Harpreet: [00:00:09] What's up, everybody? Welcome to the @ArtistsOfData Science today. We've got a Conversations episode where we get to hear from people who are doing interesting work, pursuing their dreams and adding value to the world when get inside their heads, see what makes them tick and walk away with a new perspective that will help us in our journeys. These episodes are much less structured and formal than what you normally hear on the show. The raw, unedited and produced for the most part. Thank you for tuning in and I'd love to hear what you think about these episodes. Feel free to email me at the theartistsofdatascience@gmail.com with your thoughts. Harpreet: [00:00:41] Our guest today is a Data analyst, career adviser and LinkedIn content connoisseur. He's the career whisperer and golden goose laying eggs of wisdom and knowledge for smart and confused young professionals, a passionate advocate for bringing the power of self-awareness to the job search for early career professionals. He served as an adviser to highly talented young professionals who are looking to set the world on fire. So please help me welcoming our guest today, a man who's here to give us his testimony. Jonathan Tesser, Jonathan Mann, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to come on to the show today. Jonathan Tesser: [00:01:38] Thanks so much Harpreet. I'm just sitting here smiling because the hype was just wonderful. I feel like the Chicago Bulls from the nineteen eighties when they would play that song. Yeah. And the guy was like screaming. Michael Jordan is a little bit like that. Harpreet: [00:01:52] Harpreet Sahota said a man. Well, you know what, I'm Jonathan Tesser: [00:01:55] Feeling hyped up on Friday morning. Harpreet: [00:01:58] I'm super, super excited. I've been trying [00:02:00] to get you on the show for a while and I'm so happy we made this workout. And following you, I think you started appearing on my radar LinkedIn just a little over a year ago. And I was like, oh, man. Jonathan Tesser: [00:02:09] oh, man! Harpreet: [00:02:10] Yeah. Jonathan Tesser: [00:02:10] You're one of my original followers, congrats man! Yeah, I've only been doing this for about a year. So if you've been around and you've been seeing seeing me tucked away and grind away, that's really great. Appreciate it. Harpreet: [00:02:23] That's crazy. So you just started about a year ago and then you've grown your following up to the six figures in that relatively short time. Jonathan Tesser: [00:02:31] I know it's really crazy. It's meteoric. And I started the year since. This is a Data podcast. We can talk Data. I started the year around fifteen thousand connections, mostly in the Data sphere, just connecting to young professionals and grad students working in Data and in higher level. So just to have a big network of Data folks. And yeah, then I just started posting content and people started following it and I'm like, all right. And it just kind of spiraled from there. So yeah, it's been a it's been a meteoric rise. It's pretty crazy. I was not expecting it at all. Harpreet: [00:03:07] Yeah, it's awesome to see because I don't think I actually realized you at Data guy until maybe about six or seven months after I followed you. And then I was like, oh, wait, he's actually Data person. And that's pretty cool, right? Because I think that's one thing I I've read some of your blogs. There's many things we have in common. But one of the things we have in common definitely is that we just don't always post about Data related type of stuff. That's right. So kind of what was the decision to go? Let me help you make that decision to go into that direction where I'm a Data person, but I'm not just talking about Data. Jonathan Tesser: [00:03:40] So I am a Data person, but I don't know if you know this term. Harpreet, audience development? No. Does that mean anything to you? OK, good. I'll see your podcast listen or something. So I'm actually my whole life have used Data to connect content to audiences, but I've done it for brands. So if you look at my profile, I've worked at New [00:04:00] York magazine, I worked at Betty Black Entertainment Television, lots of different sort of places where I'm looking at content performance, imagining the people who are reading it, trying to get it into their heads and saying how do we get them to read more of stuff that this is actually relevant to how I've done my own story. Right. So when I started posting on LinkedIn, I never, ever meant to post anything on LinkedIn in terms of content. Just one day I posted a random post that it was like, oh, here's the three different types of Data analysts. This is my first viral post ever anywhere. I was like, you got your got your Data engineers, you got your Data strategist's and you got your Data. I call them productize hours. Those are your data scientists, right? The ones who create products out of Data AIs. You got to fit into one of these categories or another or else people love this. Jonathan Tesser: [00:04:51] I was like, oh my God. And at the time I got like I don't know, a hundred and fifty reactions. I was just like, whoa, got an audience for stuff. And this was very Data. Right. So I was like, really excited. I'm like, oh my God, people want to hear what I have to say about Data you imagine the excitement because I've never posted anything on social media in my life and that was cool. And then one day I woke up on a Saturday morning and my feet, I would go through my seat and it was a lot of young professionals and I noticed something. And I'm like every young professional on here is saying how humbled and honored they are to work at Adobe and get a job there, big picture of a logo or standing in front of a logo or something like that, like selling off. Like I got this job. Look at me. I'm so it's awesome. And I said, well, instead of showing off young people getting these jobs, why don't you get back? Why don't you tell people how you got the job? Why don't you say if you if anybody in my network needs a job here, wants help, let me know and I'll help you figure out what I did. Jonathan Tesser: [00:05:55] Right. And this became actually the constant theme of every single post I have. Ever put out [00:06:00] since literally like these are statements that pose literally written in I want 30 seconds to a minute when mega viral, it's still my biggest post ever. It is thirty thousand reactions or something like that. I just went completely wild and I was then thrust into the spotlight on one post and I just took it from there and I've been going ever since. So that's the story of how I got started. And the reason I mentioned the audience development stuff is because I'm like, oh, well, I'm a Data guy. I'm just going to write about Data. That's what people want to read about. Right, because they see Data and I've been mentoring Data professionals and all that. But the audience development guy saw, whoa, I can put content out about ego and being a good person and commentary on young professionals in their behavior and networking. And I'm like, wow, the whole world opened up. And that's where you see the kind of content that I now put out on a regular basis. Harpreet: [00:06:57] Yeah, absolutely. I've seen that. And like the magic you are able to do with thirteen hundred characters, it's really phenomenal. Like, how did you get so good at writing. Was this just something that you've always done. No. No. So to talk to you about that, Jonathan Tesser: [00:07:13] I really appreciate that. I appreciate it. It almost took me for a shock that you like my writing because I still to this day don't consider myself a professional writer. Right? When people when I see journalists or I see people who work in media and they're actual writers, I'm like, oh, you're a writer. I'm just playing one on TV. Right. I'm not a writer, but I appreciate the kind. And it's a skill that works itself out just like any other. When I was first putting posts out on LinkedIn, I wasn't very proud of what I was doing, wasn't very good. It was OK. Right. But over time when you do it so much, it becomes second nature. You don't even sink. It gets to the point where if I just literally sit down in front of a piece of paper and the writing happens. Right. And that's one of the [00:08:00] things that I say to people is if you write with a motion, your audience is going to feel it. And it's like that's the only thing that matters. So when you sit in front of a piece of paper, you should feel something as you're writing. Jonathan Tesser: [00:08:13] Right. And you let those emotions write it. As soon as the logical brain takes over, the effectiveness of the writing becomes less, you know what I'm saying? So it's actually a piece of advice that I give to a lot of people. If you want to be effective at writing either on LinkedIn or in blogs or something like that, and you want to connect to an audience, you have to write with exactly how you feel and you have to translate that onto a piece of paper. Now I'm making it seem really simple Harp people have told me it's not. So I just take it for granted because for me it is really easy. And I write two posts per day. I publish one a little bit before adding another one at around 11. And this may surprise you, but it only takes me an hour to write all of my posts for the week. So I sit down on a Saturday morning and they're all written and then I'm done. So I don't I don't seem to run out of ideas. And luckily for me, it's not terribly time consuming. Harpreet: [00:09:11] Yeah. Like that. You venture off into topics that really help showcase the full range of things that you are interested in and things that you have an opinion about. So they're posting on LinkedIn. Right? Like me, for example, I share mostly about mindset and things of that nature because that's something I'm passionate about. That's something I feel like I have an opinion on. Even though I am a data scientist starting at Data science practice from scratch at a huge company like I don't feel like I have that many opinions about Data science, like it's what I do for work. It's how I make money. It might be my audience, but like I don't really have that many opinions about it enough to start posting on LinkedIn and things like that. So we're thinking of things to make a post about. Should it be something that we strongly have an opinion about or should we just do it for the audience out [00:10:00] there? Because I can post Data science stuff all day to just get people excited about whatever. Jonathan Tesser: [00:10:05] Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry. I mean, it's just the answer to this question is obvious. I think you and I are of the same mind, whatever is on your mind right about it. If it's something you're passionate about, if it's something that makes you feel right about it, if you want to write about basket weaving and how much you love basket weaving and why you love it, your audience is going to respond to that because it's coming from the heart and it's coming from who you are. It may you well, that's not LinkedIn appropriate content. I mean, I've I wrote recently just just to throw a wrench, what is LinkedIn appropriate content. I wrote a post this past Saturday and I wanted to test it. This is what I mean by audience development. I'm always testing. I'm like, can I how far can I push? And I put a post out on Saturday and I said, I'm a guy and I struggle with weight issues and I struggle with how I look. Right. And so I put this out and shit, dude, I got sorry. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to curse, but. Harpreet: [00:10:59] I just always had no good shape. Jonathan Tesser: [00:11:05] I never know what the rules are on podcasts, and I go for, you know, we're talking metrics, right? This is a Data science podcast. The Post is at one hundred ten thousand views and counting. Right. So like that to me is viral. Anything over one hundred thousand I have like that. That's viral. And it wasn't it wasn't about work. It was just about me having body issues. Right. And talking about a gender thing that's uncomfortable for most people to talk about. So it just goes to show if it's something that you feel people are going to feel it to and they're going to say, I can't believe he said that. It's really great. He's giving me permission to have a dialog about this stuff. And I see myself as the arbiter of those dialogs that are difficult to have. Harpreet: [00:11:43] This concept of LinkedIn appropriate, not LinkedIn appropriate. I'm like, show me the fucking terms and conditions where it says that I can't talk about what I want to talk about on LinkedIn, where in the agreement when you sign up for LinkedIn, does it say don't talk about it personally? Like how do people have this this [00:12:00] like idea? What do you think this comes from? Jonathan Tesser: [00:12:03] Oh, I love that question, Harpreet. I mean, we could spend the rest of the questions. We could spend the rest of the podcast talking about that people have a conception of what work is supposed to be and what their place within work is supposed to be. First of all, everybody seems scared that they're going to lose their job if they post anything about anything. Right. So I get I don't know about you, Harpreet. I'm not sure how many messages you get where it's like if I post about this, I'm going to get fired. Right. I I've gotten like a variation of that at least one hundred five hundred times. Right. So people have this conception that if you post something that's personal or vulnerable or shows a human side, that an employer is going to find out and say, you're fired. Right. You're like, I think it gets to the point. The answer to the question is there's a preconceived notion of how you're supposed to be in a workplace. And that notion is wear a suit of armor every day that does not show who you are. That just shows off and talks about how great you are and brags and talks about how you succeed. And it doesn't talk about any of the difficulties you're going through. And people the majority of people, I want to say about ninety five percent of people on LinkedIn act this way. Right. That that they're not going through anything, that they're doing great, that that everything in their world is perfect. And I'm here to just throw a dagger and all that, a grenade and blow it all up and say I am the least perfect person, you know, but I got a big following here on LinkedIn. Why don't you follow my example? Harpreet: [00:13:36] Yeah, I love to love them. And I remember that post made about having these these body image issues because I see avocado shaped man myself, like I very much resonated with that. So I'm speaking about messaging people and getting in contact with people on LinkedIn. I know you and I both get tons of messages every single day. What [00:14:00] are some of the ways that people are messaging you that you're just like, oh my God, man, like you don't you do not get it. This is not how you do this. Jonathan Tesser: [00:14:09] It's so funny that you asked me that, Harpreet. It's like you're in my brain. Literally five minutes before I got on this call with you, I wrote a post saying exactly what you should not do. I describe myself, Harpreet, because of these messages. And I think you're going to like this. I'm a piece of taffy and everybody's trying to grab off a piece of that toffee that's being stretched and pulled literally in a million directions. Right. It's like millions of people wanting and taking and all of this. Right. And the human the human mind can only take so much of that. You talk about mindset. We're not trained to have that kind of volume of stuff coming at us. Right. That's not that's not how humans were programed. We were never meant to take on that much, quote unquote, stimuli. Right. So the messages that drive me crazy are it's very simple. It comes down to this. John, do something for me. That is that's it, and that's what my post is about. It's about John, do something for me and Harp I've gone to a point and I don't know where you are here. Jonathan Tesser: [00:15:14] And I think hopefully this will elicit a little bit of a chuckle from you. I've gotten to a point where if I get a John, do something for me, I say, I'm sorry, you're a stranger. I don't know you and you haven't done anything for me. So I'm going to politely decline your request to do something. And I actually say this out loud now to get somebody to think about the request that they're bringing on me with my hundred ten thousand followers, that they want me to do something for them, whether it's a resume review, comment on a post this or that or the other. You are literally not thinking about why I would want to do that. Yeah, and I've gotten to a point [00:16:00] where I either ignore it or I'm going to come at you and I'm going to make you uncomfortable for doing that to me, because you took time out of my day where I had to process that message you sent to me that said do something Harpreet: [00:16:13] That happens to me so many times. It's like, can you please give me a job at your company? I'm like, we're not even close. Like, am I supposed to just hire you? But I get these type of messages all the time. Right? And for a while I just started ignoring them. And then I was like, let me do a little experiment. If somebody would reach out to me for anything, I'd be like I'd be happy to help you. But the one thing I can never get back in my life is my time. So if I invest my time into you for this session of help or whatever, you need to help me save time somewhere else in my life. So if you really want to, you can clean my transcripts from my podcast and you can annotate the show notes for me because that takes me about two to three hours to do. I'll be more than willing to return that time and help you out. Brilliant. Almost nobody responds after that. Jonathan Tesser: [00:17:00] I love that Harp. That's really great. I have the same thing. Yeah, I love that you're demonstrating that, that you're asking them to put them in your shoes. Right. And say I need something done. If you want to take my time, I'm going to take yours and you want value from me. You either pay me for that or you do something for me. There's got to be a value exchange because you are now seeing this networking relationship as transactional. And if I'm known as anything on LinkedIn Harpreet, I am known as the non transactional networking guy, if you follow me, for even among the will be at least five to 10 posts showing up on my page saying I don't do transactions, dude, I'm in here for relationships and connections with people. If you want something and you're being transactional, I will cut you out so fast because I ain't got time for that. I got time for people getting to know them. But I don't have time [00:18:00] for the tit for tat, Harpreet: [00:18:01] You absolutely love that, and I think that might be one of the ways that people are using LinkedIn in the wrong way. It's just Jonathan Tesser: [00:18:07] Absolutely and Harpreet: [00:18:08] Asking them to do things for them where you should be. Cultivating relationships and cultivating relationships takes effort and it takes a lot of work. And with your one hundred and ten thousand followers, with the people that you have managed to cultivate a relationship, what were some of the things that they did? Right. Jonathan Tesser: [00:18:25] Oh, that's happened. I asked them to take on my emotional burden and I'll get more into that. In order to have a successful networking relationship with me, you have to be comfortable that when I come to you and say I'm struggling with this or do you believe this or I am dealing with this, respond and talk to me about it. You've got to be there. And the successful relationships I've built on LinkedIn are about that. It's about the facts and it is a test of a sort Harp because I have to test these relationships. Actions speak louder than words. Right. And the way I test it is, are you going to be there when I'm expressing something that I need your emotion. I'm going to take some of your emotional capital from you and I'm going to use it for myself because I want to see if you're going to respond. Can you do that? And to your point, Harpreet, 90 percent of people can't write this the same thing as you asking for the transcripts. And I'm asking for emotional support. If you can't give the emotional support, you're cut out, because if you want to build an effective relationship with someone, that reciprocation of emotional support has to be there. You understand my point, because people have no problem spewing their emotional vomit onto me. I'm just being really graphic for a second. So I know that I'm very aware that I'm all of the emotions are coming at me and I'm aware of that. I'm keenly aware. And so if you want to have a reciprocal relationship, you have to be able to take on my emotional [00:20:00] burden as well. Most people can't, but those that can become close confidants. Harpreet: [00:20:05] Yeah, I absolutely love it. And I have a phrase for which I'll probably get canceled for saying right now. So I apologize in advance if anybody gets offended by this. But I use the phrase emotional tampon like I am not your emotional tampon to not bleed all over me. I'm a mentor at Data Timestream Job. We've got almost three thousand students and for about two plus years I was doing about four office hours a week and it finally got to the point where I just broke like I could not agree or no, no, no. It's a paid platform student, three grand to join one time fee. So I'm the principal mentor there. And it was started by Kyle McCue. I joined the thing as a student myself and failed my way up to mentor somehow. But it gets draining because it was just me giving so much and I don't have a mentor there myself for that emotional support you're talking about. It just led to me being burnt out. I had to take two weeks off of that thing and not not talk to anybody because it was just so draining. I understand definitely what you mean. Jonathan Tesser: [00:21:08] Yeah, I mean, I made the same mistake Harp I used to give myself freely and expect nothing in return and I burned out. And the thing that I say is as when I was giving, I got resentful and I don't know if you did too hard. For some reason I got resentful as I would give and I would give and I would give and I would help. And those people would just give my life like they got what they needed from me. And they left. And it created this idea that the human experience isn't such a wonderful thing. You have to you have to force people to be. It sounds awful, but you really have to put them on the spot and say, if you want to stick around, I'm going to show you what it means to stick around. And because otherwise I'm just going to be exhausted. And if you're not adding value, then you're taking value. Harpreet, I have a very I think you didn't answer the question, but I'm going to I'm going [00:22:00] to change the subject a little bit here into something really interesting of who I choose to have video chats with. And how that works, I do about three to four video chats a week, always with young professionals, because you saw the golden goose who gives back to young professionals. And I actually lay down ground rules for my video chats. Jonathan Tesser: [00:22:22] And I say, you're not going to talk about career. We're not going to talk about advice in the industry. We're not going to talk about Data. We're none of that. We were just going to get to know each other as human beings and we're going to have fun and we're going to hopefully start laughing. We're talking about something serious or just connected in some way. And I say, if you're interested in that, we can have a video chat as soon as something comes up that's career related or you're asking my advice is something I'm going to end that conversation because that is now you're taking up my time to help you with something that's that's not what this is about. This is about getting to know each other and establishing the baseline of that relationship. I actually ended a chat earlier with a young woman this week because the conversation was veering too much. Do you have advice for what I should do with my career? And I said I literally said very abruptly, and it can be seen as rude, but it's not because I'm protecting myself. And I said very abruptly, we're ending this chat right now because this has gone in the direction of me giving you advice and that's broken my rules. So I wish you well. I've enjoyed our time together, and I'll see you later. Harpreet: [00:23:33] It's hard to give advice to people when you don't know them, right? Like people me all the time. Like asking me for for advice on a major life decisions such as go to school A, B or C, I'm like, dude, I don't even know you, man. Like, how am I supposed to help you with this decision? Like, I know absolutely nothing about your circumstances and that's why it's important to kind of cultivate that relationship and then maybe ask when maybe down the road. Jonathan Tesser: [00:23:57] I know you and you've taken on some of my emotional capital [00:24:00] and you've given to me because you gave me an hour of your time where I felt like a good like I felt good because we laughed and we released some good energy. Then if you want to come down the road and say, hey, I want to review something, I'm going to be more open to it. I may not say yes, but I'm going to be like, that makes sense at least. Right. We've established a baseline of a relationship here, but I'll still push back on people and say, then, you know what, that's that's paid for. I don't have time for that even after the call. Harpreet: [00:24:29] So when it comes to trying to find, like a mentor for yourself, what are some good ways to go about doing that? Jonathan Tesser: [00:24:37] I have no mentors. Let's talk about that for a second. Yeah, it's not because I'm an arrogant ass. It's because my way of getting mentorship is through human interaction with everybody I meet. I don't think of this as a cop out answer Harp. It's not what I mean by that is. And again, it gets back to who I choose to have video chats with. If you're from a different background from me and I find that interesting and I don't know anyone from that background. Now, you're my mentor in a way, because you're inspiring me because I'm learning a new perspective. And mentorship for me just means how can I grow? How can I grow as a person? How can I become better? How can I how can this personal development hamster wheel continue to turn in a positive direction? And so each person I talked to, I say to them, I'm like, you are my inspiration. A single mentor to me doesn't work for me not. And again, this is not to sound like an arrogant ass, but I can't imagine someone, some one person being able to point me in a direction that I should go because I don't want to be like anyone. I want to be like me. And so I'm going through the world trying to become more of me and a more genuine and authentic version of me every day. I don't see [00:26:00] how a mentor is going to allow me to do that. Harpreet: [00:26:08] Jonathan Tesser: [00:27:11] It's literally I mean, the dude is like, what's I don't know. That was twenty five hundred years ago. Like, yeah, that's the same thing I'm saying. Yeah, I, I cannot become someone else. I can only see what they do and I'm only getting a portion of what they're doing through the interaction I have with them. I'm not really getting the full version of them, so how can I know I want to be like someone. It's it's a false being, the being that I want to be. Right. We've got real deep here. Right. But that's why saw being that I want to be is a projection of what I think they are not what they are in reality. I like that. You understand. Yeah, it's a little deep, but it's true. It's not actually that that I want to be. It's the projected version. It's the idealistic version. It's the grass is greener version of who they are without actually knowing who they are. [00:28:00] Right. And I think you've actually gotten to the essence of what I'm doing on LinkedIn, which is I'm going to show you who I am and I'm going to dare you to not want to be like me. I don't want anyone to be like me. I want you to take what I'm doing and be like you and be and have the courage to share all sides of yourself with yourself. If I'm doing anything, that's what I want you to be. Harpreet: [00:28:24] Yeah, I like that love. And and I mean, part of what I was reflecting on that quote from Seneca this morning, literally reading your page, my journal right now, it's it's I was thinking about how I take in so much input, but don't give myself enough time to process that the size and then produce something new because it feels like I'm just parroting everything I read now, which I don't write. So yeah, Jonathan Tesser: [00:28:51] I love that Harp. It's really self-aware of you to realize that what I do, I'm not going to say what you have to do. One of my rules is never to give advice. I literally if you've read any of my posts, I don't tell you what to do ever. I demonstrate and you can choose to do with it what you want. I don't believe in giving advice. However, that being said, one of the things that I do to deal with that situation is I give myself, I want to say at least an hour to two hours every day. To sell for reflect and to just let my mind go where it needs to go and then to use some sort of metacognition Harp to say, why is my mind going there? What's really going on here so that I can fully process the thing that's happening and come to some sort of conclusion as to why it's happening. If I don't do that, Harp what happens is those emotions that haven't been processed get used in unproductive ways. So you take out anger, frustration on people who are closest to you, which both of us would be our families. Right. And they become the burden [00:30:00] they take on the burden of what you're dealing with rather than you having processed it yourself. Harpreet: [00:30:04] Yeah, absolutely. That I spend usually the first hour of my mourning and reflection. I do the morning pages, by the way, morning pages, but to the Camron. So three pages long form, just writing out whatever's in mind and then the various other forms of reflection and let the personal development stuff. And this is the only personal development podcast for Data scientists. That's what the artists of Data Sciences. And you've been on this journey for, for ten years and it is a lonely journey. So talk to me about what makes personal development so lonely. Jonathan Tesser: [00:30:37] I'm going to start with this. And again, it's very hard for me to say things without sounding like just some sort of arrogant ass who's floating above everybody. And that is not the goal of what I'm trying to say. But I consider myself to be a personal development Olympian. And I use the analogy of a swimmer when I talk about this. Swimmers train to become better swimmers. They use the right strokes and they analyze how to be more efficient in the water. And what we see is a beautiful swimmer out there who looks effortless, but put in thousands of hours to get to that point. And we say that they are better at swimming than we are. Right. We don't have a problem with that. Right. To say that Michael Phelps is no one in the world is going to have a problem with this statement. Michael Phelps is a better swimmer than I am. The reason I mention this is I'm a personal development Olympian, right. I have gone through so much personal development and understanding of who I am that I'm operating on a level that very few people are. And that's why this can sound elitist or obnoxious or somehow I'm better. But that's not what I mean. What I mean is I can process exactly why something is happening to me from a very, very deep level. Right. Very quickly, within five seconds, I'm aware of exactly why you said something that triggered me in a certain way, processing that and then coming back to you with a response that's Olympic [00:32:00] level, personal self development. Jonathan Tesser: [00:32:02] And so the reason it's very lonely is because I'm an Olympian and most people are not. Most people are at a certain level of automatic response as opposed to reflective response. Because of that, it's very hard to interact with the world because you think everybody's going to be like you write Harp you think everybody is an Olympian. You think they all know how to self reflect. You think they all realize why they're triggered within five seconds of something. But you realize and the reason it's lonely is that no one is there on your level. And so you always have to, quote unquote, be the better person because you know better. Right. It's like a parent child relationship where everybody is sort of operating automatically and you know better because of what you've been through and a lot of the burden that is put on you. Right. And so the loneliness comes because it's like I don't know who to talk to about this stuff. I'm operating on this level. And hopefully that's coming across to some of your podcasts because we have this very deep philosophical conversation and I don't have any one to turn to to be like, what do you think of that? Because no one's there going to be like, I don't really know what you're talking about, Harpreet: [00:33:13] Like nodding my head in aggressive agreement because I know what you mean. Like, I've only been on this journey since, like July twenty eighteen. I woke up or I just woke up one day and I just can't do this anymore. This is not I'm not living my life right now. I'm not thinking the way I want to be thinking and just headed down this path of self development for about two and a half years now, almost almost three years. And it does get frickin lonely as hell then, like for everything you're saying, because nobody else can relate to you. Nobody else wants to put in the work to get better. I mean, I don't say nobody, but at least Jonathan Tesser: [00:33:48] Ninety five percent of people don't want to put the work in. And it makes sense. I understand why they don't. It is painful and wrenching and it's literally looking into the depths of hell. And I'm not exaggerating. Harpreet: [00:33:58] Yeah, no, it's not easy. [00:34:00] Like I notice that the quality of my relationships have changed. I don't talk to some people as much as you do. I don't really interact with people the same way in terms of people I used to hang out with. Yes, it's lonely, man. It's hard. So much effort. So how do you deal with that? Because, I mean, it's difficult for me because I have nobody else to talk to about this type of stuff. Right. Jonathan Tesser: [00:34:18] So I know you got me Harp. We're going to stay in touch after this. We're going to be. So we're going to hold each other accountable, so it's really if we got anything out of this podcast's, that's that's what we got. From now on, I'm going to be there for you. And I think that's the whole thing. It's tough. I've tried to form inner circles with people who get it on some level. And I want to say that my efforts there have largely been failures. I mean, I've talked very openly about that, where I've tried to bring people in to this process. And the reason I say it's failures is because I'm like, I don't think you're providing the right level of empathy or understanding that I need at this point. You're not able to give that. And it's not I'm not saying it as an insult to somebody. I'm saying I'm just not getting what I would like out of it. You know what I'm saying? Harp like it is. And that's what makes it even lonelier, is that you're trying to connect this with some people in your life and you're trying to be like, I'm I'm throwing out I'm going fishing and I'm throwing out my my real. And I want you to grab the bait and I want you to bring in U.N. and can you handle it? And then they can't most of the time. And that actually adds to the loneliness because you're just like, well, then no one gets me and I'm back to being a 16 year old kid or is like, no one understands me. The world is out to get me. Yeah, it is really, really hard. I'm not I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say I've been successful. And now every day is a struggle where you're like, I'm feeling something, but I got no one to talk to. Yeah. Harpreet: [00:35:54] I mean, for me, it's just like I'm not everything I could be and I know it and I recognize it. And now it's like, dude, how can I become [00:36:00] everything that I could be right? And then the hard part is actually figuring out what could I become like, where could I take this journey of life? So this pause and reflect for a second here. So talk about self development and this lonely journey that can at times also feel like you're being a bit selfish. Right. Because like I said, I've got a 10 month old baby wife who is and you take care of the baby, and I'm just carving time to come down to the to my office and be by myself, which can feel really selfish when she's when she's up there taking care of the baby in the morning. Can selfishness be a virtue? Jonathan Tesser: [00:36:39] I don't see it as selfish at all. I see it as doing a service to the world. I see that your efforts to become a better person, the way that I see this and actually wanted to write a book about it, but it would be over everybody's head. Harpreet, so bear with me for a second. The journey on personal development. The more you go into your own depths of hell, the more time you spend doing this. It's not self-indulgent on a selfish at all. It means that you can give back to the world what I call the five sort of human traits of maturity in a better way. Right. And I list those out as empathy, compassion, patience, equanimity, which means being able to not be too high or low and wisdom. You are cultivating these five virtues of humanity in a way where you're now giving back to the earth and in a better way than than it was last. Right. And then that's what I'm trying to do in my LinkedIn content is to give back to the Earth and leave my legacy in a way where it's it's better off with me having been in it than not having been it. I'm a net positive. And so when you're calling it selfish, it's actually not at all. It's you are now giving yourself the capacity to deal with that ten month old while she's screaming in your face and you're trying to give her her food, you're actually allowed you're giving yourself the space to be able to handle and process those difficult moments. It's actually a.. Selfish. [00:38:00] It's actually giving, I would say, back to society. Back to your family. Harpreet: [00:38:05] Yeah, I like that. Jordan Peterson has this quote from one of his talks. He talks about, if you don't take the time to fix yourself properly, you'll pay for it and so will the people around you. Jonathan Tesser: [00:38:14] Brilliant. Harpreet: [00:38:15] So let's talk real quickly. You mentioned you mentioned empathy. What are some other soft skills that highly analytical people are missing sales? Jonathan Tesser: [00:38:25] I talk about it a lot. Harpreet: [00:38:25] Yeah, but one of my favorite quotes is from Already Gone. And he says essentially learn to build, learn so he can do both. He'll be unstoppable. Jonathan Tesser: [00:38:34] Brilliant comment. I mean, I don't have much to add to that. My boss said this to me the other day. She's like you. Exactly that comment. She's like, you can sell you can convince people you build relationships and you can sell and convince and influence. And the number of analysts who can do that is basically zero because analysts are really good at going inwards and want the analysts to speak for itself and want people to be proud of what they do. But nearly zero of them, you can use percentages, maybe two percent, maybe two percent of them actually sells that analysis to people who are supposed to read it and say, pay attention to me. It's important for this reason. That's what selling is. Selling is saying, I'm worth paying attention to. You're worth you're worth being influenced by me if you don't have those sales skills. Harp, your career Data is going to hit a plateau, guaranteed you want to rise up the ranks. It's not going to be by writing the most elegant Python script, it's not going to be making the best algorithm is going to be selling and people interaction, particularly with people who are non Data people who view you with skepticism. Right. They look at you as a Data person and they're like, you're just trying to get me fired. I don't like you. You can convince that person that. No, no, no, no, we're allies. I'm just trying to make you do your job better. Now you rise the ranks of the Data worlds, right? Until you if you're not able to do that level [00:40:00] of communication and you're not able to build up those kind that kind of rapport and you're not able to sell your limited is just a doer. And doers don't get paid the big bucks. Do her sit behind the screen and make the things so that the sellers can go and make the impact on the organization. Harpreet: [00:40:18] How can we cultivate these skills for salesmanship? Do you have like a book or some courses that you need? Jonathan Tesser: [00:40:26] Everybody should start with the classic, shouldn't they? There's two classic books that I recommend to everyone. The Dale Carnegie How to make Friends and Influence People almost one hundred years old at this point. It's still a brilliant book. Oh my God. Harpreet: [00:40:41] Yeah, that book is work on that. Jonathan Tesser: [00:40:42] I read that, internalize that, internalize the things he's saying because it is one hundred percent absolutely relevant to this day. The things that he's telling the second book I tell you to read where I tell people to read when I say cultivate this is Daniel Paints Tells You is a classic and it's a necessary read for all Data analysts. Yeah. Because you should have no shame in the fact that you're selling. It should not be seen as a bad thing. It should be seen as something that's good because you're you're able to promote this idea that analytics or what you're doing is something that's important. And he says that is a human trait that is natural to us as humans, as drinking water, eating food is to sell those two books and combine are a great starting point. And then, of course, there's a third one, which is this Robert Cardini influence book. Yeah. Which is also must be internalized. Like I'm a little bit adamant about these things. Right. These three books in combination with each other are going to set you apart from 90 to ninety five percent of the analysts are going to set you in the right direction. Now, analysts hate this because they're like, well, I'm an objective truth to you. Jonathan Tesser: [00:41:58] There's no such thing. You're not [00:42:00] you're not objective truth seeker. You have an agenda. Admit it. And your agenda is is something and figure out what that is and sell it. Don't don't be ashamed of that. We have a real problem in Data, in the Data education realm that the technique is all we teach. We don't teach this other stuff that's really going to make you successful. And I don't know why that happened. I have some beliefs about that, Harpreet. I believe it's because the computer scientists and the mathematicians took over Data, whereas when I started twenty years ago in Data, it was the social scientists who were running the show, the people who were the business people. Right. So it was marketers and social scientists and business people who then dabbled in analytics. So there was a lot more there was a lot more of that integration. Now, because you have so many technicians who come into the field and who believe that because everything the real way of being successful is being crowded out because technicians don't believe in this kind of stuff. They're not open to it as much. Harpreet: [00:43:04] Now, I love that. Absolutely. Of that great book recommendations. And if you guys don't want to read three books, we've got one book by mutual friend of ours that I think should get a shout out. Gilbride Killing People Skills for Analytical Thinkers. You can listen to the interview I did with him way back then. They'll be a good one for you guys as well. Jonathan, let's do one last formal question before we jump into what I like to call the random round. It's one hundred years in the future. What do you want to be remembered for? Jonathan Tesser: [00:43:32] I want to be remembered by people who interacted with me. Realizing that you're not perfect is OK. It's very simple realizing that you're a flawed human being and looking at that flawed human being and saying, that's cool. It's who I am, you know, that's a part of who I am. If I can get even one person to recognize that I've left an amazing legacy. Harpreet: [00:43:55] I like that. I like that. Go ahead and jump into [00:44:00] the random round. So. When do you think the first video to hit one trillion views on YouTube will happen, and what will that video be about? Jonathan Tesser: [00:44:11] Great question. I didn't realize it didn't happen, but it's got to be some sort of music video, pop cultural phenomenon. I'm thinking Psy and Ghanim style. Right. Or something like Blurred Lines. Yeah. Or just like I'm thinking of, like, these videos that I like, I don't know, almost a billion. Harpreet: [00:44:33] Esposito had the most things out, like over eight billion, but it was recently toppled over by baby Shakib. Jonathan Tesser: [00:44:41] There you go. So I think I mean, that's just from my own experience. It's got to be a pop culture phenomenon with the music twist. And that's what's going to going to make it happen. Those are going to be the highest viewed videos on on YouTube. Harpreet: [00:44:55] And when do you think that would happen? Jonathan Tesser: [00:44:57] Oh, God, I have no idea. I can't predict. I'm not even going to throw a number out. Harpreet: [00:45:04] Do you think you have to achieve something in order to be worth something? Jonathan Tesser: [00:45:09] No, you don't have to. I don't know what it was. These are there's so much there's so many problems with that statement. What does it mean to achieve? I hate that word. Have I achieved something when I asked this question rhetorically on LinkedIn? If I if I have what's considered by society to be a menial job, if I work as a gas station attendant, but I'm spending four hours a day meditating, reflecting on life and being a good person and volunteering at a soup kitchen and all that, who was more successful? Me or Steve Jobs, who was known as a not very emotionally intelligent person, but but actually achieved something by society who was more successful? I asked people to reflect on that. My answer is actually the gas attendant was more successful. He's working to better this earth by by being a better person, even though his job [00:46:00] is not seen as successful or achieved. Right. So we are not asking the right questions to begin with. We're defining success in a very narrow scope of what it means to be successful rather than thinking of success as being a better person. Harpreet: [00:46:16] To love that. What are you currently reading? Jonathan Tesser: [00:46:20] You're going to love this one, Harp, I never wanted a following and I never wanted to be famous and I can't deny the fact that I have achieved some level of fame. OK, that's just a fact. Judging by the way people interact with me, judging by the amount of comments, judging by the fact that I get literally a million views a week, maybe more on my content. That's that's a level of fame. Right. And so what I was really interested in is the experience of other famous people and what it means to them. And so I started reading probably the best biography autobiography by someone named Justin Bateman. That is. Sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You're a little young. She was a child star on the show, Family Ties. OK. And so in the 80s, she was fame, fame, fame. Right. With Michael J. Fox. So anybody on that show is very famous because it was the top rated show and everybody just watched TV. Right. They didn't have very many options. So she wrote a book and meditations on fame. And I'm finding a lot I'm trying I'm like, I need to read something about this, because the experience of being famous is ultimately really quite jarring and not very positive. And I just wanted to see what someone else had to say about that. And I'm resonating with a lot of what she has to say. Harpreet: [00:47:39] Definitely. I have to check that out as well. What song differently have on repeat? Jonathan Tesser: [00:47:45] You're going to love the answer to this one. I wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep. And so I have certain music that I put on to help relax me because, you know, you can see that my brain is going five hundred miles an hour all the time. And it's actually [00:48:00] for all those fellow insomniacs. Brian Enos series with Harold Budd. It's called The Pearl. I listen to that and just chills me out like right automatically. So I'd say it's because I get almost every night I sleep. Harpreet: [00:48:16] So we go to the random question generator will do just a couple out of this one. First question, what dumb accomplishment are you most proud of? Jonathan Tesser: [00:48:24] I am one of the world's best whistlers. Harpreet: [00:48:27] Oh, nice. We get a little whistle. That's quite nice. Make me feel Christmassy. Jonathan Tesser: [00:48:46] My son walks around the house singing that. That's how, you know, we have a musical household here. Harpreet: [00:48:50] What makes you cry? Jonathan Tesser: [00:48:52] Powerful music typically symphonic. My longest term name is Mahler one to one. That's my AOL account from nineteen ninety five because I'm a huge Gustav Mahler fan and his music makes me cry. It's a lot of emotions. Harpreet: [00:49:06] Check that out as well. What's your favorite Candy. Jonathan Tesser: [00:49:10] Oh dude, I'm prediabetic, but I do have a favorite candy. It's called the sour straws. Oh man. Anything sour gummy related is is the kryptonite for me, but I can't have much of it lately. Harpreet: [00:49:23] Jonathan, thank you so much for taking time to scheduled to come on to the show today so people can obviously find you on LinkedIn. Where else can they find you? Jonathan Tesser: [00:49:30] Don't read my medium content, if you like what Harpreet and I were talking about. It's a little bit more personal self development focus. And a lot of the subjects that we talked about here, you can find it. It's Muehler, one on one medium dotcom. And you can also check out my website, which is more for my services. But to truth be told, I'm not really offering much, but I have it up there just in case it's testimony to estimate and why. Harpreet: [00:49:56] Next, I'll be sure to link to all of those in the show notes for [00:50:00] everybody as well as your guest profile. Jonathan, thanks once again for taking time out of schedule to be on the show today. I appreciate having you here. Jonathan Tesser: [00:50:06] This was great, Harp. You're amazing, man. You're an awesome podcast host. Thank you for having me.