Get Off Your Ass And Dance!

I got the following e-mail today from Lord Johnny of Truant and I asked him for permission to reproduce it here for you:

“I’d like to set up some more coaching in the near future. Things have really, really picked up and a month from now, I may well be signing and dancing for joy. At that point, I need to work on getting my house in order and organizing tasks, priorities, and goals. I’m doing well, but I’m scattered and starting to get a bit frazzled.”

Now let me say first and foremost, I love Johnny Truant! He makes me laugh, and what he has done over the last few months has been nothing short of astounding.

In all sorts of financial difficulties (publicly documented on his blog by the way, I’m not breaching client confidentiality) though property investments, he contacted me initially via e-mail and asked for free life coaching.

The cheek of the man, eh? Free life coaching!

Well yeh kind of, until you realize I said yes. I was swayed by him because not only had he contacted me, he’d already spoken to another client of mine, Naomi who runs Itty Biz and I could almost smell the determination.

I’m sure many of you will know Naomi and her blog as she is pretty much an uberblogger round these parts. In fact many people have graven images of her in their garage that they prey to on a daily basis…..probably.

So Johnny had already got Naomi on board to mentor him in the black art of marketing and done it for free.

Fancy that, somebody asked for help and they received it. Is that legal?

No doubt Johnny could have stayed in a job he hated (technically he was sub-contracted, but that’s not the point here) and spent the next few years staring bankruptcy in the face and feeling thoroughly miserable and blaming the world for messing with him. But he didn’t want to do that, because it didn’t sound like fun to him.

So he showed guts, determination, belief, commitment, a strong work ethic and not a little panache too and got on with chasing his dream.

Around the time Johnnys life was going tits up, my niece Anna, lost her job. She was working for a Letting Agency in London and lay offs were happening all across the industry, but even so, she was somewhat surprised.

I suppose she could have used the opportunity to whine and complain about how tough the recession and life was and even taken a month off to dwell on it, but she didn’t.

Here’s what she did. She left the office on the Friday morning and proceeded to spend the next 8 hours walking from Estate Agent (Realtor) to Estate Agent across London asking if they had any vacancies.

At 5.50pm she walked into the last one she had planned for the day and walked out an hour later with not just a job, but a better paid job and one closer to her home too. When she told the guy what she had been doing he was so impressed he interviewed her on the spot and then hired her.Now 6 months down the road she loves her new job and things look brilliant for her.

Similarly, Johnny is now the go-to guy for lots of people when it comes to setting up blogs and doing all sorts of other technical stuff that bores the arse off me, and quite frankly I don’t understand.

Was it an upward curve of delight as each day he moved toward his goal of financially stability and ultimately, financial independence. Was it bollocks! He whined and complained both to me and on his blog about anything and everything.

BUT and it’s a large BUT. He never quit, he never lost sight of what it was he really wanted and he made it happen through sheer force of will and for that he has my utmost respect.

So that’s all the ‘good client’ stuff out of the way, so let’s rip him now for the e-mail.

What’s wrong with it you may be thinking. The poor man is wanting to spend money with you (yes, he now actually pays me in shiny new pennies) and you’re humiliating him on your blog. You bastard Brownson!

Yes I love Johnny, yes he has come a long way, yes I’d like to have him stuffed so I can show him to anybody that tells me it’s impossible to make money in a recession, but we’re not quite there yet.

And in that sentence you have the rub. We will NEVER be quite there. There doesn’t exist because we are always here. Well I’m here, you’re actually there, but you can call it here if you like.

Johnny could have danced when things were looking bleak knowing that they will get better. He could have danced because he showed the kind of guts most people never do, or because he was about to start on an exciting new journey. Or he could just have danced for joy for no reason.

The point is, don’t ever wait to dance!

I have no idea when you’ll be dead, but I do now it will happen at some stage, and you’ll be bummed out when it does happen if you spent all your time preceding it worrying that it may happen. Or something like that.

Now stop reading this blog and go and dance like a knob!

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13 Comments So Far.

Comment by Johnny B. Truant on 24 September 2009:

Okay, three things:

1. Let’s just be clear that I asked Tim for free coaching AT A TIME WHEN HE WAS OFFERING FREE COACHING. I mean, shit, making me look like a mooch there.

2. Everyone reading this should ask Tim for free coaching right now. The results will be hilarious.

3. But see how well a free offer works? I’m hooked as a client and keep recommending him to people.

4. I really like the idea of people PREYing to Naomi. They’ll be all stalking her in tall grass with their predator claws and teeth.

5. How many things is three again?
Comment by Tim Brownson on 24 September 2009:

You have a poor memory Mr Truant. You initially asked me then, but I said No!

And you re-contacted me a few weeks later when the offer was over.

Anyway STF up or I’ll ban you.
Comment by Tracy on 24 September 2009:

Whew, I saw Johnny’s name on the feed and thought is every blog on the internet written by Johnny B. Truant these days. Heh.

It’s been awesome and inspiring watching Johnny over the last year. I’ve learned so much from him and every new success of his brings me encouragement and joy.

I think I can understand his feeling frazzled and scattered, well I know I can, it’s more or less my normal state of being. I can understand the whole dancing now thing, too, because that’s my other state of being, dancing around like a knob.

So, in conclusion, I think everyone in the post and comments section is awesome.
Comment by Johnny B. Truant on 24 September 2009:

Nobody let Tim fool you. He’s always drinking Earl Grey tea and talking about cricket whenever I hook up with him. Did you hear the rumor that he was actually in the Sex Pistols? It’s totally true.
Comment by guy on 25 September 2009:

Sorry I’m a bit confused is Jonny signing or singing?

and do Americans get knob gags?
Comment by Johnny B. Truant on 25 September 2009:

We get knob gags, but it means something different. I personally am not into knob gags, just so we’re clear.
Comment by Tim Brownson on 25 September 2009:

@ Tracy – Yes we are all basking in the warm glow of awesomness.

@ Guy – You confused? Quite frankly I’m amazed, I didn’t know such a thing existed.

@Johnny – Just shut your mouth when you’re talking to me.
Comment by rosostrov.ru on 25 September 2009:

Thank you very much for that astonishing article
Comment by Johnny B. Truant on 25 September 2009:

So in case it’s not yet obvious, Tim is very, very traditional and conservative as a coach.
Comment by Laurie on 26 September 2009:

I love to dance! I can’t imagine waiting until I had a reason. I also love to sing and am annoying everyone with my habit of bursting out in a lovely rendition of “Yellow Submarine”. My friend says I’m ADD.
Comment by Mike Panebianco on 26 September 2009:

Holy Crap Brownson! Did you only give gems like that to the freebies? Just kidding, but I suck at dancing, can I just play my harmonica and call it a day?
Comment by Cath Lawson on 30 September 2009:

I was wondering about the knob thing in the States too Tim. Is dancing like a knob over there, the same as here? Or is like how when someone asks you if you want to shag over there, it’s a lot different to when they ask you here?

Anyway – this Johnny Truant sounds like a decent guy. I’ll be checking him out, to see if I can get owt for nowt out of him.
Comment by Tim Brownson on 30 September 2009:

@ Laurie – Yeh, thanks for putting WALIAYS into my head. Probably the crappiest song the Beatles ever recorded.

@ Mike – The point it to do it, EVEN though you suck. Anybody can do stuff they’re good at, where’s the fun in that?

@ Cath – Not sure about knob jokes, but I just bat on regardless if it makes me laugh.