I wish I knew earlier that like my company was still my responsibility. No one was going to fix my problems. They were investing because they believed in me and they believe in my potential but it was up to me to still sort of take that potential energy and turn into kinetic energy. It wasn't a handout. It wasn't like, you know, you're going to get these people to come in to your office and help you solve problems day and day out no one's going to make you rich but like, you know people people are busy solving their own problems.
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Content you can join at f-- s dot blog / podcast check out the show notes for an easy to click link. My guest today is say he'll living yet say hello was this second employee at Pinterest in the left to start building gumroad a service that to help creators earn more than 300 million. We talk about the hardest skills to Succeed in Business what he looks for when hiring what it's like to try and build a billion-dollar business his worst mistake patterns of success patterns of failure and so much more. It's time to listen.
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You were born in New York, but you grew up in Singapore. What was that? Like?
Yeah. It was interesting Singapore.
Is a very unique place a lot of people who visit describe it like a city playground where it's just insanely safe. It's super clean, you know people joke about the fact that you know, you get beat up for chewing gum or whatever which is not true but not inaccurate either kind of it. It's a it is a it is a good heuristic to describe Singapore, I think but if yeah, I was just I think living in a place that felt so different from everywhere else.
and Singapore because it's such a young country it doesn't have the same sort of you know identity almost issues that a lot of other countries have in terms of like this is the way that we do things Singapore if you read about Lee Kuan Yew or any of the founding story of the country and things like they just pick and pull ideas from everything you know Libertarians I know describe it as like a Utopia because there's no minimum wage 0 there's basically a flat tax I think it's around 15 percent flat no matter
how much you make there's no capital gains tax and so Libertarians love it but then you know the sort of more Progressive socialist kind of people that I know also love Singapore because it's sort of you know they 80% of the housing there is built by the government it's a very sort of top-down centrally planned country it's a single city state country and so I just love it because people love to use it as an example of
Viewpoint like it's a really interesting kind of Rorschach test for like the for the things that people like but you know, it's young it's small and so in terms, you know, it's never been in a war and so I think there are just things that allow it to do to do things quote-unquote better than other folks and then I would say the other thing that I just, you know took away from Singapore. It's just it's pretty ruthless. It's like a pro very pragmatic as a country place. They're very strategic about how do we grow this thing? Right? Like how do we structure this place in a way that if
you look at the GDP of Singapore over the last like 50 60 years. It's like the fastest growing startup you've ever seen, you
know, well that was the from third world to first right Lee Kuan Yew and sort of like his unprecedented taking a country in a generation and basically making it wealthy
totally and you know, there's a there's a lot of things you can't control like did just you know, where it's located on the map is really important in terms of the trade routes Singapore sort of like the largest port in the in Southeast Asia.
But it took a person I think just like George Washington right like you need the ingredients, but then you need kind of the chef as well to kind of put them
together. How long were you there?
I was there from Age 5 to 17. So most of my childhood
school like there. I
don't know. I don't know how to compare it because I that's the only context I have I think it's relatively similar to two schools here though. Certainly like doesn't have some of the same issues around. You know what you read.
About racism and anti-Semitism and sexism all these things like Singapore. It doesn't feel like it has much of the same bag. It has other other issues for sure. I would say the the emphasis there was so much on getting a secondary education. It was like everyone knew without any doubt that they would go to college and it's a very it's very sort of financially motivated place. And so typically people will pick the jobs that will make them the most money. It's sort of very very capitalistic in that way.
It's interesting how those expectations shape outcomes to right. It's like you're expected to go to college there. You're expected to perform academically. I
believe I think expectations cannot be underrated and I think it in your peer group also can be underrated. Like I think there's so much emphasis on on sort of the system that you're a part of your sort of your set of teachers Etc. But honestly, I think the biggest thing is just like your kind of the average of your five friends, you know, and if
You hang out with certain people you're going to end up in a very very very different place based on based on that kind of like that osmosis that you'll go through the sort of like this the sort of socialization, you know that you'll have is as a kid and I think that happens super early and certainly asking them for it. Just you know, it's a pretty ruthless. It's a pretty ruthless place like the idea that there's no fat people for example in Singapore. It just like doesn't really exist as a concept and I don't mean that any sort of derogatory way, but there's just people in general
No, there aren't overweight and part of that is in the local school system. If you are overweight you go through a program like yes part of you. Skip lunch and you go through a program that you basically run around I track and study eat lunch. I mean, it's like a sort of a regulatory regulatory system and you know, there's also a national service everyone who Singaporean if you stay in Singapore, I chose to leave and go to school in the u.s. You have to go through national service, right? So you spent two years.
Years becoming you know, sort of like a perfect adult quote-unquote, right? Like you learn these things like in general people who go through that or less likely to get into trouble and things like that. So there was a lot of it's hard to unpack exactly like, oh, you know if we took this and apply to hear, you know, it would fix this problem, but there's just so much culturally around just holding pulling the people to a very high bar and then when you do that like at the Next Generation, you know is brought up with these sort of values and is willing to do that for the sort of for the next.
Considers them sir. I
want to explore something you said there about sort of the you are the product of the five closest people you hang around how to use that information to consciously choose the people that you're hanging around.
I'm really mindful of of that, you know, like in terms of the books that I read the people that I listened to the tweets that I follow. I think it's it's super important to to Really, you know, it's sort of like you are what you eat.
Right the the companies that you work for I think like I've never read a book and and come out of it being less convinced. So the argument even though I was not on the side of the argument like when you spend that much time sort of looking at a subject from a specific perspective. You just end up becoming more empathetic to that point of view and it's like doing that on mass or hey when you go on the on your phone, you're kind of seeing the way that a certain group of people.
See certain things. I think this is actually sort of an accelerated with covid because you don't have maybe some of the back and forth. You're just you can't you know, it's sort of this very asynchronous medium. And so you end up just like absorbing all of this content and your perception is your reality. So I think you just inevitably inevitably kind of become closer to those sorts of people which I think can be a great thing. If you want to be a great business person, for example, you can read books by great business people and
and of course, they're selling things like you kind of have to be mindful of maybe what their incentive structure might be but you'll get closer to figuring out like what are that sort of attributes that make someone like Jay-Z Jay-Z or someone like Steve Martin Steve Martin, right? And I spend a huge amount of my time reading those sorts of those sorts of books as
well. What about the people you physically hang around with like, do you call sort of friendships when you're like this isn't serving me or how do you think about that?
Yeah. This is something I struggle with the law.
I think there is a large expectation around friends and like what friends mean and you know, Silicon Valley is kind of funny because there's this concept of we're friends and I like to joke that we're startup friends because it's such an overused word and what it means is like we met once in person for coffee and if they you know, I need something from them. I'll send them an email and they reply to my email. It's not like we hang out at the bar, you know, like, you know, like all these sorts of things unless it's sort of some situational thing that
eyes is typically from some sort of business reason and that might just be a differentiator between friends in school and friends, you know in adult life. I'm not really sure because that's the only sort of career path that I've sort of taken. But yeah, it's I always struggle with with that idea that we need to be friends with everybody. There are people that I talk to all of the time but I wouldn't consider them even friends of mine. We just happen to be valuable for each other very symbiotic relationship and then there's other people that I'm friends with
I would consider close close close friends with that. I haven't talked to him in months. And so I really I think those can be separated. But yeah, I spent a lot of my time thinking about how do I spend more time with certain people which I think could be a trap because you don't want to you know get into this this place where you're just how do I meet this person? I don't think that's the right approach but it's more like how can I figure out how to become closer to the type of person that this kind of person is and in general if you do that over time, I feel like
Nice to meet these kinds of folks will come up and show up in your life. Organically.
Where did the idea from gumroad come from? And how did you get started?
Yeah, so gumroad. I wanted to sell this pencil icon that I designed for a Mac app. And I had a Twitter account. I had a dribble account. I had a few thousand followers. This is 2011 and I just wanted to sell them this thing. I kind of called it like a lemonade stand. I just I don't need a whole storefront like I need to need all of this infrastructure. I just needed
Like a little table and you know, I wanted to sell this icon for a dollar and and you know, these people who are already following me, you know, I can just share with them and they can choose to buy it or not. And you know, they enter in their credit card information to get an email receipt with the download or they get the download maybe in line even and just made it super easy. And so I thought that would exist and it just didn't exist. It felt like a very large disconnect where I was like, oh, I'm gonna go sell this icon to this audience and then it wasn't possible so that you know, that was Friday night.
Night, and then I ended up building Gummer that weekend and then launched it launched it Monday morning on Hacker News and it did well I think and then, you know a few months later. I ended up starting starting to work on it full-time raise raise some money from folks like Nepal etcetera. That's what I've been doing since
what was the process of raising money like,
I mean, this is a this is like, I don't know a really good example, I think of like figuring out how you get to spend, you know time with certain folks like the way that I structure.
A delight my life before before I even I wanted to fundraiser thought about it as idea. I felt like I wanted to be a founder and so I spent a lot of time hanging out with Founders hanging out with early employees working at an early stage startup. I think that's sort of the best thing that you could do, you know, I left USC to go do that. And so I had a network just from building stuff meeting with people people wanting to recruit me for their companies. I'd started to build a relatively strong network of people like navall and Seth Goldstein from turntable and
And Samuel Shaw from Haystack BC now and when I sort of had the opportunity to raise money once one investor suggested like hey, this thing looks really cool. Have you thought about doing this full time? I know you're at Pinterest. But you know, this is certainly something you think, you know, you'd probably build a raised money for and I was like, I really really have no idea that I could do that. It was not in my mind at all that I could be a Founder that early that quickly and so I said, yes and then I just told all of these people that I had met out of the context of raising money.
Like hey, we met about this three months ago or six months ago or or what have you. I have a start-up like, you know, I'm going to raise money for are you interested and it was honestly a relatively smooth transition because I built up these relationships with people around just talking about product and talking There's No Agenda. I wasn't selling them anything. So I sort of already effectively sold them on my abilities to build stuff and be really committed to that path. And so when I decided to raise money it
it's almost done all of the work, you know accidentally and then it was just sort of like going through the like, okay, what are the terms? You know, what are the sort of the like the legal paperwork side of things but it was a relatively smooth smooth process.
What do you wish you knew about raising money that you know? No,
I mean II would say I think every founder thinks that raising money is going to change their life like you're going to get all of these phenomenal people on your cap table and you're gonna hang out with him all the time and they're going to help you, you know recruit and build product.
Figure out what go-to-market strategy and the truth is like all of these folks are very busy. Some of them are running their own companies many of them are in many many many companies of which you are at least not in the beginning one of their sort of top few and the way Venture returns work. Is it sort of a power law? So if you're not there Uber, you know, it's a different the way they think about you might be a little bit different. So I wish I just knew that I wish I knew earlier that like my company was still my responsibility. No one was going to fix my problems. They were investing.
Ting because they believed in me and they believe in my potential but it was up to me to still sort of take that potential energy and turn into kinetic energy. It wasn't a handout. It wasn't like, you know, you're going to get these people to come in to your office and help you solve problems day and day out and this is an experience. I've talked to so many found her friends. Who are they feel like because the sales process is so good. This is what they do right there selling cash to get on your cap table and the really good at that but it's like the second.
They sell you the car. They they're they're they've sold you the car. I mean they you know, they've done the 90% of the of the of the work if you know sort of precede it investors. It does change a little bit later on I think and so I just wish I knew not in any in any you know way that says, oh These people aren't helpful or whatever but just the incentives and yet it's just a model in which they operate and so I can understand. Okay. This is as a Founder what you expect from me what I owe you quote unquote and how I should
Could sort of go about it, but you learn you learn pretty pretty quickly that that was the expectation and that you just need to like anything like No One's Gonna. No one's going to make you rich but like, you know people people are busy solving their own
problems were the expectations on you that you would become sort of like this billion-dollar business that you you haven't accomplished yet. Yeah. And what's that been like?
Yeah. It was I think I mean Silicon Valley is is a game of
Finding these crazy outsized returns. It's you know, the sort of common adages, you know, 30% are companies died thirty percent of your company's return less than 1 x and so you kind of need the last third and really the top 10% of the best that you make to return over 10x of the sort of initial principal capital and often a lot more if you want to return any meaningful returns to your investors because this is an illiquid asset class, right you're giving money.
To it to a venture capitalist as an LP and they're going to hold a capital for 10-plus years, right? So you kind of expect more than market returns if you're if you're if you're signing up for that, so yeah, that was totally the expectation and that's not just the expectation. I think some people really focus on on Venture capitalists in the in the Zeitgeist, but it's also the expectation for the early employees because the early employees might only have half a percent of the company one percent of the company 2% of the company and so they also are looking for I mean, they're turning down offers for you know from
Booking Google an Uber at like, you know for hundreds of thousands of dollars to work at your rinky-dink startup. There's a there's a whole system I think is modeled off of for this to be worth it for everybody that you need to get signed up to even get to the to any end result. That's interesting. You need the promise of or the potential of there needs to be a billion dollar plus outcome here. That's it's kind of like when you look at the music industry, you know or the NBA or anything, it's not that everyone has expectation that they're going to
Become LeBron or Kanye West or anything like that, but the idea that it's possible and that one person is going to win The Hunger Games is going to really kind of Drive the level of competition and sort of work ethic that I think you frankly. Just don't get when you don't have those those those crazy outcomes as a possibility right like Japanese assistant you two hundred billion dollars or whatever gas now, but for some reason no one does I don't know what you do with that much money.
But for some reason it's still create like America. I think it still has like this phenomenal culture of innovation that I think is largely driven by this weird relatively abstract number on the on the wall that everyone can see, you know,
did you feel any sort of disappointment or did they make you feel disappointed in terms of not accomplishing that as quickly as maybe it was anticipated. I mean,
yeah, I mean they're there definitely was some disappointment.
Aunt I mean I had I had so many wins so early I dropped out of school and then I was the second employee Pinterest at 18 and then I started a company at 19 and raised a bunch of money from really great investors and and you know raised like 10 million bucks by the time I was 21 or something like that so I just felt like if this was going to work, these are sort of the things that you need to see right but that's kind of a delusion. It's like when your team gets to the semi-finals like it is you still have to you're still less than half.
They're right like you there's still work to do but you have so much evidence that you're like, oh this mutt you kind of start believing something that might not be true. But it was it was mostly internal disappointment the nice thing about the portfolio theory that VCS have is they don't care that much about you if it doesn't work either, right? So they're all they're sort of focused on on other things. They're kind of content to let you figure it out. At least the good ones are they kind of understand that I think but it was certainly I mean, it was certainly disappointing I think to admit when we did the layoffs that was like the big
Moment that you know, there's really no going back from that. Right? Like you're sort of saying hey this thing that we all signed up for like we literally cannot possibly keep going on this path. We need to you know, we cut 75% of the staff from 20 down to five people and 2015 and then TechCrunch wrote about it. And so, you know, just like, oh wow like the you know you we really we really failed and and even though failure is such a meme almost at this point in
You read about when it happens to you and it really you know, even though you knew the odds coming into it when it when you realize like, oh, you're part of History like this is you are the example that other people might be referring, you know, when the it feels very very different.
Do you actually feel like you failed I
did for a long time. Yeah. I mean, you know, I was living in San Francisco. Everyone's raising money and everyone's talking about how many employees they have and how much revenue they're doing and how fast they're growing certainly in that cultural.
Context it feels like you show up and it's like house gum or ago, you know, I mean, that's the quote. Those are the questions. It's not malicious but these are the questions that people tend to ask when you go to these House parties, like, you know, like how much have you know, what are you doing? Oh, where do you work? What do you do for them? Just sort of gauging your sort of like where you are.
Where are you in the hierarchy? How useful are you going to be to me?
Yeah something you know, this is I assume it happens in any Boomtown right? Like people are there for a specific reason?
Typically sort of accelerating their career it definitely when you hear that question on your kind of responding to it a lot you kind of end up sort of conflating that with your whole identity and it took me leaving San Francisco and moving to Provo, Utah and they're the questions were very different. You know, it was like hey, are you married? Where are you from? Do you go to church just different different kind of questions. It's maybe a similar things happening. There's also trying to figure out where you stand on the
their own Journey. Where do you fit in their Journey? Right? And they're also trying to form a connection around the common topics that you both are probably interested in but after a while of that you you kind of forget. Oh, I'm I am a CEO of a cup like that all kind of like I almost forgot about and really that I think distance was what got me to write that article in the first place because I think if I hadn't I wouldn't I would not have been able to write that article like sitting at a coffee shop in San Francisco, right? Like just the ego the
It's consciousness of it. I think I needed that distance to be in the middle of people who didn't really like to be so outside of that to really kind of look at it, you know and feel like I'm it was almost like an out-of-body experience where I was kind of like analyzing the life like I was writing a biography of somebody else, you know, it was so foreign at that point.
There's people that sort of ascribe your value to your position and what you do and what you can do for them, and then there's people
You who want to know who you are and sort of have a relationship with you? And then I think if we hang out with people that ascribe value to our rank or position or some sort of Authority or knowledge that we have then we become wrapped up in that we have to see ourselves as that that can be a very very bad thing over the long-term. I'm curious as to what your worst mistake was. Like what led to it. How did you recover from it? And how did you learn from it? What happened?
Yeah, I mean, I think I mean to your point just quickly like, you know, it kind of goes back to what we re talking about Singapore and like the average of your five friends and stuff right sort of the same thing. The questions that everyone in your group is asking of themselves ends up being the question that you're going to start asking yourself to in terms of the worst mistake definitely like one that is very raw because it has a very specific number tied to it as we we started raising the series B. We started talking.
New investors about it and so for context like we raised a seed round of a million bucks. We were a series a of seven and twenty twelve from Kleiner Perkins and then in 2014 2015. We're drawing 60% a year. We thought we had it wasn't going to be easy, but we thought we had a shot and we started talking to investors around the series B. We wanted to raise maybe 15 20 or so million dollars to keep going and very quickly realize like this was going to be a pretty hard a hard path if if we were in a succeed at all.
And concurrently our office lease is expiring. And so we had this 33,000 square foot office. We were spending 10 grand a month for and we had the you know, we were growing, you know startups like you have to signal that you're growing. You can't say. Hey guys, we're going to take a break figure this thing out because everyone's going to look at that and say oh these guys are Venture capitalists. You don't want those people you don't to back those people. So you're you're sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when you do that, so you have to kind of
Keep going assuming that things are going to work out for at least a certain period of time and so that's what we did. We signed a lease for a new office. So we could scale from 20 people to 40 50 people or so. It was $25,000 a month. We paid a big deposit six-figure deposit on it and move to and then, you know a few months later. It was like, we're probably not going to raise money or not. We certainly are freezing hiring now and what are we going to do it? I mean the office was disc this
He's overbearing thing you'd like walk into a cavern it felt like you know, it was it was brutal. And then when we went down from 20 to 5, guess what we are still in this office this office could hold 40 plus people and there's like four or five of us a day. It was painful. And so ultimately I had to make the decision to kill the least completely and we lost, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars and luckily we found a we
The new tenant to come in but we you know, we still lost we ended up still losing. Yeah, probably a hundred or so thousand dollars through that through that process and what I should have done in hindsight, of course hindsight's 20/20. But what I should have done is told the team. Hey, we're not moving offices were just going to renew this lease. But then again if I followed that on, you know that advice who knows what would have happened feces might have pulled out even sooner and you know, it could have been it could've been worse, but that definitely very painful and that really that Tommy this
Very deep lesson of like commitments and debt and like really feeling like you owe someone something like I really don't like being in that place where I have to establish this almost goes back to what we were talking about before to where you have these friends and you kind of there's sort of an expectation that like you're going to be friends with someone for life or is bad that you kind of go separate ways. You know, something must have gone wrong or something. We still have you know, in marriage they divorce is still maybe that's fine. Maybe just what happens, you know, that might be the right thing.
I think we definitely have a lot of attachment to these ideas. And that's another one of them. I think you know, it's the same thing. It's like I really try to form build relationships with people that feel out will they feel like we're both re-upping to keep this thing going on a very frequent basis with my employees with with my investors with other folks that I talked to it should feel very not transaction feels transactional and maybe maybe that maybe it is transactional, but it doesn't I don't know.
It feels just voluntary. It feels like something we're signing up for him that makes that makes me feel a lot better about it.
And you guys are profitable now, right?
Yeah. So we in 2015, we sort of January we knew this was going to be brutal. We spent nine months. We raised a small Bridge round 2 million dollars at 4X liquidation preference from from Kleiner and Mark Cuban and some other folks and spend nine nine or so months really trying to make it work. Like she's sort of focusing almost completely on what can we do to grow the business?
Stir and then we failed to do that. And so luckily. I told a team like, you know, they have full awareness that this was likely the path was going to lead to mass layoffs to save the company and that's what we did in October and November we downside from 25 got rid of the office finally found a new tenant and you know got profitable May $10,000 one month and it was like a dream because not only do you make ten thousand dollars your Runway goes from you know a certain finite.
Right number to Infinity right and Excel starts erroring out and you're like, yes like this week we can do this forever if we need to and that's roughly where we've been since we're we're kind of growing we're doing it in a way that we think we can do sustainably without betting the company to do anything certainly means we have to you know, we're constrained in many ways. We can't just say hey we're going to want this totally new product but team of 20 on it, but so far it's worked worked pretty well for us.
Do you wish you would have done that sooner?
Yeah, that is that is a decision that I think yeah, I and this is as I sort of do more investing. It's something I communicate to Founders a lot too is like look this is what you need to stay on this path. This is the Venture back path is actually relatively objective. You need to be growing in the article. I say 20 percent month-over-month, but it can be 10% It just needs to be sort of exponential or or so.
Polynomial or whatever the correct math term is and if you're doing that you can stay on this path. If you're not doing that it's going to be tough it really, you know, maybe he's precede a little bit different. But if you do I sort of at some point around series a series B that becomes sort of like the end all be all it becomes the most important thing in which all of the other things can't outweigh that and I knew that I saw that in the numbers like that was evident to me.
Me but I didn't make the connection with how important it was how fundamental it was for this path and I wish you know a year before I did or so, you know, we said hey look we're not growing as fast as we need to be growing like let's pause we don't have to do anything drastic because it's still early but let's pause let's recalibrate and you know, and let's let's figure this out. And certainly I would certainly wish I would have done that we would have avoided a lot of a lot of pain but it is what it
I've spoken with a few entrepreneurs who have sort of been vc-backed and then one way or another get off that train and then came to a path to profitability that was sustainable and it's almost unanimous that everybody wishes. They just would have done that from the get-go instead of and maybe that's just a you know, an outcome bias, right? So you didn't hit the sort of like big massive unicorn, you know 30X win, and so you're left with profitability, but lots of
Companies die trying to get to that stage 2. Yeah,
totally I do think there is a level of outcome bias there. I think there is also a level of one of the reasons to raise money as a social one where it gives you a sort of credential that is very useful. I can still to this day go into a room and say hey I raise money from Nepal Max levchin Kleiner Perkins Chris sacca, first round and people will take me seriously for that. Right just
because of that. Yeah the signal value
and so there is like
Kind of I think people might sort of forget when you when you get through the whole thing that you're still taking advantage of some of those things and maybe you know, it's kind of like maybe you should get into Harvard and put this, you know, the acceptance letter on the wall, but not actually attend, especially now right? It's sort of that like maybe you should like say that you they were it gonna give you the money and not take it or something. I don't know how you would frame that in a way that doesn't make you sound bad but or maybe raise a small seed round or
Something but again, like being that strategic about it because feels manipulated Venture is such a long-term game. You can't you can't think like that and I wouldn't recommend it but there is an outcome bias. I mean, I do agree with you almost every single person. I meet who runs a profitable business especially when powered by software. They wouldn't trade it for the world and frankly that their cash flow. It looks better than most folks that I know who are on paper worth a lot of a lot more money. I still haven't
Resolved that for myself because I still feel that sort of aspirational quality. Right? Like I still feel there's something about stripe like there's something about Airbnb. There's something really cool about building something so meaningful and I think part of that for me is it's a unique experience. There are a lot of these other businesses and they're great and they give you like a phenomenal quality of life and tons of freedom and time and and and certainly if you're if you are running one of
Of these other companies you don't have a lot of those things. You don't have a lot of freedom. You don't a lot of time like you're living in San Francisco regardless of what happens with covid and remote work because you need to be there but yet there's still something about that. I think it is that like you have a certain set of experiences when you get to this place that people like me just frankly want like we want to hang out with these sorts of people and have these interesting conversations and it makes it easier to do that but it is weird it feel it does feel
Like even even acknowledging it like being aware of it doesn't make it go away. You know,
what do you think is the hardest skill to transfer to other people that's necessary for success in business.
Yeah, the the skill that's been really top of mind for me right now is the ability to save other people time. Basically what I mean is there's certain people that go about their lives. I try to be like this, but they just operate in a way.
A that requires less of everybody else for them for the equivalent amount of success in that relationship. Right? So for example, someone who sends calendar invite someone who's very diligent about taking notes and following up and you know people like you you put like the link to have this conversation right into the Google calendar invite a lot of people like they'll just put in the email. I'll go find the email like there's just a level of care. It feels like you're almost like it's like a concierge service for like the getting to
Time with this person and then there are other folks that they are they're just being responsive. Like there's just things that like lead to a less less level of stress in everybody else around their lives and it's so rare. It's so rare I found and I think it's because everyone else is also trying, you know, it's type very time sensitive to about their own time. And so they end up sort of operating in a way that saving them Time by sort of maybe pushing that burden on to other folks, right? You're sort of like playing hot potato with the tasks that no one really wants to
Do but it's the people who are like I'll do that. I think that I think people under rate and you're that type of person, you know, as a CEO as a Founder those employees that do that will win like they will get whatever they want because those are the folks. I really want to surround myself with because I care about you know, my quality of life and my time and as an investor as even as a I don't know all of these other roles, I really like, how can I save you clicks? How can I save you time like when I send?
Under invite. I put my name first instead of the other person so that in their calendar it shows up. You know. Otherwise, you have all these counterfeits just your name and you can't see who you're actually talking to Jews like small things from like, how can I just really streamline? Everybody else's life and the beauty of software is you can now use a lot of software like calendly and there's a beer and these are table Etc and these tools to like hook up these things so that everyone I think can operate like as if you had a full time ta running your life for you you just now pay a couple hundred bucks.
Two three or four different tools that give you that that's actually an even better experience because software is often a little bit more foolproof than a human being.
Yeah. I like how you said that that's something I've thought a lot about and and I find myself lacking in some areas, but definitely there's a lot of people who are more thoughtful about how they approach it from the other person's point of view, which is how do I make this easy for them? Especially if you're you're asking them to come on the podcast or you're asking him to do something for you look,
do me a favor I don't want to send you 55 emails trying to schedule it I definitely don't want to you know make it hard for you to hop on board and follow the instructions and like do all of that stuff and but there's a lot of people in life like I remember going through this before when people be like let's go for coffee and you know it's like 35 emails to go further a minute coffee and you know at the end of the day you're like that's ridiculous like I don't want to do that anymore I just stopped replying to
those yeah it's like when people ask you even people who I
I know they're like hey do you want to catch up next week and I know that they have a reason for this but they won't tell me the reason and I always and I just ask people now I'm like hey what you know what do you want to talk about I don't know it's like a power a information asymmetry thing but I think it's mostly just time it's mostly like I want to I need to do something hey so how can you talk about this next week not really maybe even thinking about the fact that like you know exactly you're going to show up and know exactly what we're talking about and I'm going to show up and
Nothing. And by the way, if you tell me I'm happy to do the work ahead of time. Like I'll go read stuff. I like I will get you the answers. So when I show up I can and then the other great thing is maybe we don't even have to have the meeting like maybe everything that you need for me. I can just give you but you don't give me that opportunity. And so there's this like interesting like people who view time as the thing that they're trading and then people who sort of like can transition to value. For example, there's if you're a Founder you want $100,000.
Or me or something like that, you know as you mentioned like you're doing me a favor and it's a how can I like how easy can you make it for me? How easy? Can I make it for you? And there's certain Founders who make it so easy for me. I just reply to the email and I just say I'm in for for that like cc'ing, you know, AngelList to wire the money like they made it so easy for me to give me all of the things that I would want and then there are other folks who are like, hey, I have a great idea. Do you have time next week
signs? It's very
different. Yeah scientist and being
there's
To another level to this which like outside of maybe professional relationships, but there's people who make it difficult and then there's people who actually like it's not a conscious process, but they make it exceptionally difficult. It's like they want to go to dinner with you but they want you to convince them to go to dinner with you. You know what I mean? Like there's a there's another layer to this which is like it's not easy and it's not middle-of-the-road. It's actually quite complicated like you're put on the now I have to convince you sort of side of this.
And it's weird want to talk to you. What other skills do you look for when you're hiring
communication is a huge one. It's similar to that but people who over communicate people who are always thinking about, you know, the next day the next week the next two weeks the next month the next year and telling me what they need from me how they feel about our relationship people who are very good at doing that. It's low stress. It lets me solve their problems before they
I'm solved potentially. It makes me feel confident that they're in a good place and that they have what they need. It's like static electricity where like, you know, you ever go too long without touching something you hit something and you just like you're like skin fries for a second. It's like but if you did that all the time, it would never happen. Like that's how I think about communication especially within a within a sort of like a high stress high functioning organization where that's going to happen very quickly and you need to constantly be like tapping and like being like hey, this is what's happening. Now this what's happening. That's what's happening now, and so I think people who are
Really good at sort of ambient signaling saying like I don't need to ever go to them and say what's going on. Like I just know I wake up I check slack. I do whatever I just know what they're doing to me. That's the dream that is just like a phenomenal phenomenal thing. I think inability to write really really well is key to that part of that is just the medium in which so much of this communication happens is via writing especially now with remote work etc. But in general I just love when people when people do the work of, you know, not just sending me the email
But writing the email revising the email revising the email sending that email like the the brainwaves that they've sort of like spent on that with the context. They were already in is going to save net net saves so much time for everybody involved and then the level of conversation is so much higher because instead of going like did the the it's like I'm going to spend five minutes on this thing. But when you get it, it's already going to be like level 10 because it's already at level 10 I can get it to level 50 and and I'll give you the time that you gave me like I'll go.
I'll pay you back very very quickly and we'll build a very high-quality relationship. I would also say like I like people who are very kind of transactional frankly. Like I like people who are like I'm here there's to do this job. This is what I came here to do. I'm really excited about speeding up the site. That's all I care about and like 99% of our conversations are around that and I spend you know, I might be working with these people on a daily basis. And so I think I like that too when people don't feel the need to pack.
Job, or bundle a relationship and say hey, we're co-workers. We need this this this this and this we need you need to come to my birthday party and it like I like, you know, and that's definitely a change for me sort of ten years ago. But I like people who are like this is the way that we interact like we talked every day, but it's about investing or it's about you know, we talk every day, but it's about this other thing or you know, and and sometimes it's just like totally random stuff. Like they're people that I would never consider quote unquote friends of mine. But like when I need to talk about like oil paint,
Your something like this is the person that I talk to and we talked for hours about it. And then it might be like six months until we talk again and it's fine. I might even forget that the other person exists didn't and I actually think like a little life built of relationships like that. It gives you way more relationships and it you know, it's sort of like having a friend group of thousands of people or having a company of all these sorts of people. So I really like people who think like that where they're very sure about what they want their field. They feel very good about where they're at in life and all they're looking for is this like is all
Relation to feel like one thing that they need their trading expert Y and I just I really like knowing that that's what someone is expecting of me and I can just offer that and feel you know, and feel really good about that and focus on that, you know instead of it's like when someone's like, how can I help you get nowhere, but if you say hey, I need help with this very specific thing and intro to X I can do that. Like that's I'll do that, you know for me an email, you know with your the blurb and the deck and I'll forward it and ask for an opt-in like that's purely.
The Autumn a time that's purely a process that I go through. I could I could at some point and will automate that completely
agree that it's also making it easy for you right through investing in through gumroad. I mean you've dealt with probably thousands of entrepreneurs at this point. What are the common patterns of success and failure that you've seen?
Yeah, I think one big one is is they build stuff. They actually build stuff in the early days. It was the it was the only group of people that I hung out with like I wasn't just hanging out startup people. I was hanging.
The people who went through some stuff to get there. It's like often the people the best people in the industry are the ones that didn't go to school for that industry because it means that they had to cross all of these things to get into it if that makes sense. So people who people who build stuff I think I was surrounded by those people when I get it started getting into it more and meeting thousands of people realize that a lot of people don't actually build stuff. They don't know how to build stuff. They need help this kind of goes back to what we're talking about again, like, you know, they're people who need all of these things from other people and I don't like those
those people I like the people who are like I want this for my life. I want to build a company. I want to build an app. I want to be a musician like it could be I want to write a book. I need all of these things from other people in order for me to do that. I mean that is very uncontrollable way to live your life right like to say, I wish it would be the equivalent of saying I want to make a movie. I have a great idea right like and and the world is full of these kinds of people and so that's a big one. It's like well make a movie you have an iPhone like show me
Show me like cool thing that you've made there's Tick-Tock now, I mean like there's things you can even put the stuff on like show me what you've made. There's a great book Rebel Without a crew by Robert Rodriguez who directed a legal battle Angel and taxi driver and he hits basically talks about his journey and it's like it's like The Lean Startup apply to filmmaking or something like that where he just he literally says, okay. I live in this town. These are the things I have in my town. I'm going to make a plot that involves these things because that's what I have right now and then
I'll make another movie, you know, like will take it. You know it one Sunday answer whatever like it. That's what got him started and and that those are the people that I look for the people who want something so badly that they just figure out how to do it and they're okay with like not maybe sort of having their first thing be just like the dream project. They just get started and then they figure things out as they go and so building stuff people who don't ask for permission people who have hard skills people who really try to save people time and are really feel grateful, you know, like,
They feel like wow, I'm so lucky to be in this place. Like how can I make it as easy as possible for everybody people who don't think of it like a numbers game where I just need to send a hundred emails and what three people are going to say. Yes. It's like I'm going to send three emails. I'm gonna spend three hours on each one and all of them are going to say, yes, but I think that's possible. I think a lot of people underestimate how possible that is and people who read a lot I would say this the other thing is people who again sounds I don't know like when I say these things it makes it seem like these are just basic expectations I have
Have almost but it but you might be surprised. I like how few people deeply read about anything let alone their subject. I mean their own industry their own don't you know, they're set of problems that they're interested in someone might say hey, I'm really interested. Like I from their tweets it seems like they're really interested in health care. Like they think healthcare is fundamentally broken. It's totally messed up in the u.s. We need to go. And by the way, this could be someone who's like we need to go this way or that way. Like, I don't know exactly what you know, this is a
Abstract example, but if you said hey, okay, cool. What's the best book that you read on Health Care in America and like why it's gone to the way it is and and what the right answer is a lot of them will say I haven't read a book. I read a book about it. I've read a lot of tweets. I read a ton of tweets. I read a lot of listen to a lot of podcasts with politicians about this and celebrities about this. I've read some, you know, Atlantic thought pieces or something like that. I have I'm subscribed to a few steps tax, but to like have you deeply like gone into the subject and the filter that I use is if you remove the
The social incentive so much of this you done because of the social incentive. It's to comment it's to go to work and talk about something. It's you know, the reason I think people don't often read a lot of these old books. It's because of that that's social incentive goes away, you know, you read this book and then you're smarter, but that's it. You know, but I
can't signal that easily to other people.
Yeah, I can't. Yeah exactly. Yeah. It's like hey man, like I read this phenomenal book on like I'm reading a book right now on whales I don't know why I like someone I like
Tweeted about the book and it seemed interesting and it's quite it's interesting is a very interesting book. I don't know why I'm reading it. I haven't talked to anyone about it. It's full of really fascinating stuff. But like very very few people. I think do that, you know, and but but ironically almost almost in the sort of paradox when you do stuff like that short term, I think that's true but long-term over time. I really think that's a clear I'm doing it like there's still reason I'm doing it just like a much larger longer time Horizon and
This has happened so many times or I'll randomly run into somebody someone who maybe is exactly the perfect person to like Propel me in my career and they'll be like what you know, what book are you reading? I'll be like I'm reading like a face like class. It's like young adult fantasy thing or whatever and they're be like, that is my favorite book. That is my that has happened to me so many times and guess what? I'm now, they're the the they want to hang out with me all day long and not to talk about this other stuff. But just to talk about the you know, like they finally have someone else that they can talk about. So I do think it's
It's sort of that sort of impatient with you know, impatient patients, you know, kind of sort of thing in patient. You want to be impatient with results I guess but I definitely noticed that people would like their it's very rare to meet someone who's genuinely just like exploring things that are at that sort of limits of their interest to kind of figure out what's new and different and it's selfish of me. I like those people because they can teach me about all this new weird stuff that I can go explore myself, but I find that sort of innate curiosity that isn't tied to a social thing or a financial thing is is
Is relatively rare and maybe that just quote unquote privilege right where it's like, oh you've achieved XYZ thing is sort of the philosopher king thing. Like now that you're here, you can spend all this time messing around and figuring out these things, but regardless, I mean that is something that I look for in the people that I hang out
that's interesting on a dive a little bit into that. What's your ideal ratio of sort of exploring broadly to diving deep into a certain subject. Do you think for reading
II would say I spend almost all of my time ago.
And broadly like I go deep very very very rarely. Even with authors like it's pretty rare where I find an author where I am like this person is so good. I need to read everything that they've written that's happened a couple times like Matt Ridley recently was one of those people for me, but even like when you read his books, it's like every book is different ones about genomics one's about risk one's about virtue one's about Evolution one's about Innovation now, and there's clearly a thread
Right, like you can kind of see the rational option. You can see like what's what's where he's coming from and certain it sort of fingerprint is certainly on those books. But even he is it seems to me is just exploring these things broadly because I think like it makes those connections when they happen like just so much more satisfying when you find a connection between I don't know the way that mole rats like resemble like the way humans used to be and maybe like they're sort of we figured out that there's this sort of like Middle Ground of social, you know, there's a
Ax there's Pick Pack animals, and then there's like you social animals the Kali animals that are like bees ants and mole rats for some reason mole rats are also part of this group and then there's humans as a result. You know, it's just interesting. I just think it's like, oh, maybe maybe there's a way to apply like this is like a start-up and this is a midsize company. This is a large company. I don't know but I think so for me so many of the insights like the easy and sites have already been solved if I just go deep it's going to take like literally you have to go to the bottom of the ocean to get like if you go deep in quantum theory.
There's a lot of books you're going to have to read to get to really the frontier. But if you go abroad I feel like I feel like there's just so much more Avenue there like there's just so much more freedom. Like it doesn't take that fart it to end up in like totally unknown territory. It's and even if there are other people there, there's like four of you, you know, there's like four people on Twitter that are talking about like the commonality between like yeah like animal relationships and like company organization Dynamics. It's yeah, so I always think
Like that's a better. That's a better approach. I frankly very rarely go deep on on reading at
least what are some of the books that have had the biggest influence on you in terms of your thinking around entrepreneurship or investing
how to win friends is my my sort of top recommended book. It's almost you know kind of a cliche. I feel like at this point to recommend that book but it is like the canonical example for me of this saving other people time like the whole book is about like, how do I
I I operate in a way that makes everyone's else's life just really clean really stress-free really easy until then everyone's going to want to work with you and be your friend. And so I think that is a really great book Thinking Fast and Slow is a really great one all of the Matt Ridley Books. I think are really really really good. I think understanding your mental prison almost like understanding the constraints of your brain physically and your body feel like just where you came from like what
Add to this moment, I think it's just so helpful in terms of like feeling like oh, these are the things you have control over. These are the things you don't have control over David George's books. I just read the beginning of infinity and the fabric of reality those books. It's actually currently the thing that I'm thinking the most about is the fabric of reality it is like, you know, I know you learn about, you know, parallel universes and sort of quantum mechanics.
And things in high school, you take a you know, an elective or what have you and you kind of get it intellectually, but like really spending hundreds of words like hundreds of pages like in this person's head in the way. They think about it and how that relates to like Free Will and they just like really been interesting for me because that's one, you know, one question. I always think about a lot is like when you decide to do something like, you know, like when I decided to leave San Francisco and moved to Provo, was it the stuff in Provo that made me open minded was I open minded when I decided to move
Like where did I have the learning? Where is that? Like, is it a discrete system? Is there a point is it you know, and so I've just been thinking a lot about like you don't like when I have an idea when I decide to respond to a question you have where is that even coming from? Like I just speak I can't tell you like where do you know? It's very weird. And so I've been like really interested in like in the sort of parallel universes and and quantum mechanics to because I really think like when you when you learn the answer like there is an answer like what you got to believe that I think to keep to keep pursuing.
Doing this kind of stuff, but when you figure it out, like when you realize like, oh the reason that you know, like I don't know like a hot water clean stuff faster than cold water. Like when you know, the physical reason behind that, it feels good. It feels like you have a grip on that your life, you know like it you can actually apply it in my in a way, you know,
we want what is hot water clean stuff faster than cold water.
So I think it's because you know temperature and he is just the particles are moving faster. There's just more things.
The ground balancing stuff. So I think when you're cleaning stuff, like just like have more particles like hitting a stuff off that, you know ends up dislodging these molecules or what-have-you from the from the material and so I think it's literally just like collect the collisions are happening at a faster rate. I think person just like things like that where you just like, I don't know. It just feels very satisfying for me to know that life is weird. I mean like life is very strange and I think you go through this Middle where you you're born and you're like,
The World is Flat and like the skies above us and you know and gravity just makes sense. You can like obviously flying would be weird like what you know, like you just kind of take these and then you learn all of this weird stuff. Like we're on a ball of fire just like shooting through like the void like right now, we're like what you know, just crazy and luckily we have like some rock around the ball of fire. The sun doesn't even have that, you know, just like just weird stuff and then and then I feel like just I'm just like floating like I have no
Pounding in reality. I'm just like learning all these things in my life is like what is death and this and that like it's just crazy and then it you know, once it once you start to read that stuff, I feel like I'm going back to that first place where it's all actually incredibly simple just a bunch of dots moving around and you know bouncing off each other and at you know different levels of abstraction, you can use the phenomenon to explain different things just like the Earth and the Sun they're just two particles in space just like when you're cleaning something. Yeah, it's just two particles space or whatever and then Adam that you know, there's like it kind of goes all the way up and down.
Down and it's like a fractal pattern. It just makes me feel like I understand and I can like move forward without like walking through a wall accidentally or something, you know, like it just something like that. I don't know where I'm going with this but I do enjoy like really feeling like I understand and that goes back to the entrepreneurship stuff to like just figuring out like what I can what I can deeply understand like reading the PayPal Wars reading in the plaques. A lot of these books are just really important because you are building a company you're hiring folks. It's like
start from scratch right when you have all of these resources from people who've done it before and and and the lessons aren't that like the world hasn't changed that much in many ways you can sort of like straight-up apply a lot of this stuff copy paste it
there's a lot of Timeless lessons from that as yours you were talking of is saying I was thinking that maybe you can just appreciate the beauty of the the world in a different level with you that sort of understanding and I think that that's really important to be able to do in terms of quality of life maybe I want to
um to happiness later but Switching gears a little bit here what are you most insecure about I am definitely
insecure about like wanting stuff I mean I still think I am driven by a level of ambition and want for something even though I have read all of these books and I feel like relatively good about what I understand about the world and how little it really matters like it did There's Something satisfying about it and so I'm definitely kind of like insecure about the fact that I
Have those wants and desires like I think I don't know if they will go away. But I mean, you know, I always try to try to figure that out and on earth like why similar why like why am I like this? I don't have to solve the problem. But just understanding where this comes from. It just gives me a level of sort of like closure almost like, okay, that's just the way I am that's because of this thing. I can't change it. I can't get taller. You can't do that. Right? Like there's just certain things and that's that's that's fine. So that's that's that's that's probably a big.
And then just like figuring out I'm sort of insecure with how much I worked like how I work a lot. I'll enjoy it a lot. I am insecure about the fact that I enjoy it so much and even you know, like I go on Twitter and I talked about maybe not working so much but I just genuinely really enjoy enjoy it. And so yeah, there's a lot there's a lot of things like wanting a nice house for whatever to write like the basic things that people people seem to seem to want and then, you know, starting a family like that.
That's a scary Prospect as well that I hope to make like the focus of my life in the next like 10 years or so. Was it scary? It just feels like it feels like I'm I've been so self-centered my whole life, you know, it's basically everything I've done was for me and you know, I got married in last year in December and that was like the first time that I you know, I was like, okay, this is like we're signing up for it, you know something pretty big. This is very different from the the the ideal relationships that I like with most people for me.
Um, just email me every six months. Yeah, we'll check in. So the merge is good
and you know, like I moved up to Portland Oregon recently. That's the first time I've ever moved to a place as a group decision. It wasn't just me to saying hey, I'm gonna go do this, you know, because I want to and so that was like that's a there's a set of learnings that I need to go through I think having children like I think that will be really meaningful and but yeah, I think it's just like
For me to figure out like how do I live a life that sort of like the vision of what's important is is slightly larger
children are amazing. And yeah, this is so incredible.
I'm excited. I'm people ask me like, what are you excited about like gumroad event and always like having kids like honestly like five years from now or so like that. That's definitely like what I am aiming aiming for and I think everything else is sort of like a kind of a distraction almost like just to keep me busy until I get
there. I want to talk a little
Bit about your writing process. You're pretty prolific on Twitter that changed about. I don't know 18 months ago or something. It just your style sort of changed a lot and ever since then, you know, I think you've got a lot of traction on there. So I want to I want to learn about your writing process a little bit how you come up with ideas how you put them into pithy sort of like tweets and talk to me about that.
I have a lot of conversations. I would say my life is sort of pretty distinct into distinct.
Buckets, I'm either like having an interesting conversation with someone or I'm spending time totally alone, especially with covid. There's no kind of like in between or social events or other background noise. Like it's really just like we're talking we're not talking like sort of feels like that. So a lot of a lot of the tweets like that's when I started learning how to how to oil paint. I realized like the fundamental skill and painting was observation. It wasn't like paint application and like knowing color theory. It was like, can you even see what's in front of you well, and if you can do that then like copy-pasting that
To a piece of paper with some dirt and oil is actually the easy part and I think the same thing with with writing. It's it's like living a life like having a conversation with someone. It's almost meditative. You're like having the conversation but you're also listening to yourself have the conversation and I think that's really important because you're sort of like your own editor where you can't change what you're doing and saying in the moment, but like maybe you can note it for like future use and that's how you improve as a communicator and a conversationalist and I think writing is centered similar.
We're like, I'll be having a conversation with someone and I will somehow like subconsciously sort of pin that little moment like bookmark it like I said a sentence within a rant about a certain topic. That's I should tweet. I should just literally take that part sentence and go tweet it and and that's a lot of my tweets and then a lot of them are, you know, those sentences that I save and then I just like to stare at for a long time or they're things that I just can't stop thinking about that. I often feel like it's like food poisoning or
Thing where it's just like in my system and I can't get it out and I can't stop thinking about it every day. I wake up and I like for some reason the stupid. It's like a song stuck in your head. It just comes up again. And I found one of the best ways to reach its like resolving a you know, a problem in therapy or something like that. Like once you figure out like what it is why it is you package up in a way that gives you Clarity. It's kind of like untying, you know a certain like a string with a bunch of knots in it you finally can see this thing for what it is and then I would
I often share it and the sharing is really cathartic for me because it sort of gives it to somebody else. It's like that's your food poisoning now like you go you go you go. Think about this for a while. I'm done. I did the work for myself. I you know, I've digested this thing. Here you go. Have fun with it. And that's a lot of how I kind of how I sort of like to think and I would say the other Insight that I think has really worked for me is I always try to figure out like does this apply to a lot of the things in my life? Like I think if you take them if you take it from
Very sort of entrepreneur business focused you're going to end up with like a very kind of narrow set of thoughts. But if you if I often will and that's a lot of the conversations that I'm having but also as a writer as a painter as an investor as a husband is other things that I do now if I can take the same lesson and apply to all these other things and it sort of feels like a universal truth then I often like Duck. Those are those escort of a sort of a filter that I used to like Groove at the quality of
Thing that I that I would share as well
one of the things that you said there that struck me was observing and talk to me a little bit about how we can become a better Observer of the
present. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it is is paying attention and taking notes. This was the one of the first times I had this experience was I was painting a rock. I was in southern Utah with like an oil on canvas and I was painting a rock and I spent three hours takes me roughly like 2 to 3 hours.
Like planar paint something and I remember like four months I could get me probably even today I could draw I could draw that rock out for you like the Angles and the shape of the proportions, you know, roughly if I asked you to draw dollar bill like you wouldn't I wouldn't be able to do it you won't be able to do it. We've never spent that time like genuinely staring and paying attention to a dollar bill. I know what you would draw I know what I would draw we draw this rough thing.
With like a 1 here and a 1 here and like a circle on this something but like we
have we had the silhouette almost like that. We have the shape and the yeah.
Yeah. It's like when you when you're a kid and you draw the Sun and you have the race right like there's a symbol that you're storing you have the Almond eyes you have, you know, like the nose that's like three kind of three semi circles, but you've never actually like studied what this thing actually is and looks like and so I think a lot of it is just doing that.
I think you can improve like the time that you're taking and that's what being present is to me. It's like just really focusing on the present moment and like noticing as many things as possible which sounds easy, right? And it's almost paradoxical if you're obviously here. Like what does that mean? You're obviously looking out through your eyes, you're smelling things through your nose, but like if I said, okay when like how many times did you blink the last 3 seconds? You wouldn't even remember the last time you blinked clearly you blinked somewhere in the last like your eyes aren't dry.
An outright but like this is something that you literally saw like you saw yourself do that, but it's gone like your brain didn't even remember any of this stuff. And so I think that's a big part of it is your brain unless you tell the brain you signal to it. Hey, this is important like make a note of this because I'm going to need this later to survive or you know to like some of these very fundamental biological incentives. It's going to forget because guess what like you have a finite number of neurons you have energy and you know it
With energy is being expended like, you know, there's this sort of the famous adage of the sort of like the chess players that burn like eight nine thousand calories a day like doing this insanely intense exercise effectively. And I think that's a big part of it is like you need to figure out like what is the uncomfortable? What is like the the exercise of version of what I'm doing right where I'm not just you know, like I don't know drawing dragons out of my head, but I'm actually like figuring out like, okay, what are what are the fundamental building blocks that lead to me being able to do a certain?
Skill and then and then, you know kind of a tree structure and then figuring out okay, that means I need to learn perspective. That means I need to draw hundreds of boxes in perspective. Once I can do that. Then I can draw ants because answer a little bit more structural or something like that. Then I can draw maybe like looser looser animals like a you know things with her and and things like that and then I can do cars and mobile. I like I you can scale that up and then you like a dragon is sort of like a cat with wings that breathe fire like it has the body proportions roughly of a cat.
And that's where the dragon driving like comes from. But if you like some people I think they just look at they don't do the work of figuring out like what is the path that leads to this? They just say, oh that I want to do that. Right? So it's kind of the same thing. It's like the way you have to learn what you need in the moment and you can't really it's like, you know, you got to learn addition to learn math to learn multiplication. You got to learn multiplication learn division. You got to learn both of those things to learn algebra. You got to learn algebra to learn geometry. I think you need those things to learn trigonometry. You need those things to learn precalculus like so
Recited sir. If you miss one of those things you can still get by in life. Right? Like you can still like ASA tests and and draw the things when you need to you can memorize but you don't really have a deep understanding of that. It's kind of the same thing with with being present. It's just like I think some people go really far and they just they feel like they need to do all of these things. But the truth is you just need to be there and you need to stop thinking about other stuff and you just need to like really like it has to hurt almost like you have to be so focused like you're working out.
I'm spending an hour trying to figure this problem out and I think most people they they might think about it like oh, I just need to meditate but I meditation is almost work. Like it. Should I think it is it is like a, you know, like exercise physical physical activity.
This has been awesome and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk
today. You're welcome. Thanks so much for having
me.
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