Focus on Talents: Passion-Powered Success with Advertising Guru John Follis

🎙️ Welcome to another inspiring episode of The Amber Stitt Show, where our conversations light the path for entrepreneurs and creative minds alike. 

🔥 Episode Highlights: In today's episode, we're diving into the world of entrepreneurship, creativity, and personal growth with our distinguished guest, John Follis. John is a beacon of inspiration, from orchestrating a buzzworthy advertising campaign for Kenneth Cole to embracing the art of podcasting and blogging early on.

📈 Learn Entrepreneurial Tactics: During our conversation, we'll uncover the fascinating journey of how John overcame shyness and adversity by stepping out of his comfort zone. He shares how taking acting classes and embracing public speaking programs like Toastmasters helped him in his professional endeavors, including a chance elevator encounter that led to a whopping $93,000 project.

Amber will open up about her own life lessons, including the importance of supportive networks and the discovery of her business associate, which propelled her forward in the insurance industry.

John and Amber both agree that ambition, focus, and a clear mission are the driving forces behind success, arguably more than talent alone. And it's not all work—the two chat about their passions outside of their careers, from John's guitar-playing adventures to the secret behind Amber's 92-year-old grandmother's unrelenting energy.

🏆 Award-Winning Ideas: Finally, we'll become privy to John's unexpected turn from writing copy to documentary filmmaking, an endeavor that led to an award at the Hollywood International Documentary Film Festival and taught the invaluable lesson of trusting our intuition.

So sit back, tune in, and let's get ready to be inspired by the intriguing tales and wise words of John Follis, right here on The Amber Stitt Show.

#AmberStittShow #JohnFollis #Entrepreneurship #Creativity #Success #Inspiration #Podcast #DocumentaryMaking #BusinessGrowth #Advertising #PersonalDevelopment #MusicAndBusiness

Please comment below with your thoughts on this episode or topics you'd like to hear in future episodes!

For more information about John Follis and his work:

https://en.everybodywiki.com/John_Follis

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfollis/

https://www.follisinc.com/

https://web.facebook.com/TrueAdStories?_rdc=1&_rdr

https://www.instagram.com/johnfollis/

Transcript

Amber [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the Amber Stitt Show. I am your host, Amber Stitt. And today we welcome the award winning writer, among multiple things, John Follis today. And I know you as a successful businessman, entrepreneur, but I know you're dabbling in so many more things. So for anybody that doesn't know John yet, just go to Google. You might be able to type his name and find quite a few things. And I don't know, John, if you want to introduce with anything specific to you today, but really, we're going to dive into entrepreneurial, maybe some tactics, tricks, tips, motivational pieces here, because I think you're the guy for the job.

John Follis [00:00:37]:

Okay.

Amber [00:00:37]:

What do you think? Are you up for it?

John Follis [00:00:38]:

Great. Well, thanks for having me on your show, Amber.

Amber [00:00:41]:

Now, you are still in New York. Is that true?

John Follis [00:00:43]:

Just outside of New York, about 45 minutes outside in Connecticut, town called Stamford.

Amber [00:00:48]:

Was most of your success on the east coast, if we go back in time?

John Follis [00:00:52]:

Success, yes. Experience, no. Even though I grew up here in Connecticut, about a little further into Connecticut, about an hour and a half outside of New York and would visit New York. As a kid, I was scared of New York, and I graduated Syracuse University. But unlike all the other students, I vowed I would not go to New York. And did not go to New York, initially out of school and started out in Atlanta and then moved to Chicago and kind of worked my way up to New York. So it was a process.

Amber [00:01:20]:

I think we're going to touch on what I believe you've done and potentially financial freedom that you've built into your life, given the experience you have. So I would like my audience to go back in time with you a little bit, if you don't mind sharing where things were not always super successful, but I know that you've trusted that talent that you felt you had. And I am curious if it was always there or was there a support system for you to help propel it, because I know it can be very lonely to have big ideas and sometimes, if they're not received, to have the wherewithal to keep going. So can you share a little bit for those that might just be searching for that thing, or they know that they have it, but they just haven't put it to work yet?

John Follis [00:02:05]:

Yeah. I always knew I had artistic talent because my mom was an art teacher, and she kind of weaned me and my sisters on drawing and things like that gave us a lot of encouragement. So I really excelled artistically, and I knew that. But because I got rejected so many times, once I started working in the business. Started out as an art director for ad agencies. My problem was that I didn't realize that talent alone does not mean you're going to succeed in a corporate environment. They didn't teach corporate politics at Syracuse, and I was very unprepared for that, and again, didn't realize how important it was to be able to navigate the corporate political waters in a big agency. And that was kind of.

John Follis [00:02:57]:

Well, not kind of. That was the reason I struggled early on in my career. I got fired four times in eight years.

Amber [00:03:04]:

Well, you seem like a nice guy, so I can't picture this once, but maybe more than once. So was it just not aligning with. I mean, I think you had some good creative ideas, but was it just not resonating? I know you've talked about it being maybe too edgy, but...

John Follis [00:03:20]:

Yeah. Listen, people can get fired for all kinds of reasons, the least of which is whether they're a nice guy or not. In the ad business, all you need to do is lose some business and they have to cut staff, right?

Amber [00:03:32]:

Got you. Sure.

John Follis [00:03:34]:

But the other thing I didn't realize until I had some perspective on it was when the person who hires you at a big company leaves that company shortly after they hire you, you're really a lot more vulnerable to the corporate politics. And that happened to me twice. Two of the four times where I was very excited to work with this guy. He was very talented guy. And in both cases, I don't think it was more than a month after he brought me in that he left to get another job. And that's not necessarily a death sentence, but it certainly doesn't help your chances.

Amber [00:04:08]:

Sure.

John Follis [00:04:08]:

And I didn't get immediately terminated, but it was kind of a slow death after that. And the other two times, there were other reasons for it, but two of the four times were because of that reason.

Amber [00:04:19]:

I think that you mentioned that learning, educating yourself is key to really continuing that momentum forward, especially if there's things like this happening. It's that if you have the talent, how do you then apply it to the environments? You talked about experience, but you also talk about, we have so many resources now to maybe get a step ahead than we ever did before. I mean, I can imagine back before you could YouTube something and you and I have a little bit different time frame where you didn't have this ability to go online and go find something else. I mean, it was a lot harder back in the day, and people, connections and other opportunities was probably a big thing, and it still is today. Where to find other opportunities. It takes a lot of work to go out and get after it. But people today, I don't think they're staying at jobs very long. There's a lot of turnover now.

Amber [00:05:09]:

So having that resilience and being able to communicate and learn and take that opportunity, we'll call it an opportunity, but that experience can become an opportunity because you're seeing this environment and you want to not have that rinse and repeat itself. So I think that's eventually where the business ownership came about. And you had a business partner, right? So you got into this point where you were a business owner. After this time frame, how did you guys find each other and support each other? Because I think that was a catalyst for the visions. You had to become real in business.

John Follis [00:05:41]:

I just want to touch on something you said that I think is really important to comment on. You said the environment, and that is so key, I think, in any industry to having success, you have to be in the right environment. And when I realized that maybe the corporate environment was not the best environment for me for the reasons I mentioned, the political challenge is when things in my career started going in a positive direction. And it started with me making a decision to look for freelance opportunities with clients directly or small business owners that needed the creative talent that I could offer, the creative advertising talent that I could get hired for, and also smaller agencies that were less political that would bring me in sometimes just for a couple of days, but sometimes a couple of days turned into a couple of weeks, and sometimes a couple of weeks turned into a month or two, once they get to know you and realize what you can offer them. So that was a key decision for me, to kind of change my strategy a little bit. And that experience of freelance eventually led to some work that was very successful and got the attention of a guy that called me out of the blue because it was a major campaign for Kenneth Cole. This is when Kenneth Cole was just starting out as a designer in New York.

John Follis [00:07:04]:

No one knew who he was. And we did a campaign that ran for a couple of years that was running in New York magazine. Every two or three months, he'd run a full page. And, I mean, we didn't even show his product. It was just kind of the campaign. You could look it up, but it was basically his commentary on current events. And somehow we as a creative team, would come up with an idea that somehow made a connection between the current event and Kenneth Cole as a shoe, you know, was the creative challenge, but it created a real buzz in New York. People in the industry were wondering who was doing this work, and including this guy that called me up that was referred to me because he had had bad experiences working at big agencies as well. He was a business development guy who felt that if he had the right creative guy, that then he could pursue clients directly, pitch clients directly, and maybe win some business and hopefully maybe start an agency.

John Follis [00:07:58]:

And that's what happened.

Amber [00:07:59]:

Thanks for sharing that. And I think that's key, that if you really can harness in on your talents, don't apologize for them. Bring that energy to the table. Somebody's watching. And you never know when you're out there doing your thing and you're really in your flow. And it might not be instant gratification, it could be a time later, years later. But my business partner found me at a conference when I was six months pregnant, walking around at an insurance conference. And he knew me because we saw each other in the past, but I was working with my family's company, wanted to be on my own as a new mom, and he vetted me out through other people that have worked with me, but he knew he liked me enough, but he's like, I better check her out.

Amber [00:08:37]:

But my work product spoke for itself. And then we've been partners in one of my main businesses today, and he's been a support system to even push me on stage and get me out there doing things so he could see things that maybe I couldn't see. Back to environment. Got to get yourself around those people that might not always understand what you do, but know that there is good there and can propel it forward. So I wrote down some notes thinking about the efficiency of your experience and fast tracking it. I know that you've mentioned, keep learning. And I try to work with younger people coming into my financial services industry and really working with people that have experienced certain things. There's some wisdom there.

Amber [00:09:17]:

So it's almost like fast track where you can, but you still have to have some of that experience to really get it. And I don't know if you could speak to that in any experience for you where maybe it just wasn't super clear, but you just kept after it. I mean, you even were doing podcasting way before anybody else was even talking about it.

John Follis [00:09:35]:

Yeah, I think you have to have a curiosity. The people that I've come across in my life, who are the most successful people, are people like yourself, I think, that are just constantly interested in learning new stuff. They're curious. They want to learn new things. They want to talk to new people. They want to try to get as much wisdom as they can. And that's the way I've always been. As you mentioned with podcasting.

John Follis [00:10:02]:

I learned about podcasting in 2005 when it was just beginning and thought it was the coolest thing. And three or four months later, after listening to podcasts on how to podcast, I had my own podcast in February 2006, and I did it for about six or seven years and kind of got tired of it after that period, and I started blogging. So that was 2006 for podcasting. And then blogging was a thing in 2008. So I put up a blog in 2008. Especially in my industry, in the marketing industry, things are constantly evolving with technology. Technology is kind of leading the way things evolve, and I'm not that active right now, but if I was, I would be rocking TikTok right now with stuff.

John Follis [00:10:50]:

But now I'm focusing on my tennis game and trying to start a rock band. So I've got my priorities now.

Amber [00:10:56]:

Okay. So I was going to talk to you about something a previous guest had said about bundling. And it's almost like you go through these experiences to kind of trip and fall and find your groove and then do what you love. And then hopefully when you're starting, you make some money, then you can dabble. And so for me, I have a main niche when it comes to my clients, but then you can then branch out and have other pathways, and you've done that. And I feel like you mentioned earlier something about being scared of New York, where more of the creative side, so the typical, we'll say, stereotype of that might be if a creative is probably not out there selling something or asking for the business. But you defied that. And I think you've done that.

Amber [00:11:40]:

You've gone out and asked for things. And let's maybe share a little story there. You don't know what you don't know, and if you don't ask, you might miss out on something. So can we talk about that for a little bit before we head to the rock band?

John Follis [00:11:53]:

So I grew up a very shy kid, very introverted, kind of small town Connecticut, basically in the sticks of Connecticut.

Amber [00:12:00]:

Do they have the best pizza, though? I've heard that, right?

John Follis [00:12:04]:

Connecticut is known for its, New Haven, in particular, is known for its pizza. But because I was very introverted was the reason why New York City scared me. But I also realized that once I started working, I realized that if I didn't get over this kind of introverted personality, it was going to hinder my success. So I forced myself, I think to succeed, you have to kind of get out of your comfort zone sometimes. Or a lot of the times. For example, when I was in Chicago before New York, I heard about a program called Toastmasters. You're probably familiar with it. Are you?

Amber [00:12:40]:

I'm not in it, but yeah.

John Follis [00:12:41]:

Okay. So Toastmasters, for anyone who doesn't know, is public speaking. It's an international public speaking group.

Amber [00:12:46]:

Too scared to do that.

John Follis [00:12:47]:

Oh, really? Okay.

Amber [00:12:50]:

Back in the day, for sure, but a lot of my colleagues are in it now. Yeah.

John Follis [00:12:53]:

It didn't take me long to realize that, especially in the corporate environment, people who are successful, not necessarily the most talented, but the people who are most assertive.

Amber [00:13:03]:

Right.

John Follis [00:13:03]:

And know what to say and know how to be in a group and not be nervous and not show. Maybe they're nervous, but they don't show that they're nervous, right?

Amber [00:13:12]:

Yeah. And I think if you study that, you can know that you could allot certain durations of time, but you got to piece out in about an hour to two. It'll exhaust you completely. But you don't have to do it every day. But knowing how to develop that time frame of awareness, it's time I got to go and do my thing.

John Follis [00:13:27]:

Yeah, you have to develop confidence. And maybe it's that fake it till you make it kind of a thing. But back to toastmasters. When I discovered that, I thought that that might be a program for me to get involved with, to kind of feel comfortable getting up in front of people. Because even though I may not have wanted to be a public speaker, which I actually ended up doing a lot of later on, but in an advertising environment, you're often having to present to a group. And it may just be a small group, but it's still a group, and you have to be able to speak to a bunch of people with confidence. So Toastmasters, for me, was a great way to help develop that. I also learned about the Dale Carnegie program.

John Follis [00:14:06]:

You may be familiar with that, a leadership program where they put you through various leadership exercises. And then the other thing, you'll laugh when I tell you this. When I moved to New York and I still felt like I had to get over some of my shyness, I convinced a buddy of mine to join me and take some acting classes.

Amber [00:14:25]:

Those are so hard. I did that in college once and did an improv speaking course with the guy, Vinh Giang. He's Australian online. It's awkward.

John Follis [00:14:33]:

The class had a great name. It was, "Acting for non actors."

Amber [00:14:38]:

Okay, sign me up.

John Follis [00:14:40]:

That was exactly the title of a class that I thought would be good. And the fact that I had a wingman with me, I don't know if I would have done it solo. But we took classes at the same school that De Niro and Al Pacino and some other people in their younger days had taken classes. So it was one of the top two studios, I guess, and we just did it, I think, one time or something like that. My point is, I did things to force myself out of my comfort zone, because one thing I was was always very ambitious, and I didn't want to have things like my shyness to slow down or to interfere with my ability to succeed. So that's why it was with that motivation that I kind of forced myself to do these things.

Amber [00:15:24]:

Yeah, that's awesome. I feel that with technology, as you mentioned, if you're not leaning in and innovating, but learning how to still work on yourself in this environment that we're in with all this competition, I mean, you're talking about Kenneth Cole doing this ad, talking about events to sell his product. He was storytelling, creating this feeling about life and tying things together so each person can work on that, whether they're an employee or a business owner, to find that personal branding, if you will, and then working that way to communicate and work among other people. I think that's going to be the key, more than ever, to be successful. What was the $93,000 check thing where you asked for a job?

John Follis [00:16:03]:

This is a great story. When I started my agency at that time in my career, I came across an image of these crazy eyes, and I thought that was a great way to basically visually represent how I could set my...basically brand my agency, because my mantra with my ad agency was "Get People Excited". That was simple. Three words.

Amber [00:16:26]:

Stop the scroll with the crazy eye. "Oh, what is that? I got to check this out."

John Follis [00:16:30]:

Yeah. So if you go to my website, even now, my website went up in '96, and I still have basically the same architecture, but the splash page are the crazy eyes I'm talking about. And so I put that on a business card, hoping that most people, they hand you a business card, you look at it, you put away.

Amber [00:16:47]:

"I'll add that to my contacts later," that kind of thing.

John Follis [00:16:50]:

Yeah, but I wanted people, when I give them my business card, to react.

Amber [00:16:56]:

Yeah.

John Follis [00:16:56]:

And that ties in with the question that you asked, because I found myself in an elevator with a woman who was giving a keynote talk that she headed up a PR firm in New York. I had just heard her speak, and as I was leaving the event, I found myself in the elevator with her. And I felt like here was an opportunity, right? Because this was a very influential woman who headed up one of the top PR firms in New York. And I was still hustling for business and developing business connections with people that might be a good fit for my ad agency. And all I said was, and I said it sincerely, that I really enjoyed her presentation after what she said, "And what do you do?" And that's where I pulled out my business card, and I just handed it to her. And on the back of the business card was my mantra, which is, "If you want to get people excited about your business or product, you have to get them excited about your advertising." That was the flip side of these excited eyes.

John Follis [00:17:53]:

And she just stared at it for about 30 seconds, and she said, "This is one of the best business cards I've ever seen. I'd love to talk to you about your ad agency, but I've got to run back to the office right now. Maybe we could have lunch sometime." And when we had lunch, she said, "Listen, we've got a project coming up. It's a three month project. The budget is $93,000. Are you interested?" This was maybe after an hour of chatting and getting to know each other. And I said, "Absolutely."

John Follis [00:18:20]:

And I did the project. Then I cleared in pocket about $88,000. And this was not recently, this was 25 years ago. So that would probably be worth $150,000.

Amber [00:18:33]:

I'm picturing you in the elevator. I mean, were you just trying to keep it cool?

John Follis [00:18:37]:

Well, she didn't mention in the elevator that a $93,000 project.

Amber [00:18:31]:

Well, going to have lunch, or to see her. "I might be free."

John Follis [00:18:48]:

The whole idea. Listen, people don't understand the idea of the elevator speech. First of all, it's not a speech, it's a commercial. And it's not just a commercial. It's a teaser. What I call a teaser.

Amber [00:19:00]:

Keep it simple. Right? I mean, you've literally said you don't.

John Follis [00:19:03]:

Want to tell people what you do. You want to tell people enough so they're curious enough where they want to know more about what you do, so they want to keep talking to you when you get off the damn elevator. So that's what my business card was. It was kind of a teaser, and she wanted to learn more. And again, this is unique, because in the back of her mind, I didn't realize it, but she had this project that she needed someone like me to help her with that.

Amber [00:19:31]:

What I mean. It's like you just never know.

John Follis [00:19:33]:

You just don't know.

Amber [00:19:34]:

And I know that you talk about science and reality in your documentary life, but do you think there is some magic that comes from more activity, more being ambitious, getting after it, where things just... I feel like in my life, things have popped up and I'm like, oh, sometimes you feel like, "Oh, why is this really happening to me?" But you can stop and say you've created this because you've done the work. Do you feel like you've seen that?

John Follis [00:19:57]:

I don't think there's anything magical about it. I think it's hustle. I think it's just focus, clarity, having a clear mission. I know you can relate to this because you talk about business strategy. It's having ambition, having a drive, knowing what you want to achieve and then realizing what you have to do to achieve your goal.

Amber [00:20:17]:

You talked about talent isn't always in the form of success. Not to be confusing, but there are people without a lot of talent that can still be successful. So the point is, if you're not in the upper echelon of talented, the keys could be back to what you just said: focus, ambition, drive, keep learning. I mean, takeaways for our episode could be, everyone's got to do that work and keep it going. Obviously, you're not stopping. So we almost forgot about the rock band. Now, have you always loved music? Because I was mentioning bundling earlier just to finish that thought.

Amber [00:20:49]:

I feel that the successful people that I've been studying, and it's even happening in my own life, you find that thing, that's maybe the main thing, and then you can just bundle and add these other things on that are so much fun. In my world, we talk about being financially free. I don't really focus on retirement, and I know that sounds very strange, but this number out there, way in the future, with a big stack of money, and maybe then I'll do something that is not how I see happiness, as just the waiting. It's building the momentum from today and taking little steps of action. I want that for my clients and my friends and anybody in my world. So I see that you're really adding on layers, and you get to choose, and it's a lot of fun. Right? So let's talk about that rock band.

John Follis [00:21:32]:

Well, I don't know how much your audience is interested in my rock band, but since you asked, I've been playing guitar since I was 13. And it's one of my many passions, but I never really pursued the idea of a band. I was always playing for girlfriends or myself or something like that. So it's kind of a...

Amber [00:21:55]:

You always have to have the girlfriend, right? Play a song for the girlfriend.

John Follis [00:21:58]:

Yeah. In college, it was kind of a nice talent to have when you're trying to meet girls and stuff like that. But more recently, it's been one of those things that I thought, well, this is something I've kind of had in the back of my mind forever, but was always more focused on other things than trying to do a band thing. But just recently I connected with another guy who plays bass guitar and sings and plays piano and stuff like that. So just recently we started jamming together and now we're doing making it a weekly thing.

Amber [00:22:29]:

And, I don't know, therapeutic, too.

John Follis [00:22:31]:

It's just so much fun because he likes the same kind of music that I do, and he's very talented musically. I could just start playing something and he's got a good ear, so he can pick up on it. And we've done it two or three times at this point, but we've decided to make it a weekly thing. And I don't know where it's going to go, but the idea. What's that?

Amber [00:22:51]:

Doesn't matter.

John Follis [00:22:52]:

Yeah, I'm at the point now where I brought my guitar to when my girlfriend and I go to vineyards, sometimes I'll bring my guitar and semi inebriated baby boomers are my key demographic.

Amber [00:23:08]:

The new niche for your next line of business.

John Follis [00:23:11]:

So when I play my Beatles songs and classic rock songs that have these semi buzzed baby boomers, they're dancing. It doesn't matter if you're not playing perfectly, they still want to buy you a drink.

Amber [00:23:25]:

Right. Well, it's not about a rock band, and if people can relate to that. My point is, I don't believe there's this definitive retirement age. And the reason I bring this up is I'm in the 40 year old club and I got the younger generations. I work a lot to advocate for next generation coming into the business or just creating solutions out of any problem. You can create anything you want. I mean, there's really so much opportunity. But then we have people that are doing other things outside of that one job.

Amber [00:23:51]:

They've always kind of known, and some people are not connecting well when they have to just do something else. So I think allowing yourself to have these little outlets along the way. So when maybe it's time to just stop working for the paycheck, you can really be free to do anything. And then fold in, really, any little adventure you'd want. My grandmother at 92 is remodeling her house, and I've talked about her on my podcast. She doesn't see 92 as I'm almost done. She's like, I got to get the colors updated in my house. Pretty neat to see her doing that and participating.

John Follis [00:24:23]:

One of the things I realized that I wrote an article about was the power of passion. And again, the people that I've admired and that I've realized are most successful are people who are really passionate about what they do. Like, Steve Jobs is a great example of that. If you listen to any of his old videos, you can tell Apple was built on the passion that he had. And if you really want to get to know someone, don't ask them what they do. Ask them what their passion is. And in a few cases, it will be what they do, but in many cases, it won't.

Amber [00:24:58]:

You can see it on their faces when they're explaining.

John Follis [00:25:01]:

Yeah, and you can see them light up when they start talking about. And their passion might just be their grandkids or their kids or something like that, which is great. But if you want to get to know someone and get them excited about talking to you, ask them what their passion is, and hopefully they'll have one. Not all people do. This came out of you asking me about my rock band.

Amber [00:25:22]:

Well, I'm also curious because it's usually that lead guy/girl. That's like you said, the girlfriend, the college days. So my dad was a drummer, still is a drummer, and he'd have practices and people wouldn't show up, and that could be frustrating. But he did get the girl, my mother. And it was all about a fedora. And, like, a red fedora with a red feather, maybe. But I grew up listening to Tower of Power, Earth, Wind, and Fire. Is that the right one?

John Follis [00:25:46]:

Yeah, he was a funk drummer.

Amber [00:25:51]:

So embarrassing, dad. Oh, my gosh, you got to stop. And now you get older, you appreciate it. And he'll just sing and croon to my mother, and she rolls her eyes, but secretly, I know she loves it. But growing up and seeing that is something actually really special. But as a kid, you don't see it.

Amber [00:26:08]:

Like, "Gross."

John Follis [00:26:09]:

Sure. It's not your kind of music growing up.

Amber [00:26:11]:

Now, I can appreciate the sounds, and like you said, someone can hear something, and you just groove. There's that, I guess, jazz element to it versus just reading notes. But now all the grandkids pile into the basement. They can't wait to get on his lap and get their turn to do the drums. And so that's why I personally have a little bit of bias that I'm curious, but I grew up with that, not really understanding it. But then it's a neat thing and I know he wants to be remembered for that. But the drummers don't always get the girl. It's usually the front part of the band.

Amber [00:26:44]:

He got lucky. So to wrap this up, I want to link up ways to find you, which we will in our description boxes on the different platforms. I do want to share the documentary. How old is this documentary now?

John Follis [00:26:56]:

2017. So five years?

Amber [00:26:58]:

Yeah. This is just another part of this journey that you're on. I just want the listeners just to kind of wrap this up here. I think you've given some great takeaways. I feel like you're such a great testament to listening to that voice. Sometimes it doesn't always make sense. When you're younger, way back in the day, like, why am I doing certain things? I know that I'm a creative. Maybe the jobs are not working out, but just trusting yourself in that intuition you have because look where it's taken you.

Amber [00:27:26]:

I mean, as a writer, you probably could see yourself doing a documentary, but did you ever think that this would happen?

John Follis [00:27:32]:

I'm not a filmmaker. The documentary that you're referring to was basically made sitting in this chair at my computer. But if you're familiar with Ken Burns, who is one of the most successful documentarians, who does a lot of PBS stuff, he did the civil war stuff. You realize that you don't need to know about lights and cameras to do a documentary. I mean, Ken Burn's style is using all still images. His documentaries tend to be historical. He used images of the Civil War or when he did one on baseball, it was old photos. And because I admire his style, that kind of gave me permission.

Amber [00:28:09]:

Sure.

John Follis [00:28:09]:

Realizing that I'm not a filmmaker and I don't know anything or much about lighting and cameras and stuff like that, that if I had a really good subject and wrote it in an interesting way, and I do have confidence in my writing skills, that maybe I could find the images and steal some video off of YouTube and kind of patch together something that people would want to watch. And once I got started, I worked on it day and night for about three months. I was like obsessed day and night for about three months and nothing really happened. I mean, a few, couple thousand, 3,000 people watch it on YouTube and then over a weekend views doubled from about 5,000 to 11,000. And I couldn't understand why? And then, yeah, I checked the analytics and I found that a website that I'd never heard of called TopDocumentaryFilms.com had put it on their website, on their main page with a really nice film review. And again, I have no idea how they found it. I just put it out there and now it's got 40,000 views from 98 countries.

Amber [00:29:16]:

Yeah.

John Follis [00:29:17]:

And it won this first time filmmaker award from the Hollywood International Documentary Film Festival. So that was a nice validation.

Amber [00:29:24]:

Awesome. Well, you are definitely one to follow, and if anyone needs an idea to follow John online. So thanks for sharing all your stories. I know there's more, so we'll keep watching with what you're up to. And thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate finally meeting you.

John Follis [00:29:40]:

My pleasure, Amber. Thanks for having me on. It was fun chatting with you.

Amber [00:29:44]:

Thank you. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Amber Stitt Show. For more information about the podcast, books, articles, and more, please visit me at: www.AmberStitt.com. Until next week, enjoy your journey at home, and at work. Thank you for listening!