Johnas Street, Sr. Global Social Media Manager at Cadence, on creativity in B2B social media

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Johnas Street is a Sr. Global Social Media Manager at Cadence Design Systems, a company with over 7,000 employees that enables electronic systems and semiconductor companies to create innovative products. Before getting into B2B social media, Johnas was an American Idol finalist and acted on the BET show "Being Mary Jane". Brian and Johnas go behind the scenes to talk about the role of social media in B2B marketing, how to stay creative in B2B social media, and how to manage work life balance in social.

Full Transcript:

Brian Bosche:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the creative BTS podcast. This is Brian Bosche, and today I am so excited to have on Johnas Street, senior global social media manager at Cadence. What's up, Johnas? Thanks for coming on.

Johnas Street:
All right, man. Thank you, man. I'm glad to be here.

Brian Bosche:
You are taking this podcast outside, so you don't sleep or you don't wake up your little ones who are sleeping right now.

Johnas Street:
Yes!

Brian Bosche:
You have three kids and you're on paternity leave right now. So you're getting a little bit of a break from the kids.

Johnas Street:
A little break, man. And I've been watching what you're doing. So I had to be a part of this, man.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I mean, thank you for coming. It's nice to be able to just tweet out and someone's like, "Hey, I want to come on your podcast." It's like, "Yes!"

Johnas Street:
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Bosche:
It's so easy as the producer as well, but I just want to start off. You're an American Idol finalist. You were a college hooper. You have acting credits to your name.

Johnas Street:
Yes.

Brian Bosche:
What is this pillar of your brand? And let's start there before we get into why did you get into social media, but what are all these different elements outside of the business world?

Johnas Street:
Man, I'm from Mississippi, born and raised, come from a family of 10. I grew up very, very poor. I was so poor, I didn't know how poor I was until I grew up and then realized just how poor I was. You know?

Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Johnas Street:
So I think that that right there kind of fueled my passion. My mama always told me it was always something inside of me that she just saw. And she just knew I was going to do as much as I could. I got a record deal when I was 15, when I was in high school.

Brian Bosche:
What got you into the creative world? With 10 kids, I mean, you're competing. So where did the creativity come from?

Johnas Street:
I think, you know, me looking up to my older brothers, older brothers and sisters. They all sing or play sports. It was one of my brothers, I'd say, "I want to sing better than him." Then another one of my brothers, I wanted to be a better basketball player than him.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
So those two were like my two guys that I was just looking up to him and like, "Okay, I know I need to be or get better than-", you know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
So I kind of like that aspect of having to come up in a big family, it kind of makes you, you know, like the Jackson Five, right? Michael Jackson was one of the youngest kids. He just wanted to be the best. Right? It's kind of in that sense.

Brian Bosche:
Well, you had different role models, who had different interests, from what it sounds like.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Trying to replicate that or compete against it. So American Idol finalist, record deal. So you started out mostly in music. Is that music and acting? Was that the initial interest?

Johnas Street:
Only music.

Brian Bosche:
Okay.

Johnas Street:
That was the only thing. Yeah, I didn't do acting until I graduated college. And I was in California. I left California and went back to Atlanta, because Atlanta is where I initially had my record deal.

Johnas Street:
So I went back to Atlanta and while I was there, doing music, working on music, I just heard about a few auditions. This first audition was for this movie called Get On Up, which was the biopic on James Brown.

Brian Bosche:
Yep.

Johnas Street:
And I booked that role. I was acting alongside Chadwick, Bozeman for like three months.

Brian Bosche:
Wow, that's amazing.

Johnas Street:
And it was during, man, that experience, man, is something that I'll never forget for the rest of my life, man. That dude, he was beyond anything that I've ever witnessed. And when it comes to work ethic, like I remember, I would say maybe the first month of shooting, we shot the movie for three months in my home state of Mississippi, which was the craziest thing, even crazier.

Johnas Street:
My first acting gig was in the state. It was my home state. That was dope. But it was between cut scenes, when I saw Chad doing some karate stuff, you know what I'm saying? And we was like, "What is he doing?" Yeah, come to find out he had already booked Black Panther.

Brian Bosche:
So he was training?

Johnas Street:
He was training. So in between being so focused on, because when you're an actor, you going to this role, this character and you become them. So in between becoming James Brown, he was still working on Black Panther.

Brian Bosche:
Was this before or after Jackie Robinson?

Johnas Street:
This was after Jackie Robinson.

Brian Bosche:
Okay, man. Yeah. He just, I mean, that was one of the most tragic deaths this year. It was incredible that you're able to work.

Johnas Street:
Yeah, it was. And so I did that. And then after that ended, I went back to Atlanta and my second audition I did, it was with this TV show called Being Mary Jane, with Gabrielle Union. It came on BET, then I think a streaming on Netflix or BET plus right now.

Johnas Street:
But it was at that table, it was on that set, I was sitting at the table and I was looking around at the actors and I was like, "Yeah, I've seen you in a couple things, but not too much. I've seen you in some stuff. And you're the only person that I really see doing a lot of work," which is Gabrielle Union. And I was like, "This can't be sustainable." Because want to have, at the time I had a fiance, I wanted to get married and have kids and I'm like, "I need something really, something a little more sustainable."

Johnas Street:
So I was thinking like, "Man, okay, I like entertainment. I like tech and I like being creative so I can go work in some type of marketing capacity in a tech company, because I know that the tech companies, or the tech industry, is basically taking over the entertainment industry. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Johnas Street:
So I feel like if I go back to the Bay, this is why I didn't say nobody this plan. This is just the plan I had in my head.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
Because my wife, she was at the time just my fiance, but she was in Atlanta working at Top Air Studios.

Brian Bosche:
Okay.

Johnas Street:
So I said, "Hey, baby, we should go back home and see my mama for a little bit. And then we're going back to California, to go work at one of the biggest tech companies in the world."

Johnas Street:
She's like, "What?" I'm like, "Yeah, this is what we're going to do." Then, after I finished shooting, that night, on Being Mary Jane, I signed my contract. I got in the car, put the stuff in the car and we drove back to Mississippi that night and bro, check this out. We drove through the craziest monsoon storm I've ever been in back home. Because you know, it always rains and hurricanes and stuff like that back down South.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, yeah.

Johnas Street:
So we drove through stuff. My wife ain't never seen it. She's a California girl. You know what I'm saying? She ain't never seen nothing like this.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
She was like, "Is it okay for us to keep driving through this?" Like, "Yeah, yeah. We good."

Brian Bosche:
I know. I met my wife in Detroit and we would take road trips down. We went to New Orleans one year and we're driving back up and there was a tornado in Hattiesburg. Something like that. It was one of the biggest ones in Mississippi, I think.

Johnas Street:
Hattiesburg. That's where I was born. Hattiesburg.

Brian Bosche:
Oh, wow. Yeah. So there was a huge tornado there.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
We're like, "How fast is the tornado going?" It's like 35 miles an hour. I was like, "We're going 60. We're fine." Which is not safe. Do not recommend that.

Johnas Street:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Brian Bosche:
So you went to Silicon Valley, moved West as a lot of us do. I know. I went from Detroit to Seattle for tech.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
So the creativity, is that what really drew you into social media?

Johnas Street:
It did.

Brian Bosche:
Okay.

Johnas Street:
Because video photography, copywriting, just all these different things that kind of ties into like my passion for being creative.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I mean, social media is one of those roles where you do have to have all of those different skills.

Johnas Street:
Right.

Brian Bosche:
And it's one of those roles where having the pulse on the culture, which it seems like you've got, through acting and through music and through hooping.

Johnas Street:
Absolutely, yep.

Brian Bosche:
Where you just have your finger on the pulse a little bit more and kind of know what's going on.

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
And so social? That's really what drew you into tech? You also hooped in college? What position were you?

Johnas Street:
I was shooting guard, but I'm only six foot so I was really supposed to play point guard, but I was more of a scorer, so they always had me on the wings.

Brian Bosche:
Got it. Yes. You can't really control what a coach does, but yeah, you're kind of the triple threat, athlete, musician, actor, and you're like, "All right, what can I do with a little bit more sustainability?"

Johnas Street:
And then I graduated with honors, 3.8.

Brian Bosche:
And you're smart.

Johnas Street:
GPA.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. That always helps across the board.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
So you got into social, which is definitely one of those multifaceted roles. So how do you think that having all of those interests and the diversity of experiences that you've had have helped you in your social media? Or what have you really brought to that role?

Johnas Street:
Man, you know, for me, I think I would say resiliency and being able to ... I take every aspect of my life, every aspect. The ups and the downs and I'm able to learn from those things. And I feel like in this role, social media, or just marketing in general, there are so many things happening really quickly. So you've got to be able to think fast on your feet.

Johnas Street:
And I feel like coming from that diverse background of a job, an industry, where you're literally working gig to gig and your life depends on how you respond or how you produce. So I feel like, as they say, "Eat what you kill."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
I feel like, really, that's how I think when it comes to social media in this tech industry. Man, this tech tech game, it's so wide open. And so much out there for people to really make a living off of. And growing up, I didn't know. I didn't know about the tech industry. I didn't.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
The only thing that was my mind in Mississippi was either, like I say, hooping or doing some music or something. I didn't really understand the full magnitude that this industry impacted our lives in the past, the present and the future. And I feel like that aspect of it is a part of the lack of education and in so many rural or urban areas, you know what I mean?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
Which is unfortunate, but luckily I was able to get out and see other things and realize, "Hey, this is where it's at. And this is the lane you need to go in."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Definitely. Well, I went to high school in Bozeman, Montana, so a lot of farming, a lot of ranches, tech didn't, the only thing that, we had Montana State University where there was a lot of engineering roles and things.

Johnas Street:
Right.

Brian Bosche:
But you're right. Like to most people, what does Intel do? What does Cadence do? What does Smartsheet do? There's no insight into.

Johnas Street:
No insight.

Brian Bosche:
Okay. And there's a lot of buzz words in B2B tech, so it's like, "We empower these systems to make you achieve more."

Johnas Street:
Right.

Brian Bosche:
And it's like, "Okay, how does it actually affect our lives?" So I'm just thinking of you, sitting in Atlanta, Gabrielle Union's across from you and you're like, "I'm going to go work at Intel, doing social media." Which a lot of people would be like, "B2B tech, how do you make that?" Because you're across from Gabrielle Union, you want to go into Intel?"

Brian Bosche:
The B2B tech side often gets a bad rap, especially in social, because I've had people on from sports, entertainment, that do social. So what makes B2B social special or what's the role of social and B2B tech?

Johnas Street:
I feel like when people, I say B2B just because that's what we do, but I really think B2B is more so B2C because when I was interviewing for the job at Cadence and I told them, "I want to humanize our social media." And what I meant by that is for so long social media, when it comes to tech companies, when you're talking to other businesses, it's more along the lines of B2B marketing. You see the messaging that comes across on social, it looks ads-y or it looks really stale.

Brian Bosche:
Like PR templates. Yeah. That's what you traditionally think of.

Johnas Street:
Right. You think of that with B2B, but I said, "Hey, no, I want to humanize our social feed, when you look at Cadence." So when you look at Cadence now, you'll see more people, you'll see more interaction.

Brian Bosche:
There's faces. I'm looking through it now.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Not just graphics.

Johnas Street:
Right. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like that's something that they're like, "Okay. He might have something here and we want to see what happens." And ever since I've been on board, we've grown the channel, the engagement, the followers, and the company this year hit an all time high. The stock is an all time high during a pandemic. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. That's pretty amazing.

Johnas Street:
I don't know if it has anything to do with my social media stuff, but if it does, I'll take it.

Brian Bosche:
It helps. I mean, this is a challenge I see in so many companies, when I used to work with a lot of different startups at the fund in Detroit, and then starting my own company at Smartsheet. It's like, "Okay, we have this brand account and how do we actually give it a voice? How do we humanize it? How do we make it like the B2C? Are you here?" Human to human a lot. We're not B2B, we're just humans to humans.

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
So what was your process for trying to find what that voice was?

Johnas Street:
Well, I did a lot of reading and researching, just listening, it's funny, this is my secret. I'm going to give away my secret for that, but it's all good because I'm helping folks.

Brian Bosche:
Yep.

Johnas Street:
So for myself, so what I do is, I do a lot of things on my own personal social channel, to test things.

Brian Bosche:
Yes! I love it! You're cheating.

Johnas Street:
Exactly. Hey, that's free game for y'all out there. You use your personal social media to try different things out. I guess you can call it the AB testing. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Definitely. Risk-free, no corporate bounds. Well maybe a little bit of corporate bounds, but.

Johnas Street:
Yeah, yeah. So I'll do something like that to see if it works on my channel to see, "Hey, okay. Maybe something like this would work for Cadence." And I just do I do those things. Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. It's so hard. We see so many more accounts now like Wendy's, Steak-Ums. Steak-Ums is just all political account now. It doesn't even have to do anything with the product. Even Microsoft. I never thought I would see this, but Microsoft social now, they're every trend, they are quirky.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
It seems like they're going ... So for B2B software, you hear a lot of people like, "Oh, they need to stay less conversational, less human." But what do you think of accounts where it's really informal or does it have to be on brand? It's such a hard line. I'm interested in your thoughts on how corporate accounts handle that.

Johnas Street:
It is a pretty difficult line to walk, but for me, and for what I want to do at Cadence, I wanted to keep Cadence as to the businesses as possible, as close to its core values, which is aerospace and defense, automotive, cloud.

Brian Bosche:
Yep.

Johnas Street:
And I wanted to keep the messaging close to that, but still humanize it a bit more. "Okay. Let's bring in the people who are in charge of these things. Let's talk more with folks who are making impacts and who are implementing new ideas and new strategies," as opposed to just talking about aerospace and defense. Or talking about cloud and how is cloud helping you and me? You know what I mean?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I see your intern spotlights. You're actually making the brand human. There are people that work here, it's not just this corporate feel.

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
You have your conversation. So have you found specific formats channels that work well or kind of those templates that actually achieve that goal for Cadence?

Johnas Street:
For Cadence, our biggest channel has been LinkedIn.

Brian Bosche:
Linked in stories? Have you gone into stories yet?

Johnas Street:
I've done stories.

Brian Bosche:
Hot takes on LinkedIn stories right now.

Johnas Street:
I'm not, I don't know.

Brian Bosche:
You don't have to answer. I'll answer. I posted twice. And I'm like, "I don't know what I'm supposed to post here." I was just like, "Should I just post my tweets on it?" I don't have these ephemeral things to do on LinkedIn. "Is it selfie time? Hey, I'm at my living room table again, day 475." Yeah. I think they're useless. Okay, let's go back on topic. LinkedIn.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
No talking about ... so LinkedIn is the biggest channel? Go ahead.

Johnas Street:
Yeah. LinkedIn is the biggest channel. I mean, it makes sense just because LinkedIn is more along the lines of your typical B2B, you know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
I think that's why LinkedIn has been really big for us. And then lately we've been getting a lot of good press, man, from these investors, blogs and stuff, you know what I'm saying? So I feel like that has helped with the company a lot.

Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Johnas Street:
The company has seen a lot of growth. We've seen a lot of growth and it's really a good time for me to be here and to really be learning and growing with the company. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Have you seen the voice evolve over time, especially as the pandemic hit? What have you kind of done? We've gone through this year, we don't really have to say more about that, but have you seen the voice evolve over the last year with the pandemic, with social justice movements and have you had to factor that into your social strategy?

Johnas Street:
We have. And what I wanted to do, just from a standpoint of being truthful and real about it, I told the company, "We don't necessarily have to say anything as a company, but our CEO should." And they loved that route because they want to keep it to the point of, "We don't want to make it seem like we're so much bigger than, or better than anyone else. We thought it might be best to just let our CEO talk on these things.

Johnas Street:
And we shared his message, and they were good with that because, like I say, a lot of times companies can come off as fake or a part of the fad, and then you look at the diversity in their company and they're "okay, they're just all talk."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a good insight is where is this going to land the most, if we have a powerful statement to make or an opinionated statement to make, and it could come from the leader's account, that you support with the corporate account, it doesn't always have to come from just blanket statement on the corporate account.

Johnas Street:
Yep. And that's what we did. We let the CEO speak on it and then we just shared his message.

Brian Bosche:
And support out. That's where it's like you're building out a whole social community of different influencers, partners.

Johnas Street:
Absolutely, now you're getting me.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
I'm humanizing the brand. Right?

Brian Bosche:
Seriously, you're not just following Cadence, you're following a whole community of people.

Johnas Street:
Exactly, exactly.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. That's an interesting, I wonder how many B2B companies are going to start, wow, just so many sirens. This is amazing. I'm terrible at-

Johnas Street:
It's all good.

Brian Bosche:
I'm terrible at audio editing, so that's going to stay in there, listeners. Get ready for that.

Johnas Street:
That's all right. Hot take! Alert! Alert!

Brian Bosche:
Exactly. It's really interesting where you're starting to see a lot more B2B companies hire people in who are the influencers and the voices, so that they can kind of support the social community around the B2B just to make it more human.

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
That's a really interesting insight. Okay. Moving on a little bit more.

Johnas Street:
Okay.

Brian Bosche:
B2B companies. I don't know if you're allowed to speak on this, but what can B2B companies do to really stand out on social? If you have any examples from anyone that you see that you appreciate, or what have you really seen helps those B2B companies stand out on social media and any examples you can give of things that you've liked or appreciated? Would love to hear them.

Johnas Street:
Yeah. I think video helps. More video, behind the scenes stuff, either your company or a new product or something like that. You know, folks always like to see behind the scenes things at companies that they may not know what the company does or what the company is about.

Johnas Street:
So I feel like giving that behind the scenes really allows for people to come into the company and see what they do and see how they make it happen. And see how the teams really come together and support each other to make these products that essentially change the world.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well, you're speaking of the right person on the creative, behind the scenes podcast, how do you get behind the scenes stuff during a pandemic, when you're not in the office? And you're not able to do maybe the more pass by the desk type work.

Johnas Street:
You know what, it's something that I feel like people sometimes forget about, or lay it to the side, but newsletters and blogs. I feel like blogging is something, it's like this old thing that people don't like trying to do.

Brian Bosche:
Even the word blog, it's like, "Ugh, blog."

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Where's your sub stack?

Johnas Street:
Right, right, right. But I feel like a combination of a podcast and that form of blogging, newsletter, whatever, I feel like those types of things should be the way people have shifted to now, because you can't really go out and get in person.

Johnas Street:
And so what we're doing right now, me getting to know you, you get to know me and then your audience get to know what we're talking about. This is essentially behind the scenes.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
You know what I'm saying? I'm at home. I had to come outside because I've got three kids inside.

Brian Bosche:
Kids are sleeping.

Johnas Street:
You know what I'm saying? So this is you coming into my life.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well in the pandemic, you even see the virtual events and the people speaking are in their living rooms and their home offices.

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
It's almost too much behind the scenes now than maybe a lot of people are comfortable with.

Johnas Street:
Right. Oh yeah. We don't want to go there.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. There's been some mistakes made. That's okay.

Johnas Street:
Some mistakes.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. And so behind the scenes is great, more video, especially just humanizing it more. Anything else that you've seen that has really stood out or any examples that maybe Cadence has done that has worked really well? Any case studies you'd like to show off? I can see on social, you have a lot of different types of series and editorial campaigns. Anything you want to highlight from your work at Cadence?

Johnas Street:
No. I wouldn't say necessarily my work at Cadence, but what I've been doing, just from a personal standpoint, is I've been, there's so much free information on Twitter. I was just talking to my wife about this the other day. People really put out case studies on Twitter and you can just read this stuff for free.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, the threads are amazing. I feel like everyone's just doing these incredible threads. Yeah.

Johnas Street:
Exactly. And I'm like, "Man." It's kind of like the old adage of go to the library. There's so much stuff in the library, but now the library is online. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Johnas Street:
If people will really go to Twitter and search for something that you want to learn about, there's threads on it. There's people talking about it. There's people from so many different backgrounds diving in and adding in their two cents on it.

Johnas Street:
So I feel like that's something that I've been doing, from a personal standpoint, just to really get a understanding of, "Okay, what's happening in the marketing? What's changing? What's Tik-Tok'ing about? What brand's talking a lot of Tik-Tok stuff."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. That's a great idea for B2B, too. Cadence should do a thread. Smartsheet needs to do threads. Just all the learnings, just copy, just find a topic, do a behind the scenes thread on something. I don't see very many B2B companies doing threads on social.

Johnas Street:
They're not and you know what? Definitely I might do that.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Because people, you're right, they add in, they join the conversation. They see you as that thought leader. That's a free idea. All you B2B companies out there, throw some threads out there. Find an interesting topic. I need to tell some Smartsheet about that.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
All right. Let's switch categories a little bit here. As we've discussed, you have three kids sleeping, you're outside, so you don't wake them up. You're on paternity leave right now. Thank you again for doing the pod on paternity leave.

Brian Bosche:
Social media is one of the hardest jobs because you're always on, you can always open the accounts. You can always be seeing what's going on. People are responding.

Johnas Street:
Yep.

Brian Bosche:
What are some ways you've found work-life balance, especially with your young family.

Johnas Street:
It's crazy. My wife, she works, too, full time, so we're both full time with the three kids at home during a pandemic and haven't been anywhere. So it's been pretty hectic. That's just to say the least, but fortunately, and thankfully we both still have employment, so that is a blessing beyond the measures.

Brian Bosche:
Yep.

Johnas Street:
And that's something that we don't take lightly and we don't overlook. So thankful for that. But for us, something that's kind of helped us, with our mental release is we've started lifeonourstreet.com.

Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Johnas Street:
And what we're trying to do there is really be a resource for parents, working parents, and people who want to become parents or soon to be parents. And what we do is just, we tell those stories. Think of it as a media company, but specifically for working parents or an online magazine specifically for working pregnant.

Johnas Street:
So that's something that we're trying to build out because we've seen how stressful it can be as parents and working parents. And I will say this, I was just today, as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I was like, "Man, women are the strongest beings on this entire earth. They do so much."

Johnas Street:
Now that I'm home with my wife and seeing all the stuff that she does? She's a superhero. So I can only imagine what women around the world, mothers around the world, are dealing with right now. So I feel like husbands or fathers or significant others, we have to definitely step up and help out there.

Brian Bosche:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I don't have any kids yet, but seeing my coworkers and my team trying to parent while working, I don't know how a lot of parents are doing it. But the creative pursuit outside of work, I obviously started creative BTS in large part, just as that creative outlet outside of work and something to work on with your partner.

Johnas Street:
Right.

Brian Bosche:
Which you can actually do something together outside of work, outside of care-taking, where you can build and collaborate together. Has that helped? Having kind of that creative outlet where you have something other than just chores?

Johnas Street:
Yes. It has helped. We also try to work out about, I would say anywhere from five to seven days a week, we try to work out.

Brian Bosche:
Well, you have twins, right? So just the bicep curls and dumbbell raises?

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Just have both kids, one in each hand?

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
Kettlebell swings with the newborn.

Johnas Street:
Yeah.

Brian Bosche:
I'm joking. I'm not a parent yet. Clearly.

Johnas Street:
No, but straight up, there are parent workout videos where you actually, you can use utilize your kids to do squats with and kettlebell swings and raises. So yeah.

Brian Bosche:
That's amazing.

Johnas Street:
You're on.

Brian Bosche:
The creative pursuit outside has helped. Do you put up barriers of like, "All right, I'm not checking these accounts during certain times." Have you put up guardrails like that?

Johnas Street:
For the most part, if it's after a certain hour, I try to not check it, but being in charge of a huge brand and the person that's leading all of it. I have to still be on the lookout, but I try to make sure I take my weekends. And right now, I'm fortunate enough to be on paternity leave, so I definitely took that before the year ended. You know what I mean?

Johnas Street:
So I feel like you've just got to take that vacation.

Brian Bosche:
Take the time you have.

Johnas Street:
Take the time you have, man. A lot of times people don't want to do that because they might feel bad, but you know what? You've got to do it for you and for your company. Because if you don't take it, at some point, you're going to burn out, man.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Which platform's causing the most problems? Is it Twitter, the Twitter trolls? Who do you have to separate out from the most?

Johnas Street:
I would say Twitter. And then actually LinkedIn is starting to get a lot of bots, man. I don't know if they're bots.

Brian Bosche:
Just getting spammed a lot? I mean, I get spam on LinkedIn constantly.

Johnas Street:
LinkedIn is getting really spammy, bro.

Brian Bosche:
And are you responding to all of them, personally, like, is that part of it, if you're not on paternity leave, I mean. But are you like-

Johnas Street:
Yeah, I try to get to as many as I can, but if it looks fake, I've kind of got that sixth sense man. I can kind of tell if it's real or if it's not. So if it looks kind of fake, then I don't mess with it.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. But that's where it's actually having the hours where like, "All right, I'm not going to check on the weekends. I'm not going to be constantly responding to people 24/7."

Johnas Street:
Exactly.

Brian Bosche:
That's so important.

Johnas Street:
Right.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. It's so hard. And any other tips that you would give other social managers out there, of just ways to put up those barriers between that work-life?

Johnas Street:
I guess, turn off notifications, you know what I'm saying? Maybe?

Brian Bosche:
Definitely.

Johnas Street:
Maybe that's it. Maybe that's impossible to do, but try to tune out those notifications, man.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Be the proactive proactively check instead of just constantly being on the receiving end.

Johnas Street:
Exactly. Have a timer in your head to check every couple of hours or something like that, you know?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, yeah. Seriously. Yeah. I've seen so much on social over the last few months of, "You're home all the time, so there's not really the separation of being in the office versus home to turn off."

Johnas Street:
Right.

Brian Bosche:
And so it's almost just like, "Well I guess I'm just sitting here. I might as well just keep working and keep checking and keep going through." And it just becomes that vicious cycle. So glad to hear you're able to take the breaks and actually take your vacation and leave times when you can.

Johnas Street:
Yeah. I mean, but thinking about breaks, it made me think about when I was doing this time off. It made me think about when I was in college, I was playing hoop. We used to have these 5:30 practices and had to get up five o'clock.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
And I really hated it. Like, "Man, I'm ready to get this over with." I finished college as soon as I could. I was taking 18 units every semester, just trying to get it over with and get done with it.

Brian Bosche:
Yep.

Johnas Street:
And now that I'm thinking back on it, I went from waking up to go hoop. Now I'm waking up at the same time to take care of the kids. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Bosche:
Yeah.

Johnas Street:
So my message to young college folks, don't rush college. Don't rush growing up, man. I'm telling you, stay young as long as possible.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. It's so depressing when you look back and you're like, "Man, I really didn't realize how good college was."

Johnas Street:
Exactly. Don't rush it, bro.

Brian Bosche:
Seriously. All right. So we end every creative BTS pod with the parting shot. So just your wisdom for the whole pod, whatever you want to address, what do you leave listeners with for your parting shot?

Brian Bosche:
Could be related to balancing your life, could be related to, I'm stalling for you, by the way, so you can think of one.

Johnas Street:
Okay.

Brian Bosche:
It could be related to social media. It could be related to anything, but what's your parting shot for the audience?

Johnas Street:
No, I got one. I got one.

Brian Bosche:
Okay.

Johnas Street:
It's something that I was writing today. I was writing this thought today. I'll probably end up sharing it tomorrow, but it's just basically turning your obstacles into opportunities. I like to look back over my life. I've literally done that. I've turned my obstacles into opportunities.

Johnas Street:
From where I began, to where I am now, to where I'm going next. I feel like the sky's the limit. So, you know, there was a lot of people out there that, I guess, didn't have the best upbringing or the best start, but as the saying goes, not how you start, how you finish. I was there. If you're there, you won't be there forever. The storm doesn't last forever. Just keep going.

Brian Bosche:
Love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on Johnas. I appreciate it. And we will get this out there and I'm excited to share.

Johnas Street:
Yeah, man. Thank you. Thank you for having me, man. And continuing to look to support you and all you endeavors, man.

Brian Bosche:
I appreciate it.