June 22, 2021
What do Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell and John Oliver have to do with a global pandemic?
Everything, it turns out.
In March 2020, people worldwide left the office for the day. Some are trickling back in the doors now. Others are waiting to see what local circumstances allow.
In the midst of all of this was the eruption of online meetings. Zooms. Teams. Hangouts. The list of platforms is endless.
While people spent more and more time online, they felt less and less connected. Or optimistic.
Unless you’re Joseph Jaffe.
Joseph has built a career reinventing (which sounds pretty darn close to rethinking, which we like…) how businesses do business. When the world took a hard left turn, he looked for all that was right in it.
The online show
Joseph started CoronaTV, a talk-show style live stream show, when he saw the revenue from his business evaporate.
His purpose with the show was to help people get through the inevitable tough times, connect with them, and them with each other. He studied talk show hosts and dug into the details of how they served up ideas, guests and entertainment. Not only did he find success, he also spread his positivity message and brought back the “human side” of marketing to a virtual world.
Joseph’s perspective on life and career has remained constant: stay hopeful, stay optimistic, and continue to learn. This outlook on life has made all the difference in how he and his audience have weathered the last year.
He didn’t view COVID-19 as the end of his career. He looked at it as an opportunity to innovate and learn.
Continued Grace and Hope
As the calendar turned on 2021, Joseph’s struggles to return to normal weren’t over. Earlier this year his doctor diagnosed him with a mitral valve prolapse. “Basically, my heart sprung a leak,” he explained. The only option was to undergo surgery, which he did June 22nd.
He admits this diagnosis is both frightening and infuriating.
But, instead of giving up, he reminds himself of the lessons he learned in the past year: stay hopeful, stay optimistic, and continue to learn and adapt.
Joseph’s outlook is incredibly humbling. And so is the moniker he gives to his updated brand: Joseph Jaffe is not famous.
Top Takeaways from my Interview with Joseph:
“[CoronaTV] became like a support network during a time when it wasn’t about growth and scale and monetization, but intimacy and empathy and connecting and relationships. So, I’ve used that as the experiment within an experiment.”
“If you want something to be true, you have to manifest it. You have to burn the boats, and I did that. I said ‘I will never consult again. I am now a talk show host’”
“Give grace and look for ways to serve and forgive others, commit to change, take risks and decide what’s negotiable and nonnegotiable in your life…”
We also cover….
– His creator coin, how he’s using it for business and the role it plays in his heart surgery
– Why he believes it’s necessary to bring back the human side of marketing.
– How he’s reinventing the idea of a celebrity.
Check it out. I think this is an episode that will hit closer to the heart than you expect.
