This is the written version of this week’s episode. The podcast is the full, unedited, chaotic version. This is the good bits, organised by taking the transcript and having an AI tool clean it up.
Hey youuu.
The time has come…
This will be the last episode of The Unscheduled CEO for a while. Forever? Maybe, but definitely for quite some time.
I’m hitting the pause button on The Unscheduled CEO. The indefinite pause button. The podcast, the YouTube channel, all of it.
Unscheduled is about to get truly Unscheduled.
The reason isn’t that the show stopped working. The show is a sure thing for me at this point, it could safely keep generating revenue, and that’s exactly why I’m stopping it. If you’ve ever kept doing something because it’s safe and it pays, this one is about you too.
The nuggets (if you only read one section, read this one)
The safe thing that makes you money can be the thing keeping you stuck. This show brought in money through masterminds, and people came through it and booked us for consulting work. It’s a sure thing. I’m stopping it BECAUSE it’s a sure thing.
Half measures don’t work. I stepped back from AJ&Smart and Facilitator in May, but I kept the podcast, the channel, all the safe stuff. I wasn’t giving myself the space, the time, or the financial pressure to figure out what I really want to do.
Your media consumption is telling you something. When I watch a sculptor like Bobby Fingers pour his heart into something completely impractical, I don’t just think “that’s cool.” I feel this feeling of, I love this. And at the same time it reminds me that I’m not doing what I want to be doing.
At some point you have to take your own advice. I’ve said on this show, more than once, that doing the safe thing that makes you money is sometimes the wrong move. Time to eat my own dog food.
Okay. The story.
2 job offers and less than €1 in the bank
When I was 22 or 23, I had a week where I got 2 job offers. One was to become a web designer at a small business here in Berlin. The other was to be the assistant role on a film set close to Berlin. The movie was Cloud Atlas (big props to a friend who got me the job offer btw :)
I had been working on small film sets for a while at that point, and this would have been my first big feature. A menial job, very low down in the ranks, minimum wage, up at 6 in the morning to get out to the set. Which is normal for film work when you’re an absolute beginner.
But I was broke. A friend reminded me recently that at one point I had under €1 in my bank account. So I took the design job.
That decision took me on a very interesting, globetrotting journey. It led to building AJ&Smart, it led to building Facilitator, and it gave me a financially successful life that I’m very thankful for. It also took me completely away from the thing I moved to Berlin to do in the first place, which was make art. Movies, music, pointless stuff. Doesn’t mean any of it would have been good. It’s just the thing that has always interested me more than business.
Why this show existed in the first place
The Unscheduled CEO started maybe 2 years ago, could be 3, as a sometimes once every 6 weeks, sometimes once every 6 months outlet. I was transitioning out of the CEO role at AJ&Smart into more of a board member role, and I needed a place to talk through what I was interested in and figure out what I wanted to do. Also, I just like making videos, even the technical side of putting a show together.
Last year I decided to do it weekly, and we’ve kept that up almost perfectly. Along the way I started the Thursday videos, the more business focused ones, and here’s the interesting thing: those videos do better than everything else. And I don’t really care. I don’t feel much when I look at them.
The Offset, and the 8% problem
Last year I did an episode about an idea I called “The Offset.” The short version: my life had become much too practical. The business world had broken me down into a money making machine, and between that and the responsibilities of adult life, having a kid, being the breadwinner in my extended family, I had drifted very far from why I started any of this.
I talked about it on the show with my mentor Blake, and he’s the one who convinced me to actually pursue it. He said I need to at least go and fucking explore the creative stuff, or it will be a regret on my deathbed. He’s right, but I’m kind of a scaredy cat. I don’t have anyone to fall back on financially, I need to earn money or manage my money well, and I have this very big fear of walking away from something that can safely make me money.
Not that I think I’m going to make something great. It’s just that I want to work on things that use my WHOLE being, and not just 8% of myself. It feels a bit depressing to spend your days on things that are very easy but not very satisfying.
30 people vs 1,000,000 views
In February I ran my first creative art retreat, Area X. The retreat itself was almost like its own little art installation. It cost a huge amount of money to put on and it broke even, essentially. So it’s not a business.
But I loved it. I loved the people I met there, I loved the things we did there. Only 30 something people were at it, and the memories and the things that came from it still have an impact on me, in a way that a video with a million views never did.
And the whole time since, I’ve been going: yeah, but how would I even do more of that? I can’t support myself making things like that, I can’t support anybody. This is not practical, this is not safe, but it feels right, and it feels like I have to use a higher percentage of my abilities to make it happen.
A Saturday breakfast at 11:30
I’m recording this on a Saturday. I was sitting having a very pensive breakfast with Laura, going around the same loop I’ve been on all year: I want to do something different, but I’m cutting myself off from the sure thing again. AJ&Smart is a sure thing for me. Even this podcast is a sure thing for me at this point.
But it’s not what I want to do. That was this morning. It’s 11:30 now, and here we are.
What happens now
I’m stopping the podcast, and I’m going to stop thinking about it. Same for the YouTube channel. I already stepped back from AJ&Smart and Facilitator in May, and Laura is running things now. And I’m going to explore some much, much stranger, very different things.
All of the ideas are completely insane and completely impractical, and the payoff would be measured in years, not weeks. I’ve been lucky: I built up savings from running AJ&Smart for so many years, and the business will pay me some royalties. But that’s not going to support the crazy stuff I want to explore. So we’ll see how I do that.
I keep coming back to the people I look up to, and it’s usually their second act I’m watching. Bobby Fingers used to be in a very well known TV duo in Ireland, the Rubber Bandits. I never paid attention to any of that. But Bobby Fingers the sculptor fascinates me. I’ve been talking about the book The Second Mountain all year, and that’s what I’m trying to do here. Maybe I won’t manage it. Maybe I’ll pussy out and end up back doing exactly what I was doing. But at least I’ll have explored it, and I’m exploring it in public.
I have no idea what I’ll be doing this time next year. I think that’s kind of cool.
If you want to see where this goes, sign up for the Substack at unscheduledceo.com. That’s where I’ll post if and when I do something again, or when I have something to tell you about what comes next.
And thank you. Everyone who listened over the last year or 3, I really appreciate you guys. I’ll be in touch when I have something to talk about.
Cheers,
Jonathan
P.S. A lot of these revelations came from a new workshop I designed for myself and my friends, it’s called “What You Already Know” and after I run it a few more times i’ll share it with you guys.
