The Intersection Of Creator & Business | Episode 19 - Michael Girdley

I put out a tweet a few weeks ago and it went viral where I was asking people if I should get a Mac or a PC. And I've seen you tweet about your PC, but I know that your first computer was an Apple IIe when you were 8 years old. So I'm curious where you stand in the debate, Mac or PC.

Yeah, uh, I have both actually. So I have a Windows PC at home. I think I have 3 or 4 Mac laptops now, including the best computer ever built, the MacBook Pro 2014, uh, 15-inch. And, um, and then here I'm on a Mac Studio. So I'm equal opportunity. I, uh, except for iMessage, they basically all feel like the same computer to me.

So you link your mobile device with your computer is kind of like the one benefit you would say, or what are some of the the pros and cons?

Look, I think the only downside for me is a lot of my family and everybody's on iMessage. So I can do everything on Windows that, you know, I can do on a Mac and vice versa, except for iMessage. That's the only difference when I'm on one of those machines. And I think that's probably because I'm, you know, wholeheartedly like a Google shop personally, like Google Drive, Google email, Google everything. So because it's that plus Chrome, like I don't really care. Like it just feels like an OS to me. And as long as there's a file system and the camera works, like I don't really care too much. So anyway, I wish I was a better, like, had a better argument, but I was like, I don't care. That's my argument.

No, that's great. Everything is, is so, you know, you can do anything with anything now. Um, as long as you're dialed in and you're just ready to put in the work. I don't think the technology is inhibiting anybody. You've always been a computer guy. Um, you passed out even a lot of your computer science degree. You did it so heavily programming in high school. and, and, you know, you got your degree in computer science. I'm curious how you look at education today. Uh, there's a lot of cohorts and courses, particularly on X, where people are, you know, uh, learning straight from creators. How do you compare college now to self-education in 2023?

Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think, and it's maybe a contrarian point of view, I think college is super important and like my kids are 14 14 and 17. You know, we've, we've told them, look at your decision if you want to go to college or not. And they've both decided they want to go to college. And I think the reason is, is not that they care about getting a degree. They care about the learning that they're going to get through that process. And personally, like, I do think there's some colleges that are a waste of money. Like, I wouldn't send my kid to University of Phoenix or any one of those scammy diploma mills. But sending them to a good college that knows how to take care of the kids and teach them things. Like, I think that investment in education is enormous, and I don't care about the degrees at all. But then secondarily, I think that the world has surpassed where college drops you off. Like, it used to be 30 years ago, I think you could graduate college and be ready for a career. Like, you knew what you needed to know. But even in fields where there's degrees specific to those fields, like electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or computer engineering, like when you graduate, you're still going to have to keep learning through the rest of your life. And that's where I think your point about courses, reading, self-study, finding projects that educate you, like, that's still super important. So like, I think postgraduate education is getting even more important year by year just because technology keeps pushing forward.

That's an interesting framework, especially if you can afford it. You know what I mean? Um, that's a lot of the big qualm with a lot of people is like taking on this massive amount of debt. And then there are a lot of companies now that you know, aren't even that concerned with the degree. It's more about what kind of experience do you have? And if you were able to maybe take that money that you put into a degree and travel and try to build something for yourself, and that might be more valuable to a company. I'm curious, like for all the companies that you're running, how do you factor that into the hiring process?

Yeah, we don't, we don't care really if you have a degree or not. Like we don't even list it. Uh, I have an open job rec, by the way, right now for, um, a video strategy role working for me. So if anybody that's a creator out there wants a full-time job helping me win on YouTube, like, we'll hire you. So please apply. But like, we didn't even like write down college degree, education. We didn't care about any of that stuff. We cared about, were you smart? Did you have the right attitude? Do you have grit? Were you passionate about our mission? Like, all that stuff really mattered. The thing that worries me about people saying skip education, like skip a college experience, is like, Man, I have a 17-year-old, like he should go to college, right? Like these are still like, they look like adults, but like 17-year-olds are still, they're kids, right? They still can't do that. I think there's a small percentage of people that can do like Theo fellowships and stuff like that and they could skip college and be great in life. But the majority of like teenagers I know, like they need the structure to like go and learn things. And I know this is and that like, I'm supposed to say the other end of this narrative 'cause that's what like Twitter and social media and everybody wants me to do is like bash on college. And look, college isn't perfect, but like for most kids, it's like the best thing. And there are ways to do it more cheaply. Like it's hard to argue for some of these $70,000 a year liberal arts colleges, but like it's hard to argue against some of the more inexpensive options, whether there's good community colleges or some of the state schools like here in the state of Texas, UT is like $12,000 a year or something like that. I mean, it's still pretty reasonable in terms of what you're charged. So anyway, I don't know, maybe I have a nuanced view on this or maybe I just want my kids to go to college. I could be talking my book.

No, I think it's great. And I just, I really wanted to hear what you had to say because I think you make an interesting point with that they need structure. What's funny with me, I went to Indiana University and I graduated there and What I found actually for me personally was it was the freedom for me that actually ended up teaching me a lot of lessons because yeah, there's the structure of like school and classes opposed to just like free freelance learning on YouTube or something. But compared to living in my mom's house and the, and the lack of freedom I might've had there to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. And then I went to college and I basically, I got to determine, do I want to skip class right now? And then what were the repercussions of that? And, and I actually learned a lot of accountability through the freedom. And I also learned a lot about myself socially, right? You, you, uh, the high school social dynamic is a little more cliquey, and college, there's kind of a more organic, uh, meshing of different people from different places and all that type of stuff. So there's definitely a ton of value in it. I know one of your professors from college, he, you know, he used to say, you ask him a question, he'd say, go look at the manual, right? And he would never, you know, give you the answer. And so it kind of helped you learn to learn on your own and not necessarily be dependent on somebody else. Where would you rank self-reliance on the hierarchy of successful entrepreneurial traits?

Yeah, I think it's a great— by the way, great research. Like, I love, I love that you studied some stuff that I said, and I love that you honored me by actually reading it. Like, it's like every time somebody reads my stuff, I'm like, oh my God, they read my stuff. Like, I'm so honored. So thank you. Look, I think self-reliance and like drive and all that stuff, it ties into like the number one pattern I've seen over and over again for the people, whether they're CEOs or individual contributors in my organizations. Like they have more grit than anybody else. Like they're the only, the number one thing that correlates to people outperforming is grit. Like, do they care more about it? Are they self-reliant in terms of what you're talking about? And I think that's a big component of grit. Like, do they stick to it? Will they not give up? And that one single thing I think is super important. So yeah, I would say self-reliance, like, super important, whether you're an individual contributor, a manager, a CEO, or an investor. Like, just the ability, like, not to give up and to focus on what you can change and then make that happen. I think it's hugely valuable.

I was talking to Dakota Robertson. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. He's a creator on X and other channels. And I asked him, you know, he'd been putting on a lot of writers and stuff and elevating people. I'm like, what do you look for? And he's like, just someone that like, they never ask me questions. They can just figure out for themselves. Like they just, they get something done and they're like, what's next? And they go figure it out. So yeah, I agree that that's an amazing thing.

Um, well, it's so not to interrupt you, but like, like the reason I don't like asking questions is because it's so slow. Like I would much rather like instantaneously be able to like go Google the answer and figure it out rather than go waste 10 minutes of my time, like tracking somebody down. Explain the question. Like, it's so annoying. So like, I think it's also like underrated in terms of being a huge benefit for you, the question asker, to like go research a little bit because it'll save you a ton of time. Like, so tracking somebody down and wasting an hour of your time to get an answer to something like, just go figure it out and it takes you 5 minutes. Like you've just gotten yourself a whole hour back. So anyway, that's, that's my commercial for being self-reliant.

Now there's— and you're making me think of so many other reasons. Like when you ask winners questions that could be answered easily, you kind of hurt yourself in a networking perspective as well. Cause I kind of like, there's a slight like psychological ding that happens where it's like, why wouldn't you just look that up? And also like similar to like AI prompting now, it's like maybe you're not a great Google searcher. Well, it's like start practicing. Like you should be able to find that in 2 minutes instead of bothering somebody else for it. Cause like you said, it'll end up paying off in the long run. And I want to keep going into kind of character building and skill building cause You're swimming in college. You said you were kind of like a mediocre swimmer, but it taught you a lot of character building from the hard work and, and, um, you know, the place that you found yourself in, in the midst of your team. Um, what advice do you have for creators who feel like maybe they're not the most skilled, but they still want to build their personal brand?

Yeah. And to be clear, like mediocre, if you look at the definition of it, I had looked it up recently. So because I kept using it wrong, mediocre means just like average. And I was not average. I was below average on my team. Like I was the guy barely walking onto the team. And then the coach discovered like my GPA was pretty good. So he was really excited to have me on the roster. He just would like not put me in the pool as often as other people. So I was not very good compared to them. And it was a Div 1 school. Like, you know, it's, it's fine. It is what it is. Um, but then, uh, anyway, I just got myself off topic. What was the, what was the original question? I was about to, I was about to answer it.

Uh, like just content creators that maybe they don't have the most skill or even expertise where they feel like, hey, what am I going to teach somebody? You know, who am I? Or I'm not a great writer, but I understand the personal brand is one of the highest lever, uh, leverage pulls that you can make right now in this market. What advice do you have for them to kind of figure a way out?

Yeah, 100%. Well, look, I think there's different personalities of content creators. You have like the old goats like me, who can have a lifelong set of stories and experience and perspective from having done it. And I think if you're 25 or even 30 and expecting yourself to have like the same level of experience as somebody who's been in business for 28 years, like it's not going to happen, right? But I do think there's very interesting niches to carve out there. And you can see people who, for example, find themselves more in a curation standpoint, right? Where they're, say, for example, like, I'm totally— my buddy, I'm totally blank on his name because it's the end of the day and my blood sugar is low. But he wrote the book about Naval Ravikant, right? The Tao of Naval Ravikant. And he curated and then added his own perspective to that stuff. And I think there's lots of opportunities, people out there, to go and do stuff like that. Or Danny Miranda, who's great with his interviewing show at this point. Like he's going out there and he's adding value by bringing the— his personal story to interviewing these people that he's bringing onto the show who are doing great things in life. So like, I don't think wherever you are it's impossible for you to figure out a way to add to the narrative and create very valuable content. You just sometimes have to be more creative about it. And just the same as like, I wouldn't expect them to kind of use my perspective and me telling stories. It's just not going to work for them. but you'd just be a little bit more creative and there's definitely green space for people, even if you're relatively early or you have a very limited, you know, set of things that you've experienced in life to add value to folks. And when you add value to folks, that's when you win in content for sure.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I was a crypto influencer last year. It was my first year on X or Twitter at the time, and I kind of elevated to the most engaged account in my niche. And then I got bored of it and I wanted to pivot. And I was leaving all this stuff on the table. And I was like, you know, how am I going to restart this brand? And how am I going to like find something to really dig into? And I was into self-development and personal growth and kind of some generic stuff, it turns out, like what people talk about. But for me, what I ended up doing was just diving down this rabbit hole. And I found YouTube videos from large creators that had big Twitter accounts as well, like Dan Coe and Dickie Bush and those folks. And I would create video threads, like video summations of their longer form videos and put them into X threads and they would retweet them and they would follow me. And I started to build a bit of a network based on the back of these curation threads. So I think that's really good advice. And I know that people have, that have put my work together, I'm more likely to notice you and to get more awareness on your work. Yeah.

Well, I think the thing I would suggest, and you're welcome to disregard this if you'd like, but like, I think you look at Sahil Bloom, right? And like, nobody's really been more successful than him in bringing the personal development, personal growth space to Twitter and to his newsletter and stuff like that. But the thing that he's done that's super smart is with everything, you'll notice he brings not only the curation of the idea from somebody else or the concept, and he explains it incredibly well, which by itself is like way above average. But the thing he does with everything is he takes that and then he makes it real for him and the audience by relating it back to his own perspective and his own journey. And like, I think if you're going to be in the curation business, like, curation is great, right? But you have to make it so you're not just repackaging other people's stuff, but you're bringing part of your own personality there. And it goes back to your idea of like, how do you build your own brand? You build your own brand by being real with people and like explaining to them your perspective and your thoughts and your insights on it. And so anyway, that's just my two cents for you. Like, keep curating. Curating is a great way to do stuff. But like, don't leave yourself behind because you have something to say also tying back to that individual, you know, that individual piece of information from Dan or, or Dickie or any of those guys that you've brought to the, brought to the platform, repackaged and made that accessible to others. But you have, you have something to add to that always, and I encourage you to do so.

Great point. I look back at your tweets, actually your first tweet ever. It was January 13th, 2010. And it said, "It's raining in San Antonio." It's so bad. And then 2 days later, "Still hasn't stopped raining..." Sick. But that was kind of the style of tweeting back then, right? It was more updates. It was the "What am I having for lunch?" kind of thing. How have you seen Twitter evolve over the last 13 years?

Yeah. Well, for full disclosure, I disappeared off of Twitter after that period. And I only really came back, I'm a pandemic baby. So COVID brought me into Twitter. COVID, you know, I was at home like everybody else. And by the way, the video, I talked to you before recording about, I was recording a YouTube video today 'cause I'm trying to learn how to YouTube and I'm doing it by recording bad videos. It turns out that's the way it works. And, but like I talked about how I got started on Twitter again. And so really I consider when I started on Twitter back in 2020 being being the moment I really got into it. And for me, it was great to come back and Twitter had totally changed from at the time of 2010, this thing that was just like impossible to understand for me and I never really leaned into it. Where in 2020, I showed up and it was like the gold, it felt like the golden age of Twitter. That was a time when it was before Elon and people were really, I think the micro niche communities were super strong. And it was secondarily at the time, much more of a publishing platform than it is now. Elon has bought it and he's turned it into a platform for discourse, which is why you see so many like controversial things. You see people getting rewarded for replies and getting paid for replies. And so, you know, I've seen those two things change since Elon has bought it for sure. And it's really affected some of the creators. You've either stayed up with the times and changed what you're publishing or you're seeing them just like drop off a cliff because the old Twitter, you know, doesn't exist anymore.

You mentioned Elon and kind of all the things he's doing. What is your take on kind of where Twitter's headed? And particularly, you know, you are always evaluating businesses. How about Twitter as a business? How do you look at it?

Uh, I think, uh, I think Elon has a very asymmetric bet that he's making. He wants this to be WeChat for the rest of the world. Um, you know, I think that's a very admirable, big, ambitious thing. It's like, you know, if you think about his ideas, it's like, okay, I'm gonna electrify transportation, I'm gonna put people on Mars, I'm going to reshape payments and I'm going to create the everything app. Like pretty ambitious.

I'm going to put chips in your brain too, so you don't have to speak anymore.

Oh yeah. Sorry, I forgot about that one.

Just that one. Yeah.

Just that one.

Just like what?

So, look, I appreciate the ambition and if he does it right, it's potentially a trillion-dollar-plus outcome. Could be the biggest app in the history of humanity. If you think about the whole world, if the whole world was on WeChat or an equivalent, it would be enormous. Look, is that— I think it's a good investment. I don't really know. Like, I don't write checks into $44 billion investments at all, but I think that's, that's where the app's going. And, you know, he owns it now, so bless him, bless his heart. If he wants to do it, he can definitely do it.

You mentioned it's an asymmetric bet for him, and I feel similar from a creator standpoint. It's like if you can kind of plant your flag here now, if the app does do something crazy, then you really have an oppor— I mean, there's ways to make money now, but really, if they start bringing in big creators, if they make video a larger portion of the app, when they update the live kind of infrastructure that's currently on Periscope, all this stuff, there's a lot of upside for creators, especially with the payment element coming on top of that. And one of the biggest values that I've found from the platform so far is the people and the networking. And like, look at this. This just happened off of a tweet and I get to talk to you and it's fantastic. I know you're a big people person, but mostly in like a structured environment, like maybe not so much dinner parties, I've heard you say. Yeah, things like that. Um, with COVID you know, creating more of, uh, isolated remote work and making that more normal, how do you approach networking online? How do you, how do you think people should, uh, you know, build relationships in this current age?

Yeah, I don't think there's any one way to do it, right? Um, I think there are people who are on Twitter, for example, who are trying to build friendships there around shared interest, and they do that. I've done that too. And it's a lot of other creator types, a lot of other business types. Then there's people like me who are doing the intersection of creation and business. I've got a lot of friends like that from all over the world. And we connect on Twitter and then in Signal groups, WhatsApp groups, and all that kind of stuff. So I think that's a perfectly fine thing. And you don't need to have 190,000 followers to find your tribe. And start to build that kind of network. But I think, look, I think, I think the thing that's happened with social, the thing with technology as well, is it starts to change how we should think about relationships. Right. And I have my real-world friendships, like I went mountain biking with my buddies last night, like we'll talk on the phone. I call my college roommate and we talk about fantasy football all the time. That's a certain type of relationship. But what I think is exciting now is with technology coming in, there's these other types of relationships. So and And for me, like, you'll see all my tweets come from a place of love and friendship for the people that are like my followers, right? Or people who are reading my content. And that's because I'm deeply grateful for them reading it, but also because like, that's a different type of relationship for me. Like we talk about, you know, Dunbar's number, you can have 150 contacts in your world. I think the world is evolving past that. And I see a world now in which there's all these different types of relationships. And I see those people who know me very well, those are asymmetric relationships. I don't know them at all, but I still consider that like a super strong relationship for me. So I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, but like, I think the idea of friendships and connections and relationships keeps evolving. And, and I love like that I have 190,000 like new friends who like read my stuff. That's great.

Yeah, one of the best ways I found, particularly on this platform, to connect with people is through Spaces. And I've met a lot of big accounts in there. I've met a lot of really smart people, really friendly people, and I spend a lot of time in there. I built my brand kind of around social audio. And so yes, I'm in there for that, but I'm also in there because I enjoy it. That's why it's my brand. I'm bullish on it. I love it. And there's amazing people in there and it humanizes kind of the interactions that we have. I sent you a voice note when we were first connecting and you responded, this is my first voice DM. And so Like I said, I love audio. I was curious, like, have you jumped into any Spaces? Have you sent any voice DMs since then? And what do you make of kind of audio as a medium?

I think that most people on X are using X or Twitter. We'll use the terms interchangeably. I think most people on X currently are using it in an audio-off fashion, right? I think for most people, they're on their phone, they're in a public place, they're sitting on the couch with their family, like their default is X is a text-centric platform and they have audio off. And I'm generally that way too. It's why whenever I put a video clip or anything on X, big old subtitles, because I don't expect people to want to turn on audio. So, you know, I think some of my reaction really was around just feeling like, oh, like I'm in a non-audio situation. I think when I actually opened your message, like I was, my wife and I were going to sleep. Like I couldn't turn on the audio and listen to it. So that was the reaction there because it was a non-audio moment. Look, I think second point, I'm glad you like Spaces. I find them entirely tedious. Like I've listened to them and it's like 45 minutes of everybody introducing themselves. I'm like, oh, I ain't got time for this. You guys need to put these in tweets so I can read them more quickly. But I mean, I'm glad they're for you. I'm glad they're great for you. And look, hopefully over time, just like we're starting to use Slack with more audio and the different apps that are out there, I think X will migrate that way. In the future. And so I'm excited for it, but it's going to have to change the way I interact with the app and also the way the audio audience will interact with the app as well.

Totally. Yeah, I, I definitely agree that, um, the programming is subpar. And so as a listener, I can imagine, especially as a busy listener, uh, you don't really— you're not getting the value for it. But there, you know, if you're bullish on podcasts, you know, you can see the value in having some sort of multitaskable audio thing. Like you can go for a walk, you can do dishes, you can fold the laundry and listen to a podcast. You can do the same in a space, but there's this added element of interaction where maybe as a listener, as a passive listener, the programming's not there yet. But if you're part of the conversation, if you are hosting it and trying to promote your own stuff, it's basically an evolution of like radio to podcasting and I think to live audio. Where it kind of, you know, meshes together the podcast format with like a conference format. Uh, you can build really good community. Like I said, networking is crazy. I met my business partner in a space. Um, he's actually a big monetization guy, and I know that you guys share a similar message around, you know, you should raise your prices, right? This is something that both of you I've heard preach, and, and I'm curious, why do you say that? There are a lot of people that think, oh, if I raise my prices too much, like, people aren't going to buy it. I need to make, you know, I'm I'm competing downward to like undercut other people. Can you talk a little bit about pricing and how you think about it?

Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of like, uh, logical fallacies that people have in their head and misconceptions they have in their head about pricing. I mean, first and foremost, it's very typical for people, especially if they're experts in a field, uh, to value something based on how easy it is for them to do it, not how difficult it is for the customer to to do it. So for example, your typical software engineer is very much this way, right? They build software and they think that it took them 6 weeks to put together a very simple prototype. So they should charge, let's say, 1.5 times what it costs them to build it. And it forgets all these other things that you have to do in order to deliver good service to a customer. I think also people miss— they overvalue that A lot of customers, no matter what your price is, are going to complain about your prices. Like there's 15 to 20% of people that no matter, even if you offer it for free, they will come back to you and say, uh, why didn't you pay me to take it? Like that is how much of a percentage of the population is just class A jerks and they're going to do that. But people are afraid that when they raise their prices or they charge fair value for something that somebody's going to come back and complain. And so for me, like, that's why I really tell people, like, look, I'll tell you why your business sucks, right? They're like, I'm not making much money doing this. Like, all your prices are too low. Like, it's just, there's just no way you're ever going to have a good business when this is all done. And it ties back to, like, you, you know, Fort Worth Chris, who's Chris Powers, who's on, on Twitter. He talks about this a lot. He's like, look, we charge, we charge reasonable market fees. We charge all this stuff. We have a revenue model for the money that we're managing. And the reason is because we we want to offer a high-value service. And if there's no business model here, somebody's got to pay for that service to be offered at a high level, whether it's coming out of my pocket or the customer's pocket. And he says, well, I would prefer the customer to pay that because that's more sustainable. So really, it's just a way of changing people's mind about it, not being scared about charging for the value you're bringing to your customers. And, you know, anyway, I also understand it's like super easy for me to say it and it's hard to do it in practice because it's scary because, you know, someone's going to call and complain or you're going to lose a customer, but you have to do it if you want to have a viable business. There's just no other, no other option.

I'm starting to get into sales for my own business right now, and I've never really had that much experience in that. I'm more of a marketing guy, and, uh, you know, the pricing has been super interesting and dealing with objections. And, uh, I think it's valuable for every entrepreneur to think very critically about their prices and not be afraid to raise them. I basically, I had my first coaching client and then I ended up doubling it for the next one just to see if I could, and I did, and that's my new price. So it's like, okay, you know, you set— you create a new system for yourself. I want to talk a little bit about your value system, a personal value system, where I know that, you know, I've heard you say that like, you figured out some of your own values by hearing what negative things people were saying about you. So in other words, if someone called you lazy, and it triggered you, you know that not being lazy is a core value, right? And personal branding, I found, and creating content is like very much this aggressive self-development journey to build your skills, to build, you know, where you are in the market and getting that feedback, build your— all these different sort of things to elevate you and build the life you want. I'm curious, you know, you're primarily a businessman, but as a content creator, has your journey impacted you? And what have you learned about yourself from putting content out into the market?

Oh man, it feels like my learning has really accelerated, um, by putting stuff out there. I mean, it's even as simple as when you, when you write a tweet or when you compose a tweet, like, going through my mind all the time is like, how are they going to react to this? How are other people going to do it? How should I think through this more deeply? If they say this, what would be my reaction? Like, you know, and sometimes I'll delete tweets because I'm just like, oh, I can't figure out a way to say this that won't have some idiot like respond with something stupid and annoying. Um, So, you know, that happens all the time, just thinking through that stuff deeply. I mean, there's a lot of things I've been exposed to that are relatively new to me through the process of content creation. For example, you know, the real estate private equity folks are really big across Twitter. I was not super in touch with that industry and didn't understand it deeply until I got into Twitter. And only by seeing those guys talk about what they're doing, reading about it and seeing the breadcrumbs to where I could then go Google stuff. That I did. I get deeply into those things. So, man, everything in between those two, like just learning a new space by just running across it in the course of Twitter to like the micro of how do I think about it, like I've learned, man, I just feel like I've learned so much through the whole process. I mean, another great example, the business methodology I use to create new companies is called Effectuation. So I use this business methodology. I basically had invented it from scratch by watching a bunch of successful entrepreneurs do these practices. And I didn't really understand that it had already been studied and like named by a professor out of the University of Virginia. So I described it on Twitter. I said, hey, I see these groups of entrepreneurs, including me, and this is how we build companies. And like a guy just comes on there and he goes, oh, this is called effectuation. Like, check out this professor. She did a whole study and she's written books on it. And I'm like, like that kind of stuff, just like is mind-changing just by putting stuff out there. And it's impossible not to grow when you put stuff out and somebody is coming at you and saying, hey, here, here, by the way, here's something you didn't know about it. And it's so— it's just so amazing.

So it really is. It's fantastic. And we've never experienced anything like it. So it's like, who are the people that can, can really harness that and not make it too overwhelming? I know, like with idea generation as well, it can be a little overwhelming with all the inputs. That we have and we're just always coming up with stuff, especially yourself as a serial entrepreneur. I heard you say that sometimes you have more ideas than sense. Do you have a system for identifying which ideas are worth pursuing?

Yeah. So that's a relatively new thing I started doing a few years ago. Basically, I have a checklist now of new business opportunities. If it doesn't match the checklist, I just don't do it. And that keeps me from making emotional decisions. In terms of like content creation, I adhere very strictly to the James Clear 3 checklists things. Have you heard that or should I repeat it?

I've read Atomic Habits, but I'm not sure if I know the 3.

So it was in one of like, it was like at the end of James Clear's interview with Tim Ferriss. And he basically said, he said there were 3 things, 3 checks you need to do, 3 boxes you need to check if you're going to publish something on the internet. It needs to be unique, meaning like it's not something that a million other people have said. Pretty straightforward. It needs to be remarkable, meaning it's so good that a smart person or your listener would tell somebody else about it being like, that's really good. And the last thing, it needs to be in your area of curiosity. It needs to be something that the content creator has an emotional connection to. And really, I try not to produce anything that doesn't check those 3 boxes, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a newsletter, whether it's a video. Like, I need to check those 3 boxes to know that it's really good. And so anyway, I think that's, that's the second way, like, I try not to have— pursue bad ideas as I try to make sure they, at least in the sense of content, you know, check those 3 boxes.

Those are great. You know, it's funny. You say the word remarkable, and it's just come— it's just kind of come to mean like great, or like, but quite literally, like, would someone remark about it? And I think that's actually a really interesting framework I'm thinking about for my tweets. Like, now I feel kind of dumb for putting out a tweet today that's like, not that at all. So maybe I should have a similar checklist for my content. So I'm gonna have to go and watch that interview with Tim Ferriss as well. You said that your learnings between your mid to late 30s to your mid to late 40s, that was where some of you, you got the biggest lessons of your life and you learned the most. What advice, selfishly, what advice would you give someone like me who's turning 37 in a couple of months and I'm just tasting my, my first, uh, little bit of entrepreneurial success?

Yeah, man, there's so many things. Like, what's your biggest problem right now?

Time management and sleep, probably.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh, well, sleep is— sleep's a good place to start. I think if I look back on my 30s to 40s, I radically, uh, undervalued sleep. I didn't have enough self-discipline. I did the opposite, which was like, oh, I'll just like power through this. And usually by like Friday morning, I was a total puddle. Um, so I think like you know, the advice I would definitely tell myself is like, we all under-prioritize good diet and good sleep. Like, those are the two things I think in the grand scheme of things I would have been much happier in my late 30s and early 40s if I had prioritized those things. Maybe I'd have fewer wrinkles as well. So anyway, I would tell myself that for sure. You know, time management, I think that's another great area that I've done a much better job at. Where I am today is I'm much more intentional about 2 things. One is saying no to stuff pretty aggressively. Like, I'm much more comfortable just saying no to social events or stuff that I think is not going to be the best use of my time. The second thing I've done recently, which is a big shift, is actually go look at my calendar and say, okay, I'm going to split my time into buckets and deploy it more intentionally than be more reactive to where I was back in my late 30s. And I think by doing that, for example, today we talked about before recording the podcast, today was basically all content creation. Like I time slice and this was my 25% of my time I was going to spend on content creation this week. And like it's podcast, newsletter, recording YouTube videos. And by being much more intentional about time slicing that way, it allows me to then be much more intentional about my results, right? Because the time in is what turns into the stuff on the other side. So those would be the two things I tell you about schedule. They work for me. They could be just lifestyle choices. I mean, that's the other thing I always think about, like, advice. I don't want to give you lifestyle advice and tell you that's the only way because there's a lot of different ways. I mean, you look at the way Ben Franklin used to get stuff done, like, and like Chamberlain during World War II. Those guys were drunk the whole time. Of course they got a lot of stuff done. You know, it's like, that was a lifestyle choice that worked for them. It doesn't work for me. But anyway, I'm just careful about giving people lifestyle advice because that's the lifestyle that works for me. Other stuff may work for you and you just got to try different stuff and see what sticks.

Yeah, it's a constant journey trying to figure this out. Um, like I said, I'm, I'm pretty new. I've been trying to be an entrepreneur for about 6 years and I'm only just starting to get a little bit of traction. And so all the advice I can get, I'm soaking in. So, uh, I really appreciate it, man. I just want to let you know that, uh, I admire you a lot. Uh, you know, how long you've been in the game and everything you've done, how versatile you are as an entrepreneur and a creator, uh, how many people you've helped and how humble you are. Like, your humility really, I think, shines through for someone as successful as you. And this is a perfect example, just being so generous with your time to, to come on the show today. And I just wanted to give you the final word to share any, you know, parting thoughts or inspiration for maybe, uh, people that are just getting started on their journeys. And, um, you know, anywhere you want to point them as well, that would be awesome.

Yeah, man. I think, I mean, it's looking back over 28 years, you know, the thing that's very apparent, like you only get one shot at all of this. So I think looking back over my history, the biggest mistakes I made are when I let people dictate to me what kind of life I was going to live. And I think that's the, the biggest thing I would encourage people like if you decide a course of path is a course of action is right for you. You know, have that courage to go and pursue it if you can. And not everybody has every single option, but like, if that option is in front of you, like, don't let other people tell you how to live. Like, pick the life you want to live and just have the courage to do it. You'll be much happier if you do. I think that's— I think that's a universal truth for sure.

I feel like you're speaking right to me, man, which I guess technically you are. So, Michael, right?

You're over here, but I've actually talked to the camera.

Yeah, well, your picture's so clear, I would have been confused. Um, but listen, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you, Michael, and we'll have to do it again sometime.

Amazing. Thank you.