Josh Janssen

People desperately stand outside of breakfast TV shows hoping that their professionally printed “Pick Me” sign garners them votes. They return home to create a Twitter account so they can tell the world to “Follow me so I can win” and that they “need more votes so they PICK ME”.

Pick yourself.

 

YOU are in control. It is YOUR life. YOU can make the positive change to a happier life. The only person that can stop you is YOU.

If you don’t want to make the change, maybe the problem isn’t as bad as you once thought.

This doesn’t mean that anytime you are faced with a difficult situation that you walk away — quite the opposite.

Sometimes, it’s nice to say: “This isn’t the best situation, but this isn’t the destination, things WILL get better. Be happy knowing that YOU have the ability to change.”

During my 100 day project, I have been hypersensitive to my habits and choices.

Changing my habits has been easier than ever before. Why? Because I understand that this is MY choice. This isn’t about a diet that I hate and resent. This is exciting. I am making this change. I don’t feel deprived, because i’m not. I seek comfort in the fact that this is my choice.

Whether you make the change or not, remember that the choice is yours.

A quote to leave you on:

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got, and you’ll always feel what you always felt.”

Josh
Day 11 of 100 days

I started off my day well. I walked to work, while listening to the audiobook ‘The Power of Habit’. It seemed fitting on a day where I would be throwing away my old habits for new healthier ones.

‘Healthy’ is a funny word. What does it mean? What is healthy and what isn’t? People love to latch onto fad diets and I understand why. The great thing about diets is there are clear boundaries i.e. eggs are okay, bread isn’t.

My 100 day project is an amalgamation of everything I have learnt over the years about this mysterious word ‘healthy’.

• drink more water
• eat less carbs
• eat smaller amounts during the day
• don’t eat before bed
• reduce intake of highly processed foods
• eat fruit, but not too much
• eat until satisfied, not full

The mystery of the word ‘healthy’ was highlighted when I asked my friend Byron to get me a healthy lunch. To me, Byron encompasses a healthy individual, so I trusted him to bring back a guilt free lunch that would leave me feeling satisfied.

So, you can imagine my shock when he brought me back pasta. Or maybe you can’t imagine it. Maybe in your definition of the word ‘healthy’ you include pasta. There probably is room for pasta in a healthy, balanced diet, but for day 1, it didn’t feel right.

Like kids in a playground, I swapped my pasta for my other mate Jules’ sandwich. It was a great transaction for both parties, and I was just happy that he didn’t steal my lunch money and give me a wedgie.

The sandwich was good. It has a lot of salad. Some would call it a salad sandwich, but it also had chicken.

All in all, it was a successful day. I had grilled calamari for dinner with salad and plenty of water.

If you had viewed my Facebook profile today, you are probably under the impression that day one had a less than ideal ending, involving my (old) favourite Moro chocolate bar. You will be happy to know that this was a juvenile Facebook hack from one of my work mates. Probably masterminded by Leon, or maybe Kerri…or Marshy.
The status (apparently from me) read:

“I tried… I failed. Moro Chocolate Bar…Get in me!!”

The comments of disappointment from friends began to trickle in, as a grin slowly visited my face as I could announce that the disappointing status was simply a false alarm.

I’m off to have some water.

It has been 2 weeks since my very public breakup with junk food. It turns out that my lack of preparation and atrocious self control has left me pretty disappointed.

It’s not rational. It’s annoying — for me — and my friends; who one minute will listen to my rant about ‘today being the day’ to quickly watching me scoff down a free cupcake.

Why is tomorrow any different? I can’t answer that. Maybe I will be more prepared. Maybe I will hit a tipping point — hitting a maximum failure rate where I will magically choose a salad over a Honeycomb Mars Bar or take a long walk rather than a short drive.

I’m impatient. I want to see the results of my efforts now. I’m stubborn. I don’t do things ‘half arsed’. I don’t do moderation. I’m either all in, or all out.

Maybe it’s the wrong approach, but it’s me — the only way I know how to do it.

Let me try again tomorrow.

100 days to focus on eating clean & moving more.

As Fifi Box would say “It’s the new me”.

Thanks for all of your support.

It’s fair to say that we have a love-hate relationship. When I am feeling stressed and tired, you are there to pick me up and make me feel better. It doesn’t last long though. My burst of happiness quickly turns into regret, when your insincere gesture of a high leaves me crashing to the floor. It’s an abusive relationship.

For whatever reason, maybe just out of habit, I think that you will fix my problems. Don’t get me wrong, you’re there when everything is going swimmingly too. The problem is that you hang out with my friends a lot, so you are sometimes hard to avoid. It’s not an excuse, I shouldn’t stay in an abusive relationship out of convenience, which is why I am writing this letter. I have tried to reduce the amount of time we spend together, but we always fall back into our old abusive ways.

I need to cut you out of my life for a while. I need to know that I can live a life without you. Maybe one day, I can bring you back and invite you into my life for a rare visit, but until I sort myself out, I will have to say goodbye.

Junk food, I won’t miss the way you make me feel about myself.

It had been a while since I read the book ‘Tribes’ by Seth Godin. The last time I read it, my life was different. I was working for myself and was surrounded by people that inspired me to improve, to innovate and to make a difference in the world. I was my own boss.

Now that I have worked for some large organisations, including the interesting world of a government agency, I picked up the book ‘Tribes’ for another read.

I was inspired to give the book another read after my colleague Sam Cavanagh mentioned it to me.

Sam produced Hamish and Andy’s radio show for five years, and now plays a big part in ensuring that Southern Cross Austereo (the company I work for) are constantly innovating. He could easily get complacent, hang up his boots and say “I’m the best at what I do” — just look at his trophies for producing the most successful radio show in Australia’s history.

Instead of being complacent, he continues to inspire. I am lucky enough to be in production meetings with him every day, as the awesome Fifi and Jules team work to put together the show.

“How can we do this differently?” “Let’s be the first” are just a few of Sam’s regular questions and phrases.

I’m using Sam as an example. Sam is in management, but he doesn’t manage. The best managers I have had the pleasure of working with don’t — or they hide it well.

The people I look up to, the ones that inspire change, and get me thinking and doing are the leaders.

I was reminded of this when reading ‘Tribes’ again. Godin sums it up best.

Managers work to get their employees to do what they did yesterday, but a little faster and a little cheaper.

 

Leaders, on the other hand, know where they’d like to go, but understand that they can’t get there without their tribe, without giving those they lead the tools to make something happen.

It’s easy to tell people what to do, to delegate. The real challenge is to inspire the tribe.

The great thing is — Anyone can be a leader.

It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you sit in an organisations hierarchy, you can lead. Your enthusiasm, your actions and your ideas can lead.

I don’t want to be an employee, I don’t want to be a manager, I want to be a leader.

A Party of a hundred

I was at an event the other day and quickly introduced my girlfriend, Breana, to the host. There would have been close to a hundred people at the event. Music was blasting, there were dozens of conversations happening within the vicinity of the introduction — it wasn’t the best environment to hear what anyone was saying, let alone remember what was said.

It was a quick introduction, a quick hello and that was it; there were more invitees for the host to welcome. An hour and a half later, the host was milling around the venue, when he stopped and again spoke to us. He addressed my girlfriend by name, which I found really surprising. He was able to remember her name under the hardest circumstances. He would have met dozens of people that night.

It left a big impression on me. I was reminded of one of Dale Carnegie’s principles in his book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People‘:

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

I had just seen a real world example of this. It was amazing the difference a name could make.

The next day, inspired by the memory of the host, I set off to improve my memory. A quick search on Google and I found a well rated book called ‘Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything‘ by Joshua Foer. Five minutes later, I was on the couch listening to the beginning of the nine hour audiobook.

Two hours into the book and I already had some strategies to improve my memory.

The first strategy sounds simple. So simple that I didn’t expect it to work.

Memorising with Jack

On my first day back at work, I used my lunch break to test the theory. I explained the method to my friend Jack;

“Imagine a path that you travel on a regular basis. You maybe walking, driving or riding a bike.”

“Now, I will write down a list of 10 things, actually, make it 12…that I will read out. As I read them, try and integrate them into the well known path. They maybe stuck on a wall or at a traffic light that you stop at”

We played the memory game and I was really impressed by the results. Jack was able to remember all 12 items!

I decided that Jack may just be good at remembering things, and I asked him to perform the same experiment on me.

12 items later, I was surprised to say that I remembered all of the items! This is coming from the guy that struggles with just three or four items normally.

“You think that’s cool?” Jack said

“Well I have another method which will blow your mind”

Jack ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook and begun writing a list of items. The list was as follows:

1. Hammer
2. Snake
3. Boobs
4. Boat
5. Hat
6. Padlock
7. Boomerang
8. Race Track
9. Possum
10. Plate

“Okay, now are you just going to remember them?” I asked, feeling a little underwhelmed after the cool trick I just showed him.

“No, this will help you remember other lists!” He said, bemused by my ignorance.

He went on to explain that each of the items listed represented the number it was attached to. The number 1 looks like a hammer, a 2 looks like a snake, 3 looks like boobs and so on.

“I always forget 5…it’s a hat…well a man with hat” he said.

It was a stretch. but after a few minutes of memorising the items, 5 really looked like a man with a hat and I stopped confusing 3 for a snake.

Now that I had that sorted, I could use it as a tool. Now when I was given a list of items, similar to the path strategy, I would associate each item with the memory list (hammer, snake .etc) I had made.

For instance, the first item on the list to remember was ‘fireworks’, I remembered this by picturing me hitting a firework with a hammer and it exploding everywhere.

A few minutes later, I was able to repeat the list Jack gave me with 100% accuracy, the first time!

Then Jack showed me how I could take it beyond 10 items.

“So for the next 10 numbers, incorporate ice to the image, in the 20s add fire”

By the end of it, we were both remembering 25 items.

We compared our imaginations. “oh, I was thinking of The Beatles playing snake-guitars in firey hell” Jack said, explaining his image for number 22, The Beatles.

After one quick encounter, 2 hours of an audiobook and a lunch break; I was truly inspired, that even me, the guy that forgot where he put the keys to the apartment (sorry Breana), could remember things!

I can’t wait to listen to the rest of the book and take my memory even further!

Why Podcasts aren’t competing with radio

Podcasting was never going to kill radio. Radio has many advantages over it, advantages which will soon be be made redundant by the availability of mobile high speed Internet and other technologies — more on that later.

Why I think radio is great: It’s live, local, interactive and mixes both music and spoken word.

Podcasting was never going to be able to compete in a mainstream way with radio. Podcasting, by design, is pre-recorded and thanks to licensing restrictions, is unable to play mainstream music. Not being ‘live’ means that podcasts can never be truly ‘interactive’.

Anyone that thinks the demise of radio (as we know it) will be thanks to Podcasting is wrong and short sighted.

The democratisation of car entertainment

In Australia there are 745 motor vehicles for every 1,000 people, that’s 16.7 million motor vehicles in total. There is no doubting that the number one form of entertainment in motor vehicles is the radio. Audio is easy to consume while driving and currently, radio is the easiest way for the average Australian to listen to a live audio broadcasts in their cars. Thanks to the modernisation of car stereo systems and the increasing availability of mobile high speed Internet connections, this is starting to change.

A recent example of this is the transformation of the camera. If 15 years ago, someone said that in 2012, A majority of the population in Australia would carry a camera around in their pockets, they would be laughed at. Thanks to hindsight, we know that in fact, a good portion of the population DO carry cameras with them everywhere! Cameras like the Samsung Galaxy Camera are coming out that have a SIM card holder built in. It’s not a phone. It’s a camera. Now people can upload their photos straight from their camera without a cable or WiFi.

The availability of data is increasingly exponentially. I believe that it won’t be uncommon for a car to have a data plan in 5 years.

The power of curation and the paralysation of choice

There are a myriad of media streaming services popping up offering an å La carte experience. An on demand approach which gives the user access to EVERYTHING whenever they want it. The movie streaming service Netflix is the perfect example of this. Netflix has thousands of movies and TV shows available for streaming to its customers. When I first used Netflix, I felt overwhelmed — So many choices, what should I watch?

I quickly discovered the power of Netflix’s recommendation engine. Thanks to its refined algorithm and curated genre lists, I was quickly able to get passed the noise and make a choice on what to watch. Without this curated approach, I would have spent more time searching for a movie than actually watching one.

Although its exciting for users to have access to ‘thousands of movies’ or ‘millions of music tracks’ thanks to the emergence of streaming services, the value actually lies in the services’ ability to curate an enjoyable experience based on the users’ tastes.

Radio stations are curators. They take a target demographic and deliver them music, spoken word and advertising based on the demographics interests. The music streaming service Pandora is a modernised version of this approach — You like Lady Gaga, well you will probably like Miley Cyrus.

The music streaming service Spotify adds another layer — social. Now your friends can curate the music for you. You can even create your own playlists, picking tracks from multiple playlists from different friends. You could pick a track from the 70s, then follow it up with a Hanson track — there aren’t any radio stations that can effectively provide that type of diversity.

The next step with Internet Radio

Given the Internet’s openness, Internet radio is fragmented; making it difficult for users. Mobile application including TuneIn Radio are coming close to providing a more cohesive experience for listeners, but this is at a very basic level.

Radio is easy to access thanks to it’s walled-garden approach. Licenses are expensive which means that Joe Blow down the street can’t have BlowFM.

Internet radio is different. Anyone can create their own station with little audio equipment, a streaming host and an Internet connection. As long as Joe doesn’t expect to play mainstream music. That going to cost.

What will the future look like if I get my way?

Here is an example of how I think it could work. I am a bit naive and I’m a dreamer. So if you think this won’t work, let me know.

Take Spotify and turn it into a scheduler. Spotify connects to your Facebook. It finds the audio shows’ pages you like on Facebook. Spotify generates a live schedule based on your tastes. You like Hamish & Andy — great, spotify adds H&A to your schedule whenever they are live. You like 3AW on Facebook. Spotify will need some more information here. A dropdown appears, asking which components you enjoy. You like their local news — no worries — now select which hours you would like it to play. Spotify now connects to your Twitter account. Oh, you like the tech segment on KFI radio in California? No worries. Spotify adds it to your schedule.

A few minutes later, you have filled your day with content, including spotify playlists you enjoy for when your favourite talk shows aren’t on.

Now, whenever you open the app, turn on your connected car, or set your alarm clock, you will hear LIVE content that you want to hear, from anywhere around the world.

Spotify delivers LOCAL ads to you, with the majority of the royalty revenue going to the show you are listening to. Don’t want to listen to ads with certain shows? Pay the shows’ premium subscription.

You are essentially curating your own radio station. Lots of people won’t have the desire to do so, which is where their ‘influencer’ friends do it for them. ‘I really like Josh’s taste in this sort of think, I will just follow his station’.

There you have it. That’s how I think/hope radio will be in 5 years. Tell me why I’m wrong.

The opinions and views expressed here are my own and do not represent my employer or anyone else that I’m affiliated with.

Meditate
The closest I have ever gotten to meditation is laying down listening to music. Given my work and interests, my brain is constantly on, which can be tiring and unhealthy. I have wanted to learn to meditate for several years and 2013 is the perfect time.

Move
I have said ‘goodbye’ to my car, with the goal to walk more. Over the past month, I have walked to and from work each day, which has been great. As well as this habit, I would like to introduce more movement into my work; get up more and walk around.

Write
A couple of years ago, I attended a screenwriting class. I learned a lot and found it very inspiring. One thing that the class taught me was the power of habit. Write a page of script a day — it might only take 30 minutes a day — and in 90 days you have a feature film script! I also plan to blog more, hence the new personal blog. The blog is less about people reading it and more for myself, although if you are reading it — welcome, take a seat.

Be Present
I love to push myself to do new and exciting things all of the time. I think it’s a great quality to have, unless you do it to the extreme. By being too goal orientated and future focused, I sometimes miss the special moments that are happening around me. Being present means that I take the time to stop and smell the roses, even if there are nicer roses a block down the road.

Eat Clean
No crazy diets, just more mindful on what I put in to my body and how it affects me. I want to eat more fresh food from the ground and less processed, prepackaged foods.

Travel
I want to experience everything the World has to offer. I have booked my next trip to the USA in June for 3 weeks with my girlfriend, Breana. I also want to start preparing for long term world travel.

At the beginning of January this year, I was preparing for my first ever solo trip overseas for the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco to cover the event for my freshly relaunched site, Melbourne Geek. My friend Blaz Robar had put together an amazing  design for the site, which was to provide us with a new level of credibility. To match the design, my mate Mat Michalik coded the whole thing to give even a web-retard, me, the ability to update the website.

Mat working on Melbourne Geek

It looked really pro and we were all very excited about the prospects the new site would bring. Why a new website? I decided to move away from the original concept which was more of a solo looking operation, into a site that looked like it could compete with the Gizmodos and Engadgets of the world.
After spending so much time on Melbourne Geek, Mat decided to take a bigger part in the site, making it more of a joint operation. He decided to come with me to SF, but after a family emergency the night before we were going to leave, he had to pull out — hence the solo trip.
Mat was going to be filming me interviewing vendors at MacWorld. I quickly had to come up with a plan b. Introducing Plan B: Sarah Lee.

A photo I took of Sarah when we first met in Melbourne

I met Sarah a few months earlier, after following her surf photography for a number of years, Sarah visited Melbourne in September 2011. I invited Sarah to attend Semi-Permanent, a creative conference that a bunch of mates and I were attending. Sarah ended up staying at my place for a few days. She was great company.
So back to the story: Sarah Lee is from Hawaii, and at the time, was studying Film in L.A. When Mat couldn’t come to SF, I decided to fly Sarah to SF from Hawaii to help film the event. It turn out really well, as Sarah was on break from college. We ended up creating 30 videos from the Expo and thanks to a YouTube contact I made through working on the promotion of the film ‘Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead’ a month earlier, we were able to have some of our videos featured on YouTube.
While I was in San Francisco, I stayed at a couple of apartments using the service AirBNB. It was a great chance to meet new people. One of my hosts, Mike, worked at Pixar and invited me for a tour of the Pixar campus.

While working on the videos for Melbourne Geek, one thing became clear; video is a lot of work. I have listened to a lot of Podcasts over the years and I wanted to start to experiment with audio. Audio is easier to produce at a high quality and doesn’t require a camera operator to produce. I liked that audio was more self contained.
Also, while working on Melbourne Geek, I began to immerse myself in the WordPress community. My friends Aaron Rutley & Blaz Robar, who head-up Eleven Media, a boutique web design and development agency, exclusively use WordPress for their website builds.
Aaron helped Mat, Blaz and I with the Melbourne Geek site. Having such a talented group of guys working on the site meant that the possibilities for the site were endless, so it was great that we had catchups where we would debate features and design options.
Thanks to Melbourne Geek, I met the Opena Case guys back in September 2011 (It’s hard to reflect on the year without spilling over to the previous year). My friendship with CP and Rob quickly blossomed which pushed me to attend MacWorld. CP & Rob, who many people know as the Opena Case guys, created the first ever sliding out bottle opener for the iPhone.

A photo of CP & Rob I took in IKEA

CP initially contacted me when the Opena Case was on KickStarter, the boys were working hard to get publicity for the project, when they discovered Melbourne Geek through their research.
The first thing that struck me was their entrepreneurial spirit. On one hand, they were working on the Opena Case, on the other they were working on multiple small projects; from selling cables for Macs to 3d printers.
In November 2011, the Opena guys told me they were going to MacWorld in January. Excitement quickly ensued and in Josh style, I booked flight a week later.
Clearly I’m not the best with structure, as all of that information probably should have been in the MacWorld section.
Now, back to WordPress. I had just come back from SF in February and was ready for my next adventure. Aaron mentioned that he was planning on attending WordCamp NZ in Auckland. I had attended WordCamp Melbourne the previous year, which was a lot of fun, and frankly, I was looking for any reason to travel (Yep, I had the travel bug).
Aaron and I booked NZ for April and I spent the next couple of months working on video projects for clients.
While this was all happening, CP & Rob were working on a new product. They had just launched the QuadLock, which I created some promotional videos for, and now they had a new product they wanted to launch — The Holda. The concept of the Holda was simple; hold your credit cards, drivers license and key in the case of your iPhone, without creating bulk.
The boys came up with a parody product called the Playa, essentially the same product, but one that would hold a condom. They got me to create a video to launch on April fools and before we could blink, the video was picked up by the world’s biggest websites. In one week, the promotional video had over 200,000 views.
Fast forward to the end of April and Aaron and I were at WordCamp NZ. I met a lot of fantastic people, funnily enough, a lot of the people we met were from across Australia. It was great to sit back and take in the talks. I’m not a web developer, so it was interesting to get an insight.

Our view from our hotel in Auckland

Throughout the months before WordCamp NZ, I still had the idea of doing some kind of audio focused project. While in Auckland, I met a couple of guys that were doing a Podcast. They were very passionate about it.
I had given Podcasting a go back when it officially started in 2004. The podcast I made back then had very little appeal. From memory, I would crack a few jokes, have a guest — that was normally a mate — and end it with an interview with my mum — compelling stuff.
I wanted to create an audio show that was inspiring, that added value to peoples lives. I first came up with the name, Josh Speaking, then realised that there was nothing inspiring about a guy in his early 20s talking on his own.
With my work, I have been lucky to meet some very interesting people, which gave me the inspiration to use the Podcast as a platform to find out more about them. A few emails later, I had organised my first interview, Shane Jacobson. I had worked with Shane in developing his online presence and I found him to be both inspiring and a great storyteller.

After my interview with Shane

Great — I had organised the interview to be at Shane’s house. The only problem: I didn’t have any portable audio gear. A quick visit to Factory Sound and I had a great interview audio setup. Blaz and Aaron put together a minimal site to host the podcast. I created the *very* over the top audio intro and recorded the first episode. Josh Speaking was born.

While I had all of these project going, I was making my money through corporate video production and online consulting. I was always open to new opportunities that would come up, hence the quick decision to attend MacWorld, so when I received an email from a recruiter via LinkedIn asking if I was interested in receiving some information on a job she thought I would be interested in, I took a look.
The Job was in radio, an industry I had always been interested in, especially given the recent passion for audio production. The role was Digital Content Producer for the Today Network show, Fifi and Jules. I had listened and enjoyed the Fifi and Jules show since they began broadcasting at the beginning of 2011. The role seemed perfect. It mixed my skills in video, with online.
I have never been a 9 to 5 guy, or interested in the whole ‘employee’ thing, but I thought I would give it a shot. Three weeks of phone interviews, in person interviews and an interview with the Fifi and Jules team later and I got the job.
I went from working around 10 hours a week, with the rest of my time on side projects (Melbourne Geek & Josh Speaking) out in the south east suburbs, to working a 10am-7pm day an hour away from home in South Melbourne at the Fox FM studios.
Half the time I would catch public transport, then I would get sick of that and drive in, then I would experience the Monash FWY, then I would go back to the train; it was an ongoing cycle.

The Fifi and Jules team at the Melbourne Cup

I got the opportunity to create a lot of fun content for Fifi and Jules, from filming interviews with Justin Bieber to filming Jules run a marathon on the official Olympic track in London. Only 6 weeks in the job and I was in London for a week. It was an experience I will never forget.
6 months in the job (November), my girlfriend Breana and I decided to move closer to our workplaces. We decided on a modern apartment in Port Melbourne. Now I walk to and from work, which is great.
2012 has definitely been a big year. I have made a bunch of new friends, experienced 3 new countries and moved out of home. I’m excited to see what’s waiting for me in 2013.