The RunRunLive Podcast Episode 154 – Mitch Joel on Social Media
[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi154.mp3|titles=Episode 154 – Mitch Joel on Digital Media]
Show intro by:
John Hegstrom – Electric Miles Plug In
Http://twitter.com/ElectricMiles
Intro:
Hello and welcome to Beat Poetry Podcast. Today we are going to do a full-costume, emotive reading of Ginsberg’s Howl to follow up on last week’s interpretive dance version of Kerouac’s On The Road.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…
Wait – no that’s my semi-annual poetry podcast, this…this is the RunRunLive podcast and although I am sometimes poetic, and usually on the road and occasionally hysterical this is a podcast about running and the endurance lifestyle.
Today is episode 154 and we’ve got an interesting show for you. It’s going to be a little bit different as I felt like I’ve been hearing too much of my own voice so I got some guest speakers to present the Quick Tip and the 10 secrets modules today. Anyone who fancies themselves half-way reasonable in reading into Audio who wants to help me with the show – let me know – I never intended this to be just me preaching all the time. That’s no good, that’s boring. I’ll provide the script – you just read into audio.
We have a interview today with Mitch Joel who is fairly famous in marketing circles and does a great podcast that I listen to called ‘Six Pixels of Separation’. The interview is not about running but it is about podcasting and the online communities that we are building so I think you will find it interesting. If not, just fast-forward. The interview is a little long at 22ish minutes so I’ll adjust the other content to fit.
I’ve thrown myself into my training and have been working hard. One of the things I wanted to do with this podcast was to keep it real. What I mean is I wanted to make sure that I was a practitioner of the sport that we talk about, that I was all in and coming at you from that position if authenticity – it’s important to me that I walk-the-talk, so to speak or run-the-talk as is albeit more apropos.
I raced on Saturday – New Year’s Day at the Hangover Classic and it was ok. The weather was abnormally warm and as a result way more people showed up than the race could actually handle – so it was a bit of a mess. I did get my swim in – and it wasn’t that bad this year. Even though the water temp was around 36-37 F the air temp was close to 60 F. If I have the energy I’ll write a beat poem about it.
So, my friends, I feel a bit weary and beset upon these weeks in the depths of winter, but I will struggle mightily to get on with the Show!
Audio clips in this episode:
Skits, commercials and parodies in this episode:
My Beat Poetry Race Report:
Contestents crammed like angry sardines, pushed, squeezed, helpless in the taunting winter sun of a new year,
Sent sprawling, tumbling, tripping, stuffed by chubby walkers in the starting corral,
Set free, wheeling, wheezing, legs of fire, rods of roads, ruined, striving.
Pacing hard, slammed unceremoniously onto the beach of dawn to have their legs torn off in heaving stumps by the sucking sands,
Through the finish, the too-soon, exultant finish, neither triumphant nor concerned,
Into the frothy cold grey welcome of another new year’s ocean,
Another new years’ dampening…
Story time:
Equipment Check:
Ten secrets to successful running
Hi this is Stuart from the Quadrathon Blog and podcast where I talk about my running, training and the occasional ultra-marathon here on the West Coast. Today I’m going to relate this special piece of content for Chris…
The ten secrets to running success – secret number three – Take action.
So in week one we talked about making a commitment to taking responsibility for your own life. In week two we talked about how to ensure your continued success by aligning your endurance lifestyle with the unique passion in your life – your life purpose.
If you followed through on those two you are committed to helping yourself and have a reason to do it. Now you are ready for secret number three – take action.
This is where the rubber, or the carbon rubber outer treads, hits the road. Now we are on to the meat of it. Nothing happens without action. You may love or hate a certain athletic company, but “just do it” makes perfect sense.
Without action there can be no success. But, it’s worse than that my friends, inaction is a choice and becomes a negative action taking you further away from your goal lifestyle.
Patton said that a poor plan vigorously executed is better than a great plan poorly executed. Even if you don’t know where you are going or don’t know how – just start and figure it out as you go. Start small.
Take that first step. Take one simple action. It might be to listen to a podcast, or to buy a book, or to sign up for a race in 3 months. For you beginners it might be to join a local running club, or volunteer for a race, or research a plan online.
Whatever it is take action and try to continue to take action. The simple fact that you have taken action will create momentum your life. You will build up your action taking muscles until you get to the point where it is habit.
Some of the people we have heard here, on this podcast have taken massive action. They publically commit to 52 or 250 marathons in a year. They sign up for a marathon or an ironman and then point their lives like a run-away train towards that end. That may be what it takes to get your juices flowing – something big.
People ask me how I manage to write a book. I didn’t write a book. I wrote a chapter. Then I wrote another and eventually there was a book through that continued action.
Why don’t people take action?
The number one reason is fear. We don’t start because we are afraid to fail. We are afraid to lose what we have, even if what we have is bad habits, laziness and despair – is all that comforting to you? What are you afraid of losing?
“What is the worst thing that can happen?” Is your fear justified or rational? Can you live with the outcome? Does the benefit outweigh the risk? Even if you don’t meet your goal 100% by taking action, by starting down that road you will be positively changed.
When I started running again in 1990 I ran .6 miles that first day – and this year I will be running my 13th qualified Boston marathon, but beyond that my life has been enriched by you, a whole new set of positive, healthy friends. All because I took that first step in 1990.
Your homework this week is to take action. Sign up for a race. Get a plan. Set a goal. Or even take on a “Big Hairy Ass Goal” if it suits your nature. Take one action. Don’t be afraid. Take that action and you will be started on a road to running success and a sustainable endurance lifestyle.
Featured Interview:
Mitch Joel
http://www.twistimage.com/about-mitch/
When Google wanted to explain online marketing to the top brands in the world, they brought Mitch Joel to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and called him, “one of North America’s leading digital visionaries.” In 2006 he was named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. Mitch Joel is President of Twist Image – an award-winning Digital Marketing and Communications agency (although he prefers the title, Media Hacker). He has been called a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert and community leader. He is also a Blogger, Podcaster, passionate entrepreneur and speaker who connects with people worldwide by sharing his marketing insights on digital marketing and new media. In 2008, Mitch was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in Social Media, one of the top 100 online marketers in the world, and was awarded the highly prestigious Canada’s Top 40 Under 40. Most recently, Mitch was named one of iMedia’s 25 Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators in the world. Marketing Magazine has named Twist Image one of the Top 10 agencies in Canada for two years running (and the only digital marketing pure-play to make the list).
Quick Tip:
And for today’s Quick tip – I’m Barb, aka Kelownagurl from the Kelownagurl blog and podcast where we talk about beginner triathlon tips – and I’ll be giving you today’s Quick Tip.
Going through the motions
Sometimes Good Enough is OK
You ever have one of those workouts where you just don’t have any energy. Your body feels tired and weak. Your brain is achy and whiny? You wonder, “What the heck am I doing this for? This can’t be doing me any good…”
Sometimes I can go weeks just going through the motions waiting for just one workout to feel good. Just waiting for one workout to show me a light at the end of the tunnel. Just waiting for some sign of the life and goodness that we always talk about.
And, yes, I wonder should I just give up? This can’t possibly be doing me any benefit. I’m just going through the motions. Just checking the box. This can’t count, can it?
Au Contraire mon Ami. Going through the motions is just another way of saying ‘following your plan’. Guess what? It isn’t always roses and sparkling wine. Most of the time, for me anyhow it’s just work. It’s work that feels hard and has no immediate rewards except for constant soreness.
It’s hard to see the big picture when you are going through the motions. But, I’m here to tell you that it is good enough to just get the work done, to just not give up, to just follow the plan. These monotonous and sometimes joyless sessions are the necessary building blocks in your endurance life that allow you to celebrate, not just on race day but throughout your long and healthy life.
That’s why it is so important to have a plan so that even if you are just going through the motions you are making progress. When you are slogging it out in an uncomfortable workout remind yourself that you are still fighting entropy and still outdistancing the 95% of the rest of them that are doing nothing.
Stick to your plan, even if it feels like no progress is being made. One day you’ll realize that you have been reaping the accumulated benefit of going through the motions the whole time without realizing it.
Outro:
Hey! Still with me? Did you make it through the whole podcast? You never know it might start getting better – but, if you’re still with me you have made it to the triumphant conclusion of yet another RunRunLive Podcast – Episode 154 in the can.
I have a plethora, that’s right, a plethora of interviews done and waiting to go. I did follow up chats with Ashley who ran across the US and Martin who successfully completed his MarathonQuest 250 running 250 marathons last year and Sam from OperationJack who ran his proscribed 61 marathons last year. Do you feel like a slacker? I do. We’ll call these the Great Things Follow-up interviews. You get to listen to what they learned and benefit from it without having to log the miles and burn the shoes. You may want to consider going and throwing some shekels in their direction – all of them have their donation campaigns still open and you can get the donations onto this year’s taxes – if you pay taxes.
I also have Mary McManus and her massage guy Eric and I just yesterday did a chat with Danny Abshire the CTO of Newton Running. So I’m fat with interview inventory right now.
Some folks asked about the history of Rome podcast I’m listening to. It’s called ‘A History of Rome’ by Mike Duncan. I’m through Caligula and into Claudius now.
I put the brakes on my Newsletter until I figure out a better way to do it. It was taking me too long to create. Not the content part, but the mechanical getting it into the mailing software part. I’ll get it going again as soon as I find a way with less wasted effort.
Donations for this tax year:
Operation Jack -> http://www.operationjack.org/
MSRunTheUS -> http://www.msruntheus.com/
MarathonQuest250-> http://www.marathonquest250.com/
…
Speaking of newsletters, I’m getting bombarded this week with personal improvement emails from people who want to help me set goals for the new year. And one of the best ways to do this is apparently to give them money, which would be excellent if one of my goals was to spend more money.
But one interesting thing I heard, within all the noise, which I think is a valuable take away is the concept of slowing down to go faster. Think about that. We usually set goals by default to do more, better, faster, but a perfectly valid goal would be to slow down so that you can prepare yourself to go faster.
What does that mean? For example over the last couple years I could have just kept training harder and harder but that brings diminishing returns. I have learned to change the pace, sometimes going slower, sometimes resting and sometimes doing different things, so that I learn more about myself and it makes me stronger.
A good example is the currently training cycle I’m in with Coach Jeff where I have been learning HR training and also working to re-engineer my mechanics to be more ‘natural running’ oriented. Changing my mechanics, in the short term, will slow me down, but in the long term (hopefully not too long) will make me a better runner. Even if it doesn’t I’ll have learned something.
I also think this is why injuries are useful, because as annoying as they are, they force you to slow down and consider what it is that you are doing, and why. I haven’t had a serious running injury in almost a decade. Sure, I’m sore and I have my aches and pains, but I don’t get those tendonitis injuries anymore because I learned from the injuries. I learned what was important to me as much as how to avoid them.
As you’re chiseling your 2011 goals into those clay tablets think about how you can slow down to go faster. Do you really need to go farther, faster and longer to be happy? Are there things you can do differently to learn? Can you take a step back and become more efficient, more effective, and more thoughtful?
And when you do, I’ll see you out there,
Music to take you out, from Music Alley, For Mitch – it’s called “Social Trend” I tried to find something in Quebecoise, but ran out of time. This song is about 3 minutes long if you want to do a nice pickup and the band is Haf. See ya!
Music:
From Podsafe
haf-social_trend
roadtrip-dear_cheri
rotten_cheri-things_i_hate_about_you
Standard Links:
www.midpackerslament.com
Cyktrussell At gmail and twitter and facebook and youtube
Chris’ book on Amazon – > http://www.amazon.com/Mid-Packers-Lament-collection-running-stories/dp/141961584X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228687012&sr=8-1
Mid-Packer’s Lament E-book
Mid-Packer’s Guide to the Galaxy E-Book
Dial in number for RunRunLive is – 206-339-7804
Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, and “The Mid-Packer’s Guide to the Galaxy”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at www.runnerati.com. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at www.runrunlive.com. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners and the Goon Squad.
Email me at cyktrussell at Gmail dot com
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