Josh Janssen
Geek. Thinker. Creator. Explorer

How To Win The Best Job In The World

Josh May 12, 2013 2 Comments
There is an ever growing category in the competition and ‘recruitment’ space. New spinoffs of ‘Best job in the world’ competitions are popping up every month, and they are offering the world.

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”.

Seth Godin — marketing genius and amazing thinker — ingrained  5 important words into my brain while I read his book, Poke The Box; Don’t wait to be picked.True hustle, true greatness, doesn’t come from completing menial tasks against thousands of other participants, dreaming of a better life, dreaming of leaving their mundane job by being PICKED.

Greatness comes from realising that you don’t have to wait for the opportunity to work on what you are passionate about.

Create opportunities. Start now. Create your own best job in the world. One that you have built from working hard and hustling everyday and not from ticking boxes on a competitions entry form.

Pick yourself.

 

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Inspiration
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How To Fix Your Problems

Josh March 17, 2013 No Comments
Are you unhappy with something in your life? Do you think about it everyday? Do you blame someone else for your troubles? Maybe you blame your work for not giving you a pay rise or blame your extra weight on working too hard. Here is a little fact that may just help:

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

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Inspiration, Personal
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DAY ONE: I didn’t eat the Moro Bar

Josh March 6, 2013 No Comments
As day one of my 100 day project comes to an end, I sit on the couch reflecting on my successful day, while I try and not think about what I would normally be doing; eating chocolate.

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.

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Inspiration, Personal
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On Again, Off Again

Josh March 5, 2013 2 Comments

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.

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Personal
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break-up

My Very Public Break Up Letter

Josh February 20, 2013 No Comments

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.

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Inspiration, Personal
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leadership-josh-janssen

Be a Leader, not a Manager

Josh January 6, 2013 No Comments

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. Read more →

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Inspiration, Leadership
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The Power of Remembering

Josh January 3, 2013 1 Comment

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. Read more →

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Memory, Personal
radio-josh-janssen

What I Want Radio To Be In 5 Years

Josh December 29, 2012 No Comments
I have been a long listener of radio, although, in the past five years, I have spent more time listening to audiobooks, podcasts and live streams. I like the audio format. It gives my eyes a break, after looking at computer screens all day. I understand that I am an outlier. Most people are happy with just listening to the radio, however, as technology advances and new applications are made mainstream, there will be a shift.

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. Read more →

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Radio
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Goals For 2013

Josh December 28, 2012 No Comments
I love the new year. It’s the perfect chance to reflect on the past year and set some goals for the year to come. Here are my goals for 2013:

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.
Read more →

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Personal
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Looking Back At 2012

Josh December 28, 2012 3 Comments
Melbourne Geek & San Francisco

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

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. Read more →

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