Normal 40: The Podcast
Episode 8: The Curiosity.
Lon Stroschein: [00:00:00] Hi, my name is Lon Stroschein, founder of the Normal 40. I am so glad you are here. If you're here, it's not by accident. Dude, you're searching. And I get it because I've been there. In February 20, 22 after 14 years, I left my job as a public company executive, and I left without a resume. I left without another job, and I left without being independently wealthy. But I went in search of something more. I went in search of finding out exactly who it is I was capable of being. And I've learned that my mission in life is to inspire 1000 dudes to go chase their same journey. I am so glad you're here. I'm so glad you found this podcast, because here we're going to keep it real. We're going to keep it raw, and there are going to be thousands of dudes just like you who can't wait to hear what we talk about next. Dude, thanks for being here. I can't wait to see you along the Normal 40 highway.
Adam Eaton: [00:01:04] Welcome back to Normal 40, the podcast. My name is Adam. I'm your copilot on this journey. Happy again to be joined by the founder of Normal 40, the lead pilot and the dude you need to know, Mr. Lon Stroschein is with me. Lon, first off, how are you feeling, my friend? Welcome back to Normal 40, the podcast episode number 8 or 9. I got to keep track of these a little bit better, but I appreciate you having back in for another week.
Lon Stroschein: [00:01:30] Oh, man, I am so excited. And Adam, if you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of take the rudder a little early here on this podcast.
Adam Eaton: [00:01:38] All right. Go for it Lon.
Lon Stroschein: [00:01:40] Look, we're going to go down memory lane for just a minute, and I got to make sure you're cool with this, because I'm going to tell you what I want to do, and it's going to be a bit of a curveball. For listeners, you kind of know Adam and I show up and we just ramble and we go on this journey. And if you listened to the podcast of my wife, you know, part of the benefit of this is the element of the authenticity and the realism of it. And what I would love to do, Adam, is the very first time you contacted me, the very first time we talked, not the first time you contacted me. You contacted me in June, and I want to go back to that later and you finally asked for a phone call that happened in August 16th of this year. And I recorded that conversation in its entirety. It's the first time you and I ever talk. It's the first time you share with me your vision for how you can help the Normal 40 and you share with me where you're at on your journey at that time. And I want to stop the recording here of you and I live and I want to play that in its entirety for the rest of this podcast. How are you feeling about that?
Adam Eaton: [00:02:48] I'm excited about that. I mean, I honestly don't have a ton of recollection of everything that we said in that conversation. I know we talked a lot about the vision around starting a podcast and what that would look like, and I know you had a lot of questions about what that might mean, and I spent a bunch of time sort of pitching you on what I thought you had from a content perspective and then kind of weaving in my own story. So for me, that will be interesting because I haven't heard that back and I don't know if I have much recollection over it. So I'm just excited to hear, as everybody else might be then, because I wonder what we talked about. So it could be a fun endeavor to go right back down memory lane there.
Lon Stroschein: [00:03:28] Awesome. Well, look, there's a couple of things that I want you to be listening for. After doing a few hundred of these. I know the moment when I could see in you the spark, the thing that was lighting you up. That wasn't your day job. I could identify it. And by the way when you listen back, when you say, where is that moment? When you're paying attention for it, which is what I do, I show up to conversations like this and I pay attention for that moment. When does their inflection change? When does the story change? When does their voice pick up? It happens and I can hear it. When you when you go out to help someone, you didn't get paid for it. You didn't go out and seek it, but you knew, hey, wait a minute, there's something here. And I want everyone to hear that. And then we're going to come back in the next podcast and we're going to pick up on the rest of the Adam Eaton story.
Adam Eaton: [00:04:27] I can't wait. Let's get rolling, then Lon. You and I get out of the way, and let's hit the Wayback Machine. We'll go down memory lane with our first phone call, which became Number 40, the podcast.
Lon Stroschein: [00:04:38] Here we go, boss.
Adam Eaton: [00:04:40] Hey, Lon. How are you?
Lon Stroschein: [00:04:42] Adam? I'm well. How are you doing, man?
Adam Eaton: [00:04:45] I'm doing good. Nice to meet you.
Lon Stroschein: [00:04:46] Likewise. Yeah. This is home since February 1. I used to go into an office and work, and now I sit in my home and work.
Adam Eaton: [00:04:57] Yeah, it can't be that. That's actually why we're here today. I figured I'll kick off if you don't.
Lon Stroschein: [00:05:01] Go for it man.
Adam Eaton: [00:05:03] Man, I stalked your page probably for a while on LinkedIn. You just kept showing up on my feed, and every day I would see a couple of posts from you, and I was like, Oh, I've never seen this guy's name before. What's this about? And so slowly but surely, I kept stalking your page and waiting every morning to see what you posted. And you might as well have just written Dear Adam on the top. A lot of those, right? Because it pretty much felt like you were talking to me specifically, but you kind of reading through after a while I was like, Man, what is what is Normal 40 about. What is Lon? What is this all about? So I started trying to click into websites and kind of figure you out. And that's kind of when the idea hit was, man, I think you have such a large presence. I can tell you, you connected with me really, really quickly. But my next natural question was what more is available to me? Where else can I learn more about what you're talking about, what you're teaching about? I'm a big podcast guy. I host two shows on my spare time, but I also listen to a ton of shows. And so I'm thinking to myself, Man, if Lon had a show while I'm on the treadmill this morning, I would absolutely listen to that once, twice a week, hear what he's talking about, hear other people's stories, maybe grab some inspiration from what other people are going through, maybe grab some nuggets of intel or insight that you want to share with people.
Adam Eaton: [00:06:13] And so you had a post one day about like take a chance, do it scared. And I was like, all right, well, he's talking to me. I might as well do it. So I kind of sent you that note really A, to learn more about Normal 40 and what you're doing B, to tell you how well you connected with the folks. And I joined your group so I can see certainly you have a pretty healthy number of folks in there daily. But see to offer anything I can to be a part of the journey. I know you mentioned you're a one man band at this point and you're kind of doing things and you're figuring things out, which I respect the hell out of. But if you've got opportunities to diversify, add anything, I'd love to get on your radar and be in the mix to support any way I can, because I really believe in your mission. I think I just turned 40 about a year ago. So again, you could have written a lot of those things directly to me. And I think there's so many people in this space that are kind of feeling the things you're describing, having the emotional tugs that you're talking about that are sort of like, where am I at? What's my crossroad look like? What does next look like?
[00:07:12] And I think particularly in today's day and age, if you're looking at a 40 year old male, which I assume is sort of your target audience, we've been conditioned our entire life to keep your mouth shut, go to work. You don't complain. You don't cry about it. You just tighten up your bootstraps and you go in there at 7:30, take that meeting with your boss. You let them yell at you for an hour. You come out and you go, All right, I'm going to go get them. And I think that today's environment, that construct just doesn't ring true with me anymore, which is kind of the change I've seen in myself. But I suspect that I know from people I talked to, there's folks that feel the same. So really just want to learn more about what you're doing and again, offer my humble services if there's any need opportunity. If you see any growth potential sort of my cold sales pitch of saying man, you've got something really cool going on. And it's not something that I say to myself, Oh, that's great to work on. It's almost something I say to myself, I have to work on that. That is a mission driven item and it's too many chances in life to work on stuff like that. So here I am scheduling a meeting with you two to lay my speech out and learn more about Lon and Normal 40.
Lon Stroschein: [00:08:18] Well, dude, thanks. That's super cool. Possibly nothing is a cooler thing to hear, and I actually do hear it a lot. And that is how did you know exactly what I was thinking? And you wrote it to me, and you said it here and. And I know exactly what you're thinking because I'm writing to myself. I get it. I don't have to make this up. And by the way, everything I write, I mean, if you probably see it, I see it. The next day when I go back and read it and I see my typos and my errors and I'm like, you know what? I wake up, I go for a run. I think about what I wish I'd have heard three or four or five years ago and I come back from a run, still sweat everything. And I sit down and I write and then I post. And then I go and I hang out with my kids and my family. And I come back an hour later and I see what's there. And then that's usually when I see my typos and everything. And I usually just tend to leave them. But that's how I do it. I do it in the moment. I write to myself anywhere from eight months ago me to eight year ago me. And it tends to land with a whole bunch of people who are right where I was not all that long ago. And it is odd. I didn't expect it. I quit my job. This wasn't my mission. I didn't quit my job to go help dudes quit their job or find a better job or be better at their job.
[00:09:50] I left my job because I knew my future wasn't at that company. And it was a great company. It was wonderful company. I was the mergers and acquisitions guy. We sold to a Fortune 30 company. They offered me a great job, far beyond what I ever could have imagined being offered for a job. And I turned it down because my future wasn't there and I turned it down because my wife is awesome and she knew my future wasn't there and I was right at the edge kind of looking over and she just went, You're going, dude. We're going to jump together. And that's just what we're going to do. So I quit and I showed up to LinkedIn and I'd been kind of putting some stuff out there. I'm like, Hey, I quit my job today. I had an offer, could have stayed. My future wasn't there. I want to go find what's in my gut and chase it. And the moment I started putting that out there, dudes just started showing up from everywhere. My inbox was full and I'm like, Holy shit. Well, there's something here. I don't mean this in the biblical sense or Christian sense or whatever, but it's a calling.
Lon Stroschein: [00:10:54] My call right before this. I don't know how much of this you care to hear. I spend my days. I'm as busy as I can be. I have to quit taking calendar invites because my calendar would just be full of dudes who are smart. I mean, I'm talking CEOs of major medical networks, executives at major universities, partners at law firms, C-suite executives. And they all call me and say, I've done so well. I've lived my life by the book. I've done exactly what I supposed to do. I got the good grades. I put in the hours. I clawed, I scratched, I climbed, I beat and I won. I got exactly what I wanted. I don't want it anymore. And that's when they reach out to me. When they get there, when they say, I hear you. I know I got what I wanted and I feel guilty. And it's the weirdest thing to say, but I don't want this anymore. So then my next question is, okay, so what's a dream? They are like, I have no freaking idea. I have no idea what [] for. And so that's the whole conversation that we have and I have many times a day, and I'm writing a book about it because it's so common. And I kind of have the average dude kind of pegged.
[00:12:11] So that's in a nutshell how I got here. It wasn't a master plan. It wasn't a master strategy. It's a calling. And that's it. I can connect with dudes. I can get them thinking. I can talk to them and get them moving. And then I'm on to the next thing, the next person really. I haven't figured out how to monetize it really. I know I can. I am not worried about that. The moment I start worrying about that, I'm scared I'm going to lose my edge. I know right now I'm building, I'm just building and it's growing. One more thing and then I'll be quiet. So your timing was really interesting to me because what I'm good at, I'm good at this and I'm good at written communication and I'm good at getting people moving. I don't love editing, splicing the stuff. You're a big deal, [dog]. I went and looked at your stuff. You're a big deal and you do good work and you put a lot of work into it. I would be miserable. I would love having the conversation. I'm at home. I don't know, you know. Edit Splice, cut, show notes shit. Forget about it. I don't have the patience for that. That's not how I'm wired. And so when I got your message and you're well written, well architected message on what you do. It was very interesting for me and where I am on my journey.
Adam Eaton: [00:13:46] Yeah, I think for me, like I said, I'm a big podcast guy so that's the thing. I love reading your stuff in the morning, but I mean, I can't read it at the gym. I can't read it on the treadmill. I can't read it while I'm driving. I can't read it at a meeting, but I can have my headphones in and listen to stuff, too. And that's kind of how I connect with a lot of things as well. And it's funny your story that you just mentioned. So I mean, I'll give you a quick little background on my story. I was working for working for a company, had just the most horrendous boss I've ever had. Literally, like I mean, we all talk about our boss and they all have quirks and you're like, Hey, Jimmy does this and Pete does that, and Sally does this. We all have our things right. When I say this was the literal worst human I've ever worked with, I literally mean the worst human I've ever worked with. And so I said to myself, I had a two year deal that I had I signed to go work there. So I had to work out the contract or I owed a bunch of money I didn't want to pay. So I said to myself, Man, I got to get out of here. This is not going to work. I'm going home every night, lighting every candle I can find, praying to every God I can think of, doing everything I can.
[00:14:48] And a gift from the heavens falls on my lap. My old boss at a previous company gets a new position, offers me a job. It's a promotion. It's like $50,000 more than I'm making now, more direct reports than I've ever had, more responsibility than I've ever had. And at first I'm like, that's it. I'm free like the candles, the gods, they listen to me. They heard me. I'm out. Get away from the horrible boss. And it was day four of the new job Lon. I work from home now. I don't have to go to an office. I mean, literally, my living rooms [] right here. Family is all right. They're having a good old time. Zero commute. [] I walked out to my wife and she's in the kitchen making a sandwich and I said, I don't want to do this anymore. And she was like, dude, stay [] like, Yeah, I actually do that on day three. I just didn't tell you. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. And she was like, Well, I don't understand. Like, great job, great promotion, great title, all this responsibility, you handpicked for this job. You don't have to interview. He just gave it to you. You got away from the other guy like, I don't understand. And I just said, I just don't like this work anymore. Like, at some point in time, the work you do just really has to matter to you, and this just doesn't matter to me anymore. I find myself getting up saying, Yeah, the reports do. I don't really care. Yeah, that incident happened. Yeah. Okay, sure. Well, we'll get to it.
[00:15:57] And I think when you lose that edge is when you start to get sloppy and that's how you kind of know where you are. So that's the first important thing that happened. The second important thing happened to me was one of my colleagues I worked with at the job with a hellacious boss. She quit. She walked in one day and said, I can't do it anymore. I quit. I've had enough. Now she's much younger than me. She's two years fresh out of college. So she's like, Hey, I got to pivot my life here. What do I do? And so she worked for me at that company. I felt a tad bit of responsibility. I think when I left, she was like, Well, I'm leaving too, that I don't want to stay around. So I felt a little bit of responsibility. So I said, Let me help you. So we started working on a resume, started doing mock interviews, started looking at stuff on LinkedIn, having conversations about different things that happen in an environment, looking at different roles. And I found myself coaching her like just literally kind of coaching her through a process, coaching her through where she wants to be. And at the end of the day, she was working kind of an office job and she was like, You know what I really love? I love animals. I love the protection. I mean, she was all about that. So we started going to work. And how can we get you in that space? Let's connect this person. I found this person. Let's connect with this person. And short story long, she now works for an organization called K9s for Warriors, and they train dogs for K9 services. It's actually located right here in my hometown. And she loves it. She's making a little bit less money than she was making before, but she's like, I don't care, man. This is what I want. And she got that job. And I said to my wife, that's the most accomplishment I felt in years.
Adam Eaton: [00:17:29] And I said, And I did nothing. I got nothing out of this. I didn't get a job. She's not paying me for this. That's the most accomplishment I felt in years, was hearing her excitement about getting that job. And that's when I kind of knew to myself, I'm different. Somewhere, I don't know where. I don't know where I bought my head. I don't know where I got elbowed at playing basketball on the weekends. I don't know where, but somehow I changed. And then that's literally around the time I found yourself and I said to myself, Man, there's somebody else who did the same thing. And you don't know what that change moment is. But like, it happened for you and I'm sure you can kind of picture in your mind and I'm reading your stuff and I'm like, Man, he literally just wrote my life story. Like he wrote it on paper. And that's when I said, How do I get involved in this? How do I be a part of this movement? Because I do think, again, there's so many people out there that are in positions and are just conditioned to be stuck. And the funny thing about what I've kind of learned is everybody has to figure out their why.
Adam Eaton: [00:18:30] And for some people, maybe that why is a new job, maybe that why is a new challenge, maybe that why is just getting better what they do. But I think their companies do a great job of telling you what you have to do to get better at that current role, but not about what you need to get better with yourself. I think what you're describing for people is a path of self-discovery. And the great part about it is, it can end wherever you want it to end. You're the compass here. You're the navigator of where that course ends. But I think you're giving people the permission to say it's okay to go on that path. And if you land yourself right back at a complete circle where you are, great, even better for you. But if you take a turn to the left or the right and move on, then that's where you're meant to be. And I think I've just aligned so much with that recently that I thought to myself, Man, how do I pivot from your point where you are to where you want to go? And that's kind of the fate that that brought us to an email chain together.
Lon Stroschein: [00:19:34] I got a whole bunch I want to say. I want to tell you a story. Because it's fresh. It's a story of an hour ago. Just like you did, a dude reaches out to me, says I want to talk. Never heard of him before in my life. He's in northern Idaho. And so I said, send in my calendar. Probably like I did to you. He booked a time, and that was the hour before you and I talked. He's a 62 year old architect in northern Idaho, been an architect his whole life. He's helping to build million dollar homes there for a company that's located out of Chicago. He's got three kids, one granddaughter. Granddaughter lives about 6 hours away by car. And he and his wife recently separated. And that's not what the call is about. And amazingly literally 95% of the dudes I talked to, don't have marital problems. They don't have great marriages. They don't tell me that. I just know it because I know what I went through. But they don't have marital problems. They're not on the ropes. This guy is on the ropes. So I didn't know really, that's not what I deal with. But I was talking to him. I'm like, well, okay, Doug, what's the dream? And usually when I ask dudes that question, I ask one or two questions, say, what's the dream or what do you want? Yesterday, I had a chat with the guy and I asked him, what do you want? And he goes, what do you mean? That was his reply. We've warmed up. I said, what do you want? He goes, what do you mean? I go, okay, we got problems here. This dude was different. He's got all this stuff and I'm talking to him from his pickup cab because he can't let anybody know he's talking to a dude like me. He can't let people know that he's not just on top of the world.
[00:21:19] That happens all the time. I have a lot of pickup truck conversations and I said, So what do you want? And he goes, I want to build stuff. I want to build things that people will love forever. I want my legacy to be that I left things behind that they love. And I said, Dude, that's awesome. And it sucks. It's awesome that you know, because most people don't know. They have no idea what they're being called to do. You do. It sucks for you because you're 62 and you haven't done anything about it. I just popped him right in the face. I just popped him because he needed it and he kind of sits back and he goes, Yes, that's right. I go, So what are you going to do, man? One thing. Just give me one thing. What are you going to do? And he said, I don't know. I said, What is one thing that you could do today if I said your boss fires you and you want to start your legacy. And he said, well, I could call somebody and I've got my eye on this property that I could probably turn around and architect and I know the bones are good. Said, okay, stop there. Here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to write your insurance policy. I'm writing you an insurance policy so that when you turn 62. And he's 57, I think, at his age. He's 57. I think I said he's 62. He's 57. I said, So when you turn 62, this is an insurance policy against regret. What is that worth to you? I want a number. And he said, 50,000. I said, okay, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go call this person. You're going to find out who owns this building and you are going to operate with a $50,000 insurance policy. And the insurance policy is, I'm not going to fucking turn 62 and regret not doing this.
[00:23:06] And he just puts his phone kind of drops and he sits back and I'm like, Dude, you need a guard. You need a guard. You need somebody to guard against the fact that you're getting to the point where you're going to think you're too old to do this. Go fucking do it, man. He didn't pay me a nickel. It was just me telling him, Dude, you know what you want. You've got the funds to do it. You know the first step. Don't settle for another yesterday. So this is my whole point of saying I get what you're talking about and I get that feeling you had. I just found a way to have it all day. I just haven't found a way to make money at it yet. But that's my point. That'll come. When I help 100 of these dudes. His name is Jim. When I help 100 Jims and 100 Scotts and 100 [] and 100, you name it, the stories will be there. But this guy and I know if I took his name off and I didn't have the video, I did record it. I record every conversation and I chopped it into a five minute bit. A five minute, like you said, something to hop on and listen to on a treadmill of this guy just do a 360 and a five minute bite. The whole call was only 37 minutes, so you can edit that down. It could change his life if he does it. That's the stuff I do all day and I need someone to do something with that.
Adam Eaton: [00:24:35] Again. That's all right. I said in your note, you have competitors out there, you know that. I get the sense I'm talking to you in the first 21 minutes. You don't give a shit about your competitors because you're not even competing.
Lon Stroschein: [00:24:49] I know. I haven't.
Adam Eaton: [00:24:50] And you don't care what everyone else is doing. So that's an even better approach. That is for sure.
Lon Stroschein: [00:24:55] In fact, one of the two dudes you sent across, we chat and there's another guy called the Mid Life Male. He had me in his podcast. We have the exact same mission statement. We never talked. I'm like, Dude, when the day happens that you and I run out of potential clients. Holy shit, we've done some good. So yeah, I literally don't think about competitors. I think about other people who are showing up to try to solve the same problem.
Adam Eaton: [00:25:23] Yeah, I think through again, I would listen to a 20 minute segment of you talking to somebody you think through what are Normal 40s top five tips to think about challenging yourself tomorrow. Every day you release a new tip, tip number five, to your point, write an insurance policy on your future. Tip four, sit down and write what you want. I think it's little things like that that people don't know where to start and the goal being A, learning more about you and your approach and your style. Because you're right like I've heard of different coaching conversations. I've had conversations with folks. Two companies got me a career coach, and it was nothing like you just described. It was what are your strengths and [saw] with those and make sure you're always try your hardest and really take the chat. Like it was basically flop service level. Nothing about specifically what I wanted to get out of it. And I think people hear that. That's a natural gravitation to go, okay, I got to hear more from this guy. I'm going to get on his calendar and schedule a call. I'm going to search more of his stuff. I'm one of those stock is LinkedIn. I'm going to do whatever I can. I don't know if you know this. I'm curious if you have any statistics on it. I'm a data guy. I love numbers. How long do people lurk before they contact you? Like, do you have the lurk to conversion rate? Because I'd be curious what that is like. How many days or weeks before someone finally hits that message for you?
Lon Stroschein: [00:26:44] I'll tell you another story. I'm becoming a dude who's got a lot of dude stories.
Adam Eaton: [00:26:49] My stories. Stories are good. Stories make shows.
Lon Stroschein: [00:26:54] When I tell stories and I get into this, I kind of tend to drop the F bomb. So just let me apologize for that up front. So this dude. So my wife's a kindergarten teacher. She's at school right now. Today, she meets all of the parents of all of her kids. And she had a kindergarten aide. Last year was the first year my wife went back to school. Independent of my decision, she was going back to teaching. I had no plans of leaving when she went back anyway. And she had a kindergarten aide and she was spectacular. She'd been an aide for years, knew my wife. My wife, Mindy could just give her a look and she knew what to go do, blah, blah, blah. Well, her husband is an attorney for a major health network here in town, and he'd been an attorney for them for probably about 20 years. And out of the blue, he gets a job in Asheville, North Carolina. So they're moving. So Mindy comes home and she's all bombed. She's like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe I'm losing Karen. They're moving. Oh, my God, They're moving. What's going on? Well, apparently John got a job, so they're moving. I'm like, oh, okay, well, let's go to have dinner with them before they leave. Yep. Great. So we do that. So we're going out to eat, and John and I are chit chatting. I'm like, So you got this job in North Carolina, man, that is spectacular.
Lon Stroschein: [00:28:15] But my wife is so mad. She's mad at you because you're taking Karen and he goes mad at me. Why? And I'm like, well, because you're taking her number two. She's got to start over. And she's like, She shouldn't be mad at me. She should be mad at you. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, It's your fucking posts that got me convinced that I should go. I should follow my dream. I should take the risk. Their kids just left the house. Their last one just graduated high school. He's like, This is my chance. I'm going to go to Asheville and I get to be general counsel for a public company. I had no idea Adam. He was even on LinkedIn. This is a man I know. I know him. He had never told me. This is my clientele. They don't tell their spouse that they feel the way they do. They don't tell their best friends. They don't even tell me who is a good friend, that they're following me. My whole point is your question was, what's the conversion ratio? I have no idea. I have the hardest audience because nobody can let me know they're there until it's punched him so hard that they've got to do something.
Adam Eaton: [00:29:22] I mean, frankly, which is why you need an audio presence. Because I could be listening to you right now on my headphones and no one has to know. So if I want to be clandestine and I don't want to admit to the world that I have issues and I'm feeling these things. I can listen to your stuff all day long and just tell somebody, Oh, no music, going to cut the grass. I think that's where you have that lane where people I think would absorb your content because I think it could resonate, connect with them from a lot of standpoints. I think the thing that's great about what you're talking about too, and I wrote this in my note, probably phrased it pretty poorly, but what I was trying to get at is, you think about the student and the teacher. You get into a classroom and the teacher is always telling you, hey, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this. And as a student, you're looking at the teacher like, okay, whatever, dude, easy for you to say. You're the teacher. We get it, you know it all, yada, yada. But when you see one of your fellow classmates pull it off, you're like, Oh, man. Pete figured it out. Man if he could do that, I guess I better try that. And that's kind of how I think about your content, man.
Adam Eaton: [00:30:19] Like, you think about the story you told that the 57 year old guy. Imagine talking to him and having him tell an audience of people not live, but in his headphone Lon kicked my ass. And that's just what I needed. I didn't think I could do this. And guess what after that phone call, I drove my truck 62 miles an hour back to my workplace. I slam my briefcase down. I went to my email and I fired off a note right then and there. And three days later I got like, Imagine hearing the other side of that story and someone listening to that going, Yeah, you know what? He can do it. Like again no offense to you're the teacher. We expect you can do this. We expect you to have this scale, this gravitas to figure that out. But the 57 year old guy in his Chevy pickup truck in Idaho, we don't think he can pull that off. But then when he tells us he did, you look at yourself and go, oh, man, that guy did it. Like, what the fuck am I waiting for? Like, I should be able to do that too. I think that's where you have such compelling storyline content that anybody is driving their car.
[00:31:18] And if they have any modicum of feeling that we're talking about, man, that's going to hit them right in the balls because they're going to go, You know what? What is my excuse now? This guy figured it out. He's 57 in Idaho. He figured it out. I'm 35 and I've got an MBA and whatever. Like, I can't figure this out. And I think that's where you have such compelling content that it's so much easier to connect with the common person. Again, you feel unattainable. You're the big the big shining figure, but it's the common everyday folk that you go, Man, that guy did it, and that guy did it. Like, okay, I've got to get on that too. And I think I'd love to hear that guy's version of the story you told me and see how it differs from you in terms of how he absorbed it and then how he took that and how he executed off that. Like I love to follow up with him in a week from now and be like, Hey, man, I heard Lon kicked your ass. What's up? Where you at now? What's going on? And have him completely just decompress his soul about how he got from there to where he's at to. I think there's so much good information there that not only helps people to entertaining [], but I think it helps people also take that leap and say, okay, you know what, I'm on that cliff. I need that push. He hit me with a Chevy pickup truck. Now I'm off the cliff and I'm reaching out to Lon to figure out what's next.
Lon Stroschein: [00:32:31] That's a great thought, man. And I think you would do it. That's the other interesting thing. When dudes start making progress and I follow up with a lot of them. I'll follow up with this cat. And they're pretty excited when they have this release and you've probably felt it. You only felt it for four days and you did something. A lot of dudes last longer than like four years. And when they have this release and they start not thinking about acting, but actually taking an action. This awakening happens and I can see it like I saw it in him on that call. That's rare, but I saw it. And this awakening happens and they're so excited that they would let me probably do a Facebook Live if I said, Hey, this is really exciting. Let me just look like in that moment of euphoria. They're so excited to finally feel like they've got their hand on the rudder again that they'd be like, tell this story. If this helps one other person, I want them to feel like this. And so this is a long way of me saying that I think finding dudes, getting them to the place to the point where they actually reach out, I think is the challenge. But after they start making progress, getting them to talk about it, when they feel good about the actions are taken, I think they would do it.
Adam Eaton: [00:34:02] Sorry to enter. Here's the story arc, though. Like, here's how this builds. It's you said you record every call. So it's that snippet of that first call where it's that punch in the mouth moment. It's that seminal moment in that conversation that really resonates with them. So it's 15, 10, 12 minutes, whatever that time duration is. So you get to that point. Then it's you solo talking about what I did there was I made sure that I punched Jamie in the mouth because I recognized in him, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you have to go away. Then it's person being interviewed by somebody else. Because now it's not the teacher anymore. Now it's like, dude, tell me about Lon. He really kicked you in the ass. So it's what happened. It's your framework to what it is that you were trying to do or what you observed. And then it's that follow up. My wife, I'll tell you. I don't know if you get or how much writing you do, but there's a radio program by Ryan Seacrest, American Idol guy. He hosts, like a million shows. And he does this thing on the radio called Ryan's Roses. So what he does is his crew calls, gets a phone call from usually a spouse, and they say, I think my husband's cheating on me. I think he's seeing another woman. Ryan's crew calls that that man, pretends to be a flower shop and says, hey, you won 12 free dozen roses. We'll send them off to anybody you want. Just tell us who and what do you want on the car? And Lon, 7/10, dumb ass man. Go send it to Betty, who's not his wife, with a card that says thanks for last night.
[00:35:31] The wife's on the phone. She jumps in and says, How could you do this to me? And it's great radio banter and yada, yada, yada. My wife loves it, eats it up. What she loves even more, though Lon is every now and again they do the follow up. So they bring Betty back to the radio like two months later, and they're like, Hey, do you guys remember Betty? And my wife will not leave the car because she invested in that moment. And she now needs to know how did that end? What was the resolution there? And I think you've got something on that same cusp of you have someone tell the story and then what's the resolution? How did that end? Like I heard the first part. I'm hooked. This is a terrible analogy, so forgive me anybody, but you see a car accident, you always stop. But you always wonder, I hope everyone's okay. Like I wonder. I hope everyone's okay. Well, now you get the resolution to that car accident. Everybody's fine. Nobody was injured and everyone's living a happy life. I think you've got some of that construct here where everyone wants that payoff. They want that follow up. They want to know how that ended. So I just heard Lon kicked this guy's ass. I had Lon tell me why he kicked this guy's ass. Now, here's the guy who got his ass kicked telling us how it felt for him. And not only did it resonate, but here's the result from it. I think you've got things people listen to and go, man, Like, that's a story arc that I think anybody can put themselves in and say, Man, I could go through that. And to be fair, what's the word I want to use here? Scary maybe I'll use. It's scary to pick up the phone or pick up the computer or pick up the iPad and [] note to you. It's scary because you don't know what's coming back to you like to your point, like who's going to see this? What are my boss finds out? What if my friends find out? What are my buddies are like, Dude, you got a problem? Like, have a beer. Like, what do I do? So it's scary to hear somebody go through that, takes that edge off.
[00:37:11] Now it's like, okay, I feel like I know Lon. I've heard him talk. I've heard him speak. I know his approach. I'm not scared anymore. I know what this guy is about. So I'm going to take that leap. That first time I pecked out that email to you, I was like, I don't know what I'm going back here. So let's find out because this is either a guy who is pretending he's this all powerful, wonderful person and is really a dick in real life. It's just going to shoot me a note like buzz off or this is somebody who's sincerely cares and he's going to write back with something or he's not going to write back at all. And I think that's the thing is when you get to know you, you take that edge off. And I think there are just so many story arcs there that you could tell. So many people that you could sort of connect with to say, hey, when you want your calendar to be filled back up. I suspect many people will be lining up to get on that calendar.
Lon Stroschein: [00:37:58] I never know when I hit join call what I'm going to get. I never know, man. And every time I just show up, I'm blown away. And this one would definitely fall into that category of just cool stuff, man. I don't know. I'm just going to talk for just a couple of minutes here. Like I told you, I've never felt, I've done some cool shit in my life. We all have. Let me layer on some of the cool shit I've done. So I work for United States Senator. The majority leader of the United States Senate. I've answered telephone calls as a 24 and 25 year old kid from other senators. Because the senator didn't carry a phone. This was back in 1999, 2000, 2001. They didn't carry cell phones. The staffer did. So other senators called all the time. You name a senator. I probably have talked to them. I mean, as a peon staffer, my point is it was pretty cool for me to go home and say, oh, I talked to whatever insert name of senator here. And I've answered calls from presidents. Never for me. I'm not trying to [] you there, but I was the link. So that was where I was []. So I love to tell people when I was in my 20s, this is what I did. Then I left that because my wife and I were expecting a child and I'm like, politics is great at that time. It's a different world now. But I really enjoyed it being a Senate staffer. I don't care what your party affiliation is.
[00:39:40] If politics isn't a religion for you and you can just go in and try to be part of the solution, it's wonderful. Either party has wonderful people. Either party has douchebags. That's a fact. But then after that, I went into banking and I got to create a private wealth group where the owner of the bank said, kind of gave me a blank ticket. He said, I trust you. I believe in you. Go build it after my business plan. And I went and did it. So I was the VP of a bank. After 0 hours of lending experience, they made me a VP and said, Go build this thing. And I did great. One of my clients was a CEO of a public company and he hired me and he asked me to travel the world on behalf of the company and set up distribution for public company. Well, I was pretty cool. Then he asked me to take on take this small aerospace and defense contracting company and grow it from 20 million to 120 million, which I did convert it from a contract manufacturer of parachutes to a proprietary product manufacturer of aerospace and defense contracting products that we sell to the Office of Secretary of Defense and to foreign partner nations. So I've been in the Pentagon. I've been at JSOC. I still have a top secret clearance, and I've done classified briefings in the Pentagon two-star generals. Pretty cool. All right.
Adam Eaton: [00:40:53] It's not bad.
Lon Stroschein: [00:40:54] Yeah, it's fun stories to talk about. And I get all the way to this point. I lead a $2.1 billion transaction, and I decide I'm done. That's fine. That's good. That was first half stuff. And I got to go find my second half. Yet, I didn't have a clue that doing this is where I would end up. But I can tell you, in all the cool things I've done, I've never felt more in sync with what I'm supposed to do. It's just I show up to every call fascinated. I show up to every call interested, and I leave every job, every call with more energy than I had the moment I said, join call. And it's spectacular. So I say all of that for this one reason, I want dudes to feel the way I do right now about what I'm being called to do for other dudes. And I'm curious. I showed up to this call curious. I tend to show up curious and follow the omens. And I feel like there's a reason why you felt the urge to call me. And there's a reason why this conversation has gone as well as it has. And we should probably take the next step and just say, what the hell? I mean, let's just find out. Let's hear where this goes under no false pretense. We're just couple of dudes trying to figure it out.
Adam Eaton: [00:42:22] Yeah. Look, I'm out here saying, Hey, I can't wait to join your multi million dollar firm. Here's my retainer fee. Let's go rock and roll. I recognize. I think for me, again, I have a full time job. So I have an income stream and I have a contract on that job, too, that I'm slowly counting the days down on it if I'm being honest with you. But I think for me, it's about when you work on passion, when you work on mission, when you work on excitement, paycheck is a thing but it's not the thing. And so for me, I'm willing to try it out, willing to see if we can make it work, see if we can break it, fix it, break it again, fix it again, make it something meaningful, make it something that we can be proud or I can be proud or you can be proud to to sit back and say, Hey, this is a good creation. And if it leads places, great. If it doesn't, still a great experience, hopefully for everybody involved. So again, I feel like I don't want to horn in on your business. I'm not here trying to say, hey, great idea, this is what you're going to do. But I'm certainly open to working on anything and trying to find some synergy between us and see where that road takes us.
Lon Stroschein: [00:43:29] Well, we need to ask ourselves the same question I asked Jim. What's a low cost probe? What's something that we can do that we're testing the market. We can do a podcast where it's just you and me. We could do a podcast where I'm bringing someone in and I'm doing a coaching session. I mean, I think all those things are fine, good and dandy. I can send you. I can get a release from somebody I've talked to and just send you some raw material and you see if you can make a few bites out of it that I put out on LinkedIn some morning and just see how it goes. I'm open to whatever. From the moment I got your first email. I was like, all right. I was testing you, too. I sent a short note back. I'm like, this guy just all hopped up on his endorphins are run and he just got done with the run. And he's in ketosis.
Adam Eaton: [00:44:30] For sure.
Lon Stroschein: [00:44:30] And then when you shot back like all right, there's some real substance here. So what's our low cost probe?
Adam Eaton: [00:44:39] Yeah, I think first thing first. So you think about building your brand. I think a lot of it is who are you. You want to connect with people. So I do think there's an element of saying, okay, like the Normal 40 show, whatever you want to call it. Normal 40 podcast,. And it's more about you talking about experiences, things you've been through, lessons you've learned, basically sell me as an audience member and why I should care about you. Why shouldn't Lon be a part of my life? Why should I follow you on LinkedIn? Why should I do some of those things? I see that as 3 to 5 episode arc. Really kind of getting to know Lon and maybe it's broken down into pieces of different, themes per show. Then I think it comes down to the evolution of I know Lon. Now, what is Lon about? And I think that's where you can get into one or two options. One, you start putting out small bite sized content. So I think those first 3 to 5 episodes of 30, 35, 40 minutes, maybe it's centered on a topic, centered on something that's happening around the world, maybe there's something of a nature that you can hey, I just saw the other day that so-and-so resigned from Pepsi.
Adam Eaton: [00:45:43] Let's talk more about that, maybe there's something globally taking place that's kind of easy to identify. And I think a lot of this, too. I think the goal with all of this, by the way Lon has to be evergreen content. So if I'm just finding you in 2022, great. If I don't find you at 2024, great. It's still applicable. It's not like, Hey, last night the Cowboys beat the Giants. Well, that means nothing. We're two years past that. So it's got to be evergreen. So I think you can take some of those evergreen stories, but then I think you branch into two options. Smaller bite sized chunks, 10, 15 minute. Daily is a tough task. I've tried to do daily shows in the past. It is a tough task. You think it's easy. Oh, just turn the camera on 15 minutes. I got this right. After day four, you're like, what am I going to do now? So daily is tough. But what you could do, you could record a two hour long block and just chop them up. You got 5, 10 minute intervals. You kind of get the mojo behind you. You get the inspiration. You start giving out tips, tricks, ideas, suggestions, daily challenges. Some of the things you're writing could be those podcasts, could be those five, ten minute increments. It could be some of those items where you just voice that over. You just read it aloud. Maybe you add some more context to it.
[00:46:54] But then I do think at some point, you branch into getting more of your clients involved. And if you think that's something they're comfortable with and starting to understand now what it is that you're about show the goods. I met you. I know who you are. I feel comfortable with you. You seem like a normal dude just like me. I got your story. That's cool. He's got some really good, thoughtful content. I like that. What's this guy really about? Now I get to see the goods. I get to see you in action. I get to hear you in action. So in my mind, that's an evolution. You start build your brand I am Lon. Here's what I do, here's what I'm about, here's some things I want you to think about. Now let's put all that into practice.
[00:47:31] So I think our starting point is 3 to 5 episodes of Who Is Long? Why are you here? Why should I care about you? Why should I listen to what you're saying? How do you connect with me? Not me personally, but the broader me? And then let folks kind of digest that from that standpoint, because I've heard you on other shows and you're great. I saw the show you did with I think it was a pilot of some sort. And you're great. But it was a lot about him. I didn't learn much about you. And I think, again, that's where if I'm sitting down on my front of my iPad and I'm like, this guy's got some really good shit here, but am I'm going to hit this connect button. I'm not going to hit this male icon or not. Like if I can, here's a 20 minute podcast about Lon then and I go, Oh man, this guy's got some serious chops. I like where he's at. And I think that's the part where you can easily build that connection for. So I think first 3 to 5 are who is Lon? Why is Lon here? Why should I care about Lon? What is he offering anybody? Why should I let him into my life? I've got close friends. Why is this guy going to be part of my circle? And I think that's part of what that initial launch looks like.
Lon Stroschein: [00:48:38] Okay. Let's give it a whirl.
Adam Eaton: [00:48:42] So we got options. I mean, we can record a zoom just like this. We'll sit down and I'll just ask you a shitload of questions, and you just start telling some stories. I'll probe back a little bit. We'll have some fun. Obviously, we can put some topics to it so we have some guardrails. The Lon and Adam Variety hour probably isn't going to write very well, although maybe that's a show at some point. Or it's like, did you see what happened? But I think one of the other things you said something earlier that I kind of believe in, and I think there's a line here. I don't believe in a lot of editing, because I want people to hear me, warts and all. So if I fumble your name right, a la la la crap. Here I go again. I'm not trying to be some sort of polished Bob Costas style sportscaster. I'm not on the 6:00 news like I'm going to flub the word. I'm going to mispronounce something. And so I don't edit it out things like that. Now, if you have a two minute diatribe on something and you're like, Hey, I should have said all that stuff. Sure. Like we can cut that kind of stuff. But I think in terms of perfection, like, I think it's just you and I talking. If we had hit record on this thing the entire time, which you did. And this just went out to the Internet, like I think people could sit back and be like, Man, these guys are interesting. That's kind of cool whether they align with the content or they think we're perfect professional broadcasters. I think in some respects there's an endearing quality to not being perfection because none of us are. So why strive to do that in a lot of different areas from that standpoint.
Lon Stroschein: [00:50:11] I'm right there with you. I think I [alluded] on this call. Some of my calls kind of run together, but I think I alluded. I write my post. I know I told you that. And then I find my typos later. One of the things I didn't say out loud, I'm 48, so I'm a little bit older than you. I just turned 48 a few months ago and I didn't probably say it out loud to anyone in my life until I was probably 46. And even then it was just to my wife. And I haven't said it beyond that is I'm dyslexic. It's hard for me. It's hard for me to see my typos. I know I'm later after I don't know what I wrote. After an hour or a day goes by and I actually have to read it again, not just know what it's on the page. I see it, but in the moment I don't. And I just decided I'll get some texts from people saying, hey, you spelled this word wrong. I'm like, Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to apologize for it. I wish I wouldn't have. It sucks. I do feel bad. I'm not flippant about it. I wish I wouldn't have. But at the same time, I'm not going to burden myself with the worry of the fact that a word spell drawing, it just not who I am.
[00:51:22] That's a long way me saying I'm aligned with record little editing go, Harry Bunn, I hope you really enjoyed this story and I hope you enjoyed listening to Adam and I just ramble. That's what so many of the first phone calls sound like. Just like that. I show up to every phone call curious, and it's so fun when I get an opportunity to talk to somebody who shows up just as curious and just to see what could happen next. Look, I want you to stick around for the next podcast. I'm going to go back at Adam and I'm going to ask him a little bit more about what was he feeling that led to that first call. I'm going to read to you the first email he sent to me that led to that first call. And we're going to continue the ramble on what it is that he's processing in real time in this moment and the vulnerability that I know dudes like him are feeling in this moment as this drops and this airs and the people around him who've known him under the image he's built over the last 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 years. And now the dude he is becoming and the people he's helping. And it's a journey that I'm so grateful that he's agreed to be a part of. And I can't wait to have that conversation with him next week on Normal 40 the podcast. Hey, and don't forget you can find me at normal40.com. Please like and subscribe and I'm doing some coaching Normal 40, The Insider. If you're interested find me at Lon at Normal 40. Thanks everyone for being here. I can't wait to see you on the next page.
