Episode 12: Levi Morehouse on Ambition, Advice, and Enterprise

Yes, Levi is my brother.  But this isn’t nepotism.  He’s a highly successful entrepreneur.  His company Ceterus is growing and revolutionizing small business accounting.  He joins me to talk about why it took him so long to dream big, what greatness means, whether it’s for everyone, if giving advice is a bad idea, and how to balance being an entrepreneur with raising five boys.  (We had some issues with the levels on this episode, so I apologize for any drops or spikes in volume.)

You can check out Levi’s company here.

As always, this and ever other episode is also available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

The Power of the Subconscious

I’ve written before about one of my favorite books, Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation, and what it says about the subconscious mind being the key to scientific discovery, artistic expression, and other eureka moments.  Koestler describes a common process where those trying to solve a problem or create something new consciously wrestle with the ideas so much that they seep into the subconscious.  After some time away (sleeping, a vacation, a walk, other pursuits) the solution emerges from the subconscious into the conscious mind when least expected.

A friend was telling me recently about a similar observation Napoleon Hill made about those who write down and read or recite their goals regularly.  The goals, after being absorbed and repeated over and again, seep into the subconscious.  That’s when the real stuff happens.  The subconscious takes over, works on the goals, heightens your awareness to ideas and opportunities that move you towards them, and sends out a kind of invisible signal to the world that attracts people and things that assist you in the achievement of the goals.

This need not be interpreted as a mystical phenomenon.  How many times, after learning a new word, do you begin to notice that word everywhere?  How many times, after naming a child something unique, do you begin to hear that name regularly?  Once your subconscious has material to work with, it alters your perception and enables you to tune in to the things that best resonate with whatever is bouncing around in there.

This means that, whether or not you’re deliberately putting it to work, your subconscious mind is working.  What is it doing?  What problems is it solving?  What opportunities is it making you attuned to?  In what ways could you put it to work for you more effectively?

Do Whichever One Works for You

Follow your passion, or follow your effort?  Only go after what you love – your calling – or just knuckle down and get good at something?  I sometimes get asked which side of this debate I fall on.  I think that’s the wrong question.

It doesn’t matter which side I fall on, or anyone else.  It only matters what works for you.  Both approaches are true.  Who could disagree with trying to do something you love more than all your other options?  Who could disagree that working hard and mastering something is more likely to bring you the things you want in life than half-assing it?

These approaches are both valid.  They are both good advice.

Take the follow your passion advice.  The difficulty is that it’s really, really hard work to find what you love.  It’s harder work to be honest about what you find.  Harder still to do what it takes to achieve it.

Then take the follow your effort advice.  How to choose where to put the effort?  How to know when the struggle will yield long-term benefit and when it’s just useless suffering?

Both approaches still leave a lot of work to you.  That’s why it doesn’t matter which you pick.  When you hear someone giving one of these pieces of advice and you get excited and feel freed, that’s the one for you.  If you hear it and think it’s a load of BS, that’s not the one for you.  Go with the approach that resonates.

The Sleep In Your Car Test

We have a simple test for applicants to Praxis.  I call it the sleep in your car test.  There are people who are willing to sleep in their car to get what they want and those who aren’t.  We’re only interested in the former.

No, we don’t actually ask people to sleep in their cars.  Yes, we have an application and interview process that looks at intelligence, communication skill, evidence of ability to create value, and other skills and knowledge.  But those are relatively common compared to those who pass the sleep in your car test.  It’s about effort, grit, determination.  It’s about attitude and not being too good or too pampered to roll up your sleeves.  It represents that blend of wild, Silicon Valley idealism with down to earth, Midwestern work ethic.

The sleep in your car test is our way of identifying blue collar entrepreneurs.  The type who seek autonomy, freedom, responsibility, and growth, both personally and professionally.  They don’t need to be only in software or tech.  Self-directed living and entrepreneurial thinking aren’t only for the app economy, but they can only be had by those who care more about success on their own terms than the pleasure of the crowd.

We get it.  It’s easier to do what everyone else does and succeed within the confines of the given system.  All the smart people are capable of doing this.  But we don’t want just smart people.  We want people not afraid to ask why they’re doing it.  We want people who don’t care what will get them the easy applause of others, but only what will help them discover and create a life worth living.  You’ve got to have the thing.  If you know the journey might require hardships and you still charge boldly ahead, you’ve got the thing.

The world is awash in guarantees.  Those who seek guarantees, and worse those who trust them, are not the sleep in your car type.  The reality is that there are no guarantees.  There are only varying degrees of probability.  And the things with the highest probability of leading you to a life identical to the crowd’s idea of success are often those with the lowest probability of leading you to being fully alive.

This is a big adventure.  You’ve got roads to travel, ideas to explore, people to meet, things to test, challenges to face and overcome, failures to learn and bounce back from, and the kind of sweet success that can only be enjoyed when hard-earned.  If sleeping in your car for a dream sounds exciting, that’s a good sign you’re awake.

It’s hard to define exactly how we identify those who pass the sleep in your car test.  You know it when you see it.  It’s visible through attitude and action.  There’s something just a little different.  It’s not fearlessness – we’re all afraid – but the way in which fear isn’t treated as an insurmountable obstacle, but a game.

Are you willing to sleep in your car?

Fasting from Good Stuff

I grew up in a religious tradition that valued the practice of fasting.  I’d fast from food for a day (or sometimes two or three) from time to time, and I always found the experience valuable.  Regardless of religious significance, fasting has a lot of benefits.  Fasting from food for a few days will teach you a lot about yourself.  You’ll learn how strong your will-power is.  You’ll find out that emotional outbursts and lack of self-control are closer to the surface than you thought once nutrients are lacking.  You’ll go through ups and downs, and during the ups you’ll think more clearly and deeply than ever.  Perhaps most of all, you’ll become ridiculously attuned to and aware of food and all its visual, conceptual, and olfactory beauty!

I haven’t fasted from food in several years.  But the practice of fasting more generally is something I’ve found to be very useful as a way to help optimize my outlook and performance.

Our family has adopted “Screenless Tuesday”.  This is not some kind of puritanical or anti-technology exercise.  We just decided to try it out for the heck of it, not because of any particular problem.  We love it.  Even the kids, who in a typical day can be found all around the house on Kindles, laptops, iPhones, and streaming video on the TV.  They love screens, yet we all really enjoy screenless Tuesday.  It provides an excuse to do things we enjoy – in my kids case drawing, playing games and Legos, etc. – but that take more effort to get into.  It also makes us appreciate screens more, and use them with more purpose (especially on Monday and Wednesday).

I typically pick a day each week to designate as social media blackout day, where I never open Twitter, Facebook, or the like.  Again, not because I think these amazing tools are negative, but because I think they’re wonderful.  It feels good to challenge myself, and going without them brings so much clarity and understanding about what makes them valuable.  So many of the things we do and tools we use are never considered in depth.  We talk trash about them because we’ve never really considered how valuable they are and in what ways.  Going without helps clear things up.  It also helps reveal the aspects that aren’t valuable and makes me a better user.

I occasionally fast from other things for a day, a week, a month or more.  Caffeine.  Alcohol.  Cigars.  In these cases it’s typically because I value these pleasures so much I don’t want to become dependent on them, or mindlessly consume them without enjoying it.  When I realize I’ve had a beer without really noticing it or enjoying it, it’s time to reset.  I love these consumables too much to down them without real pleasure.  A week or two without coffee makes that next cup a divine encounter.

Just knowing you can do something for a period of time is powerful.  You gain confidence, learn discipline, and become good at working hard and succeeding by doing it.  And small challenges that you can do teach you the thought and will patterns needed to do it with bigger things.  You feel a lot of pride by picking something to fast from (not for guilt or shame or fear or the approval of others or disdain for the thing, but just because) and doing it.

Kevin Kelly, founder of WIRED magazine talked about this in an episode of the Tim Ferris podcast I recently listened to, and I love what he said about it.  He talked about abstaining not because the things are bad, but because they are good.  That’s what makes it an effective practice.

Who is College for?

Slightly modified from the original publication on Thought Catalog.

It is commonly assumed that everyone who can should go to college. Sure, maybe a few super-brilliant techies or people with a crystal clear path can skip it and do well, but everyone else needs to go, just to be safe. This is completely backwards. Most people can do a lot better than college. There are really only a few groups for whom college is the best option.

The legally-bound
Sadly, a number of professions have lobbied to secure barriers to entry in order to keep out plucky young upstarts who might undercut monopoly pricing. If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you want to work in one of these professions, you’ll need to get the magic paper. Just be careful not to let the paper do all the work. For the sake of your customers, try to get more than just the legally required credential. The most common jobs with degree requirements are lawyers, doctors, and CPAs. If that’s you, bite the bullet.

The well-to-do, insecure partier
College is a consumption good for some people. It’s a four (or five or six) year party covered by mom and dad. If you’ve got stacks of cash and your major goal for your early twenties is to chill at frat houses with a Solo cup, maybe you should go to college. Let me take that back. You see, you can move to a college town and party without enrolling. But if you’re really insecure and worried about not having official student status at parties, you’ll need to pay the piper. Tuition and sitting through classes are a small price for a well-off party junkie who can’t think of non-credentialing methods of having a good time. Go for it!

The parental pleaser
A lot of parents will be mad at you and ashamed to talk about you to their friends if you’re not in college. Luckily, most parents don’t care too much if you’re actually getting value out of the experience, as long as you’re enrolled and passing. If keeping mom and dad reasonably happy without challenging them to rethink what happiness means to you is your top priority, go to college. There’s nothing else with the same mystical power to elicit parental pride.

The college professor
If your dream is to be a professor, you’ve got to do your time. In fact, the entire education system top to bottom is optimized for the creation of professors. Every other profession to emerge from 20+ years of institutional education requires a deschooling process, because only academia plays by the same rules and incentives as the school system. All other industries are remarkably different, what with their accountability to customers and emphasis on value creation. If the system is your first love, and doing research and teaching within its walls your sole dream, do it. You can be an intellectual without a degree, but not a university-sanctioned professor.

The bureaucrat
Government isn’t known for rewarding merit, but it’s great at rewarding rule-following and form-filing. If you dream of reviewing building permits or vehicle registration documents, you’ll need a degree of some kind. The nice thing in this field is that the things you’ll do in school are pretty similar to what you’ll do at work. Comply and complain about the non-compliant. As an added perk, you really can’t be fired for being rude to everyone once you’re in.

The frightened 9-5er
If security sits atop your personal hierarchy of needs, and working for a big corporation with a massive HR department that specializes in sameness and risk-avoidance sounds like the life you’ve been waiting for, go to college. It’s changing, and a little faster than you’d probably like, but most big companies still filter out non-degreed applicants for entry level jobs that require a heavy dose of repetitive process-oriented labor. You’ll be competing with machines and software, but for the time being, there’s still a slot for you.

Everyone else
If you don’t fit into one of these categories, college may still provide some value, but it should in no way be considered the default option. There are myriad ways to tailor your own learning experience or gain skills, knowledge, and a network to discover and do what makes you come alive. College should be treated as one option among many, and no more or less valuable or open to scrutiny and cost-benefit analysis.

Are You Living on Purpose?

Humans are not like other earthly creatures.  We cannot live for only the biological imperative to survive and procreate.  Humans require purpose.  Lack of purpose is the greatest disease against which all of humanity must daily fight.  It is the one disease that will not and cannot be overcome by advances in medicine.

You can’t have purpose on accident

Our existence is couched in a series of accidents.  That we were born, when, where, and to whom are accidents (they were not accidents to our progenitors, but from our own point of view).  Our genetic structure is an accident.  The first language we hear, and therefore learn, and the first beliefs to which we are exposed, and therefore predisposed to, are accidents.  Purpose can not come from accidents.  We do not discover or live with purpose naturally, the way we grow physically.

None of these accidents are good or bad.  The simply are.  In your exploration and creation of purpose you may find that a meaningful life demands radical differences from the norms and beliefs in which you were raised.  You may find that it demands beliefs and norms almost identical to those in which you were raised.  Whatever the end result, the one consistent demand is that you choose it.  You cannot discover and live a purposeful life by simply following rules handed down to you, taking the path of least resistance, and sitting idly on the conveyor belt you were plopped on.  It’s not where it takes you that matters as much as who decided to go there.  If it was not your decision, you will never find fulfillment from it.

Suffering with and without purpose

Suffering is terrible.  It can also be valuable, in the same way the physical sensation of pain is valuable.  Without it we would soon die of unattended wounds.  Because pain is valuable doesn’t mean it’s noble or to be sought.  Psychological suffering is the same.

To suffer is no noble deed.  If the suffering is avoidable it’s a worthless or even cowardly thing to suffer.  If the suffering is unavoidable your response to it can be heroic.  There is nothing heroic about the suffering itself, but heroism can be found in someone who chooses to respond by finding meaning in unavoidable suffering.

Do not mistake your suffering for heroism.  If it’s at all avoidable, the heroic thing to do is to escape from it.  If not, create purpose in it.

There is no right decision

There is no decision that will give you purpose.  Your life is not a series of binary choices, with the door on the left leading to meaninglessness and the door on the right leading to purposefulness.  What you choose at each juncture of your life matters little compared to the fact that you, not someone else, choose.  You can’t find a perfect version of your purposeful life.  You have to create it by the undivided, definite choices you make.  Consciously choose to do things you value and find meaningful.  Consciously exit those that aren’t.  It doesn’t matter what you choose so much as that you choose.  Complaining about a path someone else pushed you down and against which you did not resist will not do.

Purposeful living is a process of exploration, experimentation, feedback, adjustment, and joy in the midst of it.  There is no pressure to get it right because there is no right.  There is better and worse, as determined by you.  It requires self-knowledge and self-honesty to find your own scale of better and worse.  It requires courage to abide by it.

Are you the 2%?

At any given moment 98% of us will choose – or rather not  choose – to live by default.  It is only the 2% who decide with definite purpose to act according to their own wishes who are really living.  How often are you among them?

Episode 11: “I Dropped Out of an Elite University and I Couldn’t Be Happier”

Zak Slayback was on scholarship at an Ivy League school.

Derek Magill was on the Dean’s list at a top tier university.

They both dropped out, and they’re both glad they did.  Zak and Derek join me to discuss their experiences and offer thoughts on the university system and what dissatisfied students can do.

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

When to Take Action

I’m highly action biased.  I get the frustration of identifying a problem or having a new idea and wanting to do something about it, good and hard.  I believe jumping in with both feet as soon as possible is always preferable to lots of analysis.  Still, there are times when the best thing to do is nothing.

This is particularly true when the problem is a grand one that affects all of society.  Just because you realize that there is something wrong with X system or process doesn’t mean there is an obvious and immediate action to take.  The realization is the first, often most powerful but also most fleeting step.  It’s easy for action biased people to get antsy and want to do something quick.  Start a campaign, write an article, launch an organization, etc.  Often though there is no clear vision, understanding of causal factors involved, or strategy.

Our culture is one that provides social rewards for any kind of action.  If you say you’re doing something to alleviate poverty, people congratulate you no matter how stupid or useless or even counter-productive your efforts might be.  Volunteering is deemed noble and effective, whether or not it’s either of these things.  The obsession with nonprofits and vilification of win-win for profit activities further incentivizes blind action.  Start a club.  Host a fundraiser.  Do something!

The most profound improvements in the world are typically born out of many years of following the initial identification of a problem deep down the rabbit hole.  Those who see something they don’t like and jump to do something come and go, as do the effects of their efforts.  Those who internalize the problem – let it steep, let it alter the way they think, pursue an in-depth understanding of the problem and knowledge of tried and untried solutions, and only act when the idea they hold is one that doesn’t just suggest but demands action – are typically the ones who best solve it.

There are a lot of dysfunctional beliefs and institutions around us.  Discover them.  But when it comes to action if you feel the itch ask yourself exactly what kind of action you want to take and why.  Do your ideas demand action?  That specific action?  Will you be unable to sleep without taking that specific action?  More importantly (and much harder) ask if the solution you have in mind can be obtained within the context of a for-profit business model.  If not, the odds that it will work are incredibly low.  If a solution is real, it will create value.  Non-profits can create value, but it’s much, much harder to know if they are and far too easy for them to do the opposite.  If the solution is political it’s almost assuredly going to do more harm than good.  If the goal is good feels, launch a nonprofit effort or lobby politicians.  If the goal is effectiveness, try as hard as you can to discover a way in which your ideas can generate a profit.

Until action is clear, and clearly value-creating, let your ideas direct you to further understanding.  Channel your hunger to act towards the act of learning more.  When the time is right and the idea is ripe you’ll know.

Soylent Experiment

  

I rarely eat breakfast. When I get up I want to get started on writing and the day’s work immediately. Plus I hate the prep time, and I’m not ready for solid food for a few hours after waking. So I often skip breakfast only to be ravenous at 10:00 AM. 

Lunch is my favorite time to catch up on small stuff, quick emails, read some articles, share things on Twitter, etc. Food prep is annoying and eating out gets expensive and often makes me feel sluggish, not to mention the time cost.

I’ve tried some protein shakes and such, but all are insufficient for a meal, costly, and taste bad. The best breakfast solution thus far has been homemade bone broth, but it’s a lot to make a batch and freeze it (I should say it’s a lot for my wife, because she’s the one who’s done it!).

I’ve been excited about the concept of Soylent since I read about it a few years ago. It’s logical. Food is made up of chemicals. Break it down to its most basic form and tinker with different delivery mechanisms.  The distinction between eating (for survival) and dining (for pleasure) is interesting to me, and the option to treat them separately if desired is freeing.

I ordered a box of 7 packets (one packet pictured above), which each contain 4 servings. Each serving is a 500 calorie meal with essentially all the nutrients an average body needs (obviously each body is very different in needs, so it’s a very rough average).  I know, just like that scene in the Matrix.

My order was $85 and shipped in two days along with a nice container to mix and pour from. It comes to about $3/meal. A good deal when you compare to most lunch options, decent compared to breakfasts.  It’s pretty simple. You just add water and shake. It’s an inoffensive beige color with virtually no smell and very little taste. Creamy and a bit gritty. I kind of like it. 

I plan to eat it for breakfast every day and lunch most days over the next few weeks. When I’m done I’ll post about the experience.

Most commenters on Facebook seemed to overlook the value of the concept when I shared the picture.  “Why would you want to replace delicious food with this slime?” assumes delicious food has no downsides. When I’m working and in the groove eating is a huge pain. I don’t want to have to stop. I don’t want to have to prepare or go to the store or a restaurant. I don’t want to have to pack frozen burritos the night before and wait by the microwave.  The more convenient lunches don’t taste that good anyway. If I’m going to just mindlessly munch a mediocre frozen burrito, trying not to burn my mouth or get grease on my laptop, why not just pour and drink a single glass of Soylent and be done with it?  If I’m not really enjoying the food then I’m not missing out anyway.  This isn’t competing with a juicy burger or steak any more than a new car is competing with walking shoes. They’re different products. I’m not looking to replace the good kind of eating, just the lame kind. 

I love food. I love the experience of dining. But during my most productive hours I’d rather not have to enjoy food until I’m relaxed in the evening. Since my body doesn’t do well without food for ten hour stretches, Soylent offers a potential solution.

Look for a recap in a few weeks.

(And no Sci-Fi fans, it’s not people). 

The Doomsayers are Right (but so are the optimists)

One hundred years of horror

The first visitor looks grim. He tells you that “the war to end all wars” will soon begin. It will encompass the globe and destroy millions of lives. Cities will be decimated. The Great War will have a scope and level of brutality never before imagined in human history. It will be followed by economic collapse, political upheaval, and tremendous human suffering.

A decade later, the largest economies in the world will teeter, then collapse. Hyperinflation, panic, stock market crashes, breadlines, and financial ruin will be the norm. Hunger, poverty, and desperation like no modern society has ever experienced will span a decade. Before recovery, war will break out again — this one even more catastrophic than the last. Tens of millions will die.

A new form of evil will show its head. Totalitarian regimes aided by advanced weaponry and propaganda machines will lead the mass execution of millions. Weapons of mass destruction will be created, and two will be deployed, leveling cities in minutes with effects lasting years. Governments the world over will grow in power and brutality. Control over all facets of personal and economic life will expand.

The second great war will end and economic growth will resume, but not without constant smaller wars across the globe. Government will balloon out of all proportion. Surveillance will become ever present, even in the freest states. Acts of terrorism will be all over the news. Inflation, regulation, and taxation will increase once again to levels rivaling those that led to the great economic collapse. Countries will go bankrupt, drowning in debt. Police will turn on citizens regularly. Finally, the first traveler concludes, all signs in 2015 point to another painful reckoning.

But the other traveler seems unfazed by his companion’s tale. “Do you have anything to add?” you ask hesitantly.

One hundred years of human achievement

He smiles and begins to recount the next century with excitement. Automobiles are mass produced. Soon, they are everywhere. Temperature-controlled vehicles, homes, and workplaces pop up and spread. New forms of communication that instantly connect people across countries and then the world proliferate at incredible speed. People get healthier and wealthier the world over.

Air travel takes over where automobiles leave off. Humans safely traverse the world many thousands of feet in the air. Appliances do all the most tedious, painful, and time-consuming tasks — and not just in wealthy homes.

Hunger is no longer a problem in developed countries, and it is increasingly rare throughout the world. Common diseases like polio and malaria are all but eradicated with medical and pharmaceutical developments. Average lifespan dramatically increases; infant mortality plummets.

Information is freed in ways never before imaginable. Every book ever written can be transmitted anywhere in the world through crisscrossing networks of data transmission. Humans enter outer space. Satellites beam information, video, and voices back and forth around the globe. Rich and poor alike hold in their hands devices more powerful than anything kings or tycoons of ages past could have hoped for.

Money and memories alike can be sent anywhere, anytime, easily. Anyone can learn anything without access to prestigious centers of knowledge. Gatekeepers for information are no longer impediments to human cooperation and progress. Laboring in fields and factories is decreasingly necessary, as a host of new and intelligent machines take on these tasks.

Finally, the second traveler concludes, humans focus more than ever on creativity, freedom, and fulfillment.

Who’s correct?

Both travelers have described the same future for the same planet. Neither description is untrue, and both are important.

It’s easy to feel confused by conflicting theories about the future. If you have a firm grasp on economics and political philosophy and get stuck in the political news cycle, it’s depressing. You look at the state of our economy and government intervention and see nothing but storm clouds on the horizon. There’s no way the mountains of debt, the constant currency debasement, the damaging social programs and interventions, and the buildup of regulations and nanny-statism can result in anything but an ugly future.

But if you’re up on the start-up scene, you hear tech optimists describing a future of 3-D printing, cryptocurrency, robotics advancements, colonizing Mars, and mapping the human genome, and you can’t help but see the future burning bright.

Both groups are accurately describing the possible and probable future, and there are lessons to be drawn from each.

Will history repeat?

There are striking similarities between today’s developed democracies and ancient Rome. Bread and circuses and political decay may lead to a Roman-style collapse. Then again, we have something today that the citizens of the Roman-ruled world did not: digital technology.

We are able to coordinate and collaborate via dispersed networks in ways individuals in the past never could. The centrally planned state, with all its military and monetary might, is a lumbering beast compared to the nimble, adaptive entrepreneur and citizen today. Yes, the state may use technology to spy and oppress, but always through a top-down management structure. We are a headless conglomerate of individual nodes, networked across the globe, that cannot be destroyed.

Maybe the US dollar will, in fact, collapse. Maybe states will go bankrupt. Maybe government services will fall into disarray. And maybe in the middle of it all, individual humans and civil society won’t even notice.

Do you remember how the Cold War ended? Neither do I. It just kind of did. Do you remember the great collapse of government-monopolized phone lines? Neither do I. Cell phones just emerged and it stopped mattering. The post office is in perpetual deficit. So what? Email and FedEx and Amazon drones will continue to make it irrelevant.

You see, striking as the similarities to great collapses of the past may be, history is not an inevitable indicator of the future. Collapse of government systems in an increasingly complex, market-oriented world may not spell disaster for society at large. It may spell improvement.

Problems are real … real opportunities

Take your knowledge of unsustainable government and extrapolate it into the future. Yes, these bloated systems are unsustainable. Don’t turn a blind eye and pretend it doesn’t matter. Instead, let the insights of your inner doomsayer inform the actions of your inner optimist.

Every government problem is an entrepreneurial opportunity. Stifling licensing or work restrictions or immigration bans can be overcome with peer-to-peer technology, the sharing economy, virtual work software, and more. Bad monetary policy can be sidestepped with cryptocurrency. Defunct educational institutions bubbling over with debt and devalued credentials can be ignored while private alternatives emerge. Clumsy socialized medicine, transportation, and communication systems are all begging for innovation. Entire countries can be exited — physically or digitally.

The innovators must be realistic enough to see problems with the status quo and optimistic enough to innovate around them instead of merely shaking their fists.

Informed optimism as adventure

It’s good to wake up to the tragic missteps of government policy that surround us. But if lovers of liberty only ever point to the problems, predict trouble, and head for the hills, the future may indeed be lost. If, instead, we see those problems as opportunities and talk about the possibility in front of us, we stand a chance. Optimism is a powerfully attractive force that invites bright minds to join us. As F.A. Hayek once said,

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.… Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

We must recapture the intellectual and practical adventure of not just demonstrating the failures of a planned society, but building the glories of a free one. Only then will the world look at us and say, “Why are you so optimistic? What do you know? How can I be a part of it?”

One hundred years from now

There are two stories we can see unfolding in our future. One of increasing political foolishness leading to dystopia. One of emerging technology and innovation leading to utopia. Neither is untrue. Both are instructive.

What would you expect to hear from a traveler from 2115? Which story brings out your best self and inspires you to live free and help others do the same?

We need doomsayers: they help discover and highlight the greatest areas of opportunity for optimists and entrepreneurs to seize on. Listen to them, then act to overcome or sidestep or make irrelevant the problems they predict.

Bonus Episode: What is Voice & Exit? Max Borders

Max Borders joins me on this bonus episode to discuss the upcoming “Festival of the Future” called Voice & Exit. We talk about what V&E is, why it’s important to provide a safe space for radical ideas, and how to criticize by creating.

Max is the co-founder of Voice & Exit and the managing editor of The Freeman.  V&E is creating an exciting environment where no idea is too big or crazy and humans are free to be relentless optimists and builders for the future.  This year’s event is June 20-21 in Austin, TX.

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

The Limitations of Cost-Benefit Analysis

It’s easy to assume a simple cost-benefit analysis is always in order for every important decision.  I’ve found that the more important and radical the decision, the less valuable c-b analysis is.  It’s often little more than a way to complicate things, stall a decision, add stress, and provide cover for a choice your gut tells you is wrong but you fear to pick otherwise.

When I think about all the biggest decisions in my life they all had a moment of crisis where c-b ceased to bring any clarity and I was forced to answer one simple question – the only question that really matters – do I want to do this or don’t I?

Whether considering marriage, moving to a new city, having a child, starting a business, or any other major life-altering action, c-b analysis is probably distracting you from being honest about what you want and doing it.  It’s possible analyzing the pros and cons can help you discover what you really want, but far more likely you know with your knower already, but what you want is scary or unconventional or hard to explain or justify to others, so you look for additional ammunition or an out.  Push all the clutter aside.  Throw away your two columned pros and cons list.  Sit down with yourself in the quiet and ask, “Do I want to do this or don’t I?”  Sit in it.  Imagine what choosing no feels like.  Imagine what choosing yes feels like.  Which do you know deep down you want?

Once you honestly know the one-word answer to “Do I want this?”, commit.  Resolve to do it.  Take some action that holds you accountable to your commitment. (Tell someone in private, make it public, etc.)  The rest will follow.

Cost-benefit analysis is great for picking a web-hosting service or a tagline – decisions that don’t affect the core of your being and that have a lot of small differences worth exploring – but it’s woefully insufficient and even counter-productive for deciding which bold steps to take on your life journey.  None of the pros or cons can really be known with any degree of certainty, and all the best decisions have more unknowns than knowns, thus fewer items that can fruitfully be put on the ledger.

Trust your gut.  If you want it, go get it.  There is no such thing as the perfect choice, or the right choice.  There is only what you want to take a chance on and what you don’t.

One of the Benefits of Writing: Better Reading

Let’s say you come across an interesting and perhaps controversial idea in an article.  If you share the quote on Facebook you’re likely to get a lot of comments about what it omits, or the other side of the idea, or the potential errors and pitfalls.  Even inspirational or thought-provoking little witticisms that do not pretend to convey the whole truth get scrutinized and poked at because of what they leave out.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with pointing out error or missing pieces or potential for misunderstanding, but it does severely limit your ability to take in new ideas.  Good ideas often begin as bad ones, but if you immediately look for what possible problems any idea could have, you’ll stunt the process.

If it’s easy for you to contradict or find flaw in every pithy quote, I submit that you might not be writing enough.  When you aren’t putting your own thoughts into the world often, it’s very easy to play critic and see problems with everyone else’s.  But once you start writing regularly you’ll discover just how hard it is to convey a thought while covering all of your bases.  You’ll find the very tough trade-off between making sure you’re not misunderstood and not going on and on forever or being so full of exceptions that you never communicate the rule.  Of course every sentence is not the whole truth of the matter.  Of course there are exceptions.  But if you want to write and think well, you can’t spend all your time listing them.

After writing a lot you’ll stop looking for perfection in the writing of others.  You’ll get better at the practice of charitable interpretation, where you assume the author is intelligent and has thought of your objection but chose to write what they did anyway.  See if you can discover why.  They must have assumed what they wrote was worth the risk of misunderstanding.  Why?  Writing opens your mind and creates a kind of empathy with other writers.  You know they face the same limitations you do, and you can more easily see the core value in their communication over and above any flaws or omissions.

The more you create, the harder it will be to simply sit on the sidelines and be a critic.

Episode 10: Steve Patterson on Physics, Paradoxes, and Patronage

Steve Patterson comes back to the show to defend his claim that popular conceptions of quantum physics are claptrap, paradoxes don’t and can’t exist, and that being accurate is more important than believing what feels good. He also talks about his experiment as a freelance philosopher.

You can find Steve on the web here, and support his work here.

This and every other episode is available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.