#72: Paul Millerd — In Search of Good Work

When do you schedule your leisure?

Schedule my leisure?

Yeah, you need to read my book again.

Schedule my leisure?

Your time for contemplation, thinking, connecting with yourself, connecting with something bigger.

Connecting with myself? Do you mean jerking off? I schedule that for sure. I have a confession, Paul. I am a workaholic. What do I do? How do I solve this? You just wrote a book called Good Work. How do I fix this?

So, hi, Jason Levin.

Hey, Paul. Good to see you. It's been a minute.

I have a confession myself. I've never been a workaholic.

You've never been a workaholic?

To the opposite degree. To the point where I had rules about not working late. And my whole game was like, how few hours can I work at a job to get away with it? Now, in my book writing process, I've sort of gotten swept away with like, okay, 14-hour day, but it's like absolutely delightful for me. So I don't have the experience of like workaholism.

Well, are there ever times where you're working on the book and your wife or kid, you know, there are times where you're pulled away and you can't, you can't look away. Like for me, that's what I mean. I've never had the problem with workaholism with like a corporate job, but with writing my blog, writing tweets, whatever it might be, I can't look away. You know, I, I love it. Like I'm obsessed, right? Which is a good thing. But definitely feel like a workaholic sometimes.

So what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with that is, am I doing the right work? That's, that's it. So like, for reference, my grandpa was an author, right? Published like 15 books. He died and on his deathbed, you know, the week leading up to it, he's very upset that he didn't publish more books. Wow. Right. And so That in my head is in my head constantly, like, I need to publish more books, right? Like, I don't want to be deathbed regrets of not creating more, not creating stuff. And is that time spent writing tweets, checking the timeline, right? Yeah. Am I going to regret that? Yeah. Like, that's not good work, is it?

I don't know. I mean, what— I think for me, like what I tried to bring alive in this book that I stumbled into this connection with writing and it seemed to be really important to me and I slowly doubled down on that more and more. And at every point I didn't regret doubling down on that kind of work. Now, that was never true for every other kind of work.

Can you elaborate on that more?

Yeah. So in my corporate career, I always felt as if something was off. It was the wrong work, right? And the people listening to you probably already resonate with that.

Yeah.

But I still like enjoyed it somewhat. And so it was always confusing. I didn't have this idea that you could actually enjoy your work. I thought, okay, you can enjoy parts of it, but overall, the work container does have to suck.

Yeah.

And then when I quit my job, I sort of like unwound. I started freelancing in the first year. I struggled to keep doing that because I couldn't be motivated. And so my problem has always been underworking. Like, I really struggle now to do anything except something that I'm purely motivated on, but that has been something I've deliberately practiced. And I think like at your age, I mean, knowing your journey, I think you're sort of trying to do it all at once, whereas like it was much easier for me to do like 10 years of like work I kind of enjoyed, somewhat enjoyed, and then slowly started to really dislike. I have that 10 years experience. I can be like, okay, I know what I don't want now. And experiencing that in my body for 10 straight years is a lot of like body wisdom I have. So I know what that feels like, and I'm— I get scared when I am about to recreate that. And so, um, I really wanted to blow things up in another direction. And really, I asked myself the question, what if I don't work on things I don't care about? And I just kept testing that, and the reality is you start working on things you do care about, like writing. Like, if I had to pay to write, I would pay.

Same.

Yeah, right. So my question to you would be, looking back, what are like the projects, the kind of work that you would not have skipped?

Would not have skipped?

Yeah.

So yeah, writing my book for sure.

Yeah. Like, what was so good about it?

The joy of discovery. That's why I love writing. Like, I love editing a sentence, making it better. I love the things that happen as I'm writing. Like, I just love it. I'm obsessed with it, right? And I've always loved that. And so I think for me, like, that was the most beautiful process of it and making it better. And then a lot of like writing tweets, writing my blog. I love that. I look forward to that every week. But there's definitely other parts of work, you know, quote unquote work that I don't, you know, enjoy. Right. And I love the way that you phrase that of like, what happens if I just don't do that? Yeah. And most people don't think from that first principles angle of like, what happens if you don't? And I've like started thinking like that more I was like, what happens if I just like, don't, you know, post YouTube Shorts or don't post Instagram Shorts or whatever? Like, I don't have Instagram or TikTok on my phone. Like, what hap— you know, I'm a creator. I'm supposed to have it, right? You know, I'm like, head of growth and I'm the creator guy, right? I should have TikTok, but I don't. And it's like, 'cause I hate it and it makes me feel terrible. And I don't like making that stuff either. And it's like, what happens if you just don't do it? And my life's just fine. You know, I'm happy.

So you stopped it?

Yeah. I mean, uh, so you're, you're already sort of leaning in that direction.

I think for me, like going with that question was what if I prioritize my connection with work and what that enables in terms of how I'm able to show up in my life at all costs. So what that meant was I was not making more than $30 grand for 4 years. Yeah, that, that trade-off is something 98% of people don't want to do. Yeah, right. And I had a huge spike in sales 2 years ago or a year ago from my book that is now back down to earth. I'll probably make about $20,000 from my book this year. And so my income's probably down about 50% and we increased our spending. Like, we have a kid now, we're spending a little more. We're going to have to make tough choices next year. But for me and my wife, we want to prioritize our art, our creative work, the work that matters. And we're a little crazy to do that.

Yeah, you are crazy. It's funny. So my wife has a friend. She's total hippie, you know, and lives in kind of woods. Makes music. She never wants to have a regular job. And she said that, you know, to her new boyfriend, right? And past boyfriends have just totally, you know, you need to, you need to do this. She's like, I make $13,000 a year doing this, doing art. And I, this is the life that I want to live. And, you know, there's living in New York, living—

What did the new boyfriend say?

He was actually cool with it. He, you know, he understood.

I think this is my dating story. Yeah, I said the exact same thing to my now wife and she was cool with it. Um, for, for her also, I was making about, I had made about like $30,000. Yeah. That year.

Yeah.

Which was higher than the median salary in Taiwan.

Yeah.

So to her it was like not like slumming it. Only to my American peers was I like slumming it. Um, but I told her I want to build a life not centered around work. And I was serious.

That's amazing.

And a lot of people say it, they're not, they're not serious. Well, within— I was not working or looking for work and had no income source at the time, so I was proving it. But when we met, her first month was her, like, she was about to quit her job too, and she would like call me and skip work and we'd go wander. And so I was like, this is perfect.

And that is why Pathless Paul.

And I write in this book, it was so— it was great not because she was this rebel and we were fighting against the system, but it was— she was making it possible for me to imagine a future where I could build a life and a family in which time freedom and connection and like quality time actually mattered.

Yeah.

Like you worked in the New York corporate world. So many grown men say my family is my number one priority. And if you just watch their behavior, it's not.

Yeah.

And so I like to, like, pick principles and then actually just take it to its logical endpoint.

I love it. I recently fired all of my ghostwriting clients that I don't have equity in. Like their startups because it was work that I no longer wanted to do. I no longer got joy. It was just absolute pain, which, you know, is terrible. And it was such a good feeling, right? It's freeing to say no. It's freeing to say no. And like, I gave up $20,000, $30,000 a month, right? It's a lot of money.

Yeah.

There's other ways to make money and I'm doing that. I'm building cool software, I'm doing other projects. And more than that, I know I can go back to it if I want to. Right. And really just at the end of the day, like happiness. Yeah, I want to sleep good, you know, I want to spend time with my wife, my dog. Like my happiest days are when like a walk in the park with the dog, get to write a bit. Read, like not responding to Slack.

And I think a lot of writers are driven like that.

Yeah, but it's hard to make it— it's writers, you know, it's hard.

Yeah, it's very hard to make it a lot of—

yeah.

Like, I think people look at me, the success from my first book, and they're like, oh, it's just going to keep going like this. Like, I posted an income chart last year and it's like people left all these comments like, oh, it's like you're going to make more next year. It's this assumption. My assumption was it would go down. Really? Which it did.

Yeah.

Like creative success and like selling books and stuff is like very— it doesn't go like a startup.

Yeah. A lot of startups, hey, go to zero too.

It peaks and then decays over time. Some books can sustain long trajectories and I do try to write things that are more timeless, but you can't bank on that. Right. And so, like, for me and my wife, like, we talk about what is our minimum viable life where we can thrive.

Minimum viable life. I love that.

Where we can thrive.

Yeah.

And it's just not in the US. And that's often a variable that people aren't willing to compromise or— and it's not with a home. We don't own a home now anyway. These are things people just aren't willing to trade off, right? And what I talk about in this book is that it's, it's a journey. The journey of good work is one in which you're putting the connection with your work and this satisfying feeling. See, you have evidence. You have evidence that your book matters to you and that you have this hypothesis that doing more things like that will feel good. Later in your life, and you're probably right. Um, all you need to do is stay— pay attention to that connection.

Yeah, presence.

I think you're being hard on yourself though.

I'm very hard on myself.

Um, I'm like, there's no— like, you're so far ahead of me.

I don't know, I'm just grinding, making memes.

No, but like, don't— you've already published a book you care about. That's not just grinding or whatever. Like you're, you're doing stuff you care about. I didn't do that until I was 33 years old.

Yeah. So for people listening, most people don't realize this. I— Paul was very influential into me dropping out of college and, you know, I was already on that path, as you said. But I remember walking around the park in New Jersey on the phone with Paul, and this is when I was still in college and like had some side gigs and whatnot.

Like 3 years ago, right? 3 years ago and a half. Yeah.

Yeah, 2 and a half years ago. It was a while. A lot has changed. A lot of good stuff. Best decision ever. I remember— have you ever heard the Latin phrase fate accompli?

Yeah.

I love that phrase. Right? And it was like, I didn't tell my parents about dropping out until after I did it. It was like, fate accompli is what it's like. I feel like the best decisions for me are that kind of stuff. When, like, I do it, then I tell everybody.

Well, I think it's— I've talked to many people I've talked to like the Taipei overachievers who kind of just hate their job and want some sort of like easy off-ramp. And honestly, those people probably shouldn't quit their job even though they have like millions in the bank. They're just not mentally ready for like escaping that vortex. Then I talk to people like you and it's very obvious that like you're already on that path. And like, you're scrappy, you like doing things, you don't, you don't take yourself too seriously. You'll try anything you need to do to make it work and you'll go after stuff. And it's, yeah, it's really cool to see people in your generation just like going for it. Kind of freaks me out a little too, because I was pretty conservative when I was in college and stuff. I mean, there were less opportunities, but I went to work for GE.

Yeah, that's as conservative as it gets. My grandpa worked at GE for like 20 years, 30 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think growing up and seeing YouTubers making money, seeing like when you see this stuff and you see like, oh shit, like I could do it too.

Yeah.

And then you start having that and it's, I, yeah, we're just thrown, we see so much success, untraditional success, you know, like so much nontraditional success from a young age, it's like, all right, I don't have to go down that path, you know?

Yeah. And in which case, I think it, it sort of accelerates a lot of the challenges I had the privilege of facing in my 30s. I think it's easier facing the challenges you're facing now with like what work to do, when to do it, how much to make, how to prioritize your creative work. It's just much harder in your 20s. There's a lot of action happening in a mid-20s-year-old male's brain.

There is, man. There certainly is. And I think it's very hard to say no to money.

Yeah. I don't think I could have at your age.

Yeah.

Right? And so that's— I'm 39.

Yeah.

Like, It's much easier now. I do have some savings. I have some investments. I know, like, what I need, don't need. I have a lot of trial and error.

Yeah, because like my brain and maybe this is, this is literally 25-year-old guy brain is make as much money as possible, right? For like, and then I'm a—

yeah, I mean, yeah, but maybe that—

no, now it's not as much or like it was. For like, I would say early half of this year, just like grind as hard as possible. Maybe it's because I had the wedding coming up and stuff. And then, you know, you just kind of— for me at least, it was like, all right, get rid of like— if I have to make a little less money this month, okay. Yeah, I want to work on the stuff that makes me happy. I want to work on the good work, right? I don't want like maximum money is, is not It's funny because like, I totally didn't go down the IB path because I didn't, you know, that is right. Hedge fund is maximum money, right?

Right.

Whatever you could say. But then what happens when you like go down the creative path and that it's becoming hedge fund-y where you're like crazy?

How do you think about completing work? When you think about your work and the tasks you need to do, what is your like, what does your mind visualize in terms of a timeline? Is it a workday, workweek?

It's all the time.

It's just like the assumption I have to work every day.

Every day, as many hours as possible.

So it's, it's work day.

Work life.

Okay, now I'm gonna expand your imagination here. Now zoom out and look at a work month. Now just take a second and think about like, what would the ideal work month look like? The balance of activities, the amount of each. All right. You sort of have the energy of what that might feel like.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, what does a work year look like? What does the balance of activities look like? What do the seasons look like? What do the flows look like? All right. You got that?

I'm thinking. Yeah. All right.

Now, what does a work decade look like?

Oh, work decade.

And so one of the things I've found in talking about work is that people will go take an unconventional path, but then they're taking all the scripts of basically a factory discipline schedule and approaching it the same. And a factory— if you own a factory, you want it to run 24/7 as much as possible. You don't care how it happens because you make more money the more things you ship. And create, right? But you're talking about books, creative, like it doesn't work on a factory schedule.

Yeah. Do you think— what do you think of like the Ryan Holiday thing of like, you know, sit down every day for X amount of hours or the Stephen King or because there is some of it, it does— can work sort of like a schedule.

Yeah, I think they're useful recipes to try. Yeah, like you shouldn't be dogmatic about anything. You should be extremely unattached to your idea of what you're supposed to be doing with your time. It's basically one big experiment.

Yeah, I, I have a theory that like there's not a lot of, uh, what's her name, Joan—

what is it, um, Vivian?

No, different one, uh, something, whatever.

Joan Baez.

Maybe a different one, but dating myself, dude, just like every day, like a factory like that. And for me, like, people have asked me a lot, like, when do you write? Like, do you have a schedule? I mean, I publish my newsletter every Sunday.

It just happens.

I just get it done when I need to get it done, whether that's Saturday night at 2 a.m. or—

Well, it happens because you enjoy it.

It happens because I enjoy it and because I set the deadlines. Right. Which I guess, I guess, like, you don't need the 4 hours per day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. But if you have the deadline, like, and it gets done, like, who cares, right? Like, as long as, as long as it gets done, like, personally, like, I could never do the Ryan Holiday, like, or whoever, like 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM or like Stephen King, 6 hours straight. Like, I do like—

Well, you don't know what you can or cannot do. I guess that's true. If you haven't tried it. Have you tried the Ryan Holiday schedule for— A week?

No, because I have so much other crap to do.

Just drop the ball and try it.

That would, that'd be fun. That would be fun to try that actually.

No, but this is the whole game. Yeah. Like you have to be curious about the— so I call this the puzzle of good work. How do you balance things? The reason I wrote this book is that is when I had a child, I was struggling to stay connected to my writing.

Yeah.

I couldn't find a rhythm. For the entire first year of her life, I prioritized being a father and being present, being around, basically just dropping the ball on work. Um, and it— I was like so dissatisfied with my writing. Everything was not great. I couldn't find a flow. I didn't feel like I was moving forward on anything. And then when she was about 10 or 11 months, you know, I was like, I just need to like shake things up. I know I can find it. Again. And I, I embraced a scheduled 3, 3-day, 3, 3-hour writing sessions per week, no matter what. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 3 hours, 9 to 12, no matter what. And I went and wrote. And let me tell you, like, having a kid is the greatest productivity hack because you will get it done. If— because the option is like you either finish your writing and then go play with your daughter, who's hilarious, or you don't. You write more and don't see her. So have a kid.

I'm working on it.

Yeah.

The wifey would be happy with that eventually.

But yeah, I also started working outside the house because I struggled to focus at home. I had never worked outside of the house for 5 years. I had never had a scheduled work week. I basically just woke up every day and did whatever felt right. I'm like, I'll go with the flow. And I loved writing enough that enough writing happened. Looking back, it's like, yeah, I probably could have done a lot more, but I think that approach was good just to like really commit to the only the connection and no other deadlines or whatever. But yeah, I, I redid all these things. And then through that process, I'm like, oh, I need to write about my connection to work. I abandoned a draft of 55,000 words.

Really?

And then started writing this book.

What was the first draft or what was the—

It's basically, it's another book called Experiments in Living about like different experiments and life strategies. Basically what we're talking about now, like how to experiment.

Similar enough. Yeah.

But those 3 3-hour writing blocks were enough for me. I was able to get in a flow of like, okay, over a week this feels right. Over 4 weeks this feels right. Okay, over a month this feels right. Over 2 months. And I could like, I sort of just like paid attention. Okay, I'm in the zone. You might have felt this when you were writing your book. Did you feel like it was kind of like carrying you forward? You're like—

I love that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I love that feeling when you are So that is all you're looking for.

And so Good Work is basically me being a maniac for 45,000 words saying, take that feeling seriously. Keep, like, just commit to finding it again. Yeah, it might take, like, just be patient. Be nice to yourself too. Don't beat yourself up. It might take you 6 months. It might take you 12 months. But just be determined, like deep down, commit to yourself, I will find that connection again.

It's really interesting. So I had a co-writing session with Nat Eliason and Nathan Bao this morning.

Yeah, those are— I co-wrote with them for the book.

Two goats. Yeah.

And they're very committed too.

So committed.

And Nat has two kids. So like, same thing.

Yeah. And today, this morning was like, first time where I put away, you know, the other stuff and just really like tried to be inspired by them. And I got, you know, a lot of this book proposal done for like a second book and really like made a lot of progress. And it was just a good feeling of like, now got to keep going with it, keep that momentum.

Yeah.

And yeah, I think, you know, at the end of the day, what you say, prioritization, right? So for me, like, I spend, spend probably too much time like checking Twitter, right? Like, you know, like it's not like that, that I love Twitter. I love going viral. I love writing stuff. But at the same time, it's like that or a book, like, which is which are you going to choose? You know, we only have so much time.

I think also just like own your choices. If you are using Twitter a lot, just like own it and be like, I am actively choosing this and I'm going to keep doing it. Yeah, like I told Angie, I'm like, okay, for the next month I'm gonna use Twitter a lot. I might be a little distracted. I don't want to be, so if I am distracted, just like call me out. But I am like actively embracing being addicted for a month.

Oh, that's interesting.

So like in a positive sense. Yeah, I'm like owning that.

Yeah, I like that.

You're right. And there's no tension there. It's like I'm doing it because I want sell more books and get the word out about my book.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I, I'm— I love that.

Yeah. So like, if you are going to use it, just be honest about it, right? But there's also this framework of— I call it good work. Okay. It sounds like book writing for you. Similar for me. Good enough work. That's the funding vehicle. Hopefully you try to steer that close to something you care about. Maybe ghostwriting or something. It's like good enough. It's not the best, but It's close. It's not terrible. It doesn't destroy you. And then just being very deliberate about like designing that, constraining it so it's not all your time.

Yeah.

So its point is to fund the life and you actually want to live.

Yeah. And thankfully I'm getting there where it's like I've been ghostwriting for 3 years, saved up some capital, and now it's time to do all my shit. Like, I think something that a lot of people don't understand about ghostwriters, Nobody dreams of being a ghostwriter. Not a single person ever dreams of that. It is a method to make money and hopefully sell your own stuff. And like, no one dreams of it.

I could see some people doing it at the, like, the high end with books. I could see that being enjoyable.

Enjoyable?

Yeah.

A dream? Different.

I don't know.

I enjoyed plenty of my ghostwriting. I enjoyed it, but I certainly didn't dream of it. Yeah.

And then so good work, good enough work, and then supporting activities. Supporting activities. This is where— so when I was deepening my commitment to this book, I also stopped my podcast and I stopped sending my newsletter every week. I took off paid subscriptions. I moved my community to one-time pay what feels right gift pricing. $25 or higher, pay whatever feels good. And yeah, I had to be honest with myself. I love my podcast. I love interviewing people, but it's not the work.

Yeah.

If it's competing with book writing, it loses, right? Do I wish I had more time to do that now? Sure. But like, I have to really be disciplined. And so, yeah, that probably cost me in terms of like selling more books, reaching more people, growing my audience. But it's like, that's not the game.

What about delegation? Couldn't delegating it?

Maybe I'm just very lazy.

Is that— that's fair.

If you want to start working for me for free, I'm happy to. Well, this is the thing too. Like, I run a very tight like my financials are run very tight. So I designed my good enough work like I do, like just enough to fund my life. So for like 5 years, I'm more or less broke even. Then with the spike in sales from The Pathless Path, I did have excess savings. And so that the whole point of that excess savings is to buy more time to do work I actually care about. Right. And that's why it was very easy after So I did a couple of workshops beginning of the year to make some money from corporate clients. But my workshops are my good enough work. They're designed to be no more than 4 weeks.

Just make that guap.

4 weeks and then you're done. Over. Then you pivot back.

Yeah.

And that's what I did, right? Yeah. So it's a constant, constant puzzle.

Yeah. I'm curious for listeners, comparing and like, I think a lot of people struggle, you know, you went to MIT MBA, right? Yeah. You have a very different life than like people there.

I'm probably the poorest person from my graduating class.

Yeah. Does that, like, how did you overcome that? Yeah, I did.

I was never one of them.

Yeah.

I mean, I have many great friends in that world, and I do enjoy thinking about business, but I was never of that world. Yeah, there were signs when I was in business school.

What were the signs?

Everyone was so pumped looking for jobs, and I'm like, I don't know, I'll just like go back to consulting. And then I got denied from— I got like rejected from every consulting job. I'm like, oh shit, like these people actually are working hard. And then I like revved up my motors, got a consulting job, and then I relaxed again and I got comfortable. So I denied the call. Yeah, denied my own self-awareness there. Went back into consulting and kept jumping ship. And in the consulting world, I was always like, like, I don't know, as soon as I make six figures, I was like, this is great. Like, this is more money than I could ever need. Because I didn't know at the time I had this creative spirit in me that just like wanted to do stuff like write books. Yeah. Um, and you don't need that much money to do it, right? But to my peers, they were like, what are you talking about? You could like hardly raise a family on six figures. New Yorkers, I mean, they're ridiculous.

Yeah, no, it's, it's definitely like this. Um, I think I, I had similar—

like, but it was very different. And like, I didn't notice all these tensions. I was just like, I'm the weirdo in in the corporate world. But then the further you go on these paths, people like me self-select out. So you can't— there's no possibility in which I would have become a senior executive. Like, I would have been self-selected out. I would have either made enough money where I'm like, oh shit, I have the money, let's just bounce. Or like, I never would have gotten promoted because I don't care as much as the people that like actually are putting their life force into their business career like I do into my book.

Yeah, it's funny. I just had a flashback. So I started at University of Michigan and I remember one of my frat brothers talking about, you know, they're planning their yachts that they're going to buy, right?

Yeah.

In business school. And they're planning their yachts. And this guy is insane. And, you know, investment banker now. He has a law degree, an MBA, whatever, and just no time for anything else. And I was just like, why do we need yachts again? Like, I'm cool with the fucking sailboat, bro. Like, let me I don't need that. Like, you know, I think it's also weird being Silicon Valley startup world where I am now is like, well, some people want that too.

I think this is important to like actually own your desires. Yeah, I do think a lot of 22-year-olds inherit their desires from other people though.

True, true. His dad works with billionaires and stuff, so it makes sense. But, you know, I think for me now being in startups, I have like there's, there's like these two paths, right?

Yeah.

I didn't even mean to say it, but, you know, VC-backed founder, go make the billion dollars. And I have a couple of friends who are going down that path and it is billionaire bust, right?

Yeah.

They're like, right, you know, young 20s. But then there's the beautiful indie hacking path, right? And like, for me, like, I don't need the yacht. I just need money to like do what I want to do. And so I'm building the software, I'm building meme alerts, and that's doing good, making a couple grand.

Oh shit, your meme alerts?

What's up?

I get the email for that. I don't— I was like, I don't know where I signed up.

Dude, doing $2K a month now, you know, meme alerts, sending people viral memes, and now building an editor actually too.

Oh wow.

Keep it on the DL, but I guess we're on a podcast. Um, but yeah, man, it's like I, you know, had—

but this is, this is great.

I agree.

VCs were like, money is not a bad thing. You have to take making— you have to take the, the money problem seriously. And if you're somebody that wants creative freedom, you do need to figure out a way to like fund your life without working.

Yes, I like that.

Without trading time, right?

Yes.

And so this is basically my strategy. Like, I decided like, one, after doing freelance consulting for a year, I'm like, this is like pushing a boulder up a hill. Can't do this. It's brutal. But it was the most well-paid thing. It was like even more well-paid than full-time consulting. It's like $2,000 a day for these like project management for like post-merger integrations. But it's like that is break glass in case of emergency.

That's a great way to put it.

Yeah. And so I wasn't even doing those projects. I was sort of doing my own projects that were not making as much but were somewhat more interesting. But I didn't want to do those. And so I decided in 2018, I'm only going to work on things in which I can make money from not selling my time.

Yeah.

So over the years, people have tried to hire me for coaching. I don't do coaching because that doesn't work.

Yeah, right.

I'll do other stuff. And yeah, it's— I've never hit like escape velocity, but it, it builds over time. I mean, and for the last 4 years I haven't made less than $2,000 in a month. Yeah, I think it gives you a lot more security than a full-time job for me because I value the time so much.

I agree. I think, you know, it's the Jack Butcherism, right? Build once, sell twice. For me, like the power of information products. I never wanted to do a synchronous course, right? A synchronous one meaning like a cohort-based course. It's like, oh man, that sounds terrible. Why would I want to like be on for 3 hours every Monday, Wednesday, Friday? So I sell an async course and maybe I make less money, but I make a grand or two a month from it.

Yeah.

And like async courses, information products in general, right? You don't have to trade your time for money. You can, they just sell. I'm very, very bullish working on more of that kind of stuff. 'Cause like, it doesn't cost me extra time if you're building the leverage with the audience that we're trying to do and we are doing is like, stuff keeps going. But yeah, I think it's always good for people to have that in mind. I know, Everybody I know who starts a cohort-based course hates it. Every single person.

So I've run— I was experimenting with courses in 2018 and I actually, my first one was something called Solopreneur Shift. I ran it once and it was like, felt good. I liked it. I made money for my own creations for the first time and it was like 6 people. I like made like $300. It was great though. Like, I loved the experience of it. Um, and then I created this other course, um, teaching people consulting skills. I wanted to like download my brain. I love teaching this stuff. Um, I just didn't like the job of consultant. Um, but I love teaching people like thinking, communication, structuring, storytelling, synthesis. So I created this while I was in Taiwan after I met my wife. I had nothing to do and like someone, a friend reached out and was like, hey, can you like train me on this? And I created a 2-hour thing for them. I did it for fun and it was like, he's like, you should like sell this. So I turned it into a course, turned it into a self-paced course, and starting in 2019, it started to generate money and that basically funded my life for the next 3 years.

Yeah. As you're writing the book.

Yeah. And I tell you this, I did another course that didn't really sell. I did two other courses that didn't really sell. So a lot of experiments, but end of 2020, I'm in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, and like the cohort buzz is like going crazy. The opportunity is so high. It's very clear to me that my course is perfectly aligned. It's teaching consulting skills to knowledge workers who all have like learning subsidies and time. And so like looking at what others are doing, it's like very clear I could pivot from like making— I think I made like $80 grand that year in the self-paced course because people were spending a lot more, but it was very clear I can make probably $500,000.

Yeah.

If I did a cohort-based course. And so I asked myself, what would I do with the money? It's like, okay, picture my perfect day. I would write. So it's like, okay, do I have enough money to do that now? Yes. I was spending $2,000 a month living costs. And so I decided to write a book.

Yeah.

And in that moment, I could like sort of I felt like a failure. Like I could feel myself, like, not the feeling of not success.

Yeah, because it's the— you're choosing the pathless path. You're choosing the one that you don't know if it's going to make money.

But as soon as I started the book, it just felt good and it was like, this is, this is great.

That's fascinating. I— yeah, I think cohort-based courses are But they're, they're worth experimenting.

I think the thing is like you can do everything once and just make it reversible, right? And so for me, the goal early on on my path, 2018, I'm like a year, I don't know, 9 months into my path, beginning of 2018. It's like, I really like this. I like how my life feels. And the whole game became just stay in the game. And so I became very, like, attuned to what other people are doing, noticing people, seeing people burn out, and trying to figure out how do I unpack that and notice what they're doing and avoid it. And so with people, I saw people building up cohort-based course teams, and in my head it's like, if I did that, I would burn out in a few years and have to shut it down. Right. And that basically happened to have that subtweet. No, I mean, all, all these people have like written about it.

Yeah. No, I was just kidding because Rite of Passage just shut down for that exact reason.

Yeah. Rite of Passage.

Or there are other ones.

Rite of Passage, Building a Second Brain.

Oh, did he shut that down too?

Yeah. He pivoted back more to like a membership and that. Okay. He shut down his course. He's written publicly about it. And to them, it probably made sense because for them, the game was like, I want to learn how to like grow a business and run a team. For me, I was so sure I didn't want to do that. And but these are the hardest choices, right? Seeing the opportunity, knowing you're capable of it, and then deciding actually, this doesn't actually fit my life. And then dealing with the tension from that. Of saying like, you're literally leaving money on the table. But the opposite side of leaving money on the table is actually committing to what matters to you. And so you can actually get some like real satisfaction from that over time though.

See, I came into this session, this podcast. See, I'm calling it a session because it's literally a therapy session. So for the last few weeks—

this is cheaper than my coaching rate, which I don't coach.

Exactly. And so I, uh, VCs have been interested in meme alerts and meme tech and what I'm building. You know, I'm calling it Memelord Technologies, right? Building all this editor, building basically a whole marketing suite for memelords and humor-based marketing in general, all these brands, etc. And so VCs have been super interested, you know, a couple million, whatever it might be. And my wife is like, oh my God, that's so cool. I'm like, it's actually like, it sounds really sexy. Yeah, just, yeah, no, no, they want to invest.

And like, that's not millions though.

No, no, I know, but it sounds sexy, right? Yeah. And then I— to me, yeah, not to you, but to most people raising, you know, $2-3 million in your business account sounds really sexy.

That just sounds like I'm hiring a manager.

You are, you are. Well, you're getting paid to have a manager.

This is why I turned down the publishing offer.

Exactly.

I didn't want a boss.

Right, right. So, but like, I've had this visceral stomachache of like, am I doing the right thing? Right? Because, you know, is, uh, am I doing the right thing? Um, turning down that kind of money to go do indie hacking and do it myself. And it's, it's been cool. You don't need the VC money.

Yeah.

You could use AI. You could hire an engineering agency. You could do no-code like I'm doing. And you can make great money. And the last 3 years, man, like you've seen it, I've seen it. Like how many startups that raise VC money that should never raise, they just fail and the founders are miserable and like you could have just done it yourself. Like I say this to everybody, like, and I'm, you know, I say it to myself too, is like you don't raise unless you need to raise. I guess it sounds nice to have it, but then you're just fucked.

Well, I think these decision points can be useful, right? When somebody— so when Penguin offered me $200,000 for my first book, The Pathless Path, and a second to-be-written book.

It's a lot of money, dude.

Yeah, it is. But I mean, I also had to write a complete second book and I'll probably easily surpass like their advance with probably a third of the number of books in a shorter time. So it wasn't that hard to turn down. If they had offered me like $700,000, maybe it would have been harder to turn down. But in these decision points, it's not take the offer, not take the offer. It's okay, what's happening here? Let's reset. How can I assess what's going on and also expand the possibility pool? Right? And so when I got that offer for Penguin, it inspired me. It's like, okay, people like this book. People love this book. It seems to be like something people share all the time. How can I double down on the book on my terms, right? And so I became a lot more bullish and like I became a little crazy like promoting the book.

You are pretty crazy.

Um, but people fed off that because they could sense it was genuine and like I really cared and I was having fun on my terms, but that all came out of not take the offer, not take the offer. It's, oh, let's use this as an inflection point to head in a new direction.

That is a very good point. Like having these conversations with VCs has only made me double down on what I'm doing. I'm not, not taking the money as of right now, but like I've been working and grinding like a motherfucker on this stuff. Right. And, and working harder than ever because it's like, oh, like these smart people, value it. Maybe I'm undervaluing myself, you know? And I think it's, it's really inspiring, like having the conversations, like being open to it. I love that. And like, whether it's a book deal or whatever, having the conversation and then making the choice. There's no reason to like close your off to it. Like, I'm never going to do this. I'm never going to do that.

Like, man, it could be a potential option. You could say, okay, let me work on this for another year, but let me install a CEO. Yeah. And, or, and also incentivize them to run a company and actually go look for funding from somebody like Tyler Tringas, who runs like Com—

Oh yeah.

ComFund. Right. He takes a percentage of profits, not— so he's not driven to get your biggest investment. He wants you to stay alive.

VC that wants you to stay alive? That doesn't exist, Paul. That does not exist.

But yeah, there are partners like that, right? And like, you can explore partnerships, you can like do all these things. So back to 2020, when I decided to write the book instead of double down on the course, what I did instead is I scheduled 2 days and I just said, I'm going to go ham. On learning from all these people who are running the cohort-based courses because they're going all out. They're optimizing their landing pages. They're doing all these things. So I did an audit of 10 different courses. I watched videos of like some marketing people. I rebuilt my landing page. I created this like automated email sequence. I structured it around 4 weeks. I called it a relaunch. And then that following summer, I reshot all the videos. Much higher quality, added a little content. And so that actually helped the course sustain. So when everyone was like, oh, courses are crashing, courses were not crashing, courses were crashing too fast to pay the employees they were paying to run. And that's just a little bit steady, baby. Just a risk of growth, right? But like when my revenue from the course went from $80 grand to $45 grand, no change in life strategy.

You didn't have to fire anybody.

For me, no change in life strategy, literally. Right. And now in my head I'm thinking, okay, in a year or two I might need to make some changes, but like no change in life strategy. So you could look at this as like, okay, how do I schedule 2 days to just generate ideas?

I love that. Oh man, I love that so much because—

and so like, this is the hard thing about being a solopreneur. I think it comes more naturally to me because I spent 10 years as a strategy consultant. So I literally will schedule time and be like, okay, I need to think about the consultant to my world. What do I need to reconfigure? What do I need to think differently about? What experiments do I need to try? And I do this once a quarter. And how I do it is I write a letter to my friends. I do a quarterly letter where I just check in with myself. What's, what's going well? What are the wins I want to celebrate? What am I struggling with? What are the open questions? What's next? I just send it out to people. It's fun to get feedback and support from friends, but most of all, it's just a way for me to check in. Companies do this. You need to do this on your own.

I know, I know.

I do. So make it your own and make it fun.

I know.

I, Right.

Like, I basically just like a shareholder value or investor report or whatever, whatever they're called. Dude, I've done like a mini one. Yeah. And I'm going to do it. I will do it this, this week. I'm going to write like a full-length one. Also, I love the idea of like looking at your creative business as a consultant. You know, I write a lot about organic marketing strategies and a lot of it is like What's working, what's not, what do I double down on, and optimizing, thinking like a strategy consultant and thinking like a strategist, right?

It's very hard when you're starting out too, because you're the one doing everything of everything you do. Yeah. Right. And so it can become, you can get habitualized doing just what you did yesterday. Right. And so I heard this phrase yesterday. Be intentional, not habitual.

Oh, fuck, I need to be more intentional, not habitual. Fuck, man.

Right? And so you do need to like grind and go with the flow sometimes, but like you need to also step back at the same time and say, where am I right now? Am I in a grind phase? If I'm in a grind phase, don't treat my— don't beat myself up. Like maybe that makes sense for you. Like maybe this opportunity right now is worth owning, right?

Yeah.

I think so. I can't, I'm, I struggle with this still. Um, this like Strategy Consulting Skills course is something I had tension with for years. It started to make money. It was funding my life. I was dependent on it, but I was trying to do as little as possible and just like, let it go. So it was always this, like, I wish I could escape that, but I can't, I'm dependent on it. A year and a half— a year ago, actually, um, I did like a clarity session with a coach, uh, George Tanner. He's great. Um, he does like this live Miro-based like alignment, and the Strategy U kept coming up, and like I realized it was good enough and that I actually don't mind it. I like it. It's not the main thing, but I don't actually want to escape it. And so for me, it was like, what if I actually just spend a little more time on that and I don't have this tension anymore and I just commit for the next year? The whole goal is to figure out the next phase of this. And so I started taking action on that. I put out like job boards for like Chief Operators and like I basically was just like searching for like a miracle candidate. I talked to so many people. Everyone wants a job. No one wants an opportunity. But I found this one woman who's like kind of like me, worked in consulting 7 years, had chronic health issues and is taking a year to experiment and try stuff. And so like I was able to give her a 3-month contract to like try stuff. And I'm working with her now and like now there's a path for her to like take that over and for me to still be involved. And through this, it became very clear, oh, what I'm doing with content and ideas and synthesizing and teaching is incredibly valuable, mostly through like trying to hire other people to do it and realizing how bad most people are at this stuff. And somebody might love acquiring clients as much as I love this. And so it's just like basic, like specialization.

Yeah, I think specialization of labor. So something that we've talked about a little bit was—

but this took me 5 years to figure out, right?

Yeah. Something that we talked about a little bit was, you know, if it's— if the supporting work, right, or the sporting activities, what can— you know, I've been learning, getting a lot better at delegation, right? When I realized, like, you know, couple employees working on the podcast and now Meme Alerts. It's like, what do I suck at? And like, what are my superpowers and how do I spend as much time on my superpowers as possible? This superpower, writing, superpower. YouTube thumbnails, not really superpower. Like, you know, accounting, not my superpower, man. Like, you know, I'm really, really trying to figure out like How do you delegate in the cheapest, highest leverage way possible? Or not even just the cheapest, but like the best way. Like, yeah, the way that fits your life, the highest. Yeah, that the highest talent. And I think like, yeah, I've been learning so much about, about— I feel like learning about myself from it. And yeah, there's maybe Henry Ford was on to something with the factory.

Right. Yeah.

Everybody has different specialization of labor, right? Yeah. Made him a lot of money. Right. But we just got to work on our writing. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, I mean, you're clearly already making choices and working on this puzzle. I think a lot of it is like, stop labeling yourself as like a workaholic. Like you're actually, you're actually you're somebody who's working a lot, but you're also intentionally taking action toward the life you want. I would say that's true.

I just want to go to the gym more and get some more sleep. Yeah, I think that's where, like, the workaholic comes from is like I work so hard that I forget to eat and go to the gym.

And so when we're talking about how much you enjoy it, like, what is the joy level, like 1 to 10?

When I'm writing and like deep in writing, 10.

Like, what are the things that are like a 1 or 2?

Um, replying to emails, I would say that that's definitely a big one, is just like Slack messages in general, like responding to that kind of stuff. Um, unless it's like with friends in a community. Um, I, I'm also weird where I enjoy the hunt of like sales. Yeah, which is like a problem.

Why is it a problem?

Because like I'll be sending DMs at like 2 AM, like 1 to 10.

How much do you enjoy it?

Do I enjoy the result or the act? That's, I guess, the question. I love the result of like money, but I hate the act of like selling. I know I don't hate it. I like it. I would say 5.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it sounds like good enough work.

I guess that's fair. Good enough work. Good enough work.

I think it's just like naming what it actually is. Like, you're like, dude, I have this saying of like, we want what we do. Yeah, you clearly want more clients and want more money, more SaaS customers for sure, not more clients, right? You're, you're lying to yourself if you think that's not true. I agree, right? Um, and so like, actually just saying, okay, how can I build maximize my life forever.

But how can I maximize it while also sleeping and going to the gym?

Maybe you can't. That's—

yeah, maybe instead of going for a max, I set a reasonable goal. Yeah, that's insane.

I—

why did I just think of that?

Is there a— I just think, like, is there a possibility that you can maximize by under-maximizing? What?

What do you mean?

Could you optimize by under-optimizing?

So, no habla MBA, sir.

Do you think part of why I sold a lot of books is that I tried— I didn't try to sell a lot of books?

I think— interesting. Totally.

This is like a Zen koan.

I feel under-optimized by optimizing. Optimized by under-optimizing. Yeah, I think by just writing bangers, the best possible bangers, they sell themselves. Yeah, that sounds dumb, but like I wrote a banger last night, right? And I got a dozen SaaS signups and it had nothing to do with the SaaS. But people go on the profile like the way the internet works. Yeah, you don't have to be just selling, right? You could just make dope content, like whatever, and then people end up finding it. So I think the deeper you think and deeper quality of content you make, the more things will naturally sell. So I, I think we're on the same page on that. I think I understand what you're saying and I could do a better job of doing that.

Yeah.

Not, not over-maximizing the—

and maybe there's like a season too. I mean, there's two options where one, you could like outsource the DMs or whatever.

Yeah. I don't like—

two is you could just say, I have enough clients right now. And I'm not going to actively look for clients for a month. And if you can afford that experiment, all you would do then is observe your behavior. Okay, am I going to the gym now?

But then I'll have to go to the gym.

If you don't like going to the gym, that's another problem to be solved. I think that— here's my gym strategy. I'll have to bring like a health coach in for that one. Here's my gym strategy. I just go to the gym most days.

And then you just end up doing something, right?

Yeah, some days I just don't have a lot of energy and I just leave after like 10 kettlebell swings. Yeah, I like kettlebell swings.

I do. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's what— that's like all I do some days.

Huh?

Yeah. Or like 10 push-ups.

I like that.

And so like, one, find a gym where like cool people are hanging out and then go hang out with cool people that will like make you happier.

Um, dude, we don't have that in New York. We have Equinox where everybody's mean to each other.

Don't go to Equinox. There are other gyms.

All right. So some in like Brooklyn or some— I'm not going to Brooklyn, bro. I live Upper West Side. That's an hour away.

Yeah. You're just gonna move.

I set up like a home gym kind of thing where I have a boxing bag like that to me.

Yeah.

I have a similar philosophy, but like not as much where like I try to do a minimum of like maybe 10 minutes. Right.

But even that can be like Or turn like meetings into walks or meetings into bike rides on the West Side.

Dude, I feel like one good thing about COVID was all meetings became walks. Like all, like I take just phone calls, like for the most part, unless I'm sharing my screen, it's a phone call with my dog. Like, why would I, why are we sitting here? Yeah.

Right.

Let's walk. Like, yeah, I did. I do like that normalization that COVID brought. Yeah. Um, okay. This is good therapy. Good therapy. It's funny, uh, you don't need to pay for therapy, just start a podcast and talk to smart people.

So you're gonna write the quarterly letter?

I'm gonna write a quarterly letter. See, now I'm getting homework too. Dropped out of college and now I'm here.

Yeah, you're gonna experiment with your, your work month.

I like it.

Your ideal work—

because like the SaaS—

when, when do you, when, when do you schedule your leisure?

Schedule my leisure?

Yeah, you need to read my book again.

Schedule my leisure?

Your time for contemplation, thinking, connecting with yourself, connecting with something bigger.

Connecting with myself? Do you mean jerking off? I schedule that for sure.

This is your— this is important. Like, I agree, to work hard on the right things, you need to not work hard.

Yeah, yeah, I can do a better job of that. I used to meditate like very regularly, do a lot of yoga and stuff. Getting back into it.

Yeah, I think that stuff can be a trap though. It's like, for sure, all these things come with scripts. Like, oh, I have to meditate. If whenever you're using like, I have to, like, no, just try stuff. Try stuff that feels fun. My entire life is designed around things I enjoy. Like my exercise is I go to a gym where I have friends. I know I bump into people and it's like fun and rewarding to go. My like solo time, contemplation, leisure time is like long walks or bike rides and it's like fun outdoors on trails that are cool and like, that's it. Just like keep trying stuff, keep trying to fuck around and find out.

Exactly. That's, that's, that's it. Yeah, it is funny. Like, I do sound a little clueless, but at the same time, like, I do know you're far ahead of people.

Yeah, many people.

But I still feel like, I don't know, man. I know a lot of shit that I don't like, which like really helps me.

That's incredibly valuable.

Yeah, dude, when I, um, was, you know, 19, 20, 21, I guess, and first like trying to figure, figure shit out a little bit, I remember Googling the names of emotions because I didn't know what I felt at any given point. I just didn't know. I was like—

You're ahead of most men. Like, that journey for me started in my 30s.

Yeah, dude. I remember looking at a chart of happy faces and, like, sad faces. I was like—

Yeah. And so this is, this is what the leisure practice helps you with. It helps you connect with that slower, more contemplative state while you're doing stuff. So you practice legerdemain to like wash that energy over the rest of your life. So next time you're sending that DM, you're not saying, "I'm a 5 out of 10 excited." You're saying like, "What actually am I feeling?" Is it tightness? Is it constriction? Is it fear? Is it excitement? Is it both of those? Right. And then like figuring that out, naming it, noticing, and then figure it out the next time. And then the more you notice, you'll just slowly shift your direction in the way where things make sense.

Looking inside myself. I like it.

It's a bitch, but it's great.

I prefer making memes. Yeah, there's a lot of memes that come from deep contemplation though.

Yeah, I also have a taste. Memes are very deep.

They are.

Yeah.

Yeah. They, they hit you with something like a hidden truth and can change your mind. Like the bell curve meme. So deep. Yeah. Like the things you realize, like, oh my God, like I've been over-optimized. You know, the famous one with the notes, Apple Notes, Apple Notes, Notion and everything. Oh, how much time do I spend searching for stuff on Notion and like making this crap? It was like, yeah, it hit me, you know, or my favorite, you know, I made one, which was Memelord, Memelord. And then like CMO, right? Like, you know, at the end of the day, like the best CMOs of Red Bull, whatever, you're just making memes and ideas. You're spreading ideas, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I like it. I like it. Cool.

Cool.

I don't know how we're doing on time. Any idea what time it is?

I think we're doing good.

All right, cool. Sweet. Just wanted to check what time it is. Yeah, I think like I'm working on a second book now and this is actually really interesting, which you'll find, um, contemplative. It's like I had two ideas for the book, right? Two ideas. And I've been bouncing back and forth, back and forth, right? Idea number one, internet friends, right? Something that we're both passionate about. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this would be good on a cover. Like, oh, this, imagine that, like I could influence people to like Make internet friends. Like, why is it weird to go make internet friends, right? We date online. Why is it weird to make internet friends? It's changed my life. There's a loneliness epidemic. All this stuff, right? Like the last 3 months I've been yapping about it to my friends and like when I sit down to write, it's just like, ugh, I don't want to write this. Like, this is— yeah, but like, oh, there's so much money, maybe like, oh, and I just like, I'm not excited to write it. And then idea number 2, which I'm super excited about, Memetic Warfare. So all about, you know, memes and warfare, right? And so the warfare of ideas. And I thought it was this niche idea that nobody cared about except for me and maybe some like other Twitter lunatics, right? And then talking today to Nathan and Nat and my friend Sanjana, like, oh, I would much rather read Memetic Warfare, like how not to get psyoped. Like, yeah, like I would much rather read that.

And I think it's interesting too. I think it's deep enough too that you'd sort of have to get tucked in.

Dude, I can't stop thinking about this stuff. Like, there's nothing—

Let's go with that.

I am, trust me. Like, as soon as I said that and Nat and Nathan were like, dude, like, I think you're actually wrong. Like, the publisher— like, Nat said, I think the publisher would actually like this one. Like, you— I think you're underestimating how many people care about memetic warfare and psyops and stuff. And yeah, and when you— when he—

I think for me, it was like, I, I, I mean, our whole world is dominated by this. I mean, this is chapter 6, I think, of my book is like work scripts and basically we're bombarded with work memetic warfare. Right. And I talk about like, I like absorbed all these stories. I absorbed them from the people around me, the television shows where like men come home from work and grumble about the job. The man on every TV show is always upset about their job, complaining about it, right? Just absorb that one, you have to work and then it probably sucks.

Well, I know what's really interesting is my generation, the man in the TV show is a YouTuber and it's not a TV show. It's a teenager or college kid who loves their life too much. Yeah. You think that work should be easy all the time.

Oh, interesting.

Like, we grew up watching—

Yeah, and it's neither of those, right?

It's in the middle. It's in the middle. You know, even, even Jake Paul works really fucking hard. Or like, you know, this is like work. Yeah.

Well, I think it's— there's almost a deeper thread there, which I wonder if it's your own personal journey, which is like, you understand the memes to leave the memes, right? Because I think a lot of people get captured by memes. They're so— they're just repeating stuff they've heard on CNN or Fox News.

Oh, dude, it's crazy.

And they don't understand that the political parties are two meme manufacturing engines now. Like, they basically have, like, no real policies. They just, like, they try stuff out. Like, I try out tweets.

Like, what a banger line. That's going in the book.

Yeah. I mean, the left puts out, like, more wonky stuff and then the— but they trial balloon it and then sunset it a couple of days later.

It's like Google launch a product, right?

Responds online with like just a reaction to that. Right. And so like if you're looking at it from a memetic warfare standpoint, like oftentimes the left is winning because they're owning the first meme.

Yeah. And then right, right. Reactionary.

A reaction meme can be powerful, but they're often not as long lasting.

Dude, one was crazy the other day when the Haitian cat stuff starts popping up.

Remember?

And within like 12 to 15 hours, Trump is saying it online.

It settles into this like so predictable thing.

Yeah. And then the left is discrediting him and there's this like back and forth of this propaganda. Right. And it's absolutely fascinating. You could see in my eyes right now how much more excited I am. Right. Like it is just like obsessed, like with this.

Well, I think there is something like people have spent a lot of time online. Are able to see this stuff so clearly, and almost in the sense that it's kind of boring to me. Yeah. And like, it really— a lot of it is so predictable. Like, I like the funny stuff, but like, I don't know, like the stuff that people are most outraged about, like, I think it is a waste of time for a lot of people.

I agree, and I find that really interesting. That's also why I was struggling, because like I wanted it to be like this, like, theoretical thing. And then I was like, dude, just like write about Haitian cats and write about how, like, you know, those— Tim Pool and stuff, you find out Russia's paying this media outlet. Like, that's hilarious. Like, that is crazy. You know, write about like faceless accounts run by Chinese propaganda who are acting like— looks like white girls.

Or write about how, um, people went from anti-vax to ProVax when the presidential candidates flipped.

Yeah.

When it was like crazy and all crazy to watch, dude. And it just spread. It was just ideas spreading.

Yeah. And I think that's a great way to put it, isn't it? Is write about the fun stuff. Because I tried like months ago, I was like, I'm going to read all the book on Hitler's propaganda, right?

Oh, I don't think that's your book. I think your book is— yeah, just like talking about the current stuff.

It's the fun crazy. Yes. Fuck, dude.

But also there's a lot of fun stuff. You don't— you can do like a chapter on political stuff.

Yeah, dude. That's a— Derangement Syndrome.

Yeah.

Elon Derangement Syndrome, I think, is much more dangerous than Trump Derangement Syndrome. So much worse, more dangerous, and just insane.

I think I would broaden that. I think any derangement syndrome, like becoming so obsessed with somebody you dislike, it's a waste of human potential.

I would definitely agree with that.

I think that's what you're getting at though, right? I saw this as my creative spark was igniting in me in like 2016, 2017, 2018 when I was starting to write online. People were so captured by politics back then. I'm not sure if you remember, but like it was absorbing everything.

It's bad.

I felt like an alien because I was headed in this different direction. I had this like thing inside of me that I really cared about. And like, I felt this desire to like want to save people from it. I no longer want to save people, but maybe you can.

I don't know. I'm not trying to save— you can't save them, host.

See the memes to leave the memes.

See the memes to leave the memes.

I love that.

I do think like the more— what's interesting, actually, back to that Notion thing, I still use Notion every day. I, I know that I'm kind of a dumbass and I should just use Apple Notes maybe. But at the same time, I find Notion valuable. I'm like, whatever. Like, all right, I might be wrong on this, but like, it works for me.

Well, I think that's the other side of it is like, it just works and you don't have to think about it. So just keep doing it.

This is true. This is true. I, um, yeah, I'm very excited for this now.

The other side of memes like that is like, they are info hazards.

Oh yeah.

Right. Heard this, like, heard this guy in a podcast be like, men should never be in public with shorts. And it sounded so compelling to me, and I was wearing shorts at the time, and I'm like, what am I— maybe I should wear pants more. And I'm like, wait, no, this is so stupid. Like, why am I— why am I letting this random podcaster, dude, influence what I remember? It's an infohazard.

I had a guy like that at college You totally believe that. And then, want to know what's crazy? Months later, I listened to Cumtown for the first time, right? Stavi, you know him?

I think I've heard it.

Yeah. So these guys, like, I realize he's just repeating everything that these guys are saying.

It's like, whoa.

I actually saw somebody tweet about this the other day, how like people are literally copying Tim Ferriss's intonation when you're like talking. Like, almost. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah, it's the ideas. All right, wait, while we have a sec, let's talk about that banger Naval tweet, right? So Naval, he is a meme lord, right? He is dropping one-line pieces of wisdom about—

he's on the pathless path.

Definitely on the pathless path. And like, your tweet was, uh, if you like Naval so much, why do you have a full-time job? That was savage. And so true. It's like, if you're really following the memes, if you're following it, right? Why do you have a full-time job?

Yeah, so I don't know, it's just a question.

It's a good question.

I think it's like, it actually gets at something deeper, which is, um, I think it's very easy to get absorbed in ideas, right? But if there's a disconnect between the ideas and the ideas you're actually implementing in your life, they're like, what are you doing? What's the tension there? What's the disconnect, right? And so his path is all about like leverage, creating your own future, right? And so like, just go live it, don't post it.

I like it. Yeah, mine's all about me marketing and I get to make people laugh, have fun with my friends, make memes, make silly shit. You know, it's, um, it's pretty simple when you like have it down pat. And I think like Yeah, I'm really intrigued by the idea of just, um, uh, like propaganda in general and, and where we're at right now. Like, you know, I was meeting with somebody earlier this week from ex-Secret Service, now works with like billionaire VC and defense and stuff. And it's just like, dude, why does defense not take memes? Like, why, why are you guys like, like, how do we make the army cool again? Stuff like that. Like, that is, I'm really fascinated about.

I mean, they're probably in the mix. You probably just don't notice the source of these things.

Oh, that's true. That's very true. That's a good point.

Like, you think there's not, but I mean, the US is one of the greatest memes ever. Of course. And like, you notice this more when you live abroad. You should go live abroad.

I've lived abroad.

Nice.

Yeah.

And so like in the US, in like Taiwan, like US meat is still like seen as like the ultimate meat, but it's right next to like a cheaper New Zealand meat, which I know what's American meat. It's factory farmed and like the New Zealand meat's like some nice meat.

Dude, the US is so great.

They have such good like branding around that and they literally have people from the USDA going around the world like helping do campaigns to like promote stuff. Like, I forget what country I was in, but like there was these potato— US potato ads in some country and it was like a tagline of the FDA. So like they are doing the memes.

It's fair. Our greatest export is memes for sure. Yeah, I'm talking to Jovian.

It's sort of overwhelming, right? Yeah. Jovian works for you. He's Indonesian who works in Taiwan for Americans, and he mostly absorbs like US culture.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been, you know, Jovian and another employee that I have understands the tech memes better than 99% of the people in the US. Yeah. And that's the cool thing about, I guess, the internet is memes are universal, right? And the way that I think about memes is like memes are the smallest bit right? You understand them super fast. It's the smallest bit of information that could spread, right? It's very powerful and, um, have to be used wisely. There's good memes and bad memes. I really do believe like sticky ideas, good, good, good memes, bad memes. Like, dude, the, the don't have kids meme, terrible meme, bad meme for culture. Very bad. Poly meme, the normalization of poly, bad, bad meme.

Well, I think these things, um, they start— everything starts out in like a good place, right? Like the don't have kids. Um, maybe it starts out of like making, like just being more caring of people that can't have kids. Right. Um, and that makes sense. Right. But I mean, these things can spread and like they can have enormous effects. Like there's dozens of shrinking countries around the world already.

Yeah, it's a very bad meme. The whole decel movement, decelerationism.

Yeah, maybe, maybe not.

I think like unhealthy meme.

We had the opposite meme in the 1970s, which were there were too many people.

Oh, overpopulation.

Yeah. Like people really thought there was going to be like the end of the world. Like, because if you ran a linear extrapolation, of food production, like we couldn't do it. But we totally just didn't expect that we'd get way better at food production and way better, way worse at human production, I guess.

Reproduct—

Yeah, now we have the opposite. And so I sort of always take this long-term view. It's like, whatever we think now, we're probably wrong. Chuck Klosterman wrote it, wrote this amazing book. But What If We're Wrong? Have you written that? Have you read?

No, I've read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. That's one of my favorites.

But What If We're Wrong is my favorite book of his, and it contemplates like, he goes back in like, okay, 1840s, what was the popular— or 1920s, what was the popular music at the time? None of those people are known now. And there's like one random singer who's like super popular now. And wasn't even popular at the time. And he's like, how are we so bad at, like, knowing what's going to happen in the future? Or like what people thought about Lincoln in 1870 versus now. Versus now. Now it's like he probably has a 98% approval rating and people know freed the slaves. So his argument was like everything gets boiled down to one idea. So it's like the reverse meme, right? And so he was making an interesting argument that someone like Barack Obama might be, uh, um, looked back at 100 years from now as like the great, one of the greatest presidents because he was like the first Black president and he signaled this like shift to a new era. Now that may not feel like it right now, but 100 years from now, everyone would just be like, Barack Obama, great president, first Black president.

Did we still say Jackie Robinson?

So, right, first, first Black baseball player. And I don't even know if he was the first Black baseball player, maybe in the MLB, but I think there are others before him actually. He was the first great one though. Yeah, he was a meme that spread because he was excellent. Yes.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of, um, talk around not reading the news, stuff like that. Read old books. I find that definitely be true. Like, I I don't have like a barbell approach.

I do follow like what's going on now. I don't read like pure, like propaganda, like political news sites, like they're just trying to win an election. It's literally competition, meme warfare. But I do think it's like worth reading people writing right now to get a sense for the vibe and ideas.

Yeah.

And old stuff.

Yeah. I think it'd be really stupid not to read anything current right now. Including us, obviously.

But yeah, good work reclaiming your inner ambition.

Yeah, I think it would be kind of dumb not to do that. But yeah, I think news sites, news cycles, it's kind of— it's just meme after meme. You know that meme where it's like the cat with the tinfoil hat? It's like, I wake up, another psyop. I feel like that should be the COVID of the book.

Have you looked at Ben Hunt's stuff on this?

No, who's that?

He writes Epsilon Theory and he studies narratives.

Okay.

So he's a center studying this at Vanderbilt.

Okay. I shall try to interview.

Yeah, his stuff's really good. He has some good articles where it shows like the narrative cycle. So like some news would drop and like there was no polarization around it for like 6 hours. And then it starts like, it starts like sorting, like everyone's trying stuff, basically everyone's A/B testing and then like, boom, it turns into like, this is the narrative. and then that spreads and all the other early news stories disappear or the headlines disappear and like it just takes off. It's like, it's crazy. Um, and it's getting faster. So like now an event hits and like the meme, uh, polarization or like intensity goes to 10 in like a couple of hours. Oh, even Jason Levin.

Crazy.

And so people start repeating the same things. Everyone's saying the same thing.

I mean, that's the point of Meme Alerts, was the way that we did it.

You know, I should be, I should be using this to promote my book. Everybody, I do that sometimes. Like when, yeah, when the rates dropped, I put out an image of Jerome Powell with the money printer guns and I put my book in instead.

Yeah. I mean, the idea is like all these people are remixing it. We just find the best ones and alert people of it, right? Yeah.

Like when all the Microsoft pages went down, I put my book The Pathless Path on one of those like Microsoft Windows.

That was a good one.

Pages off. And like that went pretty crazy.

Yeah.

And that's how I think about like the book cover, like see the book cover, like I wanted it to be able to be read on camera. I wanted people to see good work. I want people to associate the name with good work. Now a lot of people have written books called Good Work. I think I can, like, I think the way I think about it is like I want to win that space.

Yeah, she's got to outmean them.

And that's why I think it's a good book title. Pathless Path too. Like, I sort of like own that 100% term now.

Yeah.

Even though Osho wrote a book called Pathless Path. Yeah.

Yeah. I own the memes make millions term, which is nice. And it's like just around that stuff. It's been weird. In a good way to see like anytime meme marketing is talked about, I get tagged. It's like, good, that means my— the meme of me being the meme marketer is working, right?

And I don't even know what this all means. Like, I connected with a mom who has a family who's homeschooling and traveling abroad now, and it was like her Instagram handle was like pathless and then her name. Pathless path and then her name. And it was like, whoa, this is like spreading far beyond what I ever expected.

I like it. It's a good feeling when the meme spreads, when the meme works. Yeah, it's a good feeling. I think, you know, Elon has this quote where it's like, whoever controls memes controls the universe, right? Like if you could control what memes are distributed or posted, right?

Right. And I mean, the meme I'm trying to distribute is that like you should actually try to care about your work. And if you care about your work, it can spread positive energy into the world. Like, good work and a connection with work you actually care about is worth finding. And like, actually designing your life around that matters. And so, like, I want to spread that because I want to defeat cynicism, because I was on a path where I was headed towards cynicism and doom in midlife. And I think that just destroys so much creative capacity and potential in our world.

Definitely. So much cynicism. Yeah. Pessimism in general around like what people are capable of too. Like people, people really do think like, I need, like my job needs to suck. Yeah. Like it's, it's definitely a thing.

It's not even that. It's like, I shouldn't expect much.

Yeah.

It's like jobs aren't too bad compared to 100 years ago. But I think people put up with a lot of like low-grade misery.

Yeah. And there's definitely some negativity around that. Some body crap. Yeah, I am, man. I'm so excited now to like sit down and write. It's just nice. Yeah, man. Like, I'm feeling like on the right path, right? Where it's like figure out the topic, the conversation, the, the topic, the book, and then just dive headfirst, right? And, uh, follow-up session, right? So that's the plan.

Nice. Let's check in in 2 years.

Let's do another pod in a couple years. Um, Paul, you want to tell people where they can find you?

pmiller.com/goodwork for the new book, or, um, pmiller.com pathlesspath.com, all the places. I'm the only Paul Millard on the internet. So name your kid for SEO strength.

Oh, trust me. I, I trust me.