Month: August 2016

96 – Decentralizing Wikipedia, with Everipedia Co-Founder George Beall

George Beall

George Beall is a co-founder of Everipedia, the open encyclopedia that takes puts more power in the hands of the public. In his first year of college and before joining Everipedia, George founded a plug and play touchscreen tile technology company.

George is an outstanding example of learning from experience. He has consistently created or joined projects that interest him without waiting for permission or credentials. At a young age, he is already a seasoned entrepreneur. 

Also covered in this episode:

  • What is wrong with Wikipedia?
  • Is Wikipedia censoring information?
  • The bureaucracy of editing on Wikipedia
  • How do you convince people of a problem they may not be aware of?
  • What are Everipedia’s biggest challenges
  • George’s origin story
  • What sparks an interest in entrepreneurship?
  • Creating Touch Tiles as a college freshman
  • Learning from experience vs. a classroom
  • Future targets for Everipedia

Links:

If you are a fan of the show, make sure to leave a review on iTunes.

All episodes of the Isaac Morehouse Podcast are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

Don’t Worry if You Don’t Know What You Want to Do in Life

You don’t know what you want to do in life.

That’s not a problem. In fact, you can’t know what you want to do in life. Most of what you’ll do you’ve not even heard of yet or it hasn’t yet been invented.

Forget all that. Just don’t do stuff you hate and everything else is fair game.Instead of what you want to do, think about who you want to be. What kind of person, what kind of habits, virtues, friends, and inner fire do you want?

Set about becoming that person. No one will give it to you. Setup routines and practices that move you a tiny bit closer to the version of yourself you want to be every day.

Do that, and more amazing opportunities to do cool things will emerge than you can now imagine.

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95 – FwLM: Unsung Entrepeneurs, Uber Class, 150 Year Lifespans, and More…

Pulled a fast one on you today!  TK is occupied in Chicago at a family wedding and told me the house he’s staying in is way too loud and full of nieces and nephews to record today.  I called him a wimp.  He laughed.

Keeping with the family theme, today my brother Levi Morehouse steps in as TK’s replacement.  He’s the Founder & CEO of Ceterus, which provides cloud-based accounting and bookkeeping for franchise owners.  Levi is a ridiculously successful entrepreneur, father, and offensive fouler on the basketball court.

It was just like growing up.  I did most of the talking, he made most of the sense.

Some of the things we discuss:

  • If you lived to 150, how would that change your lifestyle today?
  • Could you learn more as an Uber driver than a student?
  • Philosophers vs. Tony Robbins
  • Choosing what to do based on what it does to you, instead of what it does for the world
  • Unsung entrepreneurs (and how Levi’s company helps them!)
  • Smart drugs

Recommendations: BOLD by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters.

Previous episodes with Levi:

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

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94 – Economics as Self-Help

This episode is a short audio essay on one of the most life-changing mindsets I’ve found.

Economics is the most powerful social discipline.  It also has tremendous potential to improve our lives on the individual level.  Not by understanding the stock market and making money, but by seeing the world through the lens of rational choice theory.  The minute you do, problems and challenges become opportunities and possibilities.  The world becomes a series of games.  All actions become a source of information and enlightenment.

Economics helps you navigate relationships with others, and your own process of self-knowledge and self-improvement.

When you assume rationality, you can begin to peel back and understand the preferences, information, and incentives that cause people to do what they do.

 

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Yes, I’m Pretty Damn Proud of What Praxis is Doing

No one can come close to what Praxis is doing.
 
In Praxis you spend zero net dollars and nine months to get an amazing job, guaranteed.
 
What college guarantees you a job upon graduating, let alone an awesome startup job? All the university guarantees is four years and six figures, then you hope it leads to something.
 
In Praxis you get six months apprenticing at a business and an advisor who works directly with you and your business partner to help you succeed in every way possible. We tailor the coaching and curriculum to what’s needed to succeed at that job in that environment. From technical skills to soft skills to emotional intelligence and beyond. Praxis advisors are conspiring for your success with your business. Three parties all working together to move you forward.
 
What college has professors working hand in hand with your supervisor at your first job, making sure both are helping you succeed? When do they ask your future employers what it would be good to help you learn and gain? They just teach whatever matters to them and hope it’s somehow relevant to your real world work later and you’re on your own when it comes to a job.
 
There is nothing like this on the planet. It is the revolution. The best and brightest are getting started now. College or not, they want to dig in to self-directed living and learning, self-improvement, and a real challenge in a real career.
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93 – Don’t Do Stuff You Hate, with Author Mitchell Earl

mitchell-earl-crop

This week’s guest is Mitchell Earl, the co-author of Don’t Do Stuff You Hate and a Praxis participant working at Ceterus, one of the INC 5000 fastest growing companies in the country.

Mitchell shares the origin story of Don’t Do Stuff You Hate and covers his journey from growing up in rural Oklahoma to becoming an author and working with a high growth startup in Charleston, South Carolina.

Covered in this episode

  • Life lessons from livestock and meat evaluation
  • Why do so many young people want to go to law school?
  • Being entrepreneurial in college | Freelance writing and photography
  • The “Don’t Do Stuff You Hate” origin story
  • Lessons learned from writing a book
  • Mitchell’s next book
  • Then tension between getting things done and getting things perfect
  • The value of teamwork on a book project and benefits of co-authoring

Don’t Do Stuff You Hate is now available on Amazon, make sure to get your free chapter.

Links and recommendations from this episode:

If you are a fan of the show, make sure to leave a review on iTunes.

All episodes of the Isaac Morehouse Podcast are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

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92 – FwTK: Listener Questions on Tons of Stuff

Today TK became inexplicably obsessed with me respecting his name (also he’s getting a haircut for the first time in years so he’s respecting his mane…ba-dum!)

We talk a little about PDP’s and persistence without doing stuff you hate, then we dive into tons of great questions from: Eric Olson, Sigal Sharabani, Andrew Stover, Simon Fraser, Thomas Bogle, Michael Hogan, Julia Patterson, Jeff Till, Forrest Plaster, Gabe Mitchell, Philip Gross, and Kelly Hackman.

Some of the questions were:

  • Can you promote my book? (Yes!  See below)
  • Can order exist without state monopolies, even when bad people want to do bad things?
  • The Terminator-like future of Praxis
  • How to get important people to do favors for you
  • Why is success specific but failure is universal? (or is it?)
  • Should you cut negative people out of your life? (Yes)
  • Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson duets
  • How to get off the conveyor belt
  • Hayek and the size and structure of companies
  • Is boredom good?
  • Is the German school system good?
  • Lessons from seeing life as a game

Mentioned in the episode: Blake Boles, Taking a Walk as a Revolutionary Act, Noble Boredom, Ronald Coase, The Pretense of Knowledge, The Use of Knowledge in Society, Robert Heinlein, Ursela Le Guin, Don’t Do Stuff You Hate (now on Amazon!)

Today’s recommendations: The Option Method by Bruce Di Marsico, The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman.

Eric’s Book: Why Every President Sucked, check it out on KickStarter.

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, and Stitcher.

91- How to Succeed at a Startup, with Connor Jeffers

How to Succeed at a Startup

Connor Jeffers is the Director of Revenue Operations at Dose Media, one of the world’s fastest growing digital media startups. Dose uses innovative testing to create massively viral content on their popular sites OMGfacts.com and Dose.com.

Connor shares how he built his career from interning at an education startup to becoming Director of Revenue Operations at Dose in only a few years. He teaches you how to succeed at a startup, from how to get hired, how to stand out once you are working, and how to leave a job without burning bridges.

Also covered in this episode:

  • Why big brands are paying people to make their content look worse
  • How Dose uses testing and experimentation to create viral content
  • How Facebook is flipping the advertising world on its head
  • Trends in how people consume content online (Hint: Not on your website)
  • Does content on social media platform’s make branding more important
  • Connor’s smart house
  • How to get noticed and hired by a startup
  • How to move on from a job without burning bridges
  • How you know when it is time to move on to a new opportunity
  • The value of changing “maybe we should” ideas, into “can I?” solutions
  • Connor’s favorite books and podcasts right now

Make sure to check out Connor Jeffers on Quora and Medium for a ton of wisdom on sales, Salesforce, marketing, and general know-how on how to succeed at a startup.

Links and recommendations from this episode:

If you are a fan of the show, make sure to leave a review on iTunes.

All episodes of the Isaac Morehouse Podcast are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

‘Don’t Do Stuff You Hate’ Paperback is Here

Check it out on Amazon, read it, and write a review!

We were able to release the book earlier than the August 31 release date, due to hard work by copy editor Lacey Peace and coauthor Mitchell Earl.  The Kindle edition is still showing an August 31 release date, but we’re trying to get that updated as well.

Get a copy.

DDSYH3d

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90 – FwTK: Anger, Work, Crappy Arguments, and the Supernatural

TK and I get into discussion on a recent post I did about working your butt off before trying to optimize your life, and his story of learning the “carry the tray”.  Then we dive into a little philosophy and explore crappy arguments for and against the supernatural, aliens, immortality, God, and more.

Mentioned in the episode: Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell’s Problem of Philosophy, not finding yourself until you know how to work, game theory, carrying the tray, John Hasnas, Descartes, the Socratic method, Steven Brams, and more I’m probably forgetting.

Recommendations: Superior Beings, and, The Fabric of the Cosmos.

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, and Stitcher.

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89 – Lightning Projects, No Hipsters, Abundance Mindset and more, with Derek Magill

Lots of people have ideas, not many take action and create valuable products. Derek Magill, Director of Marketing at Praxis, turned a frustrating problem into nohipsterstocks.com in the course of a day. Instead of complaining or talking about your ideas, what lightning project could you be creating this week? 

In this episode you will also learn:

  • How side projects create value for you and your business
  • How to make decisions on outsourcing vs. doing the work yourself
  • How to persuade by showing, not telling
  • How treating yourself like a company changes your mindset
  • The value of answering questions on Quora
  • How to bring an abundance mindset to your work
  • How spending your own money at work is a great investment in your career
  • The behind the scenes of redesigning discoverpraxis.com
  • Steps you can take to create the job you want

If you enjoy the show, leave a review on iTunes. 

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, YouTube, and Stitcher.

Links:

88 – FwTK: Are Words Colonizing the World?

Today we dive deep into the ideas behind a single chapter of a (weird but fascinating) book TK recommended called, “Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves”.  It’s about language, and to what extent our vocabulary actually alters our reality, not merely our attempts to give expression to it.

Discussed in the episode: Marc Andreesson, George Lakoff, Ben Horowitz, Wayne Dyer, Seth Godin, Terrence McKenna, Clifford Pickover, Robert Anton Wilson, general semantics theory.

Recommendations: Lexicon, and, The Tyranny of Words.

Also, sign up to get mid-week quick-hits every Wednesday!

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, and Stitcher.

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If You Don’t Like the Place, Don’t Renew the Lease

My wife and I hated living in DC.  We found out a few months before our lease was up that the landlady was selling and we couldn’t renew.

It was the best inconvenience to ever befall us.

Today I write about how giving yourself the right incentives to build a better life is a lot more effective than having the right ideas and intentions.

I share two reasons why planning a perfect future is unlikely to get you there.

  1. You don’t yet know what makes you happy
  2. You don’t have a strong enough incentive to find it

Check out the post:

Sometimes You Have to Put Yourself in a Pinch to Get Out of One

 

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87 – Aaron Watson talks Productivity, Frisbee, and Snapchat

Aaron Watson is a two-time national ultimate frisbee champion and the host of Going Deep with Aaron. On “Going Deep” Aaron has interviewed Wired Magazine founder Kevin Kelly, Chris Guillebeau, Taylor Pearson and over 100 other entrepreneurs, authors, and interesting human beings.

This episode is a wide-ranging conversation with Aaron covering:

  • The benefits of starting a podcast
  • Life lessons from sports
  • Goals vs. processes
  • How to prepare for podcast interviews
  • Beginners Guide to Snapchat
  • The creator vs. consumer experiences on Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat
  • The relationship between work and happiness
  • And more

If you are a fan of the show, make sure to leave a review on iTunes.

Links from this episode:

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, YouTube, and Stitcher.

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