Author: Isaac Morehouse

The Advantages of Having a Family While Running a Business

The Advantages of Having a Family and Running a Business at the Same Time
What better motivation is there to succeed, use time wisely, and not feel defeated?

It’s no secret that being an entrepreneur is stressful and time consuming.  It requires not just physical but immense mental energy and brings pretty severe emotional swings.  Sometimes it involves emails or phone calls or travel at all hours of the day all days of the week all year long.  It’s also financially unpredictable.

All of these things suggest that having a family while starting or running a company is a bad idea.  I often tell young people that if they have a startup idea they should pursue it sooner than later, because the risk, stress, cost of failure, and available time will only get worse over time and after a spouse and kids.  Still, lots of people do it.  I’m doing it now.  Despite the very real ways in which a family makes entrepreneurship harder, there are some powerful advantages too.

Time

I’d rather be with my family than doing just about anything else.  This is a huge advantage.  When you’re starting a company and seeking funding, partners, employees, customers, and allies there are an infinite number of things you could do at any time.  Networking event downtown tonight?  Maybe you’ll meet someone there and make a decent connection.  The thing is, 80% of the events, calls, emails, and activities won’t be that valuable.  When you are a time billionaire (as my friend TK calls it), the opportunity cost is low.  You might as well go to the happy hour.  Something might come out of it.  So single entrepreneurs do it.  Over and over again.  They hit so many conferences and meetings that the line between what’s valuable and what’s a waste begins to blur.  They can get distracted and burned out on things that don’t really enhance their core value proposition or product.

When you would rather be with your family anyway, you develop a very high bar for any reason to do otherwise.  I’m not going to drive downtown and spend three hours sipping cocktails for a 30% chance of meeting a person with a 20% chance of introducing me to someone with a 10% chance of investing 5% of what I need to raise if it means not getting to watch Finding Nemo with my kids and tuck them in bed.  It raises the cost of wasted time and sharpens your ability to distinguish what’s really worth it.  You’ve heard of the 80/20 rule.  Being an entrepreneur with a family dramatically raises the stakes and makes you a lot better and quicker at identifying your 20% activities and ignoring the rest.  Saying ‘no’ is one of the most important skills an entrepreneur can learn, and having a family makes you a little better at it.

Perspective

When you’re running a venture, it’s all you think about.  As it should be.  Entrepreneur and investor Paul Graham says, “It’s hard to do a good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower”, and he’s right.  But things don’t always go well.  Sometimes they downright suck.  You lose a client, a deal falls through, your website launch is months late, you face legal battles, you can’t get a meeting with an investor, or any number of other hurdles real or imagined.  If you’ve got nothing but your business, these can destroy you.  If your venture is failing you feel like you are failing.  Someone who feels like a failure in life is not going to create a winner in business.

Having a Business and a Family at the Same Time
What were you saying about not having a good life?

It’s times like these when a family is the most amazing psychological strength I’ve found.  Crumpled in a real or metaphorical heap on the floor feeling like you just got your ass kicked by the world and all is lost, you look up at two cute little girls having a tea party and asking you if some imaginary tea will make you feel better.  How can you not smile?  The number of times I’ve laughed at myself for feeling like I just can’t win is countless.  Every time it’s because I consider my family and wonder how I could ever feel desperate.  Who cares if the businesses struggles or fails or I have to go work another job to make ends meet?  If I accomplish nothing else in my life besides raising these kids and spending time with my wonderful wife, who could ever call that a waste?

This perspective is healthy and needed.  Yeah, you want to be your work and throw yourself 100% into it.  But you also want to be more than your work.  Families have an amazing way of helping you see that you are.

Motivation

No matter how type-A you are and how many sleepless nights you’re willing to put in, you’re still human, and humans are lazy.  We prefer lounging to working.  Sometimes we disguise lounging as working and fill our time with activities that don’t add real value because the valuable stuff is hard or boring.  Especially after the early build and launch phase, the dip comes and it’s really hard to push yourself to do a bunch of crappy tasks to keep things moving forward.  If you have no family, and therefore very little time or financial obligation, you can easily pivot to a new job, pick up some side work, or sleep on a friend’s couch if your lack of effort should result in lack of income or delayed success.  You can wait to work hard until the moment of inspiration comes, no matter what day or hour it strikes.  When you have a family, these are all much harder to do.  If it’s 2:00 PM on a Friday and you agreed to hang with the kids for the evening beginning at 6:00, and then a long-promised family camping trip will consume the weekend, you have no choice.  You’ve got to make the next several hours count.  You’ve got to do the hard work no matter how little you want to.

It’s not only the financial incentive and desire to provide stable quality of life and time availability to your family, but also the desire to provide an example.  You want your kids to be excited by the opportunities life provides.  You want them to work hard.  You want them to see that you never gave up on your vision and you always buckled down and made things happen.  Especially if you work from home as I often do, you want your kids to get a feel for what it’s like and see your relentless focus and drive.  Alone in an apartment, it’s easier to justify a break for binge-watching your favorite show (I sneak that in after the kids are in bed.  What? I’m not a machine!).  Worst case, your venture fails and everyone still thinks you’re cool for trying it.  With a family failure is more costly, and that can be a great motivator.

Don’t Fear

While being entrepreneurial as a mindset and way of life is open and available to everyone, starting a business of your own is definitely not for everyone.  But if you feel that fire burning within and think it’s too late for you because you have a family and can never compete with single and childless founders out there, you’re wrong.  There are a great many entrepreneurial wives, husbands, fathers, and mothers, and we’ve got some advantages that those without a family don’t.

Episode 18: Peter Leeson on the Economic Explanation of Everything

Economist Pete Leeson believes everything can be explained using the economic assumption of rational behavior. He is a prolific academic and his work covers a wide variety of fascinating and sometimes bizarre phenomena – from insect trials to witch burning, piracy, and everything in between – and provides rational explanations for seemingly irrational behavior.

We discuss what inspired him to become an economist, the major themes of his work, whether everything can be explained with economic analysis, and what he thinks of different economic schools of thought.

You can find him online at peterleeson.com.  I highly recommend his books, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, and, Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better Than You Think.

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

Father’s Day is a Little Weird for Me

I’m sitting alone in a bar in Austin at 10:30 AM on a rainy Sunday. Waiting for a little bit of bacon, waffles, and diced red potatoes. It’s Father’s Day. I’ve already had more than enough coffee, so water is my sole companion as I wait.

I’m tired. I just finished a day of being “on”, participating in a debate followed by a panel at a high energy conference with broken air conditioning and not enough food and water. I talked to people all day, often near shouting over loud, energetic music. It was good. I’m doing what I care about and talking about things that matter deeply to me. How to be free. How to create your own path. How to live fully alive. How to rebel against stagnant mindsets and institutions.

I’m not big on Father’s Day and other Hallmark holidays, but this calm, humid Sunday morning it got to me. My dad. How am I supposed to feel? Thankful to him for being there? He’s always been there, but in a wheelchair with a closed head-injury and needing more care than he could give. All things considered, he’s a great dad. It’s one of the things that sometimes makes it hard.

A lot of people grew up without fathers. Tragedy, abandonment, death, and divorce have thrown many a kid gut-wrenching curveballs I can’t imagine. They’ve got to learn to cope, but also to grieve. To feel the anger, resentment, or deep sadness of the hole in their life. But what am I supposed to do? My dad was always there, kind, impossible not to love, and also unable to walk, remember anything of consequence, or be independent at all.

I can’t grieve his absence. That would be an affront to his unmistakable and warm presence. Still, those few memories I retain from before his accident – rushing upstairs to play “Jumping on the Bed Fred” when he got home from work, him lying on the couch in sweatpants watching football or Star Trek, him helping me in to the hot vinyl seats of our old car – give me glassy eyes.

My waffles are here. Give me a minute.

OK, I’m back.

Several years ago I was lying awake in bed and it came to me. A fictionalized account of what happened with my dad after his car accident all those years ago. A few years later I put it up as one of the first posts on this blog. I’m glad it was so early on, when I had no readers. Fiction is a format I’m really unfamiliar with as a writer, and it feels a little bit awkward. Still, it was the first time I had ever written anything besides a vague adolescent poem or two about the subject of my dad. It was the only form that allowed me to. I guess today I’m taking a more direct approach, which feels equally odd.

I like to write about my ideas, not my feelings. Yet on the topic of my dad, his accident, and my life growing up with and without him, I don’t really have any ideas. I only have feelings, and even those aren’t that well-processed.

One of the strangest things, which I imagine must be far stranger for my mother, is that I actually have two dads. I have the one who gave me his genetic material, who set the foundation for our family, and who held me and played with me those first three years. He’s still alive in my memory, and mostly in romanticized legends I’ve pieced together from stories about him. Then there’s my dad who’s with us today. By all accounts a funny (in an ironic, playful sort of way), kind, caring, compassionate guy who never says a negative word about anyone, and whose occasional agitation has an endearing quality. He’s not one of those people I’ve met in some nursing homes who, when faced with physical or mental disabilities vent nothing but pent-up anger (perhaps partially because they’re in nursing homes). He’s the farthest thing from that you can imagine. He requires 24 hour care, but even though it can take a toll physically, he’s not someone you can get mad at. Well, sometimes you can, when he keeps asking the same question every five minutes due to short term memory loss, but even then, it’s my lack of patience and not any intended malice on his part.

I love both of my dads. My relationship with my head-injured dad is actually great, and makes me smile just to think about it. I miss that old pup (his term, not mine). I called him today. It’s not a complicated relationship. In fact, it’s probably easier than any other relationship in my life. He loves me unconditionally and is always proud of me, even though he usually forgets what I’m up to, how old I am, whether I live at home, and whether or not he really owes me a million dollars (I have fun with that one). He’s easy for me to love as well. His soul shines through and reveals my own flimsy attempts at compassion and joy in contrast to his.

It’s my other dad that makes things complicated. I didn’t have time to get to know him. I never had the joy of being coached by him in baseball, or beating him on the basketball court, or arguing over things that dads and sons argue about. It’s really hard to miss him and feel ripped off because of his absence. That feels like it would be a slight to the dad that’s still here. But I do miss him.

It’s hard to build an accurate picture of who he was, and sometimes I’m not even sure I want to.

He was probably a lot less amazing than I imagine he was or would have been had the accident never happened. Who knows? Maybe I’d think he was a big stick-in-the-mud. Maybe we’d fight about everything. I’ll never know. I know he wasn’t perfect, and I even believe that I’ve gained a great many good qualities due to the unique way my siblings and I were raised, with lots of independence by necessity. Still, I wonder a lot. I know his financial decisions allowed us to live a safe, comfortable life even after he could no longer work. I know his decision with my mom to homeschool us changed my life in ways I’m more thankful for every day. I know his beliefs, regardless of how well his actions did or did not mirror them, created a sound foundation that I value and that has served me well.

My waffles are almost done. The bacon is gone, and most of the potatoes. It feels like time to wrap this up. I’m not really sure what else to say. I don’t feel bad for myself. I grieve sometimes. I started crying a little bit at the table here while writing this, which mercifully warded off the waitress and bought me a little more time. One day it really hit me hard, when I was first trying to get Praxis off the ground and getting thrashed by roadblock after roadblock, I just broke down in an airport and asked God why in hell I didn’t have a dad to bounce things off of.

Yet, my dad is here. I look at my wife, whose father died two years ago, far too young, and I cannot deny she is experiencing a deeper loss than I know. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to process this complex situation.

For anyone else out there who grew up with a dad who was present, but handicapped in some way, I know it’s a little weird. I know my dad loved me, loves me, and I’m so glad for his presence in my life. I guess this is my card this year. Happy Father’s Day dad. Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go smoke a cigar to pay homage to the time before I was born when you snuck outside of church for a cigarillo, you rebel you.

Maybe You Should Drop Out of College

Originally published here.

What is college for?

If it’s a four year social experience, it seems really overpriced.  If it’s to gain knowledge, why not learn from better teachers and do it free online, and at coffee shops with friends?  If it’s to prepare you for a successful career, it’s the most absurd format imaginable: You are supposed to learn how to be successful in the marketplace through a system mostly sheltered from the marketplace, from people who mostly hate the marketplace and have chosen a career that protects them from it.

If we taught bike riding like we prep for careers, you’d spend twenty years reading about bikes without riding, until you graduate, at which point you’d be dropped off in the middle of the highway and be told, “Good luck!”

So what is college for?  For some specialized careers, it’s illegal to work without a degree (medicine, law, etc.), but most people get degrees in generic fields like business, communications, marketing, or political science.  Most people go to college to feel normal, and to signal to the world that they are normal.

The education system rewards obedience.  It rewards compliance.  It rewards following the rules, no matter how arbitrary and valueless they may be.  No one ever changed the world by obeying.

Alternatives change the world.  Alternatives to the status quo institutions that constrain and oppress.  It takes entrepreneurs to create alternatives.  Yet entrepreneurship is the very quality the education system is designed to beat out of you.

You go to college to signal to the status quo that you are no threat.  You did what you were supposed to.

It’s said that a degree signals to employers and the world that you are above average.  You are smart.  You are hard working.  You are driven.  You are worth investing in, or taking a chance on.  That may have been true at one time.  But look around you and consider your classmates.  Are they any of these things?  Would you clamor to hire them if you ran a business?  Yet all of them will walk away with a degree.

A degree signals that you are now 22 years old.  Congratulations, you’ve floated downstream.  No one acts impressed that you graduated high school, because everyone does, by doing little more than existing for 18 years.  College has become a mere extension of high school.  For most, it takes more work and effort to not go than to go.

So what’s the alternative to college?

Drop out.  Don’t get a degree, get an education.  Do something different with your life.  You were born an entrepreneur; a creative problem solver who overcomes through trial and error.  That’s been smothered by years of schooling.  What would happen if you broke free?

That’s why I launched Praxis.  I want to awaken your inner entrepreneur.  I want you to get out of the classroom and into the world.  I want you to learn by doing.  I want you to change the world.

I was tired of complaining about college.  How can we bring the cost down?  How can we improve the quality of instruction?  These questions accept the existing paradigm and try to tweak it.  The real question is how can young people get from where they are to a career and life that they love in the best way possible?

Four years and $150,000 dollars is nothing to sneeze at – the time even more than the money.  Is that really the best way?

Why not work with creators and innovators and learn what it’s like by doing? Why not get the best, most essential ideas and theories, delivered without cinder blocks and fluorescent lights? Why not gauge your success on the value of your working knowledge, and on what you can create, not the facts you can memorize?

Why not break the mold?

It’s scary.  It’s hard.  It’s painful.  But so is the status quo.  The difference is, the pain you endure for breaking the mold and creating something is a pain with great reward.  Even if you fail, what you learn and who you become is of immeasurable value.  Even the pain has some sweetness.  Contrast that to the monotonous pain you experience by following the rules.  There’s no reward.  There’s no prize at the end.  There’s no, “Congratulations.  You followed the rules.  You endured depravations and frustrations and shut up when told to shut up.  Here’s your Good Serf Award.”

Break the rules.  Do what makes you come alive.  Make the world better and freer by first freeing yourself.

Want to Be Interesting? Be Interested

Interesting people differ from each other is so many ways.  In fact, one of the things that makes a person interesting is how little like others they are.  Those who embrace their unique weirdness, not in a flashy attempt for attention but as a secure mode of being, tend to be very interesting.  Still, I don’t think it’s the truly unique qualities about interesting people that make them interesting.  It’s something they all have in common.  They are interested.

An interesting writer, artist, entrepreneur, academic, or cook is someone who has not only mastered a craft, but someone deeply, intensely interested in their craft.  The mastery typically follows the interest.  What’s more, interesting people are not only interested in what they do and what they have mastered.  They’re interested in just about everything in the world.  They aren’t afraid to be in awe of the world around them, from the big philosophical questions to the tiny details.

I used to do fundraising for a nonprofit and my favorite part was meetings with incredibly successful, self-made people who almost always began as average people, and somehow built amazing companies and products and lives.  I’d ask their stories and soak up all the details of their founding saga, how they got into that industry, why they chose to live where they did, and so on.  What stuck out was that, happy as they were to discuss these things, most of them were equally excited to talk about a style of painting they were fond of, the aerodynamics of aircraft, logo design, and in one case the habits of ants.  These were interesting people because they were interested people.

A friend recently shared an anecdote he once read (I can’t remember where) about a young boy who told his grandfather that he was bored.  Calmly, his grandfather rolled up a magazine, leaned over, and whacked the boy on the head.  “Bored people grow up to become boring people.”  With no TV or laptop or iPhone or books or friends around, would you be bored?  Or could you find a way to engage the world around and within you no matter where you were and what tools you had?  Those who have mastered the art of the latter are never boring.

We’re surrounded by wonders, great and small, easy to spot and almost impossible to find.  Can you sense it?  Do you feel it?  Do you have questions about it?  As Chesterton said, we don’t lack wonders, we lack wonder.

Make a List of the Jobs You’ve Had

The other day I was thinking about the various things I’ve done to earn money, skill, and experience from about age 8 or 9 onward.  I tried to come up with a complete list and found it to be a really fun and enlightening exercise.  It was rather encouraging and exciting to see how little of a pattern there is, and how nothing like a linear path emerged.  I’ve found that at every unknown juncture, worries about a job have been overblown.  I got married very young and returned from my honeymoon with a mortgage to pay and no job.  The thing that has worked best for me is just to keep working, even while looking.  I did every random, laborious job I could, and it always eventually led to more interesting things.

It’s a cool exercise, and has led to some fun stories with the kids. (Kids are always so fascinated by their parents past failures, hardships, and embarrassments).  Give it a try!  Here’s my list, probably missing some, mostly but not perfectly chronological, and with plenty of overlap:

  • Snow shoveler/leaf raker/lawn mower
  • Weekly ‘Flashes’ delivery
  • Babysitter
  • Dog walker
  • Paper delivery (this one continued for years)
  • Construction/excavation grunt (paid in Gatorade and Swiss Cake Rolls)
  • Golf course grounds worker/pro-shop/concessions/grunt/bathroom cleaner
  • Grocery store carryout and shelf stocker
  • House framer/random cut/cleanup guy
  • Telephone and data cable installation (eventually managing field operations)
  • Guitarist/vocalist in various bands (sometimes I even got paid!)
  • Co-founder of international humanitarian nonprofit (unpaid)
  • House flipper (it was pre-2007…everyone was doing it!)
  • English teacher abroad (unpaid)
  • Medical clinic assistant abroad (unpaid)
  • Electrical worker
  • Co-founder and field manager for datacom startup
  • Landscaper (because the above wasn’t making too much money!)
  • Landlord
  • President of taxpayer advocacy group (unpaid)
  • Legislative intern (unpaid for two weeks)
  • Legislative assistant/aid
  • Legislative “Chief of Staff” (“Staff” included me, one other employee, and an intern)
  • Political Science teacher
  • Creator/director of “Students for a Free Economy” program at the Mackinac Center
  • Random marketing/educational consultant (occasional side gigs)
  • Policy Programs Director at IHS
  • Speaker/lecturer (paid and unpaid)
  • Writer (mostly unpaid, but some steady paid gigs)
  • Education Director at IHS
  • Copywriter (side gigs, paid and unpaid)
  • Sales (some commission-based side-work)
  • Major Gifts Officer (fundraising) at IHS
  • Praxis

Ask Isaac: Grab Bag – Kids Beliefs, Social Movements, Helplessness, Apathy, and the Future

I take some fun questions from Facebook today:

  • What if your one of your children became a radical socialist atheist who disdained clever wordplay?
  • What is the balance between creation and reaction in social change? Is social change more wrought by the agency of social movements, or are such movements more responsive to exogenous shocks or existing structural failures?
  • How important is your physical health to your mental health?
  • What is your view on “learned helplessness”?
  • Have you ever had to overcome apathy and an unwillingness to act, or a complete lack of motivation? How did you bounce back?
  • What careers are going to be needed in the future?

As always, this and every episode can be found on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

How I Learned to Get a Lot Done Without Being Busy

I’ve got a confession: I’m not busy.

Yes, I have three kids, I’m running a business, I create and post a new podcast episode once at least once a week, I write 7-10 articles per week, I travel and speak on average twice a month, I’m committed to doing one form of exercise every day and reading a book every week.

Yet I still have plenty of time.  I play with my kids regularly.  We spend most weekends relaxing or hitting the beach and eat dinner together almost every weekday.  I walk outside or meditate with frequency, listen to podcasts, write and play music, watch movies and sports, hang out with my wife, and almost never get less than eight hours of sleep.  I almost always have time for a philosophical chat, NBA or NFL gossip, or to review some marketing copy for a friend.  Most of all, I rarely feel rushed or pressed time-wise.

There is nothing magical about me.  I do not have particularly high aptitudes or abilities, and it’s not always been like this.  Not even close.  There are a few practices and mindsets that allow me to feel like I have plenty of hours each day, and it’s taken me a long time to get consistently good at them.  I attribute more of my happiness and whatever success I’ve had thus far to these traits than to any particular skill or knowledge.

Be really honest

It took me a long, long time to admit that I hate being busy.  From my mid teens to mid-late twenties I was busy nearly every hour of the day.  I slept 5-6 hours a night, spent ridiculous amounts of time and energy juggling activities and in transit between commitments, and had so many side projects and house projects and work projects that I rarely had time to just go for a walk and think or read for more than ten minutes at a time.  I was proud of myself for being able to do so much.  There is something to the fact that the more you do the more you’re able to do, but I was never really at peace with it.  I wanted to be one of those people who live for the rush and never slow down, so I adopted (or rather didn’t resist) that lifestyle.  But it was never me.  The sooner I came to terms with that bit of self-knowledge and stopped feeling bad about it, the easier it became to begin the process of unbusying myself.

I know some people genuinely love being busy and can’t get in the zone without that rushed feeling.  My brother is that type of person.  I used to wish I could keep up, but I’m much happier being the best version of my unique self, instead of a weak version of people like him.  If that’s you, be you.  Do that.  Find out the best hacks and tricks for fulfillment in constant action.  This advice won’t do you much good.  But if it’s not you, be honest about it.

I finally gave myself permission to say it: I hate being busy.  I need lots of free time.  I need chunks of time to speculate and create and play.  Busyness diminished my quality of life.  Dig deep and discover if it works for you or not, and be honest about what you find.

Find people who are better than you

I’m very competitive (some may say also arrogant) and my gut tells me any new thing I do I should be able to do it better than everyone else pretty quickly.  It can be fun and motivating, but it’s a huge time-suck.  Trying to be good at things that aren’t even in my wheelhouse is a recipe for stress.  In fact, I’m not a specialist at anything, and I stopped trying to be.  I do what I have to, but immediately try to find a way to outsource all non-core tasks, whether work related or personal, as quickly as I can.  I used to take pride in mowing my own lawn.  I didn’t enjoy it and that was a few hours each week that I simply did not need to be burning or stressing in anticipation of wasting.  It’s not expensive to outsource small things like that, and the sooner I learned to swallow my pride and do it, the better life became.

Sometimes it doesn’t take money at all.  There are people all around who can do things better than you can.  Find them.  Ask them.  Work with them.  Trade with them.  Don’t do it unless you’re really the only one who can do it.

Be a ruthless minimalist

My motto is ‘delete, shred, destroy’.  I have a strict inbox zero policy.  Every piece of mail, e or physical, I immediately review.  I look for excuses to throw things away rather than reasons to keep them.  I take action immediately.  I pay bills the minute I get them whenever possible, and throw away or delete the envelope.  I take a photo of business lunch receipts, email them to myself, then throw away the paper and delete the photo off my phone all while still waiting in line to get my order.  Every few months I throw away a few old T-shirts, magazines, broken toys, or other odds and ends that accumulate in a house.  I find that handling all the small things as they come leaves me with very few times when I have to plow through giant piles of fluff.  I check emails and texts and Voxer messages all throughout the day, every day, weekend and vacation included (with rare exceptions), because it only takes minutes and it can save the entire first productive hour of the next day.

I block off chunks of time here and there when I need to go into full maker mode and don’t respond to things instantly, but when the inbox is at zero to start with, it’s not too bad to catch up after a few hours off.  I avoid meetings and phone calls whenever an email can handle it.

Never do things you don’t like doing

‘No’ is my favorite word.  It took me a while to learn to say it as much as I do now.  I like people and I like to see them happy and I’m interested in lots of things.  But if I say yes to every cool idea or conversation or project or event that comes my way, I’m a guilt-wracked wreck.  It’s more disrespectful to say yes when you don’t really mean it than to say no.  No is harder in the moment, but it sure does pay off.

If it’s not a big, enthusiastic yes, make it a no.  One of my goals is every day to ask myself what things I’m doing that I don’t like doing.  Identify them.  Then ask how I can begin to work to not do those things any longer.  It’s amazing how many layers of subtle pressure, guilt, manipulation, expectation, and people-pleasing our desires are wrapped up in.  Unwrapping this mess and getting to the core – the real you, with your real, unique desires – is tough work, and requires a lot of ‘no’ along the way.  I don’t think you can get to a peaceful, well-paced, low-stress life by trying to imagine what it would look like and plot a path to it.  In my experience, the only way to come close is to start from the other end.  Identify the pain points one at a time and work to eliminate and preemptively avoid them.  Whatever is left over is the good stuff.

Utilize your subconscious

I think about my work all the time.  In the shower, laying in bed before I fall asleep, while on a walk, in traffic, and almost everywhere else unless I specifically decide to put it on hold.  The advantage to this is that by the time I sit down to get cranking away, the bulk of the hard work is done.  Whether an email response, a presentation, a phone call, a decision about a vendor, or a meeting with an employee, by the time it happens I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it while doing other activities.  The thing that makes this especially effective is the power of the subconscious.  Wrestling with ideas consciously triggers your subconscious mind.  When you are distracted, or sleeping, or too tired to consciously focus on them anymore, they’re still bouncing around in there.  By the time you need to call them to the front of your mind again, often problems get solved and ideas get improved as they spend time doing whatever magic your brain does to them with a little time.

Some people consider it work to think about work.  I don’t.  But regardless, utilizing some down time to tackle work problems mentally, and queuing up your subconscious to tackle them as well, will result in getting things done quicker and better when it’s time to work.

Don’t move too quickly at first

If you love the rush, stick with it.  If you’re not sure yet whether you love the rush, doing too much is better at first than doing too little.  Early in the game if you limit your experiences and opportunities too much you’ll have a very hard time with self-discovery.  Take the plunge early on, err on the side of lots of activities, and each step review which ones make you come alive with the good kind of challenge, and which are just flabby, useless, or worse yet, detrimental to your well-being.  You need some material to work with before you begin chipping away.  I don’t recommend saying no to great opportunities that are open questions when you’re young, and definitely don’t use my advice above as an excuse to avoid things that stretch you.  But if you know from experience you don’t do well with busyness and you’re constantly bogged down with things you hate, begin the process now.  Find ways to open up free time.  Be ruthless.  Your future self will thank you.

Why I Started Praxis

I didn’t start Praxis because I think college is bad, or because I want to convince people it is.  I didn’t start it to be hip and trendy and “disruptive”.  I didn’t start it because I want to point out problems with the world.  I started it because I want to create value for individuals.

There are a lot of young people hungry for valuable experiences and not finding them.  There are a lot of young people unhappy with the education, career, and life options they see before them, searching for something more.  Praxis exists for you.

Praxis is more than a program or a company to me.  It’s the embodiment of a mindset and a way of life.  It is a tangible way to help people live free, self-directed lives.  It’s a community and a set of resources and ideas and businesses and participants built around the understanding that no conveyor belt can lead you to the life you want, and no structure you don’t choose and create yourself will bring you fulfillment.

Praxis is a concrete opportunity, not a vague notion.  It offers an interesting, challenging, amazing job and an interesting, challenging, amazing self-guided educational experience, all with a relentless focus on deliverable results.  It’s a recognition that your life will be determined by the quality of your product more than the pedigree of your paper.  It’s a way to remove the fear and doubt and strictures of the linear ladder to imagined success.  It’s a way to reveal and fan into flame the deep human love of adventure, play, possibility, and experimentation.

I don’t believe doing things you don’t like and hoping it leads to unspecified things you do like is a recipe for success.  Praxis pushes you to define what you don’t like and what you do, to learn what you’re good at and what you’re not, to identify definite outcomes you wish to achieve and definite causality between those outcomes and your desired next step.  Praxis does not ask you to learn things or perform tasks in the hope that it will get you work experience, we give you that work experience from the start.  You cannot separate learning from doing.

Praxis is a recognition that, wherever you get your paycheck, you are your own firm.  The future does not belong to those who follow orders, but those who solve problems with creativity.  The future belongs to entrepreneurs, whether founders or builders within firms.  Entrepreneurial thinking and acting cannot be learned from study, but must be practiced.  Praxis exists to put those eager to learn it into environments right now – not tomorrow, not after more study and certification – where they can be around and become entrepreneurs.

Praxis exists to offer a valuable service to young people who are searching for a way to build their confidence, skills, experience, network, and knowledge.  Praxis is built upon questions like, “Why not now?”, and “Why not me?”

Praxis is about that powerful combination of big picture dreamers and blue-collar doers.  It’s all the imagination of Silicon Valley startups with all the work-ethic of Midwestern small businesses.  It’s grit plus grind plus greatness.  Praxis is the realization that the most radical thing you can do is often the most practical, and that the most practical thing you can do is sometimes be radical.

Praxis is an idea.  The idea is simple.  Find the best way to get from where you are to where you want to be.  If we can help you do that better and faster with a great job that comes with a great education and community, jump in.  If not, we’ll still be rooting for you every step of the way.

I didn’t start Praxis to make enemies or to make friends.  I started it to create value.  I started it because the idea was so powerful I had no choice but to bring it into the world.  I started it because theorizing about ways young people could build their lives wasn’t enough.  I started it because it’s fun, fulfilling, and harder than anything I’ve ever done.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Break the mold.

Recommended Resources on Unschooling

  • Peter Gray’s posts at Psychology Today
  • Gray’s book, Free to Learn
  • Zak Slayback’s blog
  • Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society  – Despite some anti-progress and anti-market silliness, Illich diagnoses many of the problems with school powerfully
  • John Taylor Gatto – Any of his books will give you food for thought.  Dumbing us Down might be an easy place to start
  • John Holt – Again, any of his books.  Teach Your Own is a good compilation of many of his best work and ideas
  • Sudbury Valley School – Several books on this unique unschool school, all worth reading.  Free at Last is a nice short collection of stories at the school
  • School Sucks Podcast
  • Blake Boles – Blake blogs, podcasts, and runs a company devoted to young self-directed learners
  • Jeff Till’s Five Hundred Years – A comprehensive case for home education is excellent, in both audio and PDF format
  • The Praxis Blog – for self-directed learners working to build a career

This is scratching the surface.  Google any of the above names to find more of their work, as well as the countless other thinkers and doers and parents and kids who are breaking the mold and living and learning on their own terms.

Episode 17: What it’s Like to Be an Unschooled 10 Year Old, with NL Morehouse

My 10 year old son told me he wanted to come on the podcast to talk about being unschooled.  He thought maybe kids or parents who were unsure might enjoy hearing from someone who’s in the process.

We discuss how we came to unschool, what a typical day is like, and his plans for the future.

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

*Oh, if you want to see how NL has changed over the last few years, check out our interview when he was nine, as well as when he was eight.

What You’ll Be Doing in 20 Years Doesn’t Exist Yet

From Medium.

Imagine telling your parents in 1960 or 1970 that you were going to design video games for a living. Or telling them in the 1980s that you were going to design websites. Or telling them in the 90s that you were going to get paid to create software applications for mobile telephones. Or in the early 2000s that you would be paid to “tweet” 140 character messages.

Chances are, whatever you’ll be doing in 20 years doesn’t yet exist, or at least not in any way you can imagine or describe. Not long ago the idea of work that didn’t require manual labor, or living in a big city, or going to an office was unthinkable. Today it’s ubiquitous.

Innovation keeps moving. That means picking that one clear career destination and forming a perfect path to it is probably unrealistic for an increasing number of people. It’s more important to start with a broad swath of things you’re interested in, get as much knowledge and experience as you can in many areas, and begin to add to the list of things you know you really don’t want to do. Eliminate the bad options. Anything else is fair game.

Do this and develop and refine general, transferable skills like critical thinking, communication, emotional intelligence, and a reputation for hard work, and you will be able to see and seize opportunities. Better yet, you’ll be able to create new ones.

You’ve got to think like an entrepreneur, whether you ever plan to start a business or not.

Ask around. How many people imagined 20 years ago they’d be doing what they do now? Neither will you.

The world can be your oyster. Be ready.

Focus on What You Don’t Want

From the Praxis blog.

It’s really stressful for most young (and old!) people to feel the need to pick the career or job and plot a path to it.  How are you supposed to know yourself so well in the present, and know so much about what’s out there, let alone predict what your future self will want in a future world with unknown possibilities?

Relax.  With rare exception, it’s probably a bad idea to try to pick the one specific thing and try to get there.  You might be better making a list of general categories of activity and creativity that you enjoy, are good at, and/or you see as valuable to get you to some other end (wealth, free time, etc.)  Even that can be daunting.  Here’s an easier approach: focus on what you don’t like and know you want to avoid.

Make a list of all the things you simply can’t stand, are bad at, or see little value in.  Anything not on that list is fair game for experimentation.  Go out and get broad experience with the explicit goal of discovering more stuff you don’t like and adding it to the list.  As that list grows, the arena of what’s fair game narrows.  Any step within that range is a step in the right direction, and each step helps clarify and reduce the possible next steps.  You’ll probably never have it so narrowed that there is only one good next step, and that’s a good thing.

You don’t know what might happen as you and the world change, but the sooner you can figure out where you’re not in the zone, the faster you can start mining in places likely to have a mother lode.

Consider the Costs (and Benefits) of Entrepreneurial Failure

From the Praxis blog, reposted here since I’m on the theme of failure lately.

photo-624x370Most new ventures fail.  In fact, depending on how you define failure and what data you look at, entrepreneurial failure rates can be as high as 95%.  That sounds terrifying.  The costs of failure should not be overlooked when considering an entrepreneurial path.  But neither should the benefits.

Data about startups end with the word failure.  But what actually happens to the people who launch them?  Is their life over?  Do they come out worse than they went in?

When I was 19 my brother and I started our first business.  We installed telephone and computer cables back before wi-fi made it mostly unnecessary.  The business lasted less than a year.  We had a few good jobs installing and terminating fiber optic cables (a service we sold, even though we’d never done it before.  We learned.  It’s not as exciting as it sounds), but many of our “jobs” consisted of me doing landscaping for relatives.  I like to think I made their yards beautiful, but it was mostly charity on their part.

Novius failed.  But I didn’t fail, and neither did my brother.  I made a decent living for those nine months, I learned more than I’d ever learned, especially about people and businesses and how they operate (try cold-call selling people on data cable installation).  Our few customers got a good service at a good price and were happy.  A few relatives got some flower boxes.  I learned how to have confidence in myself and my ability, even if the business I ran wasn’t going well – that was the hardest and probably most valuable lesson.  We came out ahead.  Not really financially, but in terms of being closer to where we wanted to be in life.

There are ventures that could wipe you out.  There are ventures that could destroy your reputation, or your credit, or your relationships.  But those are rare.  Especially today when technology has made startup costs so low (Novius emails were @sbcglobal, because even ten years ago it was not so cheap to have your own email domain).  Various crowdfunding and investment tools let you wait until you know you’ll reach a certain level of capital, or customers, before any real resources are at stake.  The costs of entrepreneurial failure are falling.

The psychological costs remain high.  You have to be able to see your venture as an exploration, not as an indication of your worth as a person.  You have to simultaneously be so passionate about your idea that you can’t stop working on it, but so open about what might happen that failure won’t kill you.

If you make a go of it and fail, it is possible to reap amazing rewards in the process.  The analogies are endless.  95% of first attempts to ride a bike probably fail.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever ride a bike, or that you should wait until first-try success rates get higher.

If you are only interested in launching something that has a very high chance of success, it’s probably not a good idea to pursue it.  Failure will ruin you.  If, on the other hand, you are so excited about an idea, product, service, or vision that you feel you must give it a go even if it fails, just to discover for yourself whether it’s doable, then it’s probably not a bad idea to try it.  Ask yourself, “If I knew this idea was going to fail, but I didn’t know how or why, would I feel better having tried it to learn those things than never having tried at all?”  If the answer is yes, try it.

There’s a point at which repeated failures can begin to accumulate costs.  If you’re the person who always has a great new idea you can’t stop talking about, then two months later you never speak a word of it but focus on the latest idea, it will diminish your credibility fast.  The costs don’t come so much from failing, but from how you go about trying to succeed, how many other people’s assets you risk, who you blame and how you respond to failure.

Be real with yourself about the costs of entrepreneurial failure.  But be real about the benefits too.  How many people who make up the failure statistics are doing great stuff and living wonderful lives right now, in part because of the failure they created?  Sometimes the best way to the next level is to fail up.

There’s no rush.  Take time to immerse yourself in a lot of experiences, gain a lot of knowledge and self-knowledge, and poke your toe in the waters of the world a bit.  If you get bit by the entrepreneurial bug at some point, be realistic but don’t fear the failure.  It might be the best route to your goals.

Ask Isaac: Is Failure Good or Bad?

Today I take a question from Facebook follower Andrew Stover about failure.  I’ve written before about failure not being so scary, about willingness to fail being a great test, about failure to achieve your own goals as good when those goals change over time, and even about the benefits of entrepreneurial failure.  There are books and adages flying around lately about failing forward.  Yet entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, whose ideas I greatly respect, says all this talk about failure is a misguided “Silicon Valley bromide”.  Are these opinions in conflict?

I don’t think so, and I try to explain why in the podcast.  Failure’s not good.  But the fear of it is worse.

Thanks for the question Andrew!  If you have questions of your own, contact me anytime.  As always, episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.