronym down, it's the word. See if they have a significant emotional event differently and they begin to see things differently. I had that significant emotional event with everything that went on with that and how I re turned that whole thing around was I instantly changed my entire diet. Like, I went away from sugar completely. I eat less than 50 carbs a day.

00:18:19
It's somewhat like the keto diet, but I'm not as stringent on it as keto is. I started out keto, but then that felt a little too extreme for me, and so I kind of landed somewhere in the middle. It was just really kind of a low carb diet and coupled with exercise. So now you talked about how you did a three K this morning. I run every now and again, but mostly I walk.

00:18:48
But I walk five K. I walk 3 miles a day because five K is 3 miles. I walk 3 miles a day. So I walk a five K every day in my neighborhood. I kind of like a track path that I do.

00:19:01
Takes me about an hour. But doing that within three months of changing my diet, starting that exercise routine, just changing my mentality around it, my diabetes went away because when they checked my A one C after that event, my A one C was 12.1. So for those who don't understand a one C, the number stops at 14. There are things that you want to be at the top level of. These are not things you don't want to be in the top 1%.

00:19:35
That's not where you want to succeed at. Yeah, and I know it can go much higher than that, but I think in terms of their readers and that's the cap, actually, if you're above 6%, you're considered to be pre diabetic. And if you get above seven, if your A one C is seven, then you are diabetic a normal person's A one C or their blood sugar A one C. Again, I know we got a varied audience of people that's listening. Some people know this stuff, some people don't.

00:20:04
But it's good for you to know this information. Whether you're in that space of your life or not, it's still good for you to understand your A one C and a normal person's, a one C is about 4.5 to 5.5. If you're in like 5.6 to six point something in that area, you can look those numbers up online, then you're pre diabetic and anything above that six point whatever is diabetic. And then if you're above that, it's like it's just you're extremely you're in a danger zone. And so I was able to take in three months of changing my diet, exercising and doing things differently, taking on a different mentality.

00:20:50
I lost 40 pounds and my A one C went from 12.1 to 5.5 regular range. So I'm back pretty much down in the normal level now just from changing diet, exercise again, going back to that guy from 2019. What's the biggest thing? The biggest thing, the biggest change is in mindset and in mentality and how I'm thinking about things. And we don't understand this, especially as I'll just keep it honest.

00:21:23
African Americans, we don't talk about these things. These things are relative to where we are. And you talk about being successful and you talk about being wealthy or you're talking about scaling a business. Well, I can't scale anything if I'm dead. I can't leave any legacy if I didn't get a chance to finish building it because I couldn't control my diet, I couldn't control my blood sugar, or I was overweight.

00:21:49
And so those are the biggest things. The things you want to succeed at are that, yes, it's good to get all of the money, yes, it's good to build all of the businesses and build all of those things. But if it's cut short, the thing that you fail at and you don't succeed at is your health. Then it all falls apart at the end. If you don't succeed in those age numbers, like if you don't succeed past 40, you don't succeed past 50, or if you don't succeed past 70 or so on and so forth.

00:22:21
It's so many things in that. So I encourage you as a creative, if you're listening, to get acquainted with what your blood sugar is, what your A one C is, understand those things. Because I felt fine, as people would. Say, diagnosing ourselves and just saying, okay, like you said, kind of pass it off and making other excuses versus you. Don'T want to run into the C event.

00:22:47
Right? That's the thing. Unfortunately, I think it does take that. But if you can, you can learn from example versus learn from experience. Right?

00:22:57
You went through the experience and we were learning, hopefully. And that's why I'm so glad you went there. Thank you for being transparent. Thank you for sharing it directly because. It is too easy for us to just gloss it over, right?

00:23:08
And we're recording this at the beginning of the year, so many people making New Year's resolutions and so on, and most of them will be something to the platitude of getting healthy. But your actions will speak louder than your words. And if you're acting more in terms of a I'm just going to say I'm going to do it, versus actually go out there and walk the mile, the 3 miles a day and see the results you're seeing, where now, again, let's kind of go back to original question. You get to enjoy your family. You get to enjoy their health and enjoy building the business at a higher level.

00:23:40
I had this on one interview. I always recommend this one interview is one of our best ones. Lashanda Brown we have back, I think, 209. She talked about the same thing, how she had health care and was unable to show up for the people and the things she prayed for, the platform she prayed for. Basically what you just said.

00:23:58
Same thing. You pray for this platform, you work hard, you do the lessons, you do the coaching, all the things, and then you can't show up for the very people that have been counting on you because you didn't take care of your health or whatever. And these little things, I think the Bible talks about don't despise small beginnings. I think those small beginnings and you said it's not just the first dollar, it's the first walk. It's the changing your diet.

00:24:24
It's just putting on your shoes. The Atomic Habits, I don't know if you're familiar with that book, but Atomic Habits is exactly that idea. The smallest change is still you can't improve upon a habit until it is established. You have to establish it. So all these things are again, they may seem like it doesn't have anything to do with creative life.

00:24:42
Actually, it has everything to do with it because you can't show up and create if you don't have that, like you said, the health and the mentality and all that really together. Brother, I thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to make sure we pivot to this one part as well, because you're talking about your health, because you're talking about this holistic lifestyle. I want to ask you kind of where do you because you started to mention it about where you see this going, right? So I think a lot of us, again, we get stuck and we say, okay, well, I don't know how to get this next point, this next point, whatever.

00:25:17
But are there some things that you have set up as whether they're short term goals, long term goals, or just. Your vision that you do see? Because some people pick their year for 2023. Always going to be this or whatever. But I feel like now you're at this place that you definitely are looking ahead, and you started to say it earlier about scaling your business.

00:25:36
So what are you seeing ahead of you? What is the thing that gets you up in the morning? Like, all right, now we're aiming for this. Yeah, that's really good. Right now, it's all about content and scaling that out as much as I can in the short term.

00:25:55
I actually hired two people last week for this very thing, is because part of scale is learning where your limitation is. You can only scale past your ability, where your limitations are. Once you hit the ceiling, there's a ceiling there. So the only way to get past it is I have to raise the ceiling. And so I was able to get from zero to one by myself, but if I'm trying to get to five, I can't even get to one to two by myself.

00:26:32
And so it's forced me to have to hire people to help me get to the thing to take stuff off of my plate so that I can focus on the bigger picture of things that I'm doing. So I hired a couple of people to help me with creating and editing content, because I'm doing a lot. I was looking at you right before we started this. I'm like, how is he getting all this done in 24 hours? And like you said, now you have the bAllence, now you are exercising, you do have the energy, and now you're getting the team together.

00:27:08
And it all works together, putting the team together and building that out. And it comes back to the point of me being John Williams. In order for me to be John Williams, I have to get people to help me with being John. Mike, that's so good, you know what I'm saying? So I had to get people in that could help me with scaling and doing the things that was keeping me down here in the studio till 11:00 at night, getting up at 06:00 a.m and being in the studio.

00:27:39
From six in the morning to 11:00 p.m at night. Recording, editing, shooting, posting, scheduling, doing this, doing that, working on this product, working on that. Mixing the song, mixing the record, producing the song, doing that. I needed to bring in people that can help me with that. And so now I'm able to start commit.

00:28:00
Like, I came upstairs. This was so funny. This was two days ago. This is two nights ago. It was Tuesday night.

00:28:07
I went upstairs, it was like 07:00, and the wife came out the bathroom, and I was sitting on the couch, and she was just like, surprise. What are you doing up here? Done. I'm done.

00:28:23
We had this thing in our house. Just be a. Funny point. We had this thing in our house where because we love Black Panther, we're Black Panther fans and stuff, the movie Black Panther.

00:28:37
We go get tagged now. We're going to have a whole nother. Conversation, a whole other conversation double with Black Panther fans of the movie. And so there's this scene in there with umbaku, and he says it's towards the end of the movie where they're giving their grand plan of how they're going to go in and win and stuff like that. He's in the background, the mother and the daughter, Chad, we can all remember talking and he just interrupts in the middle, and he's just like, are you done?

00:29:08
Are you done? And so me and the wife do that around the house. She'll text me, Are you done? And so I was done at 07:00. And she was just like, wow.

00:29:22
I was like, I mean, this is what I'm hiring people for. So I had to hire to scale. That's a big thing because I'm putting a big focus on content this year. I am very interested in all things content, in scaling my business in that right. And trying to capitalize on every little space, every little moment.

00:29:44
That's what media for musicians is about. It's another way to continue scaling what I'm doing. But here's a gym. Here's something that I help somebody that nobody's thinking about. Because some people will look at that and say, okay, he's trying to come up with another way, another income source, another income stream to make more money, to do Blase Blase XYZ.

00:30:10
It's just another money making scheme for him. And that's not exactly what it is. Actually, I started thinking about this is in line with me hiring staff.

00:30:22
I started this other thing to pay for that thing. So if you're looking to grow your business, if you're looking to scale, think about here's another way to think. Because it's hard as an entrepreneur when you're the sole proprietor and you're the sole business owner. And not only are you depending on this for building to pay for the business, but you're also living off of this money. You're also using that to take care of your family.

00:30:48
So every dollar matters different when you're not working a nine to five for somebody. Every dollar you look at, that different that you're making. And so what I have to do is find systems and find ways to pay for the thing that I need to do. There's a whole nother process I can dig into with that. But a lot of the things that I do are supplements to pay for the stuff that I need to do that I want to do.

00:31:15
So I do think do one thing to do another. So I'm like, okay, this staff budget is costing me 2500 to three K a month to hire staff. So what is something that I can create that will generate 2500 to three K a month to pay for staff, and I'm looking to hire two to three more people before the end of the year. So I'm like, what can I put in place in order to keep scaling, to keep income coming in over on this side? Yeah, I saw this on myron golden's page.

00:31:52
I think Kevin Bond reposted it, actually. And he basically said that he said. Creatives, we don't create things and lose. Right. Basically, his whole point was when I create something, like, what you do right now is not taking from that other business.

00:32:07
You literally make something, and then if you need more income, you make something else. But it doesn't deplete from the last thing. It's not like I guess in business terms, it's not like you lose capital. Your creative is capital. And it's like you don't lose when you say, okay, hey, I need another product or another income stream to help this business stay afloat.

00:32:29
For me, being straight up, we're talking to creators right now. Right now, it's the gigs. The gigs is what allows me to do this, but what I'm building here with gotten gigs in the community exactly. And 360. Yeah, it may not make money for the next, like you said, four or five years, because I'm in that first stage, but the infrastructure is here.

00:32:47
And I was look, I'm just brought in my first VA, and I thought I was something just having somebody I could call and like you said, come to bed, and someone else is working on my behalf. And so for everybody that just said to your head, I can't hire two people like John Mike did, look, I brought in somebody. Whether it's fiverr upwork, I mean, just starting where you are exactly. That's the key that you just said that investing in it so that each. Piece supports the other.

00:33:14
So that you can be John Williams, so that you can go upstairs at 07:00 and surprise your wife as I was. Same thing with my wife. I was sitting downstairs yesterday and I said, honey, you want me to clean something? She's like, no, and stop bothering me. Because now you're so used to moving.

00:33:29
You're so used to moving. Exactly. What do I do with my hands? Type thing. It makes a difference.

00:33:35
So, yeah, you have to start thinking outside of that so that's the space I'm in, in the short term, is building out my staff to scale for the next thing, to scale to the next space. I encourage every creative right now that's listening to start figuring out how you can start leaning into short form content. These are like your shorts, your reels, TikTok. I think even Pinterest is getting into the whole short form content game. That is where it is right now, is in the short form content.

00:34:14
If you want to know how to really scale your following, scale your business, short form is the quickest and easiest way. These platforms are all focusing on that right now. And so that was the other reason why I brought in two editors. And then I got another guy that I'm actually auditioning right now for a possible third because I can sit down. So here's the hack.

00:34:37
This even happening in real time. This is happening. I'm giving you a real time master class on this right now that you're listening. I'm recording this video right now that I'm doing with Allen for his podcast. Well, the guys that I have working for me now, after I get off this file, is going to go into Dropbox that we share with all of them.

00:34:59
They're going to take this footage, and they're going to scan across this footage, and they're going to chop it up into three to five minute segments. They're going to chop it up into 32nd segments for Reels, for TikTok. They're going to go find all of the PowerPoints where I said something that sounded very profound, and they're going to make it into something that I can use to keep scaling, to keep building the things that we're building. And then we can take the audio, strip it, and then we can edit it down into a podcast that we can post on our own podcast thing. So that it's figuring out.

00:35:31
So in the short term, my short term goals right now is all centered around content. It's all sitting around scale. It's all centered around trying to post ten to 20 pieces of content per day on all of the platform. We're not individual, like ten Facebook posts, ten this, ten across all of the socials, across all of the platforms being visible everywhere. Like I talked about earlier.

00:35:55
The Steve Harvey effect. It's literally legit. The Steve Harvey effect is what I call it. It's being everywhere. It's like when they look up, when they go on Instagram, there I am.

00:36:04
When they go on TikTok, there this dude is again. When they're on YouTube, there he is again. So it's figuring out that so that's my short term right now is this next year is really you're going to be seeing a whole lot and hearing a whole lot more of me on a ton of stuff. I'm looking forward towards Web 3.0. These are long term goals for me if we want to look at it.

00:36:30
And I even tell you as a creative, like, you need to be investigating. Into let me stop you, because I'm going to put the link in the show notes for our episode. See, this is why I love talking to people like you, because it reminds me I'm on the right path. Because when I go and I get a Vince Warnock and talk about NFTs, and he breaks the whole thing down, and I'm thinking in my podcast, this little podcast is already NFT ready for value. For value.

00:36:58
I'm thinking in myself, there's no one that even does this yet, but I don't want to get caught behind a curve. Like people got caught behind the curve with streaming. And every single time there's a new technology that's kind of ruminating out there. There's the early adopters and then there's the late bloomers, right? And I've just been you know what, I know people may not be supporting this particular podcast with Bitcoin and with SATS yet, but it's ready if you all want it right now, support me and John Mike, just click the link in the Fountain app or in the Cast thematic app.

00:37:30
It's there. You're helping. I think that's why we need to. Stay in this kind of community with. People who are thinking like you're thinking.

00:37:37
So when you say that, you're like. Oh, I'm not crazy. I should be thinking ahead. No, you're not. That's where it's going, Web 3.0.

00:37:45
And I don't think people even realize and understand that we're in Web 2.0 right now. We're still in 2.0. Web 1.0 was like the text pages where it was just text on a page. Hyperlinks. There was no pictures, there was no.

00:38:01
Images, there was no HyperCard and all that stuff. HyperCard, all that stuff. Then Web 2.0 came and then the infrastructure was there for us to start putting videos and audios and podcasts and digital products and all of these things have become a thing under Web 2.0 and where we have this space at. But Web 3.0 is where the game really changes the next inflection point. And my prediction, I might be right or wrong on it, but my prediction is we're right around five years away from that full inflection point where it becomes like, wow.

00:38:42
And so Web 3.0 is where a website address is going to be an actual address. Like it's going to be an actual place on the Internet that you go to. Not something that you type in an address bar, but it's going to be something that it's going to be an actual physical location. I know this stuff sounds like Ray. Back in 1998 and you said you'll be able to type in anything on a little bar and it will give you the answer or talk to a speaker.

00:39:14
They would have said you were crazy too. So no, man. But I'm telling you now, and I'm going to tell you what changed the absolute game for me over the Christmas holiday. I bought the Oculus, the little thing that Facebook is into now, that the metaverse and all of this stuff that you've been hearing about or whatever, the wife was like, this is like two weeks before Christmas. She was like she said, why don't we try to think of the big gift to give the kids this year?

00:39:42
We do them a big gift every we do individual gifts and then we do like this real big gift for everybody. Last year, well, 2021, the big gift was a dog. We got a dog for everybody. Like we bought a little dog. His name is Milo.

00:39:57
He's our new baby in the house now. So this year or 2022 Christmas, we bought the oculus. So the wife was like, let's try this thing. Let's try a little VR thing. We thought, it's a little gimmick.

00:40:09
We'll get this, or whatever. So the wife says, she said, Why don't you take the Oculus thing and go ahead and just take it out of the box and set it up so it's ready to go? Because it's a whole process. It takes about maybe 2030 minutes to set the thing up. So she was like, Why don't you go ahead and set it up so that when they open it up on Christmas, they can go ahead and just start playing it right then I was like, all right, cool.

00:40:37
I start the set up process on this thing. I put this crazy looking thing on my head, and I'm ten minutes into the setup, after I kind of got through all of the initials and actually got into the thing, I took it off, put it back on, took it off, put it back on. Then I took it completely off, and I went back to Best Buy, and I bought two more of them because I saw what it's about. I saw Legit, why Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook changed their name to Meta, and why they're putting billions upon billions upon billions of dollars into the Metaverse because it is the future. Like, I put this thing on, and I was in a different place.

00:41:28
I feel like there's two reactions, right? There's the reaction of, oh, man, he's on to something. And then there's the other reaction, like. Oh, this is how the world ends.

00:41:38
Yeah, legit it might be, but at the same time, that doesn't change whether the world ends or not. That doesn't change the fact of whether you're going to be broke when the. World if you're all going to go out. If the world ends, at least I have a whole lot of money while it's going down in flames. Let's just make sure that's the biggest point on my side is like, okay, I want to make sure I'm on the right side when it all falls apart.

00:42:06
But it definitely is. It's ready. Player one. It's Iron Man type vibes. It's moving stuff with your hands all it's going to take.

00:42:16
And that's why I said I think we're, like, four to five years away from this is as they shrink this technology down, becomes like, legit, a piece of just a regular pair of glasses. All kind of cycles around. It's funny that all this once again, comes down to this is integrated into our real life, right? The technology, all this stuff, the stuff we're doing right now, again, that we never dreamed of. Back when we first started our business, first started learning music, we were just learning to play piano.

00:42:43
Now, this is a zoom pandemic. Everything eventually becomes a part of the actual life that we live day to day. And so I feel like one of those things that, again, I feel like you always on the cutting edge on it's like saying, hey, I'm not going to wait. I'm going to move forward. I'm going to take a chance.

00:43:00
I'm going to take a risk. I'm going to learn them in technology, and then I'm going to become a person that kind of leads people. Like the sherpa, right? You're not necessarily at the top of the mountain, but you're walking up the mountain with them and you're saying, hey, yeah, and here's the crevice. Here's how to get up this mountain without falling down on your face.

00:43:18
And I'm going to lead the way because I've already been up this mountain like 600 times. I don't want us to get left behind as a creative community because especially as you got in gigs, so you talk a lot to the church audience in our Christian faith, our faith based audience, and speak to that and us in the faith based community, we are always easily 15. We wait and then we say, oh, we can't reach the world, and the world's like, well, we just kept moving. And we for some reason, wait for like, a sign from God to take these very things that you're talking about and say, hey, let's be there when the people get there. Jesus went to where the people are.

00:43:57
I'm telling you, this is where it's going. I promise you. I put this thing on. I was sitting in this very chair right now. I had this thing on my head and I'm exploring this thing.

00:44:12
See what this about? I click on it, it sucks me into a concert. And I'm looking around and John Mike is like, I'm there. And it's got the speakers on the side and so the audio is immersive it's spatial. So if I moved, it's just like the Apple Airbuds.

00:44:33
Like when you move, the sound moves along with you based on where it is in space. I was in a virtual concert with John Mike, watching it, sitting in the audience with my Oculus thing on, and I heard everything as if I was right there. How is this relative to me? John Mike, I'm going to tell you how it's relative to you. Imagine as this idea right here is going to make somebody a bajillionaire because I don't have the time to flesh it out.

00:45:08
I love you all, but I wish I did. I got other goals in mind, but somebody's going to pick up on it real quick. Metachurch is going to be a thing like 360 video, 360 experiences is where it is. Conferences, being able to just you're sitting in, going to church, literally, especially once it shrinks down, you can literally just tap into it. Literally.

00:45:39
Talk about tapping in. You literally tap in. And so Apple is investing. They're supposed to be. There's rumors that they might be releasing their first VR AR headset this year too.

00:45:50
Once Apple gets into the game, it's a whole different ball game. And so what we're going to be looking at and Meta, facebook is already ahead of the curve. So the next battle that we're going to be seeing is not going to be Apple and Samsung. It's going to be apple and meta. They're both fighting for real estate in the Web 3.0 space.

00:46:11
Samsung and all these other companies, they're going to probably have their additions, they're probably going to be in the space. But the two big players are going to be Apple and Meta. Watch what I say. I can see it like it's clear as day. And so it's going to be whoever gets there first.

00:46:27
Whoever gets there first. And that's why Mark Zuckerberg is pouring every literal dollar he has into the Metaverse and trying to make it. It sucks. Now like the actual Metaverse Part 2.0. Used to be pictures that were loading over broadband.

00:46:45
Once it becomes photorealistic, once those avatars, once your avatar looks like this inside of the Metaverse or inside of their virtual world, when you can literally have a digital version of yourself and that's where it's going. So the people that are going to win are the people that are deciding now what side they're going to be on. And that's where it's got to be. I'm talking like my mind is already on. I'm studying up on 360 Video.

00:47:18
I'm learning about Spatial Audio, I'm learning about 360 Audio, dolby, Atmos, things of that nature because that's where the ball is going.

00:47:32
We're close to where the ball is now, but those are my goals. I know those are like way far out type things.

00:47:40
Like I said, this is exactly why these conversations need to happen, so that we aren't the people left behind. Because these conversations are what opens people's mind to the fact that this is not far away. Like I said, my example for musicians is always the streaming. Like the director companies, we all should have seen it coming. Napster, LimeWire, that was all in our face.

00:48:01
We were all kind of always just viruses and then turns out that was going to be the future and now everybody's trying to make money in this new space and complaining about that. When had you moved earlier, maybe we would have been in a better position. So I just see this as example. Of the same thing man, we could. Talk about this stuff, you know, we could chop it up for years and years and years, but I got to let you go and make sure that the listeners and the watchers have the way to find you.

00:48:26
You just said you're going to be everywhere. But some people are old school so just remind them of the properties and the places where you will be most likely to be found. Again, where they can click in right away. All the links going to be in the show notes. Just remind them real quick where you would like them to find you.

00:48:41
Easy. Well, I'm John Mike pretty much everywhere. If you type in John Mike on any platform, you're probably going to see this ugly face in some way. Form of fat. Yeah, John Mike there YouTube is where I spend probably the majority of my energy at is via YouTube, my YouTube channels.

00:49:07
John Mike media for musicians that up and gospelproducers.com. These are my main entities right now that are really getting the bulk of my attention. So, yeah, you can find me in those spaces. Gospelproducers.com mediaformusicians.com.

00:49:30
I love the fact that you trying to just remember which place to say people like you lose track of it all. So I'm glad that you're not the. Only one that is trying to keep all the balls in the air, but you are doing an amazing job of managing. This was honestly like one of the most impactful interviews even without me going back and editing it because you don't hold back because your spirit is always, like you said, of a teacher and someone that wants to share and you're living this life out in front of us. So thank you for inspiring me, my brother.

00:49:58
Thank you for being who you are. John Williams. John Mike all. Still, you got integrity in all those areas. You're the same man.

00:50:08
So I appreciate you brother, god bless you. And yeah, we got to talk some more but until next time, man, thank you for being an encore guest on the Guiding Geek show. Absolutely man. Thank you so much.

00:50:28
My friend. I told you that we could not contain everything that John Mike had to share in just one episode and now you see why. And maybe the second half of this was more impactful than the first. I don't know if there's a way to measure that, but when John Mike got so transparent about his health, about what really matters in life, that all of the success we're aiming for as creatives can be lost. Because we don't realize the main thing is the main thing, which is to take care of the temple, which is to do what God has called us to do, but to take care of those, including ourselves, that he's called to do it.

00:51:09
So my friend, please take every single sentence that John Mike shared to heart, take the warnings to heart and make sure that you follow through not just with your creative growth, but with your health, your spiritual life, your emotional life, all of those have to work together. If God gave us life and life more abundantly, then it has to be life in every area. It can't just be your creative or your music or your art, it can't just be that that's abundant. It needs to be your health and your life outside of your creative space as well. So, my friend, that's why we decided to break this up.

00:51:49
And I know if you didn't hear part one, go back and listen to part one so you can hear the master class that John Mike gave us on entrepreneurship and growing a channel, growing a business, growing your creative life beyond the scope of what you think it could be right now. But if you put these two things together, you'll see that a complete creative life, a completely confident life, involves putting the entire thing together. So make sure you follow John Mike. On all of the channels he's doing, so much. So I'm not going to try to.

00:52:19
Reiterate it all here, but go into the description of this episode. You'll find all the links to stay in touch with him, to follow all the products and the trainings he's doing, and really just stay in touch with someone that really is a mentor and a leader in this space for God and Gigs and so many other creatives like you and me. Well, my friend, since I mentioned getting the whole picture together, I cannot stop this episode without reminding you that there is a place where we help you to connect all the dots of your creative life. It's called God and Gigs 360. Yes.

00:52:52
That's why we called it 360, because we try to cover everything. And we do, from the marketing to the mission, to the mindset, to your faith, to your community, to your family, everything that goes into living a completely confident, creative life the way God called. You to do it, so that you. Can walk in any space and know exactly what to do. And if you don't, you have a community that you can ask within 24 hours and get an answer.

00:53:16
Well, that's what we have for you. And you can join for 30 days free if you simply go to Godandgift.com Gold. Godandgift.com Gold. The link is in the show notes. I cannot tell you how beneficial this is for your creative life.

00:53:33
You got to get in there yourself and see. When you have these three or four monthly calls with other creatives who are just like you, when you have a template and a blueprint written down for you of what step to take next, you will see why. This will help you become the completely confident creator that God has created you to be, so you can walk out this entire life completely free of any worries or stresses that can't be solved by your community. Well, my friend, that's all for this episode and this two part episode. Once again, if you didn't hear part one, go back, listen to this last episode where John Mike shared, and then put these two together.

00:54:12
Send them to everybody you know, and make sure that they know that there is a place for them as faith focused Christian creators who want to build creative lives of significance by focusing on the right things. Well, my friend, that's all for today. Until next time, continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God bless and I'll see you next episode. Thanks for joining us here at the God and Gig show.

00:54:38
Please leave us a review on itunes like our Facebook page, or visit godandgigs.com and tell us what you thought of this show. We'll be back soon. In the meantime, go create something amazing.