This week on the Beyond Busy podcast we welcome Jodie Cook. Jodie is an entrepreneur, a powerlifter, and a writer. She writes regularly for Forbes and is also an author of a number of books including ‘How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids'.

We caught her in a quite interesting moment in her life - she just sold her business JC Social Media. In this episode, we talk about this and her experience of leading the team through the pandemic. She also tells us why she's determined not to make plans just yet, how to get mentored by your heroes, and much more.

The conversation starts off with Jodie sharing the big news including releasing two new books.

Then they move the conversation to her first new book - ‘Instagram Rules'. Jodie kindly shares her story of writing this book and finding a publisher:

‘The story of how the book came about is actually quite indicative of how people can use Instagram right now. And that's the 'Instagram rules' that came about from an email in my inbox, from a publisher who I didn't know who said: 'I've got this book in mind. I've seen some of your writing on Instagram. Do you want to write it?

And I was just like: Sure! And so I think that was my first ever published book with an actual publisher. Because all the rest have been self-published. You don't need to ask permission and you don't need to just bang down the doors of publishers or anyone who you want to give you a chance. You can just create your own chances and Instagram itself lets you do that.

Just writing and producing and creating means that you can create your own presence, your own brand, your own audience. And then it means that those people that you thought were really hard to find and really hard to get in front of like publishers, agents, whoever else they come looking for you.'

She also shared her thoughts on online holy-wars:

‘I think being right does not matter. I think what's so much more important and what's so much harder to get right is knowing when to let it go and being able to let it go and being able to just be like and just go fine, someone else who can deal with that. That's not my battle. Cause you could, if you want to pick a fight with someone on the internet, you could do it every single minute of every day.

But what would your energy look like after you'd done that? It would be horrendous. I don't think the solution to anything is boom and bust. I think there are ways of having a healthy relationship with social media and perhaps the reason why I think that is because I ran a social media agency for so long that I had to find that healthy relationship with social media, because otherwise. I wouldn't have had a company.

So there's a way of taking the best bits without the worst bits. I'm sure of it. And one day I will convince you of that and we'll find an amazing balance where you can just be happy online.'

Later on, Jodie shared why it's better to focus on the present moment and experience, and not the plans for the future:

‘I have been the judge for a lot of different awards. And when you read applications, sometimes you have to almost strike through everything that hasn't happened yet. And so you have to be able to see past what we're going to do there. So we have plans to do this, or I have projections to do this. And it's not like you are discrediting anyone else's really exciting plans for their future. It's just that it has not happened yet. And what we want to focus on right now for you winning this award is what has happened.

So I find myself mentally doing it when I'm reading through them. And I think that it's really easy to get lost in some potential. And then, you know, if someone said, oh, you could get this million-pound valuation and you could get this funding and you could win this award and you could do all this stuff, but it's like, what have you actually done? And I think that always bringing yourself back to what can I achieve right now?

Or what can I focus on right now? I think it helps you stay in the present. And it also helps you focus on what you put in rather than what you may or may not get out of it in the future.'

The full conversation is also available on the Beyond Busy YouTube channel. Graham Allcott is the founder of the time-management training company Think Productive.

Brought to you by Graham Allcott of Beyond Busy.

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