Random Recap for Health and Happiness

  • After a bad night’s sleep and a hard-to-get-going morning writing something – anything – always makes me feel better.
  • Current reading list: Be Slightly Evil, But What If We’re Wrong, Without Their Permission, The Graveyard Book, High Output Management, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Tempo.
  • There is almost nothing better than a new T-shirt that fits perfectly.
  • If you want to see just how petty and enthused I can get, watch a good sporting match with me.  If you want to believe I’m a largely reasonable human being, don’t.
  • Drying off after a shower is really annoying, especially in warm weather.  It takes too long and you never get totally dry.  I want a booth to step into with high-pressure air blowers like they have at car washes.  Maybe a dash of baby powder at the end to prevent any remnants of wetness?
  • I often dream of days where I do nothing but read all day, but in reality I can’t read for more than 30 minutes straight without needing to break it up.
  • All great stories take shape after the actual events occur.  It doesn’t look like a story while it’s happening.  The narrative arc is crafted in retrospect.  This is why what actually happens in real-time is less important than how it’s framed after the fact.
  • I’m still not sure any books about how a particular person or company succeeded are worth reading.  But I still read them.
  • Why do men seem to be more motivated by the idea that no one believes in them than women?  Or is this a misnomer?
  • If consumers are so dumb that they buy whatever marketers sell them, wouldn’t it be much scarier to give power to elites to curb marketing messages?  Wouldn’t hapless consumers simply look for orders from those elites instead?  Isn’t it less dangerous to have easily duped people in a world where tons of companies compete to dupe them vs. a few elites duping them “for their own good”?
  • Almost no one has enough faith in self-interest.
  • Preaching to the choir is far superior than preaching to anyone else.  Echo chambers and bubbles are more productive than going out of your way to step outside of them.
  • Reading people whose ideas you disagree with is vastly overrated.
  • Your gut is probably smarter than you think, but listening to it is harder than you think.
  • Steph Curry, despite looking great last night, is clearly still not himself.  I contend that his movement is still limited by the MCL sprain.
  • Olympic basketball isn’t that cool anymore.
  • “Entrepreneurship” is overused but there’s no going back so it might as well cease meaning someone who starts a business and take on the economic meaning of a descriptive category of action.  That still doesn’t mean you should describe yourself as one on LinkedIn if you haven’t started a business.
  • Now I feel better.  Time to kick this day in the butt.
Published
Categorized as Commentary

Episode 72: FwTK – Books, Rationing, Bandwagons, Failure Fetishes, and More

TK and I cover a wide range of topics and I kind of went nuts taking more mic time than normal.  Host privilege is real.

Mentioned in the episode: The Machinery of Freedom, Be Slightly Evil, Without Their Permission, Neil Gaiman, management books, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Herbert Spencer, Tempo, The Gervais Principle, The Obedience-Entitlement Matrix, The Matrix (movie), Moral Technology, Generation Z, Coursera, Gatekeepers, Google AdWords, “Faithfully” by Journey and lots of other stuff I’m forgetting.

Thanks to Zak Slayback for great ideas and recs, and Peter Neiger and Kelly Hackman for listener questions.

Recommendations: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, Social Statics by Herbert Spencer.

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

71 – Ten Minute Take: Strategy vs. Gut Instinct

*Yes, I’ve changed the format of the numbering and titles of episodes.  I hope this makes it simpler and more consistent.  From here on out every episode will be numbered with a whole number and the word “episode” will not precede it.  Sorry for the change and any confusion!

A few basketball inspired thoughts on whether following your gut is better than planning an elaborate strategy.

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

Published
Categorized as Podcast

Episode 70: Lemonade Stands > Latin, with Homeschool Entrepreneur Abbey Lovett

Abbey Lovett is a recent highschool grad about to start Praxis.  She’s always experimenting and believes entrepreneurship is more important for kids than academic subjects. She had a lemonade stand with employees at age of nine and grew hungry for more.

We discuss her education, the importance of debate, why her entrepreneurship camp failed, and how she made the decision to apply for Praxis.

Check out her blog at lovettup.com.

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

Published
Categorized as Podcast

Special Episode: *Three Important Super Serious Things*

Don’t play around when it comes to your life and decisions and society and goodness and science and the numbers and stuff.

It’s all really, really important.  Don’t be flip and glib with this stuff.  Do what the experts and averages tell you.

You’ll thank me when you’re fitting in snugly.

This episode brought to you by unthinking peer pressure and the age-old wisdom of non-risk taking self-proclaimed elites who fight diligently to keep you safe from your deviant dreams day in and day out. (But especially days in).

Published
Categorized as Podcast

Episode 69.5: FwTK – Heartbreak, Loss, Change, and Space

My family and I just moved to a new house and it’s been a surprisingly hard adjustment.  TK and I discuss how to handle moving, change, grief, and heartache, as well as what a sense of space means and how humans interact with light and their built environments.

Mentioned in the episode: Christopher Alexander, Too Many Dirty Dishes, Tim Ferriss, Peter Thiel, Aslan, In Defense of Metaphor in Science Writing, Jeff Till’s Five Hundred Years, George Lakoff, Your Brain is Not a Computer, Metaphors and Magic,

Recommended: Space and Place, Landscapes of the Soul, A Timeless Way of Building

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

Sometimes I Get Irritated

I can tell you right now it doesn’t matter what industry. There are tons of jobs available everywhere. Companies are hungry for talent.

But most job seekers suck. Most of them suck mostly because of years of schooling. It’s given them bad habits, fear, lack of confidence, arrogance, and monetary demands due to thoughtless debt.

Opportunity is everywhere. School is killing the ability of young people to seize it.

Screw school. Go do cool stuff. Go do hard stuff. Go do different stuff. Build things. Try things. Get good at things.

These Four Words Will Help You ‘Hold Strong Opinions Weakly’

I first heard the phrase from tech entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.

“Strong opinions, weakly held”

I love this concept. (In fact, I almost called my podcast, “Strong Opinions, Weekly Held”).  I had never thought of it in such a succinct way, but this approach has been valuable to me for some time.

The beauty lies in the ability to embrace the power of definiteness and the power of openness at once.  When you act, you can’t be of two minds.  You have to commit and proceed boldly.  But to understand the world you have to constantly learn, adapt, and grow, which implies shifting direction.

Here are the four words I employ to do both:

“As if it’s true”

When I am taken by an idea I act as if it’s true.  The “as if” is important, because it reminds me that I’m acting on the best available knowledge and that I’m fallible.  The “it’s true” is equally important, because unless and until being convinced otherwise I must decisively move forward.

One of the strengths of this approach is the lightened intellectual burden and the enhanced importance of experimentation over theory alone.  If you have to settle on complete truth before translating it to action you’re unlikely to act.  Action is one of the key factors in generating the feedback necessary to know if your ideas are correct.  And on the other side if you only ever act on an idea without reflecting on the feedback you’ll crash and burn if your initial hunch was wrong.

When it comes to something really big like launching a business I think the core idea or purpose of the business – the “why” – must be something unchangeable.  If it turns out the “why” is wrong, better to quit and start an entirely different business than to try to “pivot” to a new purpose.

But the how and what are subject to change.  You don’t plan to change them, or pussyfoot around waiting for a focus group to give them to you.  You arrive at conclusions – opinions – about the world and act decisively, while holding onto them weakly.  You act as if they are true unless and until it’s proven they are not.

New information, new competitors, and new ideas are never a threat but a welcome opportunity.  Any chance to firmly disprove your theory means a chance to improve.  But put the new stuff to the test.  Always operate as if the current theory is true until it is completely clear it’s not.  Don’t just get scared or take someone’s word for it that your approach is obsolete.  Act as if it’s spot on until you know it isn’t.  But always be eagerly looking for evidence that it’s not.

The “eureka moment” is valuable.  Don’t let it get lost in a sea of analysis.  But that doesn’t mean you have to never let it adapt.  Move forward as if your initial insight is true while constantly scouring the globe for reasons it mightn’t be.  Act on your current truths while adding to them.

To hold strong opinions weakly, act as if your current knowledge is true until you know it’s not.

Episode 69: Robin Hanson on the Coming Age of Robots

Special thanks to show producer Lav Kozakijevic for his tireless work editing, posting, and adding show notes for each and every episode!

We live at a time when artificial intelligence is booming and major breakthroughs are happening, with a lot of people thinking about what is coming and how will it impact society. Robin Hanson is an economics professor at GMU with a background that ranges from philosophy, to physics and computer research.

He joins me today to talk about his book ‘The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth’ which is shipping as we speak, where he outlines what he thinks will happen when humans become able to emulate a human brain in a machine. We discuss what are the things that might be different, what are those that will change less than we expect, and how social institutions will change once AI reaches such a level.

Don’t skip his blog overcomingbias.com and you can order his new book from Amazon here.

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

Published
Categorized as Podcast

Newest Book Now in Audio Format

Why Haven’t You Read This Book?” is now available in audio format!

Huge thanks to Mitchell Earl for his work narrating the book and getting it added to Amazon.  You can get it with an Audible subscription.

Additionally, Mitchell setup an awesome way to get any chapter from the book for free here.  Since each chapter is a totally unique story from a unique author, you can simply pick your favorite and listen as a stand-alone audio essay.

Episode 68.5: FwTK – Wishful Thinking, Delusion, Coding, and Language

Today we discuss my threatening letter from the municipal business license office, TK’s appearance on the Tom Woods show and some critical comments he received, whether believing in your own power is delusional, why wishful thinking is the source of all the good stuff, why faith is not the absence of logic but a remembrance of it, whether coding is a skill every will need or no one will need, old-timey radio voices, and more!

Mentioned in the episode: Rebecca Black, Child’s Play, Become a Rich Employee, Web Browsers Beat GPA’s, Shaquille O’Neal shooting threes, C.S. Lewis, Marc Andreessen, Game of Thrones (no spoilers), and a lot more I’m probably forgetting.

Oh, and believe it or not, this is the 100th episode of the podcast!  Why is it numbers 68.5?  Several episodes like “Ask Isaac” and other special features are not numbered.  But 100 total episodes posted nonetheless.  Make sure to rate and review us if you like it!

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

Published
Categorized as Podcast

Apprenticeships Aren’t Just for Welders; Startups Aren’t Just for Coders

I make the case over at the Praxis blog that apprenticeships, especially at startups and growing small businesses, are the best possible way to learn and build an awesome career.

Be around people who are doing what you want to do.  Create value for them.  Don’t just theorize, but practice.

“There is no better way to be a part of something meaningful, to learn what entrepreneurship means, to get a great job, and to take the first steps in an exciting career and life than to apprentice at a startup.

Not everyone wants to write code.  And startups need more than just coders.  They need people who love people!  People who want to learn marketing, sales, and operations.  People who are eager to contribute to a powerful vision and help it grow.

If you want to build an amazing career and be a part of the entrepreneurial Renaissance there’s no need to wait on the sidelines or blast out resumes and hope.”

Check out the post and check out Praxis if you want to build a great career today!

“I Hated School but Thought I Had to Do More of It”

One of the youngest participants in the Praxis program, Charles Porges, was just hired on full-time at his business partner, even though he’s not even halfway through the apprenticeship.

No one, Charles included, assumed someone straight out of high school could be doing amazing work in project management and analysis at a growing startup.  If you’re not loving and excelling at formal schooling, how can you build a career and succeed in the market?  Turns out the opposite is more often true.  The academic-focused world tends to devalue what the market values and vice-versa.

Charles’ story is inspiring to me.  Not because he got a job without the debt and waste, but because he’s happy and fulfilled in a challenging, meaningful work environment.  That’s what it’s all about.

I’ll let him tell the story.  Here’s what Charles shared with the Praxis group:

“Yesterday was my first day of working full-time at my business partner.

Words cannot express how ecstatic I am to be in the position that I currently am. Every single day of work is extremely valuable for both my business partner and myself. Not to mention, I believe deeply in the product, and my boss is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. Every one of my interactions with him has been both positive and meaningful.

This time about one year ago, I was in online high school, dreading every second I spent in front of my computer. My days were filled with meaningless assignments, time-wasting projects, and a feeling of hopelessness.

And not too long before that, I was in public high school. I felt like I was in a prison for forty hours a week, and on parole when I had to complete hours upon hours of homework. Most teachers were up to par with your average DMV worker, and almost none of my peers shared my ambition or intellectual curiosity. I was nothing short of depressed, and there were many days where I wished I simply didn’t have to wake up in the morning.

Ever since I joined Praxis, I’ve felt like I have been living a different life. Not only am I free from the cage of state-mandated education, but I know that every action I’m taking is for the purpose of creating a better version of myself. My Praxis advisers have been instrumental to my success in the program so far, and I would like to thank them for all of their guidance. I do not know where I would be without this program.

I only wish that I could talk to my younger self and tell him that there is another way!”

If you want to apprentice with a startup, get coaching and rigorous personal development, and learn by doing, let’s talk about Praxis.  Whether you’re coming out of highschool like Charles, in college and wilting, or have a degree but aren’t happy with your career prospects, we can help.