Fun: How to Love the Work You Do

Are you struggling to balance your work and personal life?

Wondering if the hustle and grind are worth the toll they take on you?

To explore how to bring fun back into your work, I interview Joel Comm.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Joel Comm. Joel co-hosts The Bad Crypto Podcast and is the author of 15 books. His latest book is The Fun Formula: How Curiosity, Risk-Taking, and Serendipity Can Revolutionize How You Work.

Joel shares how he learned the importance of living life on his terms.

You'll discover how the Fun Formula can improve your life.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Fun at Work
Why Joel Wrote The Fun Formula

On social media, businesspeople are bombarded with the message that they need to hustle and grind to succeed. If you want to get to the top, if you want to beat your competition, you need to hustle and grind every day. Get up and into the office before your competition, and work while your friends barbecue on the weekends.

Joel thinks this philosophy is incredibly damaging and counterproductive to a successful business and a fulfilling life. For Joel, hustling or grinding caused him to spin his wheels more than anything else. It hurt him and his relationships. That's why Joel sees this mindset as potentially dangerous.

During his 23 years of doing business online, Joel has succeeded not because he worked incredibly long hours, but because he was curious, explored something he was passionate about, took a risk and was willing to fail, and allowed things to unfold in a natural manner. Essentially, he succeeded when he was having the most fun.

Joel thinks the hustle and grind mentality goes back to his parents' generation. They believed hard work is a virtue, and so does Joel. At times, you do need to buckle down and do the work. But the hustle and grind mentality is unsustainable as a lifestyle. Just because working hard sometimes is a good thing doesn't mean working hard all the time is even better.

Listen to the show to hear my thoughts on balancing work and fun.

Authenticity on Social Media

Social media encourages people to share only the positive things in their lives, not the real difficulties or struggles that they're having. People want to seem popular with lots of friends and also highly successful. Some people focus on promoting themselves and sharing only what's good. Others lie about who they really are and what they're going through.

Another issue is relying on social feedback (such as likes, comments, shares, follows, and retweets) for one's self-esteem or sense of self-worth. This social feedback pumps people up.

However, social media wasn't intended to be a place where people's lives seem perfect or are validated with likes, comments, and shares. Joel thinks these issues put the focus in the wrong place. Rather, Joel has the most respect for people who are authentic on social media by sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly. They're the people he's most likely to trust and buy from.

In addition to authenticity, I mention the fear of missing out. Because I've been working hard on some projects, I'm not active on Instagram or doing anything with stories on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. Although I enjoy watching my colleagues share stories about their lives, I also wonder if I'm doing something wrong because I'm not sharing stories. I ask for Joel's thoughts on this fear.

Joel responds by describing how his activity on Snapchat has changed. Before marketers became active on Snapchat, Joel was making original, creative, engaging content. His Snapchat following grew quickly,