Milan Kordestani -Navigating the Future of Civil Discourse; A Guide to Effective Communication

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by my good friend and someone I truly admire, Milan Khorostani. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me, Casey. It's good to be here again.

Well, we should say it's good to be back. So funny story, everyone. Milan and I recorded an original episode of the podcast about a week ago, and unfortunately we wasn't recording the audio, so we're doing it again for round two. You know what?

It's exciting. It's in a new space now. The book is out into the world. It's exciting.

It's so funny. Cause I've been podcasting for five and a half years and that's happened a handful of times, and it's just. It never gets easier when things happen like that and it's just funny. But as you mentioned, the book is out now. How are you feeling? I mean, this. Before we even get there, your book, I'm Just Saying, I've read it and just knowing your story over the years, it's been so cool to see the way that you've articulated civil discourse and what it means to you. And for people that might not know your book, I'm just saying I'd love for you to give a high level of what the book is and what people, you know, should look for.

So the book's called I'm Just Saying, and it's basically a book of guidelines for conducting civil discourse. And civil discourse is this idea that we want to create common ground in the conversations that we're having in our lives.

And.

And it's a framework and guidelines for understanding how to communicate better in a digital setting. And taking stories from my life, whether they were personal stories or stories from entrepreneurship or like running a remote company that I found, you know, these lessons through making mistakes or moments of insight that I felt were important to reflect on and that I think are important for people to be able to conduct more impactful conversations in their lives.

Love that. And you know, your book is something that is not only very new, but you've been a writer for a long time and you've had a company that's a publication. And just you've been an incredible entrepreneur for a while and now running different companies. I would love for you to just give a high level overview for the people that are listening, what it is that you do, the companies that you've created over the years before. We really dive into the conversation.

Yeah. So I've been incubating a few different startups over the last five years now, and I've only recently started articulating it as incubating companies. Because what it really was was like, there's a problem in my life or the world. Let me create a startup to try to solve that problem at scale for other people. But one of those was being a writer and feeling like a lot of the stories I was writing and others were writing were just like, not deep enough and not. Not going further enough into our opinions and thoughts to create the most impactful conversations that we could. Which is kind of like what you want to do as a writer, right? You want to, like, move people with your words and have them think new thoughts and have difficult conversations and. And progress. And so. So I started writing when I was 16 years old for the Huffington Post. I found Arian Huffington's email on Twitter and I just was like, hey, I've been raising chickens and growing saffron hydroponically, and I would love to write. It turned into this, you know, like, great story of mine. Now that. Because it was like the first person that I like, felt validated me.

And where did you find her email?

It was on Twitter. It was on Twitter. And it was crazy because she was just like, anyone that wants to be a contributor, let me know.

Wow.

And it was like, early days, Huffington Post. She was trying to scale it.

You're a teenager.

I was a teenager. I was 16. I had to get my parents permission. But it was crazy because, like, you. Every article you put out in the world, you knew people were going to read it. And it was kind of like a weird, weirdly powerful moment. And anyways, that model didn't. Didn't scale. They don't do that that easily anymore. But so I did that for a while, and then it turned into writing for Entrepreneur and Rolling Stone. And along the way, all of these publications, I felt all the content we were putting out was just generic, or it was like promotional, or it was branding. And that if we. I really wanted to get the great stories out into the world, we had to do it without fear of repercussion. And so that was the birth of this startup called the doe, which was an anonymous publishing company. We would vet people and we would vet the stories that they said happened to them, and we'd put them out in the world and create civil discourse based off of those stories. So what that means is people would come in and we would get them to engage basically on social media and elsewhere and try to keep it really civil on often difficult and divisive topics.

Yeah, and there's so much to talk about of in the dough and I just want to give the full context for people as well. So the companies that you incubate, we have the dough, we have Auto, which let's give a high level overview of that real quick.

Yeah, so Auto, we use AI to basically reverse engineer the curriculum that you need to be able to land jobs that are available in the marketplace. What that actually means is that you come in, we help you understand based off of your personality, past experience and past skills. Those are each like different types of quizzes. We have what you're most qualified for or what we'd recommend for you to go. And that will be like a bunch of different courses, 15,000 courses actually. And some of them are from Google and Meta and IBM. And we basically are trying to create like a streaming service of all of the Internet's curriculum. So for $39 a month, all access, you can learn as much as you want. And as you complete these courses, the skills that we know you're getting from these courses will allow us to match you to jobs that are available from the Internet. And, and so yeah, that's autoau.com and then another one's a record label that I co founded with my sister called Gwyn Records and there's another company called Noda which actually spun out of the do. And we use AI to basically help scale publisher content. So like all of these written stories that all of these publishers have, they're trying to turn them into video and audio and all of these different formats. You know this well because you're working in this space too with like the podcast AI space. But yeah, trying to help publishers do that for their content so they can stay relevant brands, you know, and, and yeah, so those are some of the.

Startups I, I'm so fascinated like over the years and we've been good friends for, I think it's been over two and a half years now, or two years since we initially met and we've gone to music festivals, we've traveled to different countries together. And seeing how you've operated these different entities, I'm just so curious when it comes to like what you talk about in your book Discourse, you have different teams, you're talking to different missions, like different people with different priorities. How do you go about having discourse with leaders within your companies? And what have you learned over the years of building multiple companies to then now having this incubator. Sorry, not incubator, how do you say it?

Yeah, it's an incubator.

Incubator. How do you differentiate? And what is more so just the framework that you live by in terms of the communication and discourse amongst the portfolio.

You have to really trust people. And trust is one of like the most fundamental pieces I think, of civil discourse is that you have to have trust that you know, when you show up for people, when you're honest with them, when you treat them well, like they are going to show up for you and do the same. And you know, I mean, that's also like integrity and all of that, but in the context of civil discourse, like being a young person working with tons of people who are often older than you or people who are on different teams and don't really understand why you're spending your time working on some other project. Right. You just have to be really open and communicate what it is that you believe. And for me that's been like, look, I want to scale impact as much as possible across different industries. I want to employ people. I want to employ people to work on things that are going to be impactful and, and that's it, that's the mission. And so like, sometimes that means that there's going to be shortages of time spent elsewhere and you know, when you have trust with the people that you're working with, it ends up working out.

I love that. And when it comes to like, the entrepreneurial drive to start things isn't something that is natural for a lot of people and that you grew up in an environment where you were around startups in the bay, San Francisco, what was it? Or was there any moments like during your childhood where you said, hey, I want to get into tech, I want to start my own companies. Or like, what was your process individually when, like, you know, picking and choosing what your career could look like? I know you went to college in Colorado. Colorado. But let's talk about the early days, right? Like growing saffron hydroponically and the chickens. All these crazy things that you talk about in the book.

Yeah.

Like where did, when did you start to realize that? Like, hey, I want to not only be an entrepreneur, but what were some of the influences that you can think back on that impacted you in the early days?

So it's funny that my book ended up getting categorized. I didn't know this until they did it, but they put it in like the anger management category of self help.

Number one, by the way. New releases. Number one.

New release for that category. Yeah. So that means like, of the, of that category this week, books being released, this one Got to number one.

That's so exciting.

It's cool. But they. That category was interesting to me because, like, I think back to that question, and I think for most entrepreneurs, there is like, this little bit of need to learn by failing and making mistakes. And that's a really interesting thing, right, because you're not the person that gets told all of this information all the time and just believes people. And it takes a little bit of like, okay, yeah, well, I'll see for myself. And. And you know, that's the catalyst for a lot of learning, which is amazing, but it also is the catalyst for a lot of mistakes and bumps along the way that might be preventable. And so I think for me there's like, there was that. And so it was always, this problem exists in my world. I've had to create solutions for everything else. I want to do this at scale now. And that is like the truth of entrepreneurship, I think, is like, it's. It's building to solve a problem at scale or often for other people and, you know, or your client or whatever it is that you're doing, right? Like, you're trying to take something that you're really great at and do that at scale. And writing for me is like that, trying to make impact on a micro level. Like, at the individual level, if someone reads this book or this article, they can like, understand life a little bit better and be a little bit happier. So, yeah, I think there was always that, that challenge or that, like, interest in me. And also growing up in the Silicon Valley, like, there is this belief that anything is possible. Like, people were building the most insane tech companies and connecting the world in ways that we had never seen before. And they were just starting out of garages, doing that. And my parents both were in tech, but my dad especially as well was at Google early on and like, seeing that insane rise to see this massive company that remained playful to its core and was quite like, innovative and building all of these different ventures and then they turned into Alphabet because they had all of these different ideas that the founders loved. So, you know, I'm sure there was a little bit of impact, like seeing all of that and thinking to myself, like, ah, like, anything's possible. Let me try to solve every problem in the world.

Yeah, it's so cool because like, there's even, you know, seeing a company like Google early days, like growing up, right, the whole world's using Google. Like, how was it being, you know, not necessarily the insider, but just having your father work early at this, you know, Company that was super early stage at the time. Maybe, like, what did you learn from that personally? From just like seeing this explosion of the company that your dad was a part of and just how did you just. Yeah, like, what were your thoughts on that early on?

Yeah, I think the earliest thoughts were that it. It's really hard. It takes a lot of sacrifice. Like my dad, most of my childhood was traveling constantly and had to be in different places to make deals happen. But like, you know, it's also a really amazing thing when you find a team that starts to gain traction and can like, you know, starts to build on that. So, you know, I think it was, it was this realization that like anything is possible, but it's also a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of consistency. And so I really resonate with that like mantra of 10,000 hours. Right? You got to like put in your 10,000 hours for anything to be great. And even now with like having a book out in the world and like put it making content. I was mentioning this to you the other time, but like putting out content on social media for me is like, ah, yeah, I got to put out whatever Gary Vee is telling me. Four videos a day on every single platform. Like I got to put in that 100 video mark before I can even start to question the algorithm.

Yeah, putting down this self doubt and just like firing away.

Right?

No, totally speaking of the book, so I'm just saying the title, A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discord in an Increasingly Divided World. What inspired the name of the book? And when did you really start to think about like, hey, I want to articulate my thoughts on this topic. You know, you come from a writing background. You have a publication. You, you not only publication, but the anonymous publication, the DOE that brought these very just polarizing points of views out into the world and therefore discourse. When were the seeds planted for this book and what was the writing process like for you?

So I think it was. There was this moment when I was. It was my freshman year of college. I think it was when I read the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Have you read that book?

I think five times.

Okay. Yeah. It's a fantastic book. And I think that the way he set up the book really inspired me in general more than just like the, the inspirational messages of the book was these stories that he would tell within it. And it was, it was really amazing how each of these stories that would be like weaved with like all of these lessons would become their own little like inspirational. Anecdote that sticks with you, and there's little mantras and comparisons you make to your own life. And so I remember that framework. And when I went to create the do, it was a lot of that thought process, like, let's have these stories be first person perspectives, really raw, you know, and then, of course, to get it even more interesting and unfiltered, you know, adding that anonymity element to it. So I think all of those elements really were the start of it. And then I got approached by these two agents who were out in Canada, and they were like, we believe that there needs to be a book on civil discourse. And it kind of gave me the belief that, like, okay, yeah, I should write a proposal and try to get something together. Because I had all of these stories from my life that I thought, okay, I should probably share these. If I have a publication dedicated to civil discourse, and I feel like I can't publish on it because it would be so obvious if I start telling my stories on my anonymous publication. Yeah, but I was like, I have these stories. I want to be an example of vulnerability and storytelling, which is an important part of civil discourse. You know that. So it kind of started there. And as I started writing it, I started thinking back, like, who were the people that inspired me? And in the book, I talk about Mr. Rogers, I talk about Oprah, I talk about, like, different people throughout my life that basically, you know, like, at moments I got mantras from or that inspired me to be able to maintain better discourse or improve the discourse in my life when I otherwise was, I don't know, like rambunctious. Rambunctious. Like frustrated or uncivil at times. Defensive.

Yeah, I think, too, just in the book, and just like, embracing vulnerability as a whole, as in your content in. In the book, specifically, how was it as a writer, embracing the vulnerability to talk about things like parents, divorce, or just some internal thoughts that you had as a kid where you had to be right in certain situations just at times, I think for anyone, Right. If you're journaling and to yourself, you can recognize moments that. Or I try to do, like, recognize moments that you're like, wow, I probably wouldn't want people to read this, but I. This is a. This is the truth. This is how I felt. And the ability to embrace that in such a public form of a book. I'm sure that's was a learning process for you, and I'd love to ask you, like, what was it like telling these stories the way you told them and then therefore Putting them out in the world.

Yeah, it was incredibly uncomfortable when I first started writing the story. Like, well, when I first wrote the book, the manuscript I submitted got rejected and it was. They were like, we didn't want a 21 year old. We didn't like, sign a publishing deal with a 21 year old because we wanted some technical analysis of civil discourse throughout the years, even though a lot of chapter one is that. But it was the whole book at one point and I condensed it down and they were like, we want stories from, like, your life that are relatable and that people are going to read and think this. Like, okay, yeah, this makes sense to me. This is someone I know and that can also inspire me. And, and that it kind of like, resonated for me. That was that moment of like, oh, right, this is why Think and Grow Rich work. Not because it was like a textbook, but because it was somewhat relatable. And so, you know, in going there, I was like, okay, well, let's, let's try to bridge that line. Let's talk about divorce. And we can start by the fact that this experience I'm going to share, though it's uncomfortable. It's actually a significant amount of people in, like, America that are going through this every single year as well.

Yeah.

And so that's how you can make this relatable. Right. Like, this is a story. It's not like taking advantage of this in my life. It's like using this as a vehicle to be able to help others cope better or learn and be great. So that was kind of. It was a difficult moment. And the way I started to get words onto paper was by recording voice notes. And I found that like, okay, I'm in the shower overthinking life, and now I'm remembering that story and how that applies to something I was writing earlier. Let me start to record that and see, like, you get out and you quickly in the voice note, and then eventually you go and you have to listen to yourself talk and write it down, which is, you know, often it's okay because I like to. I like to clean up my words. But then we re recording all of that out loud. When I did the audiobook, that was. That was a little painful. And even now listening to it, it's a little bit like, I'm proud of myself type of moment.

But it's also like, okay, yeah, absolutely. The vulnerability in that. Where is there moments in your life where you bottled up vulnerability at all? And if so, like, what led you to bottle that Up?

Yeah. Deep question. I think there was a couple different moments. It was one of them when I was. I think one of the main ones was in college. And it was like, I knew I was an entrepreneur, I wanted to build things, and I was surrounded by like, a mindset that was rather like anti capitalism and anti, like, it was. It was a lot of like, let's try to tear it down. The system is broken. Let's tear it down. And for me, there was a mentality of like, let's work within the system to try to rebuild. And I don't know. And so there was a lot of, like, having to repress that, I guess, which is like the entrepreneurial side, I guess, to go deeper into that question. I don't know, like, when in general, like, tragic things happen in life, whether it's like, parents getting divorced or it's difficulty with your startup and like, what's going on, then, like, and not wanting to kind of show up or share that with people in your life because you're like, ah, this will pass. I'm strong. I'll get through this. You know, like, that is when you end up realizing, like, dang, not sharing that vulnerability. In that moment, maybe someone else was also going through a similar struggle and now they don't feel comfortable sharing back with you. And then you end up having this rather stale conversation that's like, rather surface level because you didn't take that extra, like, second to get deep and vulnerable to open it up for the other person to respond.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think too just. I think everyone can relate to that of, like, moments where, you know, you're not being vulnerable and you're hiding something. Not hiding, but, like, you're. It's so uncomfortable where you don't share it and you're like, wow, if only I could just be authentic. If only I could just share this. You'd probably. And most times when you do maybe share that with a, you know, safe space, your, you know, significant other, your mom, your dad, whoever may be. It's just so much tension is, like, released at least through personal experience or if you're holding something, I feel like, wow, all I do is say that out loud. And it feels so much better. Right?

Yeah. I mean, that's the whole, like, world of talk therapy. This idea that, like, someone else is gonna ask you questions that are super uncomfortable and eventually you're gonna say things out loud and be like, oh, like. And make the dots connect.

Yeah. When it comes to life outside of business and maintaining discourse, what have been the biggest challenges for you over the years as you've become a leader in business, but also just, you know, you're living in Los Angeles, you're having new friends, like, building relationships, being, you know, very conscious about what you put out in the world, and like, the conversations you want in your life. Just how has civil discourse played a role in your life outside of work?

So I, I love talking about this idea of mantras. And so the one mantra that I'll say that has helped me a lot with the discourse in my life, personal and work in LA especially, is to be less precious. And it's how I got back to posting content on social media after a while was like, I need to be less precious with my social media. I need to be less precious with, like, you know, how I view myself sometimes, you know, like, just relax a little bit, you know, and, and understand that, like, sometimes we're going to say things and it's going to work, you know, it's going to be the wrong thing. But this whole idea behind civil discourse is that you should be able to take in new information and be able to change your opinion when needed. And like, that should be a social norm we should enforce. Right. Like, we are not robots. We should be able to adapt and take in new information and evolve our opinion based on that new information. And so, you know, anything short of that of being like, oh, well, you said this one time, and you, I, you're like this person. Like, well, I changed, sorry. We want to support that as a culture. So.

Yeah, and I know you give so many great examples in the book, but, like, when it comes to the ability to take in information and change opinion, like, what is the, I guess you could say, like, for people out there that are probably looking at themselves or listening to this and saying, wow, like, maybe they just had an argument with their, their partner, their family member, and they're, they're so stuck on their one side. Like, what are some of, what are some tips that people can just implement? And this is before they read the book, of course.

Yeah.

That, like, stick out to you as someone that's went so in depth on this aspect of civil discourse and showing different examples in the book, like, what are some key elements that people could walk away with today in ways that they could start implementing, you know, these tactics in life to hopefully have more civil discourse in their life.

Yeah. So I think there was a lot of courage in being curious. And what that means is that if you are the type of person that anytime you come across conflict in conversation and you otherwise get really frustrated and you get angry and you get defensive to. Instead of reacting to that person and spewing out your information and putting them down to ask questions, to be curious, to try to understand how they got to that point, point of view and that perspective that made them the way that they are now. And you might learn a lot about that person that then gives you some sort of understanding and calms you down and be like, oh dang, you know, so that's, that's the, that's like the, the suggestion is really to go in and say, why? Ask why continuously. Like that little like second grader who is constantly asking like, why is the sky blue? Why is, why is the world round? You know? And like being curious, I think inevitably allows you to understand people better and then create better communication with them.

Do you think curiosity is something that is learned or something that you're born with and or is it something that you can suppress?

I think that you have to find something that makes you curious one time and then if you continue to pursue that down the rabbit hole, if it's not somehow taken away from you or beaten out of you or, you know, you're not forced to pivot out of it, you end up finding a love of learning. And when you discover that, then it kind of scales in all parts of your life. You realize that anytime you come up with a problem, an issue, an inability to grow, that you are a book, a YouTube video, a TikTok away with the right search. And you know that. But that takes a lot of like self awareness, right, to be able to say, I'm going to go seek new information to learn. And a lot of people, as they get older, I think it becomes a lot harder to do that. Yeah, Neuroplasticity also gets limited. I don't know.

So on the topic of curiosity, many things that came up in the book over and over again were not only just curiosity, but communication. And there's a quote that I wrote down here that I want to bring up. You said for me, excellent communication is at the forefront of my life and in everything I do. And over the years of knowing you as a friend and like doing in whether that's business context or like a friendly message, you're always so intentional about what you say, how you say it, whether that's to get your point heard or just to be clear, like over communicate to make sure that your point is heard in a powerful way. What does communication and effective communication mean to you? And when did that Become at the forefront of your life and the way you operate.

Thank you. First of all, that's a compliment. I try really hard. I think it was really early on. So I tell the story of how English is my third language actually in the book. And I first learned Farsi and we would go back and forth a lot to Iran when I was like the first decade of my life, I guess. And, you know, like, and then Spanish and then English was third. Like, the first. Those videos of me, like the first day of like each grade up until, like, I don't know, first grade of me showing up to school just like not being well, like, crying because I can't speak to any of the kids.

You learned Spanish before you learned English.

Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah. I mean, the Spanish is now, like. I mean, English is obviously quite, quite strong. Like, I've done well in English because I didn't study the other two as long, although I did. I took Farsi courses up until I was 18. Wow. And so that was. And that's still like the dominant language with my mom and at home. So it was one of those moments where I felt like I had to become better at this language. Like, I had to in order to be understood, in order to be able to communicate like everyone else. Like, in order to be able to understand the words and songs that I liked, you know? Yeah, you had to. I had to learn to love it. And especially because I didn't love reading when I was really young, I found a love of reading much older in life. But because I was. I felt like I was bad or late to learn how to read and everyone else was like, ahead of me, I always felt like I was never going to be able to keep up. Like, every assignment I was getting, I was always like, it would take extra time to be able to read and finish. And anyway, so, you know, it was, I think through all of that where it was like, I had to develop this ability to communicate better. And even so then, like when I started when I was an entrepreneur and I was selling turtles, like I've mentioned that business before on your last episode, it was this moment of like, okay, now I have to be able to communicate as an adult and someone doing business and not come off like, I am a 14 year old in middle school, you know, who can't drive the do the delivery.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it makes sense. And I'm so curious because I think, you know, I'll. I'll catch myself at times. Right. Whether that's. You're texting with someone, it's so easy to just send like quick responses. You have all these notifications. You talk about this in the book, which we'll dive into in a second. But you know, Whether that's Instagram, DMs, emails, texts, phone calls, like you name it, responding to social media comments. We live in a world where it's so easy to just be a surface level communicator. Whether that's through DMs, whether that's in a text message. How do you think about the, like the way you communicate and the time that it takes to like craft thorough messages? Because I think so many people, it's just like, how can I get all these things checked off so that I can be done with the notifications that are, you know, coming into my life? Like, do you have a process of how you do it or how did that develop over the years in terms of like the willingness to. More so like be patient, to really take a moment, to then be deliberate. Deliberate with how you communicate?

I'll say this, you first of all inspired me with one of our first ever communications when you sent me just a straight up video of yourself, like talking. And I had sent you a message like, hey, good to meet you, blah, blah, blah, like whatever, let's connect. And, and you sent me a video back. And I was, it like took me off guard. I was like, whoa, that's really interesting. Like that he just had the confidence to send that. And so I, you know, that's like one way to do it, I suppose, but the other is like, for me, I guess it really became a moment of understanding when digital communication was, it's like devoid of nuance. And because digital communication is devoid of nuance, we end up not taking the time to express ourselves better over text. Like you can't understand emotion over text, you can't understand body language over text. And so in order to make sure you're being understood, you have to be really intentional about what you're saying. And you know, I think not having keyboards doesn't help anymore either because typing is less fun when it's not on a keyboard. Yeah, in my opinion, for sure.

And one thing that you brought up in the book was this idea where like the messages where you caught yourself one time, you know, listen to music, you have the TV on the background, you're scrolling through emails, you're on social. Like we're so bombarded with these different forms of communication and we're all victim to being just, you know, doom scrolling every now and then where do you believe you know, what is the effective way that you've tuned into these channels and tune out and what have you seen be the most effective in your life? Right. Because you mentioned the book, like all these apps that block off the apps and there's a couple that I've used and I always just revert back to deleting them and just trying to be more like actually disciplined at times. But what have your experiences been when it comes to just managing all the communication that is so in front of us? Notifications nonstop.

Yeah.

What has that been like in your life? And again, I know you talk about in the book, but just at a high level.

Yeah. So, okay. I guess like tangibly I almost exist always in do not disturb mode and I turn off all of my group messages to have like. No, like they can't. They're also on like do not notify me.

Yeah.

I have to go in and see the blue bubble on them to know that people have messaged and. And then that in and of itself allows me that anytime there's been a conversation, I don't get dragged into it partially look at it, but I'm busy and then get distracted and whatever. Like when I have time, I'm going to go and I'm going to read, go back and read every single message and react to every single one. So people know that like I was actually, you know, engaged in that. Granted some. Sometimes there's like hundreds of messages, sometimes it doesn't happen, but you know, for the most part. And then it. It's basically that making time to be really intentional with like responding to people and so yeah, do not disturb. Keeping things kind of muted and choosing when you show up to those platforms, not just getting hit with notifications all day, like turn most of them off and leave. Allow them to have like a badge maybe.

Yeah, I get it. What. What in your life have you've recently added that has been beneficial? Just anything. I want to talk about this because I think just the last couple months. Right, just. Or I should say a year. Getting into sleep data. I know we share all the time, like sleep data metrics, all this stuff on our phones. What's new in your world that has allowed you to be optimized? Especially when you're publishing a book. You have multiple companies. Let's talk about optimization and just where you spend your time.

I spend a lot of time in notion, but I think that's not a new tool. In the last month to my life, though, I highly advocate for Organizing your life and your second brain on notion. I think a new thing in my life. I started adding electrolytes to all of my water. I don't know, it's. I mean, I think there's like a few different habits. I guess I've started to like take my habits a little less rigidly actually, which has been an interesting gain even in my health where I. So I have a smoothie every single morning. And I used to have that smoothie be pretty much the same thing every single day. And I would because it has like all of these different powders and supplements and like amazing like mushrooms like reishi and cordyceps that are great for your brain and lion's mane that are like anti Alzheimer's and dementia. And so, you know, I was like, had it all stacked and then I, I started looking into it and was like, okay, no, I actually need to get better in touch with how I feel when I take each of these things and actually start to like better understand it versus just taking everything at once in the morning and then just.

Like pounding through going, yeah.

For the rest of the day. So I think being a little less rigid in like my routines is something new.

Yeah. Where when you talk about being rigid in routines, what does being rigid mean for you or what did it mean?

So I think that's a great question. I think being rigid for me meant being consistent. And for me, consistency is something I really like. Like being able to be consistent is how I feel like I can accomplish things.

Yep.

And so I take that part of me really serious. But that often then means that I can't be, if I take myself that seriously, to always be consistent or I'm a high integrity person and I always want to be consistent. It's usually the rigid mindset would be, I then can't have the time to be spontaneous and to do things at a whim because it interests me or you know, because it makes me happy and so on. And so that's kind of the rigidity I'd say that I've had to work on minimizing is to be like, nope, there's a balance in life. And like, you know, there's a time and a place to be able to be spontaneous.

Yeah, totally. When it comes to just not only being spontaneous, but the way you operate daily habits. I'd love to talk about some of the things that have inspired you, positively or negatively, that you've recognized about yourself just over the last five years. Like being an entrepreneur now, writing a book. It's there's so much that we know. Knowing you over the years, seeing how we've both communicated about optimization. Like at times I even take a moment to say like, okay, like why am I doing this? Like, can I take a step back and not do that and see how I feel? Does it really affect me? But some of the daily habits that are like non starters for you that are a must right now, I'd love to talk about them.

Daily habits that are a must right now. So three days a week I work out Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The daily habit that's a must there is that Mondays and Fridays I don't work out. And that allows me that extra like hour and a half, two hours. In the morning I don't work out for two hours. But like that time that it takes to like go through that whole routine, like back for me, because Mondays are hectic and Fridays I deserve a little bit of me time. And so that's, that's like one habit that's like a non starter. The other is that smoothie in the morning. What are some of your habits that are non starters? Give me some inspiration.

I mean, you know, right now, 75 hard. So I feel like the last. I'm on day 67. I was talking to, I was talking to a friend like this past week about it as well. Like 75 heart is one of those programs where I've done it once before and it's so sectioned off, where the first two weeks you're just like motivated and you're like, oh, wow, I'm getting into this. And then by day 2025, you're like kind of feeling it. You're like, oh wait, this is a lot. 50 more days to go. And there's lots of different feelings within that. I'm at this phase of the program now where I can literally reflect in the last 60 days. And I notice so many true changes about whether that's how I feel. From on average 15,000 steps a day to just the water drinking a gallon a day and to how I look physically because it's not a physical challenge, but more of a mental challenge. But through that, it's just given me the, I should say, newfound perspective of just managing my time. And I think it's so easy to say, oh, I'll wake up at 6:30, you wake up at 6:45 or 7. But for example, today I run to the studio. I know that I had to do both my two workouts before I left because by the time we get back, it's super late. It's just the managing time perspective for certain of how hard is great. But daily habit wise, you know, there's a lot of new things like must read a book every 10 pages a day to drinking a gallon of water. And these are just like healthy things that I think so many people we all know we should do. Drink a little water, like get new information, learn something great. But like that the consistency of it is. It's great, you know, it's not something that's, you know, it's 75 hard for reasons 75 days. And that you do it forever in a sense. But yeah, I think this is. It's really impacted me the last couple months so far. Very interesting. I want to talk about your inspirations or people that have inspired you. In the book, you talk about Oprah and ever since we've met, I've heard of Oprah. When I see Oprah on TV one day, I think of you, the way you've ingrained her into your dialogue and like, who inspires you? Why does Oprah inspire you? And where did that inspiration come from originally?

Yeah. So first of all, Oprah has been like a motif in my life. Like, she shows up at different points when I feel like the world is trying to show me a sign. And so I would say I was really young and I would watch Oprah with my mother growing up because she was really found solace in Oprah. And in general, like, I think a lot of, I mean a lot of people watch Oprah, you know, like, and I think a lot of, I wonder how much of Gen Z watched Oprah with a parent growing up. But anyways, I was always inspired by her. And then as I got older in life and I got into things like building the doe and I started to become, you know, interested in her writing. I found her like, bravery and her story amazing, right? Like, her ability to be able to take the different turns in her life and use them as strengths. When she would tell those stories and allow them to be moments that allowed her to connect with people better. It was pretty amazing. And then in creating the do this idea that I could create civil discourse in the world by just sharing people's stories that came from her a little bit. Like this idea that she did this for a lifetime on television of amplifying these perspectives through these conversations that were often really uncomfortable. And she was one of the first black television hosts starting I think in the 80s and into the 90s and she had skinheads on TV. I tell this story in the book. But she had skinheads on television. She brought them there to, like, have a really frank conversation about, like, why are you racist? And why do you think that black people shouldn't exist? And so this really difficult conversation that ultimately was really dark at the time, but they come back 10 years later onto her show, and they're like, we've changed our lives. We spent the rest of our lives after that show devoted to, like, helping convert people out of the kkk and, you know, as well as, like, not being skinheads anymore. And it's this, like, you know, it's that incredible bravery to take that step into doing something so uncomfortable and controversial in the moment that then, like, inspires, you know, a lot of change. And so that. That was inspirational to me. And I talk about Fred Rogers as well. Mr. Rogers on TV growing up. And if you don't know who Mr. Rogers is, there's a great movie on him, but also you can watch his episodes. But this idea that, like, tone and the ability to communicate really difficult subjects to kids on TV and how important it is to teach at a young age that difficult conversations like that are important and that kids should feel comfortable asking those questions of adults, and adults should feel comfortable answering those questions. That. That's, like, inspiring and I think is really something we need to embrace as a culture today.

Yeah, I think so. So much of you telling that I see and hear the alignment with the dough. I. The willingness to share in an anonymous format these stories. What, like, through that experience of running the DOE thus far and hearing all these very unique perspectives, how have you felt? Because I guess a better way of saying that is you have this responsibility to captivate these stories in a unique way, to put them out, to keep them anonymous, and there's a huge responsibility there. How have you thought about that? And what does. What has that responsibility felt like when it comes to sharing these polarizing, different points of view, to have, you know, civil discourse in conversations that typically wouldn't be said in a format that you've helped share.

There's a massive weight to it because, like, we've had to be really delicate with how we've executed on it. And even now, as I think about the future of it, it's still a little uncertain how exactly I want to scale it. But I've been spending a lot of time, like the last month really on this and figuring out how exactly it's going to grow. And there's a little bit of a plan, but, you know, it's a. It's a long Term strategy. And that's why the team that was working on the DOE originally spun out and created this company, that noda, because the whole publishing industry is going through a massive change right now. Like, even since our last episode when we recorded this the first time, like, BuzzFeed has had massive layoffs and Paper magazine has, like, pretty much let go of 90% of their staff, which is really unfortunate. But there's like a big change happening in media. And so for our perspective at the doe, the idea was this. We need to amplify these stories. We have a responsibility to keep them safe and anonymous, but a responsibility to the public to ensure that they are verified and that these stories actually happened and that these people actually exist. And so that was it. That was like the editorial standard needed to exist and of course, like a bunch of rules on what we would or wouldn't publish so that, you know, people would align with us, but keeping it rather minimal and, you know. So, yeah, as we think about the future of it, I'm really curious to see what, like, the future of online communication is going to look like around divisive topics.

Yeah, I mean, when you think about online social media, what's your perspective on the future of not only social media, but we live in a world where there's so many different polarizing points of views. And kids nowadays growing up in this more technological world that even we did with AI and all these newfound technologies, how do you think about not only civil discourse now, but into the future with things like AI, where communication can be manipulated and tones and just there's a whole unique perspective on, like, what is true and what is not. And I think the conversations that will be happening over the next decade will just be so different given the state of technology. How do you think about the future of that?

So I think it's that communication is evolving really quickly, which is. But I do think it's an evolution of communication because when we saw Facebook, for example, first exist and people would post content out, you could post photos, videos, and people could leave comments on them with a like button. And now across, like, when I think of all the different channels, like, I think of on TikTok, how you can duet content, I think of upvoting and down voting content on Reddit, and I think of all of these different formats of communication or like, ways to respond to content that now exists that once didn't exist, and that that's actually an evolution and that the great challenge is getting our education systems to respond to that and train people to Be able to do that. Right. Like, we don't teach cursive anymore in most schools because we have to teach typing more, predominantly because cursive is just inefficient and typing is dominant.

Yeah.

But, like, even that's a small change. Like, we should probably be teaching typing earlier on and teaching people, like, how to duet TikTok. I don't know. People learn that on their own. But, like, I think of that as actually a better form of communication, like, being vulnerable. Like, I was mentioning earlier on in this podcast, like, you sending me a video of yourself back in the day, like, as a form of communication of, like, hi, nice to meet you. Here's my face is actually really great. And so I think being able to do that, being able to express yourself better on social media when you go to communicate on difficult topics, allows for there to be a lot less division, a lot more understanding of who you are, what you're saying. But it's still really tough. You know, we, like, see a little bubble sometimes on a private profile that leaves some vague comment on a post, and then all of a sudden you get angry and you're like, ah, you're the worst thing to ever happen to the Internet.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you. On social media, do you. Or have you felt. Well, we should talk about what inspired the book. This. This tweet that you put out. What was that? 20. 20. 20. Yeah.

It was Covid 2020.

So what was this tweet? Because I was gonna ask, have you felt any pushback or negativity on social or, like, what has that experience been for you? And I think this is great.

Yeah.

Tangent to, like, what inspired this conversation?

Great question. So the tweet was like, if you don't come out of the pandemic with a new skill, a new side hobby, a new business, then you never lacked time. You lacked. You never lacked time. You lacked, like, I don't know, focus. And people got really upset by that because, you know, they were like, this is a really difficult time. Like, family members are dying and people are sick. And, you know, like, there's a lot of a lack of emotional awareness in the tweet that I put out. And so, you know, it was a moment of, like, oh, I don't know if I can swear on this, but, like, oh, shit. Like, you know, I. I completely missed this, you know, like, living in my bubble, in my little echo chamber of, like, entrepreneurship world, where I was tweeting, like, hustle culture. And so it was that moment of like, okay, I need to be able to come well, like, I need to be able to respond and say, you're right, I'm wrong.

And.

And that's really powerful, and that's really important. And there's growth in that every time that happens. And so I talk about that in the book as being really important moment as well in my life of recognizing when you're wrong, being able to bounce back and be like, yep, I was wrong. My bad. I don't want to be that person. Sorry. And so, yeah, that's that story.

When. When did you realize, like, in that context, you were wrong? And how did you make that initial change of perspective? I think so many people, they can maybe they have such a strong opinion on a topic, and they're maybe at times unwilling to accept that they are wrong. But for that specifically, like, what was the perspective of or timeline associated with, like, putting out the tweet, to then getting this feedback, to then taking a moment to then reflect and change your perspective?

Well, you know, reflection is a beautiful thing, and I talk about that in the book and meditation. But, like, when you take a moment to reflect and realize, like, okay, tons of people right now are coming and leaving me comments about this, saying that, yeah, you know, I'm being insensitive. You have to just, like, read what people are saying and empathize a little bit and say, yeah, you're right, people are dying. Like, and I think the humanity in us wants to then be able to understand other people and say, dang, yeah, like, you know, the hard part is admitting you're wrong because there's ego involved that has to be crushed in that moment. Right. Of saying, like, yeah, I'm capable of being wrong, but inevitably. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier on about being an entrepreneur. Like, I think inevitably to be this entrepreneur, you have to have this learner mindset, this idea that I want to be the lifelong learner. I'm going to constantly evolve and be able to pivot and be adaptive. And with that comes the ability to be wrong and to apologize and. And bounce back. So.

Yep.

And a lot of people lack that in the world. It's really hard. We get defensive. We get, you know, our egos get bruised.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a couple more things I want to dive into before we wrap up. Just when it comes to the book, I'm just saying. I know we touched on it a little bit at the beginning, but the title, I'm just saying, what inspired it.

Yeah, the title came from. So I had a title for the book that I just didn't, like, I felt like it didn't speak to what the book was about. The title was Straight Talk, and it was just like, you know, it didn't convey much. Like, you would read that title and not think very much. But eventually I was sitting there and I was explaining the book to someone, and actually I was explaining the book to myself, truly, like, on a. On a voice note, because I was trying to think of different titles for the book, and I was explaining different stories from my life out loud. And one of them was, like, really frustrating to tell. I can't remember the exact story. And out of that frustration, there was a little bit of, like. I don't know if I'm gonna say that story in the book. I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying, like, this makes sense. And it was like a. Oh. I'm just saying, like, we say that a lot out of frustration when conversations don't go our way or when you're, like, uncomfortable. And it was that moment of, like, dang. Does anyone else have that title? No. Okay, cool.

Yeah, totally. And the. The process of putting your work out into the world. What are some key takeaways that you want people to walk away from, but considering they haven't read the book yet? Let's say this idea of civil discourse. What are, I would say, two, three highlights that if you were to condense civil discourse and how to move it in the right direction, how do you do that, and what do you want people to really understand from the book?

It really requires that you show up on an individual level better in conversations and have that level of integrity for yourself or that level of accountability for yourself, because it's really difficult to get back to a world where people want to be civil or to have people see the good in people and be optimistic when they read something online about someone that it's not, you know, that they didn't mean it the wrong way. Right. And so it. It. It's about showing up better. It's about being curious. Like, I was mentioning earlier on, like, wanting to connect with people better. And I think that's, like, a understanding that I hope people can learn later and throughout life when they come across it. But I think that often we got to teach it really young and inspire young people by being these adults, right, that are, like, able to have these conversations and able to inspire not just difficult conversations, but being vulnerable and minimizing your ego to admit when you're wrong. So, you know, I think it's about the individual and how you show up and it will make your life better and inspire others. So yeah, that's, that's what it's about.

Absolutely. If you, there's so many examples that you talk about in the book, whether that's like the need to be right or removing ego. If you were to give your 16 year old self a piece of advice when it comes to what you could do better in maintaining civil discourse, what would that one piece of advice be and why?

It's worth noting that I try not to be so hard on myself because even to this day, like I am human. We're not perfect. You can't ever be this like, master of perfect communication, though. We try. But I think to my 16 year old self, I would tell myself to slow down and to think more and that advice would not have at all worked because my mother told me that all the time she was like, think before you speak. But the truth is like really slowing down, not feeling rushed. And the piece of advice from the book, I guess would be active listening. Because a lot of times when you're young and you're brash, you're just trying to respond, to seem intelligent, to seem like, you know, and you deserve to be in the room and listening to what someone else is saying and processing it and responding accordingly goes a lot further than just hearing the first two sentences of what they say, assuming what the rest will be coming up with your response in the time in between and then, you know, blurting that out.

Yeah, I say this quote very often, but when I interviewed Larry King, his whole famous quote was, I've never learned anything while I was talking. And to just embrace being a listener, like as you say in your book. Very well, like an active listener. Again, that's even something for me. Like early on in the podcast, when you're hearing someone talk, you're already thinking about what you want to say next and you quickly realize, like, oh, wow, like I'm doing myself in this conversation. Such a disservice by not taking the time to listen. Of course, easier said than done. But just keeping yourself accountable to that in every conversation with your family members, to a relationship, to a podcast. Right. I think it's so powerful. So I love that in the spirit of this episode, you know, and just the future of the book. The book came out April 25th. And how have you felt about the. Just the release of the book and most importantly for people that are watching and listening, where can they find the book? Oh, okay.

We're just at the edge.

Oh, wow. I thought I was gonna time it. Perfect. I'll resay that, I guess.

Okay. Almost to dinner. I'm so hungry. I haven't had lunch today.

Oh, gosh. Ready? Yep. All right, one sec. So when it comes to the book, it came out April 25th. How has the feedback been thus far? You hit number one in anger management category. Congrats again. And then where can people find the book?

So you can find the book anywhere that you buy books. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, even some airports like LAX actually is carrying it in a couple locations. There's like four or five books.

Let's go.

But, you know, sorry, the other half of the question.

Initial feedback from people, your readers. The initial feedback from readers. How has it been? And, you know, this is. Yeah, this is the big week, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I think it's been really exciting. I mean, like, I've loved putting out all this content and getting to talk about it on, like, different radio shows and, like, a couple different news stations and podcasts, because it starts to make it real and starts to put it into practice. And there's a lot of. I don't know, people ask great questions, and so I think that's been fun. Now, the part that's been super interesting is, like, putting content out on Twitter about this topic is amazing. How much anger still is. Like, I forgot for a moment when I had paused putting out content to write the book about it, how much it still exists. And so I'm trying my best, like, go through every single person that's leaving me a comment that's, like, angry and violent on Twitter and being like, let's talk about that, and let's see how we can, you know, use principles of civil discourse to help improve your outlook on the world. Because this is really dark and sad. We'll see, you know, but like, even one person a day, you know, I could get to be a little bit more positive. I think there's some. There's some good karma in that in the long run.

Absolutely.

But, yeah, it's been exciting. The book's out. It's like a cathartic release.

I love that. Well, again, congratulations on the publishing of it. For those that want to stay connected with you, follow you on social media, where's the best place they can find you?

I'm Milan Kordostani on all platforms and Milan Cortestani.com love it.

Well, everyone watching or listening, thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. Milan, thank you so much for coming on once again. And congrats on the book.

Thank you for having me again, of course.