Getting Interviewed On My Own Podcast

This is a very special episode today where I am your host, Andrew, and I'll be interviewing the host of the Build in Public podcast, KP.

The irony was one part of the business where the NPS score, the engagement impact, which is all these like intangible metrics around how much people are loving it, has been amazing, very high. 10 years ago, KP would— has been dreaming and has dreamt many, many times to work at a billion-dollar startup. You know, what are the odds of someone in London out there thinking this is exactly who we need? Me posting on Twitter. And so of course within like 8 hours he DM'd me and he's like, we wanna jump on a call.

You had to make a really big decision. And this big decision is also very personal to me. And this decision was to wind down on a—

Hey everybody, welcome to the Building Public Podcast. I'm your host KP. And on this show I interview world-class entrepreneurs, ambitious startup founders, creators, and builders on the internet who are boldly building the future in public. This podcast is my excuse to take you all on a curious journey to understand, learn, and hopefully be inspired by the worldviews, insights, and stories of these fabulous people changing the world. So far, I've gotten the rare privilege to sit down with incredible guests like Gary Vee, Alexis Ohanian, Kat Cole, Sahil Lavingia, and many more leaders. So check out the full podcast listing at buildingpublicpodcast.com. Now buckle up and get ready for our latest episode.

Welcome to the Build in Public podcast. This is a very special episode today where I am your host, Andrew, and I will be interviewing the host of the Build in Public podcast, KP, for a, just a special kind of episode to learn a little bit about what's been going on in his life, some of the wins, some of the big changes, and how he plans to tackle the rest of the year. KB, thank you for joining us today on this lovely show that you've created for us.

I love it. I love it. By the way, for anyone listening, this was absolutely last minute, spur of the moment suggestion by Andrew, which is like 15 seconds before we hit record that he should do the cold open. He should do like the intro and the pitch and everything. So, I'm really delighted. My reaction that you saw was honest and like really in the moment reaction. But thank you for jumping in into the host seat. The plan for this episode has been going on for, I think, almost 10 days that we should do a version of this where we turn the tables around. And I had so many thoughts that I wanted to share with my audience, but I thought I wanted to bring someone like you who, first of all, in my real life, you're a friend, but also you're a phenomenal host in terms of curiosity and asking great questions. So I thought— Thank you. You know, let's do it that way. So

yeah,

I'm glad you said yes, and here we are.

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a privilege. It's a privilege also being this, this, this host seat, especially because no matter what, this podcast will always have a very special place in my heart because it has been the source of inspiration for me to start my own. So I appreciate this also, this invitation.

Awesome.

Well, How about let's, let's kick things off with winding back a little bit to, to last year. So before you kind of made this big step into this new direction, you had to make a really big decision. And this big decision is also very personal to me, right? And this decision was to wind down on a fellowship that you created called the Building Public Fellowship. it's very personal to me because I am someone who also was a fellow in that, who'd taken that fellowship and have been significantly impacted about it. So tell us a little bit about the story of what led to that moment. What was some story and what were you feeling through during that, that time of the year?

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, and yeah, I know it's like a topic that you and I have talked about sort of, you know, on the phone a couple of times. But I've never shared that. I guess I shared a blog post and a Twitter thread to kind of contextualize some of this, but it's really good to reflect on air with you. So towards the end, towards, I guess, end of November, there was an inflection point where I remember, I think it was Thanksgiving break, when I was spending some time reflecting on that in that time around how was the year, how was it progressing in terms of sales revenue and, you know, the compounding effect that I was expecting by then, you know, basically thinking about some heavy decisions around moving into 2024 and beyond with the fellowship as a business model. The inflection point was I had to like take a hard look at the math around the numbers, signups, conversion, all that. And what was obvious, painful but obvious, was that It wasn't looking as promising as I thought at the beginning of the year. And the irony, there was a dichotomy. The irony was one part of the business where the NPS score, the engagement, the impact, which is all these intangible metrics around how much people are loving it, has been amazing, like very high. Yeah. And just for the context, I've done a version of this at Day One, and then I've done like 3 or 4 cohorts at On Deck. So I have a benchmark of what NPS should be. I have a benchmark of what, you know, the pulse of customer happiness should be. And that was through the roof, you know, that— so that part of it, the business is doing really well. And you can see this even on Twitter, right? Like, you, you were a very happy advocate and ambassador for the fellowship, and you even took 2 of them. You did the, the main fellowship, VIPF, and also did the podcast one, VIPPF. So all in all, I did 5 cohorts last year. And looked at the numbers around NPS and customer happiness, and they were really positive. But then of course the sales numbers were low towards the 4th cohort. And, but not only the sales number, it's just the conversion and the number of leads. All of that was looking bleaker, like looking bleak compared to what I anticipated in general. Again, this is all subjective, of course, right? Like I set the KPIs because I'm the founder and But I'm also both the applicant, I'm also the student and also the teacher grading myself. So I knew that some of this is subjective, but the 2 main things I was looking at was at the beginning of the year, I told myself that if I don't feel a sense of compounding effect by the 4th cohort, by the end of the year, where sales-wise, if the number of students who come in in 1st cohort versus 4th cohort, if it's at least not twice, then there's no compounding, right? So the first cohort, I had like X number of people. I think I had like 16 or 17. I'm not sure exact number, but if it's not at least 32 or 40 by the end of the year, then really we're not compounding, you know?

Yeah.

And the answer there at the time was it was actually half. I think it was close to 10 in the 4th cohort. It was very hard to get even those 10. And this is the candid story, which, you know, I'm like, as you know, I'm like all about transparency. So I don't, Mind sharing. The other side of it was not only the sales revenue and the numbers. The other thing was if I felt like sales was an uphill battle by the end of the year, then there's something clearly, something clearly is off with the business model. Because usually the first few customers are much harder to get. And once you get the value prop and messaging and all that, the next 3, 4 batches of them should be easier. At least in theory. So that again didn't happen. And sales in fact got— sales felt just as hard, in fact harder, the 4th cohort, much more than even 1st and 2nd, despite actually good outcomes from our students and fellows, really raving word of mouth on Twitter and social and all that. And I even did some episodes with the alumni. You were in a bunch of episodes on the podcast. So I had to identify what was going on. With the business model itself and be objective, not that it's my baby and like, you know, I'm KP and like, hey, that's my little business. And so when I got objective, I discovered 2 things, Andrew. Number one, it became apparent that I'm selling to B2C, the, you know, like a consumer as a target persona as opposed to B2B. And there is a general ceiling to the amount that they're willing to pay as a consumer. Right? Especially in education, like it's like $200, maybe $150 a year. It's kind of like the cap at which people will pay out of pocket. And I was, of course, the cohorts were going for $1,500. I think some of them were $2,000, $2,500. These were all very, very high for a B2C consumer. Now, in the case of a B2B customer/founder, maybe an entrepreneur, CEO, you know, any exec person, executive, maybe they could write it off as a business expense maybe. But I was not targeting them as much. I was targeting early stage founders, B2C, like you. Right? So that, like, that charging B2C education at that high price point was definitely challenging. But the cohort model, for me to deliver a world-class service, I have to like have a certain amount, high-ticket item. Otherwise I'm gonna get a $150, I don't know, like X number of people, and then it's gonna be diluted down.

Hmm.

So that's one sort of thing that I couldn't get out of. The second thing I was noticing was obviously around the fact that it's not recurring. Fundamentally, this business model, like, you, you have a cohort, you do a great cohort, and then people— like, you have amazing happy customers, and then at the end of the cohort, they move on. Now, you could offer a version of maybe a membership slash annual community. You know, I think Daniel Vassallo's Small Bets, I think, does an annual— I think it's— no, it's actually lifetime. I think it's lifetime. But even at On Deck, we tried annual memberships, and they don't usually work because people don't— Because the most value is usually captured in either when you're doing the cohort or it's captured in small pieces and drips in dripping fashion across a long time. But when the time of renewal is when you think about, have I even got— have I even gotten as much value as I thought I would? And usually the answer is no, because it's community as a service. And it's not fully up to you to extract, to get to find value because it's about So many factors have to help. Like, you know, you have to be a proactive person, you have to give as much as you take, and all these other factors. Anyway, all this to say, not having a recurring component from day one, no MRR, is a huge, huge problem. And I think this is something that I kind of knew in January, but I didn't really know the gravity and this power of this problem, you know.

Hmm.

What that meant was, as I was closing in on the year, I had 55 or 60 happy, outstanding world-class thankful customers who I will have to go get another 55 next year and another year. And so I was like, this is insane. Like you would ideally want to have these customers to keep them, retain them, you know? Mm-hmm. So anyway, I came to a realization that with these 2 fundamental flaws, it being B2C and it being, you know, heavy on not having a B2B, sorry, MRR model, I either have to pivot heavily and turn it into some kind of an MRR community as a service, or I had to like, you know, try something else, you know, come back to the market, come back to the arena as a founder maybe another time. I had a call with my sister and she kind of— she was also a founder, you know her, right? She was one of the— I think she was in second cohort. Anyway, so she kind of brought me to senses around, is this, you know, like, give me a sense of like, are you doing this more so for the ego reasons or are you doing this because you love it and you see a 5-year, 10-year journey in this. And my— with her conversation, what brought up— what came to the front was this discussion that I'm not building a sellable asset, you know, because ultimately community is about sort of fused around my brand, you know. And so if I have a sick month or something, like, it's not gonna auto-run on its own, you know. Yeah. So anyway, so I uncovered all these dependencies and I thought, Maybe this is not the right model for me, you know, as a business, which was quite humbling. So for the next three four days, I was soul searching and you know sad and I was like depressed and like going through all kinds of emotions and range of emotions. And but I wisened up and I realized that I got to be objective and I got to do what's best for my family. And by the time I also racked up a decent amount of credit card debt, pretty good amount because my my takeaway, my take home or my Yeah, my share of the revenue was at least half or something, and then we were making $110K. So, you know, it was just, you know, given my expenses in America and like having a kid and all that, it was just impractical to continue with that into 2024. So I made a hard call that I'm gonna put the brakes on this. And then of course I offered another extended year for all of you on Circle, right? Move from Slack to Circle and then we can spend time there. And I stopped doing cohorts and I announced myself that I'm going to go get a job for a while. And then come back to the arena, quote unquote, in a different way in the future. Learning from all these mistakes and building a business that doesn't have these obvious flaws is where my brain went that day. And so I made the bold statement and then made a whole thread. And yeah, so that was a pretty big decision at the end of the year. Yeah. My wife was surprised. My sister was not surprised, but she was like, you did the right thing. But at least 25 people when I made the tweet told me, wow, you're so brave, because I shared the whole thing in public. And I don't think of it as I was brave, but the way I thought of it that day was like I was being honest to myself. The easiest person to fool is yourself. So I was like, I was honest to myself and I shared it.

Yeah. I mean, you mentioned about One moment you mentioned was, you know, when you finally almost initially decided to kind of make that pivot, to make that leap, you— it sounded like you had to process through a lot of emotions, a lot of sadness, a lot of disappointment. Speak, speak more about what were some things that you told yourself in addition to those objective data, right? You were able to see the numbers, but what are actually some things that help yourself get through that to actually feel courageous to take on? Because one of the things that I know a lot of people probably resonate with is this You know, common sunk cost fallacy. You've already put in so much work, you already have so many cohorts, you have such good NPS data, you have happy customers like me. There's, there's also things that'd be like, hey, you're like, you can keep going or you can try again. What allowed you to kind of really accept and allow yourself to be honest to yourself and move on to this, this next chapter? What really helped there?

You know, I was listening to a lot of, um, Founders Podcast, uh, Founders Podcast episodes during that period. And one particular episode or series, a couple episodes around Charlie Munger really helped me, you know, and I shared this with you privately, right? Where just for the audience, like the TLDR of Charlie Munger was like, he knew that he wanted to be a full-time investor right next to Warren Buffett. They both meet, you know, and Warren Buffett's already a full-time investor, but Charlie Munger has some obligations and commitments. So he still is at the law firm. He was a partner with the law firm, and they're not crushing it. They're doing okay, but he still continues it because he has a family to feed and he has all these sort of, you know, responsibilities. So for another 6 or 7 years, and this is when as a part-time side investor, nights and weekends, he was already making close to like, I think, half a million or so annual income, which is crazy, right? Think about it. And he could have anytime quit and full-time become more like Buffett. But when Buffett asks him why, he goes, he said, I need to— I have some unfinished business and I need to finish all those things. It's not so much that he's delaying being an entrepreneur. It's not— nobody would ever question that Charlie Munger was— was not— didn't have the guts to be an entrepreneur, right? Or investor. Like, the guy is a legend, you know, rest in peace. But, but he was doing what's practical, you know. Sometimes you just have to do what's practical in front of you and get, get some breathing space so that you can come back and like dominate in the next quarter. So if you need to go to the sidelines and catch a breath, you need to go to the sidelines. You can't just be in the game and constantly be thinking, you know what, I just have— because I'm committed, I'm here. You know, sometimes you have to understand where your— what your body wants, what your mind wants, and what your spirit wants. So for me, the takeaway from that story was that he comes back 6 years later and he joins Buffett, and they built one of the world's greatest investing on enterprises in the history, right? And so he thought, and they were, I think by the time he got back, he was like 42 or something. And then for 50 years they were together until Charlie Munger died.

Hmm.

So the way I thought of it is like, my life is, as an entrepreneur, is going to span 5 decades if I really will live all that long. What's the rush? Who am I trying to prove anything to here? None of my Twitter audience, none of my podcast audience, nobody will pay them next month's rent. Nobody cares as much as I think that they care. It's really upon my choice. So I thought, what would I decide? And so that really played a big role, Andrew, right? That 6-year window made me realize I have a couple responsibilities financially where in terms of like clearing off my credit card debt, making sure that we have enough money for the down payment so we buy a house, which are some of these small— it seems small in the grand lens of like— billionaire status, which is what I want to eventually, right? Which I've talked many times. They seem so small. They seem like small hills versus Mount Everest. But if you can't first go run a hill, run up a hill up and down a couple times, forget base camp at Mount Everest. So I thought about that analogy and I said, let me go tackle the thing that's in front of me in a thoughtful, considerate way, which is in this scenario happens to be where I go back to the market My sister also gave me a brilliant piece of advice and perspective. She said, you're in a very privileged/lucky position that anybody would kill to be in. And including, she said, I would love to be in your shoes. And I said, why? And she goes, you could stop what you're doing today, and in the next few Mondays, you would get a job where your job is identical to what you're doing already anyway, right? You could— somebody out there could hire you to be KP full-time. that can happen. And she was giving her example where she said, I'm in the makeup industry and it's very different here. If I quit being a prosthetic makeup artist, which she is, she has to go back to something like IT and she has to go learn something and she has to learn tools and technologies and like, you know, how to use XYZ and all like whatever. Or she learns web development, she has to learn coding. And she said, you don't need that. There's a bunch of these startups who want to have you as you. Like, how cool is that? So why are you not leveraging that instead of worrying about— Wow. You know, uh, whatever. And I was like, I didn't think about it that way. I'm like, you know what, that's actually true. At On Deck, I was me, right? I was completely me, myself. Same with Day One. So I thought, oh, if I, if I shut down VIPF, I could— I don't need to go back and do a customer service job, or, you know, I don't know, like some kind of a— like, I'm not going to work at Deloitte or, you know, any other random companies. I could literally work at another startup where the job function is so similar to what I've been doing the last few years. Serving founders also, you know. So that led me to coming up with this specific criteria, which we talked about, right? The clarity around what do I want, what exactly do I want, which is very helpful, which I never did in any of my job searches in the past. But that specific criteria was the game changer in the way I got this new job and everything. But yeah, so that Charlie Munger thing helped, my sister's conversation helped. So

yeah. That was also really powerful framing from your sister. Even as you're talking to her, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. It allows you to literally not skip a beat in terms of what you've been doing and what's authentic to you. Right. But I wanna segue to the ask you put out, right? You call it a bat signal, which is a very classic for people who have been following KP's journey for a while. A bat signal ask to the public, to the universe is, Super classic KP move. So tell us about that, that bat signal. What did it mean to you, and what, what, what did you accomplish? What, what happened after that?

So you remember, just to context, uh, just to give a little context, um, I've done a bat signal like several times across my career, right? But the first big one was when I got that On Deck job in 2020, because I was trying to break into Silicon Valley like startups. I was mostly corporate companies, you know, in Atlanta, and I worked mostly corporate stuff. I didn't have any connections in Silicon Valley, any connections in startups. I didn't even know how startup hiring worked and how it's different or anything. But at the time I built up a decent no-code, you know, sort of following and built a bunch of projects. And I was— the bat signal was basically me saying to the universe, but mostly my Twitter audience, that I am ready to accept and embrace a no-code specific role, etc. And that got me my job at On Deck. So this time I knew that there's a version of that that could work again, and I, I knew that I was going to leverage the internet serendipity. But what was interesting this time was I didn't want to just put out a bad signal for a job because I had this, you know, by where I am in my career, I know that I can get a job in America. Like, it's— I'm employable, clearly. Like, my resume and my proof of work speaks for itself. So the question became actually more interesting That it's not so much that what will I get a job? It became like what kind of job do I want specifically? And so I made a list of things around what would I love to have. And so the and then the thread became a downstream effect of my clarity. So the intentionality and the clarity were number one. So I worked on it for three four days. What do I want? What do I want? So one thing I wanted to make sure was I wanted to join a company that was financially secure. that I didn't have to go through this thing that I'm going through. The reason why I'm in the job market is because being an early-stage founder is financially not secure, right? I had a struggling, challenging BIPF year. So I don't want— I didn't want to be, you know, at another startup that may have another, you know, I don't know, like, because the market's— the macroeconomic market has been hard. So I'm like, I wanted to be in a farther stage. So I wrote down Series A+ as the minimum criteria of the company. The other thing I wrote down is from my wisdom and my experience, I learned it doesn't matter what the logo of the company is. You could be working for Google, but your life could be hell if you have a terrible boss. If you have a micromanaging boss, if you have— the boss is not an A player, if they're a B player or a C player, they don't know how to appreciate an A player. And I had nothing— I had absolute faith that I was an A player. That's one of the things I also wrote about that, you know, There's Keidra Boyce. I think there was a Keidra Boyce wrote a thing about hiring ammunition versus hiring battles. And what he says is like having a barrel in your team is kind of like having a mini founder in your team. That person's gonna own A to Z. They will like take charge, that they don't need handholding. Like the progress of your company depends on how many barrels you can hire versus just ammunition. Ammunition are just like people who do a micro task and they're like good. But you need a barrel for the forward momentum. Anyway, so I knew that I was a barrel and I needed to communicate this. So I used that framing from Raboi and I took a screenshot of that article he wrote anyway in the thread. So I knew that I wanted to be at a company that had an A-player boss, as in like a high-trust, high-autonomy-oriented boss. And that was number one on my list. Number 2 was a role that I remember this. I wanted to be in an energizing role, a role that energizes me and I could do this in my sleep.

Hmm.

That's important because there are so many roles where I'm good at. I'm sure many of you feel that, you know, or you yourself feel like I could do one role, like a PM. I could be a PM. I could be a head of growth, head of marketing, whatever, head of community. Like the titles are irrelevant, but like the scope of work, I could do anything because I'm a founder, I'm flexible. But the real question is, could I do this in my sleep in the sense that I would bring such velocity to that role that I'm an obvious choice? You know, like there's impossible to compete. So that's number 2. And number 3 was a financially secure and mature company, which is Series A+ and so on. So when I wrote these lists, wrote the list down, it was so crystal clear. that this is going to be the thing. This is very important to me. I also wrote, I think part of the financial feature thing was a compensation as close as what I had paid, you know, when I was at On Deck and things like that, which was a very high compensation. And I needed to be clear about that. I wasn't gonna like budge around it to an extent where I think I've done a couple of places where I was, I budged too much and I didn't feel really energized by that. So. Even that I had to put it in the criteria. All this to say, I made a list of this and then I put it on Twitter, including my core skills and my proof of work, all the projects I've done, all of the stuff. It's basically like an anti-resume, right? It's not so much like I went to school here or, you know, I was in this team and that team. It was more so like, here's the impact I created, here's the projects I created in the public eye, here's the love from the people. So I had these testimonials from people onto— I used SendGrid, uh, and I collected all of them and put them on a wall of love. And so it's self-evident truth around sort of what I bring to the table is how I designed it. And then I shot my shot. I designed the thread. It took like a whole, like, I think afternoon or something to design it. And then I, I presented it on, I mean, on Twitter and then on LinkedIn, on my blog. Um, you know what was surprising about that though? When I did something similar during the On Deck time, I got 42 leads. Within like 2, 3 days, but most of them were trash.

Yeah.

And, um, then I did something similar 2, 3 years ago when I did— when I got the day one job, same thing. I got like 30+ leads, most of them trash. Trash as in like not fit. Um, but I didn't clarify the criteria that clearly back then. This time, because my criteria is so clear, either you're in or you're out, right? Like Series A+ company, it's very clear. I didn't say early stage startup. I didn't say a startup, right? Anyway, along with like A-player boss and like, you know, things like those keywords actually played a role. Most people, I feel like, self-opted out because they're like, whatever, this is not relevant to me. I only got 3 leads, solid leads, but 3 of these were like— 2 of them were billion-dollar companies. I think I could share. I guess I can share. One of them is Stripe, the other one is Paddle, the other one is Doula. which is, you know, by Arjun. And Arjun's company is not a billion-dollar company, but it's a pretty strong, you know, it's, I think they're a Series A company. But these 3 and the roles that they were presenting me were bangers, absolute fit, you know? And I was so surprised positively that, wow, I could not believe that this is happening. Like the roles were custom clear-cut based on how I described what I wanted in Thread, right? Yeah. And I'm like, Wow. So I, I had to trade. Like, I realized that you— when you, when you're so intentional, you don't get volume, you don't get like a massive, like, you know, flow of things, but you get the right things. But you have to be patient. Um,

yeah.

And, you know, lo and behold, a month later I'm at, I'm at Paddle. So spoiler, spoiler alert, I just joined Paddle a couple— I mean, uh, 10 days ago, and I'm loving my role.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. I, I love hearing even the, like you said, the difference in the information you included in the BAT Signal, right? And it's something that I feel like resonates with any, any, any potential like founders, entrepreneurs listening to this, because being that specific about the ask, about the value is, is sometimes it's really frightening because you feel like you're limiting yourself. Yeah. Yes. In this case, in this case, you, you literally got 3 leads. And I'm sure when you first got it, it was just like, oh wow, these are only the 3 leads I have.

Yes.

I guess we're gonna have to roll with it. And yeah, I remember you updating me about these, um, the discussion, the people you have phone calls with, and you were really like, whoa, like, how do, how do all these things just happen to fit together? And I remember you feeling more confident about the next steps around each I couldn't agree.

I couldn't agree more. And it did feel scary in the fact that, man, like, uh, because I had the experience of getting 40 leads.

Yeah.

Uh, I felt like, did I do something wrong here? Like, why am I only, you know, but what became more and more evident though, that I was on the right path, Andrew, was that as the interviews progressed, I saw the difference between last time and this time where last time as the interviews progressed, I was, I was tired of these rejections and misfits and like, feeling like I'm having to like force myself into a role that they have that is not a good fit, but I need a job. So I need to kind of, you know, like go to the next stage of the interview. So I had to fit myself to say, yeah, I can do this. This time, like from the get-go, the first interview that I had was like 100% custom fit. Like that is the— by the way, the first interview I had is the role I accepted eventually, but they all happened out of order a little bit. And I was like, I couldn't believe that this is so easy. Like the interview process was so easy. Like This is the biggest takeaway for me because 10 years ago, KP would— has been dreaming and has dreamt many, many times to work at a billion-dollar startup, a billion-dollar unicorn. Working at that company was a dream. Like, what did that feel like? I remember a guy who came to ATV, um, actually no, who I knew who was in Silicon Valley back then, like 10 years ago, and he was working at PayPal. And I think they were like, they were already post-IPO. And I was like, dude, what does it feel like to work at PayPal? Like You know, it's a multi-billion dollar company, like, you know, billion dollars, you know, as in our founder world, that's a big deal, right? And now I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like. I earned it. And I feel like, yes, I did it. But what's also important is how you get there is just as important as getting there.

Hmm.

That is my biggest takeaway is I got here almost whistling and jogging and dancing and like having fun to the entry day. I mean, the, the, what do you call the the door as opposed to like, you know, desperation and like wanting to, you know. So it's always important. I think that's something that I'm learning more and more as is being reinforced through universe and my life experiences, that KP, you do want to get X, but also think about how you want to get it and ask that. So in my lineup, which I asked the universe, or you want to call it ask the Twitter, ask the internet world, whatever, I mentally also thought the process, like, I want it to be fun, I want it to be energizing. Because if the process was stressful and nervous and like I had to go to like ER to do a blood pressure checkup, like then it's fucked. It's fucked. Like what's the point of getting what you want when you were like fucked on the way and like even through it, right? I felt that I had such a, such a fun experience going into it. Of course there's moments of nervousness, moments of like uncertainty, and moments of like whether this will happen or not. That's a given. But Like loving the process and being obsessed over like the process has been a blessing in this journey, you know? So eventually I did get into this billion-dollar company and I realized, wow, it is actually much easier when you are so clear what you want, right? So to give a context around this, when I posted the thread, within 8 hours I got a DM from the CMO of a billion-dollar company, which is Parag, within 8 hours of posting it.

Wow.

Which I learned later after— so he DM'd me saying, you wanna jump on a call? You seem like a great fit for something we have in mind. And what they had in mind was this program called AI Launchpad. So Paddle did a pilot of the program, like a cohort-based program called AI Launchpad, which is kind of like an accelerator for SaaS founders because their target audience is SaaS founders. And they ran a pilot which was a super success. People loved it. It was free, covered by Paddle, and it's a 6-week cohort to help founders with growth, marketing, go-to-market, and product, product-led growth, things like that, which are the topics I love anyway. And they needed someone to run this at full scale, right? And so they needed someone with experience running cohorts, experience serving founders, early-stage founders, and SaaS founders, and someone who loves a combination of education, community, and content. Like, did they just describe me or what, right?

Yeah.

What is this? I was like, what? You know, what are the odds of someone in London out there thinking this is exactly who we need and me posting on Twitter? And so of course within like 8 hours he DM'd me and he's like, we want to jump on a call. And I jump on a call with like— that first interview was not an interview, it was a conversation like this, you know. Yeah. And I had so many questions around how they did it, what lessons they learned. They— he asked me, Andrew, my boss now, CMO, he asked me a bunch of questions around what lessons I learned with my cohort experiences. In fact, he viewed my BIPF less of a liability or like a sad story or didn't work out thing as more like, oh my God, thank you for doing all of that because all of that's great foundational research for what we're gonna do here, right? Yeah. So like, what are the odds of that happening, Andrew? How crazy is that? It's like a Netflix movie, right? Like, it's like I wrote a damn movie myself. And that first interview, I already felt that this is gonna be a banger. Like, I could sense that this is gonna be a great role. He set me up 3 more meetings with the global VP of sales and the global VP of marketing and a bunch of these. All of them were amazing. And, and I was like, all I had to be was patient after the meetings because there was a delay between the meetings being done and the decision being made because of budgetary reasons, because it was end of the year, you know, like Christmas season. And then it was also part of it was like, Paddle is a big company, so they have this HR processes and like things like that. So There was a bunch of the logistical delay, like, which is normal. But apart from that, like, the journey was incredible, you know. And all this to say, like, I don't think that would have happened if I didn't post that Bat Signal tweet, right?

Yeah, totally. I mean, I remember when you first told me the job, I tried to not leak out too much excitement because I didn't want to influence the decision. But I was already also thinking, it was like, what? How in the world did it? And also because you were talking about something that that you can do in your sleep, that's like, you would just be dominant in it. Right. And you, like, I can't think of anybody who has a better track record than that. Right. Who's done it through different types of like, like obviously in a startup environment and On Deck, and then later in sort of a different with Day One and then do it privately via your own. Right. Like you, you had the perfect proof of work for that perfect position, which they eventually shaped around it and the title run. Yeah. I, I. Just love that how being intentional with what you want, you were able to really manifest and really find something that works for you, especially in this shift in chapter.

Yeah. And within a month, I'm back on the horse. So I called my sister the other day and she was like, she's now visiting the US and she's in LA now and she'll come back. She'll come to Atlanta soon. And she was like, she's so happy for me, of course. Right. But I was trying to remind her and tell her how grateful I am. About that call that we had, which was in November, because that pivotal discussion that she and I had really kind of stopped the leakage. You know, because I was bleeding the like you know the expenses and the losses with the company, right? So it was like she basically I took a U-turn from like losses, you know, with my my my pay, with BIPF, BIPF credit card debt, etc., etc., etc. I took a U-turn and now on the on the way of of rising up because I have now a salary and like all these things. And I was telling her like, I'm so grateful for you because you told me the truth in a way that I needed to hear. And, you know, within a month I'm back, you know, back feeling amazing, like no stress, nothing, right? And she was like, she said, she said, I'm so happy for you too. And like she said, what I love about you is that you would take something like that and you would run with it with full force, which is true.

Yeah.

I take a lot of time deliberating Before I make up my mind about something, but once I make up my mind, I am like full force, all in, committed. You know? And so that was yeah, that's what I told her. And I felt I'm like I feel so so much better now. Like a whole weight is off my shoulders from November to now, right? And man, that's why I think it's so important to play the game that. feels right for you and your life as opposed to what feels right for ego reasons or status/social public reasons, right? This is very tricky because I'm a very public figure among my friends if you think about it on Twitter or whatever. So it's easy to kind of be conceived or deceived by the perception of what people might think. And I'm like, I don't actually care.

Hmm.

The fact that I don't care, the more I reinforce that, It's been helpful to build my bigger brand if you think about it in one way, you know.

So after you posted that thread, um, you definitely received a lot of support and love. And yeah, you, you, you tweeted a response to somebody and you said, once I understood giving up what doesn't work doesn't mean stopping to be a founder, this became easy.

Yes.

So the follow-up question to that is, you made the successful U-turn, and you talked a lot about also having a new sense of an evolved version of self-belief in terms of your journey as a founder. What does that look like for you for this year and this upcoming 5, 10 years?

I think it just made it, made it even more evident to me that you can't take away the founder DNA from me. That's all, you know. I just realized that I don't care what jersey I wear, whether it's called BIPF or if it's called Paddle now, or it could be any other future company I start. You know, like, if I'm— when I step on the court, I feel like, you know, it sounds so braggadocious, but when I step on the court, you know, quote unquote, I feel like I'm like Steph Curry or MJ. Like, it's the, it's the player, the athlete, and their love and obsession towards the game that matters. It's not what the jersey they're putting on.

Right?

It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter if MJ could have played for Atlanta Hawks instead of Bulls. He could have— Steph could have played for Sacramento Kings instead of Warriors. It doesn't matter. And, um, and it's also— so that's one thing, like, I don't care what my title says, what my role says, whatever. I will still do— so on my first day at this new job, I took on my self-imposed project at Paddle. Literally, it was not part of my onboarding. Nobody asked me to do this. My, my boss was saying, take, take your time, get on the HR onboarding stuff. I'm like, yes, yes, yes, I'll do all of that. But I blocked some time and I called it, uh, some— I called it Community Advocate, uh, Program, which is my self-imposed, like, I want to get in touch with as many founders in our ecosystem, in Paddle's ecosystem, who are existing customers, but they're founders.

That's right.

And get in touch with them and understand why they chose us. Why they chose us over other competitors. How long have they been working using our product? Why do they love us, if they love us? What are some open areas where we can improve? What are some small wins we can get? And I post, and I got, I put this project up together, wrote like a whole doc, and I collected, I posted on Twitter and LinkedIn. Are there any customers, or are there any people in my audience who might be Paddle's customers? Please let me know. And there's 14 people who showed up. I made a list of all of their names, their companies, their Twitter and LinkedIn handles, and I started outreach. This is day 1. And so by 10 days, I have about 5 calls. I recorded every call, took Zoom meetings with them. So many people were willing to come to have a chat with me, right? Customers. And none of this is in my job description. This is not AI Launchpad, which will— the AI Launchpad will come like in— we have the next cohort coming up in March. Like, we have like a few, some more time for this. But what I'm saying, Andrew, is this is the founder DNA. Like, you cannot stop because I know in my gut that talking to customers is the right thing, no matter how big your company is or small your company is. Talking to the customers, understanding their needs, finding out areas of growth and improvement is the number one job of being a founder, right? Mm-hmm. And I sent that doc to my boss and the CEO on the first day and a bunch of my colleagues. The CEO, one of the first reactions, he said, like, I want to have a call with you very soon, one-on-one. Let's have a coffee chat. Right. And that, so I think a lot of that comes from just knowing that, you know, it doesn't matter if my jersey says Paddle or just it says VIPF or whatever, I have to do the right thing by the customers, you know? And in this case, I'm serving Paddle's customers. In VIPF, I serve you guys, which is my customers. But it's, you know, it's the same. So I think that the self-belief is evenly— is only magnified now because I know that I'm, I'm in my gut, in my deep, in my bones, that I'm doing the right thing and trying my best to, you know, use my energy to serve people and things like that. Um, so, and also this sort of, uh, worry that I used to have maybe 5 years ago About oh no, if I take up a job, maybe I'll never be a founder again. Is this me giving up, or is this me stopping? And I think I don't. Do you see? I can't see a world in which I would never be a founder again. Like I cannot imagine. You know, hundred percent I'll be back. Like you know Arnold Schwarzenegger and the term I will be back, baby. Right? So. To me, I'm like, oh, this is gonna happen. We have 5, 6 decades, um, and I have to do the things in a sequential order. You know, there was, there's always a period where when I would go and interview some podcasts, people would ask me, uh, this is like 3 years ago, they would ask me, KP, how did you ship 16 no-code projects? Like, how did you manage that along with a full-time job? My answer was one by one. The real magic is one by one. It's not like it looks amazing and crazy when you look retrospectively, like you know hindsight, right? Like whoa! But you don't do all sixteen at once and lose your mind, right? You do one by one. So that's the way I'm approaching the next parts of my career. I'm like, okay, what is the next immediate domino that I can attack? Then go to the next one, attack. Go to the next one, attack. And so the hard part. is being patient and knowing that there will— like, knowing that I'm on the right track and, like, you know, um, feeling like I will get to the big ones later, right? Mm-hmm. The big ones will be, like, the bigger, more sexy things, like, you know, starting a billion-dollar unicorn, like, all those things. But you will get there, right? But you gotta win the— you gotta win the battles to win the war. So, um, that's the way I'm approaching it now. So I think a lot of reinforced self-belief has come And patience has come a lot. Um, I think, uh, I just feel it now even more so than like 5 years ago, Andrew. Like, I'm meant to be a founder. I'm obsessed about businesses, founders. So this is a long journey.

Yeah, I love hearing that. And one thing I love the most is that from day one, you have always been the biggest advocate for Like living a life of service, right? Whether it's as a founder, and we can clearly hear through this job that it's, it's not because there's some anybody asking you to, but it's just, it's in your DNA. You wanted to, you wanted to get close to and be able to serve, which I know you, you say it out loud during your tweet, during tweet as your personal missions, which is to help founders win, right? It's a very personal mission to you. Um, another thing I love about that is that you're also doing this without neglecting yourself. Um, and so, so tell, tell the listeners what you were sharing with me right before this call. What are also some things that you were— you're setting yourself up to win this year? What's some— what's a recent win that has made you proud about your also self-development?

I think also around the same time, late December, I, I was having— again, I have— I was having chats with my sister and she started working out and she was telling me about this whole like fitness thing and And she started like, you know, my sister usually historically has never been someone who works out a lot or cares about this fitness and health thing as much in our family. But I noticed her doing it and the improvement that I saw in her mentally, physically has been so sort of inspiring, you know, putting in the reps. And, you know, we talked about this, like I take a lot of pride in the fact that I put in the reps in terms of content, Twitter, Newsletter, written blog posts, podcast episodes. You know, I'm all about putting in the reps. But with fitness, I slacked the last 4 years. And what happened was, you know, since COVID I've like had the COVID pounds, pandemic pounds, right? And I've gotten like, I think, 40+ pounds total since my ideal weight. And I don't— I didn't necessarily feel like I was being extremely obese and like, oh, it was a pain. But I knew that I had to correct it. I knew that I had to take a U-turn again. Towards the healthier lifestyle. So I was inspired by her fitness, you know, newly acquired fitness journey and interest. And I thought, I asked myself like, okay, what if, what would it look like for me to embrace this? You know, and because I, again, at a macro, I knew that I needed to take the U-turn and, you know, get back to being healthier and fitter because given my last 40 years of not being them. not being those things. But I wanted to get a taste test. So I did like a few workouts on my own on the end of the year. And I started noticing that, you know, it's actually— it doesn't have to suck. It doesn't have to feel like a travesty that you have to like drag myself to this. And I've learned that, you know, you can actually fall in love with the process. Now, I didn't fall in love with the process right away. Obviously, I was trying to look for these small parts of like, How can I make this more fun? How can I make this more interesting and exciting for me? And by the end of the year, I think I've done quite a few workouts by then. Like I said, like about 10, 12, 13, 14. And I started to gather some strength and I decided, you know what? I'm going to approach the new year in a different way where I'm not going to say I'm not going to have a crazy outcome goal. I think the world is too outcome obsessed. We're like, oh, I'm not going to have like a 6-pack goal or whatever goal. I'm gonna have an input goal, what I can control, my actions goal. And so my goal that I set for myself was I'm gonna do 300 workout sessions in the year. Now that's out of 365, 300, right? Which seemed achievable to me because I have a Peloton treadmill at home. I have the weights, you know, in the office room. So I was like, I can do, I can do, for me, a workout session means 30 minutes of working out, right? Something like that's not like a 5-minute thing. So I started putting in the reps and I told myself, okay, so I'll work out 6 times a week. I'll take one day break and then rinse and repeat. But what has happened since then to now, just to give a little example, a little context, is I worked out 37 times this year as we're recording in Feb 12th, I think today. That's insane. I've never worked out this much, you know, and then within 2 months of a year, never historically, never. I would work out like once a week maybe in the past. And I So, this 300 thing has been such a fascinating motivation, right? Because every time you put in the rep, you get closer and closer to the larger goal. So, I visualized, I again followed the same rules around like intentionality. I'm like, what do I want? What do I want? I'm like, I want to be the kind of person who works out 300 times a year effortlessly in an energizing way, who has fun along the way. Who loves the process, who obsesses over the process. Now that's the mindset that I've been embracing. The first week when I looked at the mirror and like did these things and looked in the mirror, I was like, I had a question like, would I, would I ever be like, would I ever keep up with this? Like, I, I don't see myself as like the guy who's like, you know, workout freak or, you know, whatever. But those are all limiting beliefs. Those are all resistance. That's all remnants of my old life. So I kept telling myself, no, today is a new start. This is a new chapter in your life. You could be whoever you want to be. And I know that in my head I have this narrative that I'm the king of consistency when it comes to content and Twitter and all that. I told myself, channel the mindset of the king of consistency from Twitter and content to fitness. That's all you need to do, right? And here we are, 37 workouts. Loving it. I think I'm like, what? 12, 13%, close to the 100, you know, the 300 workout goal. I lost 10 pounds. Let's talk about outcomes.

Amazing.

I lost 10 pounds. I can't believe it. And of course, in the journey, because I'm so obsessed now that I'm learning about diet, learning about protein intake, and I asked on Twitter and asked on, you know, other channels, like, what are some advice? What's your advice on protein intake? How can I, you know, sort of increase it and decrease my carb intake. And so I learned about calorie deficit plan. None of this stuff was obvious to me on day 1. I didn't even hear the words called calorie deficit plan, never. So now I'm studying about it, and now the last 10 days I've been on calorie deficit and I'm loving it. And now I recently learned about high protein milkshakes, right? And so it's like a whole world keeps opening up more and more in the journey. Yeah. And because I learn and apply them and not just learn for the sake of learning. I actually get the outcomes. I mean, I actually get the joy of seeing something come to life, right? So I'm so— as you can tell, as I was saying earlier in the beginning of the conversation, this has been such a fun journey, Andrew. And unintentionally, I am influencing my wife. So a lot of our crap in the pantry— That's good. All the chips and all the stuff that I used to want, has gone. Now it's replaced by things like, you know, um, with the other baby carrots and hummus and green peppers and hummus, you know, it's like things like that. So a lot of these small decisions are coming, falling in place, both for her and for me, because I began this 300, you know, workout journey, you know. And so all this back to what we were saying earlier, earlier, is that you have to be clear on what you really want Right? Specific. And then you have to also design, like, you have to be intentional around the input goal, the action goal. I think so many people are, you know, more focused on the outcomes goal. And they want it like quickly. Also, that's another big pain in the ass. So when I told myself, I said, a 1-year goal, 1 year is a long time, right, for the actions. And second thing I told myself is that this is a lifestyle I want to embrace. I don't want it to be a hack or a shortcut. I don't need a 6-pack in 6 weeks cohort or anything. I don't need any of that, like shortcuts, weight loss, Ozempic. I don't need nothing. I want a great, richer lifestyle that I can continue for 3, 4, 5, 6 decades. And I think that has changed everything.

Wow. And there's 2 things that came up for me. One was I wanted to actually ask the question around how influenced people around you. And I love that you answer that with, with the wife, because sometimes people underestimate the power of when you're just doing it, showing up. Example, people who notice or closely would notice that. And sometimes they take a while for them to shift a behavior change, but it sounds like already, you know, it's just, just seeing that pantry shift. And, and yeah, I love that. The second part was what I love most is like you Sharing kind of the step-by-step, like mindset. What was going through your head when you started to to decide to work out? And you know, we talk a lot about self-belief, right? And it's something that I've been learning more myself since December. And something I learned about self-belief is that a lot of times it doesn't. It's it's not the same as like delusion, like tricking yourself, like lying to yourself. Self-beliefs always comes from having some evidence.

Yes.

And in this particular example, when you were going through limited belief, like, oh, I'm not the person who works out 5 times, 6 times a day, a fitness fanatic, you tap into the evidence of you being consistent, right? Since the early days of Atomic Habits and all the things, reps you put across these different dimensions in your life, you're like, wait a second, I'm— I believe in myself consistent and self-disciplined thing. And you were able to just immediately apply that with fitness and, and also the things around joy, having fun. And I love that it's able to propel you here. And yeah, just really proud of you. And also, yeah, also thank you. Surprised at all when you— once you connect those, like, of course this is the perfect time where KP is ready to put in those reps in terms of your fitness journey. It's all coming together.

It was, it was, you know, I think, thank you. And doing it for your own sake without any social validation is, I think, kind of hard for, for many reasons, right? Because the first, like, the first 6 months, no one's gonna— like, first 3 months, no one's gonna care. Like, you care because you, you know, you and I are friends. My wife cares because, you know, she's legally married to me. Just kidding. But there will be a time, I know this, and I'm like desperately— I'm not desperate, but I'm like so excitedly waiting for this. 12 months from now, like, we will have a topless, you know, episode. Just kidding. Like, there will be a time when you can tell the outcomes will be so self-evident. But that's just the way this works, right? There's anything that compounds. When you— anytime when you do the episodes, the first few episodes of a podcast, nobody gives a shit. Or some people give, not a lot. Over time, you become such a phenomenon, like the force of nature, that towards the end, they're like asking you, how the hell did you do it? How like And I feel like that is actually quite unfair, both for the person who's leading the journey and to audience. Because if you ask me towards the end of this journey, KP, how the heck did you get that six-pack? What are the hacks? What are the hacks? Like, it's useless, right? The actual transformation about me happened in the first month, right? That was the hardest part for me. Getting started and getting over my own limiting beliefs/resistance was the hardest. Now I'm in month 2. I'm loving it. I'm cruising. So month 18, of course, like I will just like do 100 pushups as if it's nothing, right? I can already see, like I used to, I was telling you earlier, my average workout time was 20 minutes when I 58 and with no sweat, like 58, I'm cruising it, you know? Like last night I worked 58 minutes and I was like, burned like some 800 calories, something. And I'm like, walked like a, walked out like, yeah, I did it. And that, but I didn't have that strength. I didn't have that, you know, The lung capacity, the VO2 capacity in the first week. And so I kind of judged myself a lot. I'm like, man, why does it feel like a slog? Man, why is this so hard? Maybe I'm not doing the right thing. Maybe I'm not meant for this. All of those limiting beliefs are vanished now. And I know that in like 18 months, they'll be even more gone. So that's why I want to record something today because we capture the essence of how fresh I'm feeling coming off of this, which I'm pretty sure we'll forget like 18 months to 20 months from now. I'll be like, I don't remember. I don't know. Because if you ask me today, like, KP, what were your challenges/barriers around the first 1,000 followers on Twitter? I don't remember. Right? Right? Because I'm like at 50,000. I don't even remember what my challenges were. I'm like, I know that it was probably hard, but I think so many things in life are like that, Andrew.

Right?

Hmm. Like the first getting started with the podcast too, right? Getting started is very hard. And believing that you're the kind of person who continues is very hard because also most people don't do it. The right way. That's why they quit, right? Because most people are doing it for like this, I'm gonna need this 6-pack by summer. So they need— they go into all kinds of hacks. Or I'm gonna start a podcast and then I'm gonna need like a million views in 6 months. Like, what? You're kidding me? Like, Founder's Podcast has been doing it for 8 years and he doesn't have a million views, right?

Yeah.

Right? Like, Acquired has been doing it for like 10 years. They just crossed $500K. Like, it's, it's just unfair expectations people have on outcomes.

Yeah.

Um, but we remember, we— there was many episodes I did on this show and also your show where I always talk about the score takes care of itself. Like, you have to transcend the scorecard, you know? And, and so I try to keep myself— keep perspective of that. Like, weight, which I told you my outcome that I'm happy about is the 10 pounds that I lost since I started this, is awesome. But this call would have gone exactly the same way if the outcome was 2 pounds. Because I would have told you, Andrew, look at this. I lost 2 pounds, man. How crazy is that? Right? Because you have very low expectations, you get excited about any progress. So,

wow, I love that. So with this, with this amount of self-belief, with this new, new uptick in energy and vigor and, and just also joy, right? What can the world, and especially listeners of the Build in Public podcast, expect from from KB this year?

Yeah, it's a good— it's a good question. Uh, so coming off fresh from this experience of both the fitness thing but also the main getting that job, this dream job experience, I've— especially the way I got it and the way I've kind of like used intentionality and the, you know, and the journey— what I'm now thinking about is, um, what do I want next, right, in terms of both the business and career journey But also personal journey. I think this fitness thing will be a lifestyle. It's going to continue. I don't see— it's an infinite game. Like, I don't see there's like a finish line to this. So I think I'm going to keep continuing that. That's going to be a big focus of the year. The second big focus of the year is, you know, settling in and doing as much service and as much— bringing as much value to Pato as I can in my role, right? Like, that is a big focus. I want to make sure that I continue to deliver and outdeliver value and be helpful to both the founders, but also the company. And so the third focus would be making sure that I take care of all the small wins I've been in terms of my business journey. When I said small wins, like smaller challenges around making sure that I get the credit card debt back to zero, being debt-free. I remember I was debt-free for, and I was in 2021, I think. it felt so great that whole like 4 or 5 months I was debt-free. It was zero credit card debt, zero loans, zero anything. Oh, it was such a great feeling because you really feel like you can like take more risks, right? And it sounds probably like simple for so many people out there who have a lot of savings or whatever, and I don't. So for me, that's like being debt-free is a huge, huge focus. And then transforming Building Public LLC, which is my business Which now is a side project, right? Like it's a night and weekends thing. Transforming that into something of a profitable recurring business, right? A cash flow entity, I think is the big focus. I don't know how I'm going to get there, but it could be a combination of some clients or some, maybe a SaaS coming out of it. I don't know what, how I'm going to get there. The how is up to the universe. But I'm spending a lot of time these days on deliberately writing down what do I want, and including how I want to get there, which emotionally in terms of having fun, right? Feeling, keeping the joy component high and all those. But I haven't arrived at my 3 criteria bullet points like the way I had it for my job, right? And once I do, I will make a batch signal again, mass signal post again, because I think it's very, very important that you communicate what you want with the universe slash Like with the world, you know, because people can come in and help you. So I think that's the third part is the part that I'm working on right now, workshopping. And of course I'll call you and, you know, I'll— what I love about you is you and my— like, I love running ideas by you. I love such a great brainstorming partner. You're such a patient listener. So, you know, I'm sure I'll workshop some of the bullet points with you, but I haven't arrived at yet. And that's why— Back in the day, I used to panic. But now, I'm not panicking because this is actually a good thing because I'm taking deliberate time and intentionality around what is it that I want. And I know because of my evidence, which you just said, once I lock it in, from there, bam! Now, it's going to be all about communicating that to the world, to people around me, and just attracting that into my life.

Mm-hmm.

So, that's where I'm right now as of today. Andrew, apart from the fitness journey and of course paddle journey.

Yeah, it's what a way to start a year, huh? It's, it's been such a pleasure seeing that journey. And you know, I always like to— since this is my, my podcast episode for this, for this time being, I like always like to start end with some kind of actionable thing for someone who can take away, right? So if there is someone listening to this who resonates with your story in terms of Dealing with a difficult decision, a change, a pivot. What is advice or even like words of encouragement that you would give to that person?

Yeah, I think I'll, you know, I'll try to reinforce this lesson that I had to learn the hard way, which is it's very, very important to know what you want. I think it's actually a very heavy question. You know, if you asked me 4 or 5 years ago, What do you want? I would have a lot of half-assed desires, like tip of the tongue shit, like, yeah, I wanna this, this, I want that. And if you really truly ask me that, I don't want it. I just want it because I downloaded it from somebody else's playbook, or I saw someone else have it. I'm like, oh, or maybe someone like me for my profile would be good. All of that's nonsense. All that's noise, you know. What do you want exactly? And I actually remember this phrase Because the funny thing about the interview process was like there were at least 50 times in that month of December I was asked this exact question through various people, including the people on my interview panel, including a couple other friends who were making intros, that, Kippy, what do you want exactly? And I almost thought that it was like universe being hilarious, that it was trying to remind me that don't you dare ask for shit that you don't want. Because what happens is we tend to focus on things like, you know what, I don't want unemployment. I don't want being jobless. I don't want being in debt. So what hap— what happens is you're putting a lot of emphasis and weight on things that you don't want. So that gets reinforced and you get more of that. But if you instead focus on what do you want exactly, right, despite the circumstantial crap that you're going through, and if the list is something like, I want a job where I feel thriving and That, write it down. That's the answer, right? And then describe the job in detail. Most people cannot go beyond one level, one layer of detail, because there is a resistance in their heart that's coming in the way, which is like, what if you describe in detail and you get disappointed that you don't get it, right? What happens then? What I learned the hard way is that that is the price you have to pay. Risking a sense of disappointment if you don't get what you asked for is the price of getting great things. Because it'll sting you like a bee for a hot minute, but you'll be okay. You'll bounce back and move on. The downside is limited. It's capped because you'll get a sting. But the upside is unlimited. You get exactly as close as possible to what you wished for. So you have to take that odds. So that's what I would say. Always take the odds in describing exactly what you want. If you want exactly a particular thing, a particular client, A particular job, a particular— buy a house, particular whatever. Describe exactly what you want, not how you're going to get there. Nobody knows the how. We will figure that out later. It'll unfold itself. So that's what I would say. And so I'm even more encouraged these days now to think about that. I'm like, oh, what do I want exactly? And I would write a list of 10 desires typically on what I want, and I would scratch 9 of them. none of them are like not really desires. They're like, like I could live without them, or they're like tip of the tongue stuff. But then every once in a while you have a unique, strong, like meaningful desire and you're like, that should be my focus for, you know, X months. But the other second tip I'll give is please don't put time as a factor. Like if I want a 6-pack or if I want XYZ, whatever, it's possible for you. 100% possible. So, Andrew, if you want like X, whatever, take it. Like, if you want $100,000, if that's exactly what you want, you'll get it. But if you want $100,000 in 8 weeks, now this is like harder. If you want it in 2 days, it's like you have to rob a bank, right? So, you become more and more, you kind of drop from the higher energy vibrations of gratitude and creativity and excitement and joy, the more pressure you put on yourself in terms of time. And the worst is actually being ungrateful, complaining, bitching, and hatred, everything that's opposite of love, in my view, in the spectrum. And time creates that thing in your brain where you get lower and lower into the pit. And there are people who are fearful every day and all of that. That's happening because they have a sense of that time ticking. And In reality, you have a vast life in ahead of you, you know. So you don't need, you know, if you really want $100K, ask for it, but don't put a timeline on it, you know. If you— I married my wife when I was 31, you know. It took me 31 years and, and a lot of wrong dates to get to the right one, but she's a banger. Like, it sounds dumb, but like, she's amazing, right? She's like perfect for me. It's like the, the custom-made opportunity. Like, it's just perfectly custom made for me. So if I had like a timeline that, you know, oh no, in 25 years, when I was— when I— by the time I'm turned 25, I need to have a wife. I think all of that would have made a lot of— made me make a lot of unnecessary wrong decisions, you know, or whatever. So it's very, very important to not have a deadline in that— in those kind of things. I mean, you need deadlines in micro things like finish the project and deadline, all that. But the, the main, more important life Decisions I don't think should go on a deadline.

Wow, it's powerful. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you again for— well, it's weird because as a host, I want to say like, thank you for your presence, but I would thank 2 things because I would thank you for your presence, but also for this opportunity. Because every time, even my own show, Being Podcast, I'm, I'm learning so much through this process. And every— Just now, every single of those words were Also reaching my heart. So I really appreciate that. And

we're going to have to mention your podcast, The Joy of Building. People should check it out. If anyone's listening to this and if you don't know Andrew and his podcast, please go check it out. We'll link it in the show notes. And yes, you know, I have to close by saying thank you for being a gracious host. And I mean, as you might have felt, I felt like the time just flew by so quick. And I had— I, I loved it. So thank you so much, you know. Um, yeah, it means a lot. And I, you know, I can't wait to do something like this again in the future.

Me too. Um, and I can't wait to see, you know, what KP have up your sleeves in the show and all the things you're doing this year and, and in the next 5 years.

Me too. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Anju. And that's a wrap.