#329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms

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Slash Tim. Check it out. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and gyms. This is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers. of all different types across all different industries

And areas of expertise. In this episode we have Jason Freed on Twitter at Jason Freed, F R I E D. Basecamp.com. He is the co founder and CEO of Basecamp. Previously known as 37 Signals, a Chicago-based software firm. The company's flagship product, Basecamp, which I've used for many, many years, is a project management and team communication application trusted by millions.

He's also the co-author of Getting Real, subtitle The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application, which is available for free at gettingreel.37Signals.com. He's also the co author of the New York Times bestseller Rework. And remote subtitle office not required. There's also a new book. Coming soon. It doesn't have to be crazy at work. And you can actually thread those

Together to tell a lot of this story. Jason writes a regular column for Inc. Magazine and is a frequent contributor to Basecamp's. popular blog. Popular is an understatement. Signal versus noise. which offers quote strong opinions and shared thoughts on design, business and tech. End quote. Yeah.

Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Tim. And we have we have traded so many email over the years and uh certainly met on uh on a handful of occasions, and you have to be one of the most requested guests for this podcast. So I'm thrilled that you were able and willing to make the time. So Many.

to everybody who wanted to hear me. I don't know why, but it's it's great to hear that I'm wanted. Well I think part of why People Like to hear from you.

And maybe it's a love hate thing, but I think that what you said to me before We started is indicative. So one was In response to what I always say to guests And that is you have final cut, so it's better to kinda go a little over the edge and we can pair it back later. And you said, Actually, I don't want that much control. Whatever I say should go out into the world. In effect, uh is what you said, and and you are known for being very raw.

And contrarian. uh which which I think has great appeal to a lot of people, particularly in uh the current climate. uh that we don't need to describe for everybody to understand. And I'll start given that With a quote from Jeff Bezos, the trillionaire in the making behind Amazon. Quote Jason is immune to dogma and has much to teach.

In thirty seven signals. He has built an elegant company with elegant products based on the idea. That less is more. Now of course this is before We went from thirty seven signals to base camp. But

I'd I'd love to talk about this this immune to dogma. component and we could certainly talk about less as more Jeff ended up investing in your company, which is a whole separate story that we've we've covered in some respects with the conversation I had with Uh your your partner in crime, D H H separately, so we won't dig into that, but

What I'm really curious to know is This immunity dogma. ability to question assumptions How much of that is an innate skill versus An acquired skill.

Um, I guess it's hard for me to say from where I sit, but I think A big part of it is that I don't really pay attention to a lot of things. Actually. So um

Maybe I have different points of view because I haven't heard the other ones. Or I I have different points of view because I haven't let uh you know, society's norms and the general point of view uh get into my head, so I have to come up with my own ideas. I've always sort of

I pay attention to some degree, but I'm I'm pretty oblivious to a lot of things intentionally, because I I don't want to be influenced that much. And it's one of the reasons why I don't Read industry news. I rar read very little news in general, but I definitely don't read industry news. I don't want to know what everyone else is doing. Um I find it's very easy to

End up Following and being like everybody else when you're constantly hearing what everyone else has on their mind. It's very hard then to fight against uh that so By not filling my mind with other people's ideas. I have nowhere to go, but

To follow my own And I think that perhaps that's why. um I'm immune to to dogmas. I just don't even pay attention to. You just don't have as much exposure. Yeah. Intentional. Yeah. What are what are some of the parameters or rules for yourself? structures, systems, anything that you've put in place.

to find that Sweet spot of deliberate selective ignorance, so to speak. Yeah. Uh Um A lot of it is just kinda going with the flow and not having I don't have a lot of structure. For example

Um I I don't have routines. Uh I don't uh I don't have any goals. I've never had any goals. Goals are not something that I I pay attention to. Um I just sort of do. uh what I feel like is the right thing to do in any given situation.

And I don't I don't look long term at things other than I want to, for example, be in business over the long term. I'd like to live over the long term. I'd like to be nice and getting better over the long term, but I don't have goalposts along the way. Um so because of that And because I don't have much of a of a routine I sort of just take it as it comes and uh

I think that also m perhaps allows me to sidestep a lot of the ways you're supposed to do things. You know, and because I don't plan and because I don't think too far ahead on any individual one thing, um I I I just able to sort of go where I need to when I need to. Uh and I know that's it's

It's funny because I I've talked to a lot of people about this, uh And people come on, you must have some goals like, you know, this or that. And I really, really don't have any. And I can't remember ever having one. I I just Like do the best I can in any given situation and That's the best I can do, and however that ends up

playing itself out over time is how it ends up playing itself out over time. I I don't want to measure up uh One of my favorite quotes is um Gosh, I forget now who it is. Um Maybe it's Mark Twain, but you know, he's probably said everything or everything's a tribute to him, but um Could it could have been uh it could have been Abe Lincoln. Yeah, or Einstein, one of them, right? Um uh uh basic comparison is the death of joy.

And Uh I love that quote because uh it it comes down to people, it comes down to situations, and it also comes down to goals and setting goals for me. Um, I don't want to compare myself to an idea I had two years prior. you know, of where I wanted to be. I don't know where I'm gonna want to be in two years. So to set a goal that's long term In some cases you're actually setting it for, you know, who you are.

When you set it versus who you are when you're gonna get there. And that's something that uh a friend of mine told me once and I thought a guy named Jim Cudall, who I thought was just it's a wonderful quote. I don't know if it's his or someone else's, but it really rang true. And so that's kinda how I how I go about the world. Well let's let's look at that in A real world example, because this is This is something that

As I'm sure you've experienced and as you noted. People react to with a certain level of disbelief, right? You have a s a profitable company, seventeen out of seventeen years, or now what I read may be out of date, but however many years out of however many years. Yeah. And uh you have an organization. I you

are are successful certainly by almost any objective measure. What did the last week look like? We're recording this on a Thursday afternoon, so we're coming up to the tail end of what most people would consider a business week. Uh And if you don't have goals, you must have some means of making better decisions versus shitty decisions. Uh so

Can you Mi walk us through. Yeah. Вот Дик. has looked like for you, how you've spent your time, which yeah, I know is very broad, but we perhaps you can use that as a launching point.

Yeah, this week was a little tricky because I had some personal stuff I had to deal with in the beginning of the week. So we'll take like the last the week before or something like that. Perfect. Um Um so You know at Base Camp We work in um What we call six week cycles.

So we are we don't work in anything Yeah. Okay, I'm generalizing, but for the most part, we don't work on anything that takes longer than six weeks to do. So um

goals technically are to deliver something great within six weeks, whatever we're building. um as a as an organization, that's sort of where our goals are. But our I I don't have personal goals uh like I don't have a goal like if we I we don't set personal goals. We don't set company wide goals in terms of uh like

I did. This feature will be successful if Or uh You it it if it brings in this amount of money, it'll be worth it, or anything like that. Um our our goal if you do want to use the word is just to do the best job we can.

So last week I was I met with uh a a couple of teams who were doing some projects and kind of reviewed them with them and tried to help them through some problems. Work through some ideas. We're just finalizing some some um some stuff on our book. So I'm working on the book that we're we're finishing now, our manuscripts due in a couple weeks. So I did some of that. Um

But but really it's all about What we're actually doing at the moment versus sort of the big picture as to why we're doing it, other than we just want to do a good job, we have an idea, we've set out set out some work we're gonna do over the next six weeks and just helping people get there and do the best we can and also make decisions and cut things and say We can't do all these things we want to do. What what's the important part of this? So I love trying to get to what's the most important part of something. Versus

You know, we don't have any for example, we don't have any KPIs at Basecamp. We don't have key performance indicators. Yeah. I I didn't even know what that meant, by the way, until recently. Because I kept heard everyone talking about them. I'm like, Do we have those? And I go, Oh no, we don't have those. So we don't have those. So just to pause for a second. So for people who are like, What? TPS reports? So KPIs K KPIs are referred to very often in Startup. vernacular, particularly in the tech world, as key performance indicators which refer to

the few or handful of metrics That are prized and most valued within your company. And that that could be revenue per employee, it could be

uh monthly unique users or any number of other things, week on week growth of X, who knows? So sorry to interrupt, but just for people who don't come from that world. Uh so you don't have K K uh KPIs. Don't have that. We don't have revenue growth number targets. We don't have we don't have tar okay, so we don't have goals, we don't have targets. We don't have KPIs. We we don't have Um

sort of those kinds of reasons for doing what we do every day. Uh, the reason we do what we do every day is because we enjoy doing it and we wanna make what we're working on better. And we're making the thing that we're making for others, we're also making for ourselves. So we technically want to make our own tooling better because it helps us do better job w with what we do. So it really is this day to day or week to week or every six weeks sort of rolling thing where you you you set out some stuff you want to do, you do it the best you can. At the end of those six weeks, we take a week or two off from scheduled work.

And we do other things at work. We roam around, have new ideas, play with some stuff, and then we pick another set of projects to do over the next six weeks. And we just kind of go as we go and course correct as we go and we just don't have any of these big big picture things. So My weeks look like feedback, my weeks look look like thinking, they look like writing. They sometimes it's requires me to debate things internally with people.

Um uh you know to to to lay out uh Some some reasons for why we're doing things, but My my week is is not uh pointed in any one direction other than what we're really doing right now. So it is very much a day to day sort of existence.

Um which which is why it's sort of an incompatible existence with goals, with long term goals, you know, with with with figures and and numbers and stuff. I also d I don't want to be upset about expectations. So another thing I don't have are any really any expectations. Um I would hate to, for example, let's say let's say the company was we were expected to grow twenty-two percent next year. I'm making up numbers here, right?

And we grew twenty one. Like That would be a reason in a lot of comp means to be upset. That is a ridiculous reason to be upset. Like how would everyone be upset with that?

When you set out these numbers and these goalposts and these goals and and and these expectations and you don't hit them, then you're just then you're upset. And once you've actually either hit them or not hit them, then you come up with another set. And you just keep moving these these these moments of um Possible joy. But most likely disappointment in a lot of cases. And I just don't feel like setting those up for myself. So I just ignore the whole thing. Okay. Uh I've I've I've all of these various bits and pieces that I've gathered through research and I suspect that I'm just gonna get hung up on a couple of things I really want to explore and that's just gonna be the way it goes. Let's go into it.

There are many people listening who Are familiar. With base camp. And

the blog and so on. And are saying I would love to have a company or product as successful as Basecamp, but I don't know how to go from where I am, which is goal oriented, having KPIs, etcetera. To perhaps the other end of the spectrum which is closer to Jason. So

I suppose embedded into that is the c is the question of should they even want to emulate that. But but secondly, if someone said, yes, I've decided I want to move more in that direction, what might be A step they could take, or steps they could take. to inch them a little bit closer. to

Uh where you are and and a little further away from oh my god I wanted to hit twenty two we we hit twenty one we're a failure. Right. Well, first off, I do want to make it really clear that this is simply what works for me. in our organization. So

I am not suggesting this is the only way, the best way, whatever. This this works for us. So if if what works for you works for you and you're very goal oriented and KPI driven and you think, you know You need to to m the the things you measure the thing or whatever it is. I forget how that saying goes. Um what you what you measure is what you move or whatever. I don't know. What gets measured gets managed. That's the one. Right. So So if you're if you're like that and and you think that things are great for you and things are working well for you. Please do not even consider changing. Like

Keep doing that. I think though If you're doing all those things and you feel A sense of sort of a lack of fulfillment or your

maybe consistently disappointed or you're reaching for things that you can't seem to grab. Um I would suggest, you know, trying A little bit trying some of the things I'm suggesting, which is pull back your expectations a bit. Um Just sort of try to set out to do the best you can versus uh try to measure up with a number that you've made up. And that's the other thing that I I think is important here is that.

Any projection that you set out. To to hit. Is a guess. Like you're you're you you personally are making or someone in your organization or whatever is making a guess. And they're picking a number.

And they're saying this is where we think we should be because this is sort of what we did last year. And because of that, we want to do a little bit better this year. And But all this stuff is still just man made. N none of these things are are are inherent in in existence. They're all man made things, these numbers, these goals, these figures. So if you can begin to strip that back and sort of recognize that that's the case and say, like what if I tried to function without setting any of these, but I just did the best work I can anyway,'cause isn't that what I should be doing anyway, no matter what.

So my suggestion would be As with anything, um, I'm not a a big fan of of trying to massively change anything at once. So I think um My suggestion would be like whatever the next project you have that that you're working on. Um, if you would normally set out some goalposts or set out some some figures to hit or whatever, or measure this.

Just try not measuring one of those things. Just take pick one little tiny thing that you can throw away and not worry about. And see what happens. And you'll probably find that the that the sky isn't falling and the business isn't cra isn't crashing and people aren't running aimlessly around not wondering what to or wondering what to do. That actually in fact, Um, people will if you if you explain why you're doing it, because you want to make this better, because simply you want to make it better and you think it could be better, or whatever, and you lay that out.

that people will be motivated enough by that. that that that the numbers and the figures don't necessarily They're not the things that are pulling you forward. What's pulling you forward, hopefully, is your intrinsic motivation and your and your desire to do a better job at what you're doing and and the and the sort of appreciation of the craft and the respect of the work that you're doing and who you're doing it for, and that that's kind of enough. And that

Everything else is sort of a side effect of that. Um, so anyway, I'd say pick one little thing, throw it away, don't worry about it, and see what happens. You'll probably find out that everything's just okay. And then maybe you'll have the courage to try it with another little thing that you are measuring that you don't really care so much about. And I know I'm well aware that this flies in the face of a lot of people's um worldview and and maybe even yours. I know you're big into measuring things, especially health wise and whatnot. So again, I think it comes down to also most importantly knowing who you are and what what matters to you and not trying to be like somebody else. There's a lot of people trying to be like other people and

Um, I don't want anyone to try and be like me. You should be like yourself. And if there's five percent of what I'm saying makes sense to you, then maybe you can pull that in and make that part of you too. But I don't think you should be out there trying to be someone else,'cause that's a bit of an artificial uh situation. Well you may have uh you've you've mentioned directly and al alluded to Perhaps A few things I'd like to underscore just for folks listening.

The the first is that When you when one reads a quote or hears a quote, like what gets measured gets managed Uh It can often be taken to mean that you should manage everything and therefore you should measure everything.

And that there is only upside in measuring. Mm-hmm. But that's simply not the case, а and For instance whether it's the I remember Andy Grove, I believe it was, of Intuit talking about how for every

metric that you track and hold people accountable for, you have to include, identify And then also assess the perverse incentive you've created uh by imposing that metric. So if if if people respond to incentives and you create a metric

humans being humans, they will look for easier and easier ways to say goose that number up or chop that number down and you have to be aware of

uh what what that does to their behavior and so on within the company. But secondly measurement there there are things worth measuring and then there are Things not worth measuring that can become vanity metrics that people use just to Feel productive.

uh instead of being productive and just to point uh to one thing that you you mentioned, which I think a lot of people Uh would assume of me that that is I uh I physically track a lot of things all the time and not to say you assume that, but

Uh there's a point to my tracking, which is identifying what works for, say, my physiology, what harms me based on my genotype, or whatever it might be. And then I and then I just Stop the vast majority of measurement and do it very intermittently. So the

Uh the The follow up to that I'd love to ask. For people, since you mentioned you don't read much if any trade

publications or news. What do you read? What are you reading? And maybe that's another opportunity for people to pair back on a I'm not gonna say thougless, it's too judgmental, but a a habit that perhaps consumes a lot of time w without adding much value.

Uh so what do you what do you if not that kind of stuff, what type of stuff do you read? And what are you what have you been reading recently or what are you reading? Yeah, I'll I'll let me get to that in one second, but I had a thought about the previous question, w w sort of the genesis of this for me. Is um I used to do a lot of jogging.

I still do a little bit, but um I kinda had some knee surgery a while ago and so I've sort of not been doing it as much. But I remember um trying to hit certain times. Like I wanna um Yeah, run a Six and a half minute mile or whatever it was at the time. And you know, I'd go out and I'd run

uh a six minute mile and forty two seconds. And I remember being disappointed by that. And and I remember feeling like Wait, why should I be disappointed in that? I'm not running a race.

I'm not competing against anybody. I'm sort of competing against myself, but I set that up for myself. That's not something I had to do. Like I created that. Moment. To be upset. What if I just went out and ran because I enjoy running and just kind of run the best I can every time I run and

And just Do that. And I found that I started doing that and I enjoyed it more. And didn't mean I didn't run faster or slower. I didn't even necessarily know and it didn't really matter. I could feel whether or not like it was a good run. Like that was a good run. I had a good run today was sort of a much better way to figure out my sort of satisfaction than to measure it and say it was a six minute and forty two minute run versus a six minute and thirty eight second run.

Uh Yeah. And I think that that's kind of where it sort of came into play for me. in business too. So I think I pulled it from that. I wanted to share that because I just remembered that that that was sort of a moment. And I don't remember how old I was when I did that. It was probably actually in high school or early in college or something where I started to think that way. And that's maybe where that where that came from too.

But anyway, I wanted to get that in there. Um Uh reading. What do I read? Well Um You know I started reading the paper more.

Uh, which is like the newspaper. Not not not online news sources, but actually the newspaper. And this happened because I was at a hotel. Uh this is a few years ago. I was at a hotel and you know, you go to a hotel and they ask you, check in, they say, you know, J would you like a newspaper? And I used to always go, No, newspaper. Who who reads newspapers anymore? Yeah,'cause I get all my news on the internet, which is instant all the time. And the thing is most of that's not actually news, it's it's entertainment.

Um I think the news Like once a day is actually a a perfectly good pace for the news. So if you get the news in the morning. Uh, you're basically getting all of yesterday's stuff that happened in the world that wasn't that someone, you know, some editors decided was important. And uh and and they just said they put that in the news, they print it, and then next morning you get it. Um

And then if you wait another full day to get the news again. Pretty good chance. Uh that you didn't miss anything, actually. by paying attention to things All the time.

Very few things happen during the middle of the day that you really absolutely need to know that you can't wait for the next morning to know. And so I've realized that the newspaper. It's actually a a better way to get the news because it's better the pace is better. Um it it prevents you from Searching and seeking out

News that you don't need to know about necessarily. It it prevents you from um playing the the sport. I call it like the sport of information. Like trying to to to know more than everybody else and be like be faster to the latest story than everybody else. So that that's turning into a sport. And in fact, the news is presented, if you watch any any news channel now, it's presented as a sport. I mean you've got these Chirons going across the bottom, these graphics scrolling across. You've got talking heads that are sort of

debating it it you could turn on ESPN or you can turn on CNN and and if you hid the logos you wouldn't couldn't tell the difference really. And um so so news coverage has turned into sports coverage and vice versa. And I just would rather Say like once a day is enough. uh of a of a general um interval for me to

Be relatively well informed. About what's really going on in the world. Also at the resolution that matters. I think the other problem I'm I'm having by the way I I look at Twitter and I click on links here and there and I read some stuff that I like. But but for the most part, um

I'm not trying to find out what happened an hour ago. And that to me is actually the real advantage to something like the newspaper, where you simply cannot find out what happened an hour ago. Because what happened an hour ago in most cases doesn't matter. Now you could say What if there's a national disaster or a major tragedy or school shooting and your kids at the school like there's all sorts of moments, of course, where Real time

truly does matter, but for the most part it doesn't matter at all. And in fact it's worse. Because you become Uh there's the fear of missing out. Like I I I I think of it as as Jomo, like the joy of missing out. I'm happy to miss out. I'll miss out on those things. Did you come up with that? Yeah, I mean that's in our new book. Which is like

It just It's great. I don't need to know all this stuff all the time. And and yeah, again Like look, if there's a if there's a m like I'm I'm in LA right now. If there's a mudslide like coming to my house, like I should know about that, right? Obviously. But that's something that might happen every, you know, hopefully never, and maybe once a decade. To say that I need to be informed real time about anything that could possibly happen anytime, because that one thing might happen once.

That's just a recipe for anxiety and I try to avoid that at all costs. Definitely. Yeah. a fan to give one example of a book titled Seeking Wisdom.

From Darwin to Mongo by Peter Bevellin. Uh Could you Describe Or just explain why you like that book, which is also one that I love. It was actually sent to me by uh Derek Sivers of all people. Uh folks can look him up, Tim.blog forward slash Sivers if you want to learn more about him. But Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevlyn.

Great book. Can you explain why you like that book and any other books that uh that that you're also fond of? Yeah, so um it's been a while since I've read that. So a book review would would be really embarrassing. But what I'll tell you is this Um I love uh Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.

Is the I what I love about those two Guys. And of course this book is not written by them, but it's sort of the the the spirit of it, which is This very c clear, direct No bullshit.

uh way of writing. This very sort of simple folksiness that you know what? Life really necessarily I mean, I know this is a broad generalization, but In most cases It's not that complicated.

We tend to make things very complicated and we tend to make things very hard on ourselves, but really there's some basic fundamentals of many things that if you kind of understand those, You're in pretty good shape and you don't need to go much further than that. And I love that kind of wisdom. I love old people in general, so Warren Buff and Charlie Munker or I think Munger's in his nineties now and Buffett's in his eighties, but they've always had this kind of wisdom which is this

Old s school almost farmer's almanac style wisdom. And I've always been Attracted to that. Because I I think Complexity is also become a sport. Where

It's like the more complicated something is, the the better You know, the better you think you are at it. Like if you make it more complicated, you're better at it or something. And I I just think it's kind of the opposite. So I love those guys and that book to me sort of highlighted A lot of that kind of thinking.

Um, and so anything that that Munger's written I love reading like Warren Buffett's letter to his shareholders, which I think is a is a must read for anybody. A hundred percent. I agree. Yeah. Forget even just business people. Just if you want to read clear writing. uh if you want to understand what it's like to communicate something At a high level. Uh, you've got to read what he writes. So that's the kind of stuff I love to read. I love to read I like Bezos' shareholder letters as well for similar reasons. That's the kind of stuff I'm really interested in. I don't read uh fiction.

Et all uh And maybe I'm missing out there, but I I just my argument is always that I feel like the The world is so interesting on its own, uh, that there's more than enough I can read about real stuff. I know some people are gonna just hate me for this and I and and I always get Hate on it. Um

I I just would rather read biographies or I'd rather read about nature, I'd rather read about that stuff, um, because the the the world is fasting as it is. So Those are the kinds of things I'm into, um, these days. Uh and you know, I've been reading I know you're in deep into this now, I've been reading a lot about stoicism and and be getting into that. So that the um Uh the um Is it the a Art of Joy ancient Art of Joy or something? Uh yeah, the Art of Joy by William something or other. I'm blanking. I'll put it in the show notes for everybody, which is a compilation of

Both I suppose excerpts and samples, but also in interpretations and applications of stoic philosophy. Loved it. I want to say Irvine, William Irvine, maybe. That's it. That's it. I think you're right. I think that's it. So I read that recently or last year. I really loved that. I've been getting into bit of that. Um I know that's the kind of stuff I'm into these days. Um Why is that? Um stoicism or just Stoicism.

Yeah, um it just resonates with me. Uh a few a few basic things, by the way. I don't need to go that deep into it again. It's not like I need to go super deep into the the you know the whole the whole world of it. But basically Th things like you know, y you you pretty much only have control over your reactions to things. Yeah, that is That in itself is enough.

I could stop there. Uh I I I go further, but I could stop there and say that is extremely Poignant, especially today. I see people You know Getting so wound up.

uh about what other people say and what our other people do. And uh, you know, when you s when you begin to see that what they're actually being wound up about is their own reaction to that thing, not the thing itself. The thing itself, you know, yeah, maybe it's terrible, maybe it's great, whatever it is, but it's it's how you sort of respond to it and how you allow it to to affect you. That's deep and really important, and I think put one of the best lessons I've learned in the past few years. So there's that. Also, just negative visualization, I think is a really wonderful tool and I and I'm paying a lot of attention to that in my life. Can you just for people who who aren't familiar with that, would you mind Describing that just in brief, what that is, negative visualization.

Yeah, as far as I understand it, at least, it's basically figuring out what the worst case scenario might be in any given situation and coming to terms with that. And sort of realizing that probably in many cases it won't be as bad as you think it could be. So Get get used to the worst thing. And David and I talk about this occasionally, right? So DHH and I talk about this in the business. Like What if we made some grave, grave, horrible errors? So the business has been in business for eighteen years. And what if like or what if the competition destroys us or whatever? Like what if we actually go out of business in two years? Like what if that actually happens? We don't want that to happen. What if it did? Like What's the worst thing that would happen? Well

It would be terrible. Because a lot of people would lose their jobs and that would suck. But We think a lot of people work for us would have no problem finding other jobs, so that wouldn't maybe be so bad. Um I would have no income and Dave would have no income. That would suck, but we've done pretty well for ourselves, so we could live we could live fine without that.

Um we couldn't do what we love doing every day. Well, that would kinda suck, but maybe we could still do it, just not in that capacity. And you know what? A twenty year run isn't so bad. Like if we only made it twenty years in business, that wouldn't be so bad either. So just thinking about like what would be the worst thing that could possibly happen and then you know recognizing that probably will not happen, it just helps you

I think calm down about that. Um And it's sort of Avoid this constant set of worries. In some ways you sort of get all the worrying out at once. And then you go about your day and go, Well, if that happens, then it happens, at least I know what that's gonna feel like or what I think that might feel like. It's not that it would eliminate all the the feelings and there certainly would be other negative feelings I may have missed. But for the most part I thought it through.

And I I feel like I can probably cope with it now if that actually happens, versus Having something surprise you. Um in the moment and having it be real. that can be really traumatic and really difficult to handle. So that's my general understanding of that at least. That's a great description. Definitely. I think it's a great description. And just by analogy, I was just thinking this uh

uh where I do a lot of recording and I did a episode with the I uh A former MMA fighter, but also uh s special forces sniper named Tim Kennedy and uh he's a beast of a fighter and a fascinating guy, but he was saying Oh, in my bag right now I have X, Y, and Z firearm. I have enough first aid that I could

patch you and the videographer together if one of you had an arm chopped off. I'm looking at how I could block the doorway in case of A, B, and C, and he's having he knows exactly how to assess the situation in specifics. And the reason that I bring that up is as you were describing this negative visualization. I was thinking to myself It's something akin, metaphorically speaking, to taking a fear. Let's just say you have a semi nebulous fear of something going wrong. And let's say that fear is then embodied by a person, and that person says I'm going to destroy you. And then You run away and all day or all week you're thinking, Oh my God, that person's going to destroy me. How are they going to destroy me? And there's this

ambiguity that's really stress producing. But if you were to sit down with that person say, Okay, I know you're gonna destroy me, But I wanna know exactly how you're gonna destroy me. Well first like I'm gonna ambush you at the corner of second in Colorado, and uh I'm going to try to hit you. with this type of bat. You're like, okay. Now I like know where I know

what they're gonna do, I have a I can start planning a response, right? Or they say, you know, I'm gonna s beat you to death with a nerf baseball bat, and you're like, that's actually not gonna beat me to death at all. And and you you start to realize how recoverable A lot of this is. uh almost all all of these fears are either completely unfounded or completely recoverable. or preventable. And uh it's it's really

G Arguably the most valuable thing I have learned from any type of Reading of philosophy is This Negative visualization, which

I tend to do in written form, uh a lot uh in an exercise that I call fear setting, which people can Google and find for free everywhere. Uh but uh I'll stop my my my my soapbox speech at this point about the fear setting and negative visualization, but it's extremely powerful. And I think this is particularly true At least in my experience. If you come from a family as I did of worriers, people who spent a lot of time

focused on the future with a high baseline of anxiety. And whether that is uh innate to my code, to my DNA, or simply an adopted set of behaviors and beliefs and

Thougatons, I don't know. Maybe it's a combination, but it's it's really been Hugely, hugely helpful. Yeah, you know, I I feel like that's similar. Uh I I feel like I worried a lot and I still do. I still battle with this. And I do p kinda feel like it is a battle actually in a sense, um, with worrying. Um

And I don't I've stopped worrying about myself, but I uh I have a three and a half year old now, so I I worry I will Worry about him. And I find myself uh

Uh realizing that like Kids are actually really quite resilient and I I shouldn't be worrying so much that that things are gonna be just fine. And it's actually a really good practice for me to to use negative visual negative visualization. Um, when I'm worrying about things like oh he's gonna go go to school and get sick and then he's gonna have the flu and then I'm gonna get the flu. And if I get the flu, then I can't do this and then whole how my my wife's gonna get the flu and she's pregnant and then like You go through all this stuff and it's like

Yeah, that could happen. And you know, I can't you can't stop it. I can't prevent like kids kids go to school and they get sick and like you might get sick and like okay. But if you think about how bad it can be, you start to really ruminate on it versus like Yeah, that could happen. And if that happens, it happens, you just deal with it and live with it. And And I but I I I remember before I got into this negative visualization, I would actually

Worry. A lot. And what's cool about negative visualization, I think, is that it clears the worry out of the room, in a sense. Like you give it a worry, like you worry about it for a while. And then it's then it's over. The worrying is over. And I think that's the key insight for me in it. Which is it gives me a moment to say, Yeah, okay, I'm gonna worry about this. I'm gonna worry about it as bad as it could possibly be, and think about how exactly horrible it could be.

And then I can then I'm done with that. And that's The difference Compared to consistent Low grade.

Always on worry. where you never have that moment where you can really confront it until it happens when it usually doesn't. Definitely. And I looked I looked up the the title of the book. The author is William B. Irvine, like Irvine, California. The title is a joy Wow, I can't even read it correctly. Oh here we go. A guide to the good life subtitled The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

And it is a fantastic introduction to stoicism and by itself, if you never read another book on the subject, extremely, extremely helpful. Yeah. You mentioned s you mentioned your Uh your son. Right? You have a you have a sign.

And I'm curious if we if we turn back the clock. Do you remember the first time you got in trouble or any memorable early memory? Uh Getting into trouble. Oh my God, I got into so much trouble when I was younger.

Um The first time though. Um I remember the first time I Cr so hard that I almost couldn't breathe. You know that crying where you like hyperventilate? Yeah. I'm trying to remember why. to happen, but I'm sure I did something really bad uh and and

I think my my uh my parents like reminded me how bad it was or something and I got really scared. I think I I don't remember how old I was, but I remember that moment. Um I but I I

I got in a lot of trouble when I was younger. probably should have gotten in more trouble. I probably got away with too many things as well. Um but uh I I got I got into a lot of trouble, like my parents would have to pick me up at the police station when I was younger. When I was younger, like I'm talking like Fifteen. Like that kind of thing.

Or fourteen. Junior h actually junior high was bad. Like What is that, thirteen, fourteen, something like that? Fifty there, yeah. Yeah, I was I was really bad. I I kinda got in with the with the bad crowd and and and started doing some bad stuff. Um Although it wasn't so bad. What type of what what what were the offenses? Let's get specific. Okay. So

It's actually entrepreneurial stuff. Um side hustle. Yeah, side hustle. Oh continue. Sorry, I'm just imagining the expression you just made, like the wince as I as I said that You know me well. Go ahead. So I was um I don't know when the entrepreneurial bug bit me, but it it bit me early and um

I loved Um knives and like throwing stars and like switchblades, although I couldn't get those'cause those are illegal. Um I just love that kind of stuff. How how old are you? If you don't mind me asking? Uh uh probably today. Today, today, yeah. Forty three.

Okay, so yeah, we so we're of the same uh vintage. Yeah. So I I I had too much caffeine, so I'm interrupting you, but the uh We grew up when like ninjas and breakdancing

Were as cool as it could as as cool as you could possibly be. And there was a catalogue called Asian World of Martial Arts. I don't know if you remember this. A W M A. Yeah. At that time, people like you and me. It was not infrequent that Young guys.

definitely mostly young guys would fantasize about throwing stars and climbing claws and grappling hooks. So just to set the stage. Yeah. Okay. Please continue. So you I somehow, I don't remember how this happened. Somehow Maybe it was my dad who got on this mailing list, or I got on this like and we were starting to get these catalogs at home. And one of them was that one. Another one was called Sportsman's Guide. Um there's a few other ones. What's kinda like army surplus y stuff, and I don't really m remember exactly how it all happened but

I started looking through the pages and there were these cool knives and s throwing stars and like Symbolistic knives like knives you could e actually like shoot with a spring, like crazy shit. Crazy stuff. And I just got into it and like tear gas and this kinda weird shit. So So is this I mean

A thirteen year old boy for me it was just the coolest thing in the world, right? I don't know why, but I was so into it. I started to take these catalogs. And make zerox copies of these pages. And then cut them out. And then reassemble my own catalogue.

Um And I would like re I would I would kind of scratch out the prices and and like put new prices on them. And then make catalogs which I would then distribute to my friends. My friends then Oh bye. These knives and stuff for me.

Um, I would then uh so I take these orders and I'd make an order form and everything. And I would take these things. And um this is back in like eighty five. I remember I got my first Mac in eighty five, and so I was like using my Mac to like print stuff out, my image writer or whatever I had at the time. And I'd make these catalogs and these order forms and print the stuff out and distribute it to some friends and they would like make orders.

I get the I get the cash from them. They everyone had like part time jobs, so they give me some cash. I get the cash. I would place an order through these catalogs for this stuff. I'd order it C O D because which I don't know if they have that anymore, called Cash On Delivery. I don't think they have that anymore, but I didn't have a credit card.

For those of you who are much younger and don't remember or don't know what this was. UPS could actually come to your to your house, bring a package, and you would pay the UPS driver. The UPS driver then take that money in put it in an envelope and then send it back to the company. That's how you'd actually buy things sometimes. So Anyway. I get cash.

I'd ordered stuff C O D. I'd fake that I was sick that day, stay home from school. I knew when it was gonna be delivered. The UPS driver would come. Um I would give him the cash. Uh, and I get these things and I distribute them to my friends and I would make profit.

Um and then I did that with like cigarettes and chewing tobacco and all sorts of stuff. And so I I kinda like then it then I had a bit of a reputation as a pyro because I love fireworks and fire and stuff. So I like Anyway, I got I got into a lot of trouble eventually, as you can imagine, selling Contraband to uh to fifteen year old boys in the suburbs of Chicago. Um

And then like, you know, I kinda got in with the wrong crowd and then like All sorts of weird things happen at some point. But anyway. Um Eventually like got that out of my system. But

I that's how I started getting into being an entrepreneur is that. And I love the idea of carving up other people's catalogs and making my own. And then I got a reseller's license somehow. And got into electronics and started being able to buy things at like dealer cost from these big distributors. And then like For example, radar detectors. So people could my friends could speed you know, sixteen. So like, let's go speed, let's go get a radar detector in our car. So I'd buy radar detectors at like cost.

Double the price on my friends,'cause they couldn't get'em. And telephone like cordless phones was at the you know back then like and then computer hard drives in the early days and then computers and That's kinda how I got into all this stuff. But

It was It was um It's funny'cause like the way I think about business today, even the business I'm in today Basecamp, I just see it as a continuation of when I was thirteen selling knives. Honestly, like it's all one business.

Where I I'm buying Or making the thing that I want. And then finding other people who want the same thing. It's the same business as it ever was when I was thirteen and is today. Um, I'm not selling illegal stuff now, but um that

Same spirit. And uh Anyway so I got in trouble. I don't remember when you know, I got in trouble probably before that too, but I My parents let me get away with a lot as an only child, so I think they'd let me get get away with extra an extra amount of stuff. Um

But uh those early days I think paved the way for me to really learn uh how how to you know how to sell things, how to market things, how to promote things, how to package things. how to mark things up and how to also charge for things, which is In a strange way

the the thing that's so deficient about our industry today, the tech industry, which is like a lot of people don't they don't a lot of companies don't charge for anything. They give stuff away for free and then they have to live with all these other um uh the negatives of of that, which we're even seeing play out in the news, you know, now. Um So anyway, I g I learned a lot of lessons from doing the wrong thing, let's say. You mentioned d a bunch of weird things happened. We're not we don't necessarily have to go into that, although I'm certainly happy to. I'll go into one of them. Let's do it. Yeah, yeah, because I'm cu and then you're like, I got it out of my system. I'm like, well, for a lot of people, they never quite get it out of their system. So there had to be, I would imagine That encouraged you to get a one. So let's let's go into one.

There was and there were. So first of all Um I had this friend I won't mention his name. But he was a bad influence on me.

Um my parents spotted him immediately, said this kid's no good. We don't we don't want you to be with this kid, but anyway Um, I I still was'cause he was cool and I wanted to be cool. Um Anyway, uh one day during lunch, um We put a uh

uh like a tic tac, like a mint. It wasn't a tic tac, but it's some sort of mint in this other kid's milk. Okay, it's cool. And um After he drank his milk we we told him this is again, I'm I'm so ashamed of this whole thing, but anyway. Um Oh, we told him that we poisoned him, right? Um it's bad. This is I'm just but and how old are you? You're fifteen? I was fifteen or something like that. This is kind of I mean I hate to say it, not to excuse it, but

sort of par for the coarse fifteen year old boy behavior. Yeah, it was shitty, but I'm just being honest. So we did that. We obviously didn't poison anybody, but like we told them we did, okay? And um It's funny'cause we it wasn't a bullying thing. He was actually a friend of ours. So it wasn't like it wasn't like we were picking on anybody. He's like a friend of ours and and we did this. Anyway In math class later that day, he passes out.

Because he was probably anxious and thought it would poison him. So Yeah. He has to get his stomach pumped because he thought he told he told the It's like he told the teachers and they like the police got involved that he'd been poisoned and I had to go down to the police station. My parents had to like take me to the police station

And all the shit and it was like It was it was a mint, you know, but it was it was we set this up in a way where where he didn't think it was. And so anyway. That was some of the shit I got into, and eventually. I got into that and a couple other things. Um

Евенчулі май пари лук. Um Enough. Uh, if you get in trouble again, we're sending you off to boarding school. Um, which means you're you're go you're away from all your friends and you're away from us and the whole thing.

And it was that statement alone. That changed everything for me. I don't know why either. Uh I I didn't even know what boarding school was. It probably sounded kinda cool. Like I get to go away and sleep away. Like there's something kinda almost cool about it in a sense like when you don't really know what it would be. But they said it in such a stern way that it was so clear that this was not where I wanted to go and what I wanted to where I wanted to be. The tone made it clear it was not desirable for you. Yes. And that was the moment.

When I basically I I I went back to my old friends who were awesome. Um I never really left them, but I kinda sorta did. And and they were very cool about it and they kind of welcomed me back, basically. And I just stopped doing all that shit. I just stopped it. Um, and it sounds like how c how could I have just stopped it, but it's probably because

I I wasn't really it was sort of this the stunt that I was pulling And not really what I wanted to do. It was just kind of a fun thing, and then I realized that there were consequences. And once I realized there were true consequences, I I uh I changed it and and I I think that was kind of the The thing for me is that um

Especially when I was younger, I would sort of Do things I remember like So I went to Hebrew school, like after school. I and I hated it.

Absolutely hated it. Because it was like two hours, Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. I wasn't religious. My parents weren't really either, but they sort of it was just sort of something that everyone in the neighborhood did and I kinda did and it was out of respect for my grandparents were more religious. Anyway so I went to this thing like two days a week after school. And I would ru I remember I remember my dad telling me once that like

Um'cause I was I was kinda bad there too. I was extra bad there. I would always like question the teachers, like, Well, wait, prove it. Can you prove that God exists? Like stuff like that. I was just being an asshole. You know? And because like I was just pushing them because I knew like you couldn't prove it. And I was just being and so that was just like a being difficult. Anyway, um I got in trouble and my dad's so surprising to hear. And so my dad my dad's like, you know

It's like You shouldn't do this, but I just want you to know, like, none of this goes on your record. You know the record you always I don't know if you ever threatened. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I always find this. I didn't have a exactly pristine record as a kid, so Yes, I had the The record. And there is no record. That's the thing. But I didn't know it at the time until my dad's like so my dad's like, you know, this isn't gonna go on your record and that actually like made me do more bad shit. Um, and eventually I got kicked out of Hebrew school.

Um for for like Doing some other stuff, which I really won't go into. Gross insubordination. Yeah, basically. And they just had enough of me and they they knew I had enough of them. And the whole thing. And they let me like go through and do get my bar med sph. And they like let me do that, but they're like, just don't come to school anymore, okay? Um, creative differences. Yeah. So anyway, um all those things like at some point I just I I my parents kinda said boarding school or your or you know, stop or this and I stopped. And um you know

Back then I I I You know I uh as as high school kids do you drink a bit and this like I got that all out of my system also. Like all that stuff I kinda got out of my system and That's kind of one of the reasons I didn't really like college, because in college everyone was experimenting with stuff for the first time in in a sense. I feel like I'd already been through all that. And so the social experience in college was was actually really boring for me and and almost felt childish actually because I felt like I'd been through it when I was a child, and now I see everyone else doing that. And so I didn't really enjoy college at all for that reason.

Um, and I just sort of kind of muddled through and got it done. Um and then By that point I was already doing website design, like uh freelance. I had a software business that I had already started on the side. selling software that I made to organize my own music collection and All the stuff I started started doing and to me, college was actually just getting in the way of me getting out there and and doing the things that I really wanted to do.

So you mentioned organizing your Music collection. And uh we we could dig into that. I remember reading a story about it People could send you in twenty dollars. uh to

Get. Audio file, right? They would do upload to AOL. And so I read the story of getting this You were getting this envelope from Germany or some other country, the air mill envelope that I'm sure some people have seen with the red and blue around the edges. And uh

Mm. Lo and behold, right? Order form. twenty dollar bill. Like big deal. Was that the first time that you

Улай, холі ще. Like. I could do this, or I'm an entrepreneur, or I'm successful. Like do you remember a a of these many entrepreneurial Experiments and ventures that you've

been involved with was was there a particular incident that stands out like wow Holy shit, like this This is something that I can actually make a living doing. I could do this. Yeah, the twenty well, first of all, I never thought about making a living. Really, but I thought about

What was different about the the the software getting twenty bucks in the mail for for software that I made? was that was the first time I realized actually let me step back. I'd I've been selling stuff before, right? We talked about that, like th throwing stars and that shit. But I had to do work for that. Like I had to work. I had to make a sale each time. I had to get inventory each time. I would sell inventory. I have to get more inventory. I have to go out and convince my friends to buy more shit, right? What was different about the software thing was that

I could make this thing once. I could put it out there into the world. And a lot of people could pay me for it. And I could In a sense

Make money while I was sleeping. I didn't think about it necessarily that way. I do like I can look back on it now and and say that's what I felt. I didn't feel it that way, but I what I did realize was that I could make something that I wanted. Um, I could put a lot of effort into it. And put it out there and let it speak for itself. And if people liked it, they'd be happy to pay for it.

And that people are happy to pay for things. And that like I don't have to go out and Sell each one. I could put it up and people could buy it from all over the world when they find it on their own. That was I think the distinctly different thing for me at that moment versus

Everything else I'd done in the past was sort of one off sales. Including like You know, eventually I was doing some like logo design and website design, which came a little bit later. Uh after well actually uh I'm not sure what the timeline was, but Even that you have to find a client every time and you gotta find someone new every time and the whole thing.

Um And and software was different. And That's probably And that's what I do today, is I make software, we put it out there and technic technically you're making money while you're sleeping because

It's running and people pay you on a monthly basis and uh, you know, y you kinda make it once and put it out there versus although of course you're making it every day, you're changing it and tweaking it, but it's you know, it's still the same spirit. So that was the big change for me, I think. Um And then You know. I I

I realize that um Th the the the deeper realization though again is that like I don't Yeah. I can make this for myself. I can satisfy myself. And that

Then the next step is to find other people like you. Versus Trying to dominate an industry. And I think this is a fundamental thing that we have today at Basecamp, which is I have no interest. Дічай та ми в новост і домиating ані он. We don't land I I'm not out for land grab. I don't know what our market share is. I could care less. It doesn't matter to me.

Uh none of this stuff I'm not looking to put any competitors out of business. I'm not looking to to to be number one. None of that stuff matters. What matters is Can I make something that I like? Can we put it out there to support our costs and make more money than we spend.

And if that means we have one percent market share or point one percent market share. Fine with me, I don't care. If it means we have fifty percent market share fine with me, I don't care. None of that matters. Um what matters is can I w can I build build something I like? And Can it be sustainable and can it fund our our continued development and endeavors? And

That's also with the music thing,'cause I made it for myself. I I was loaning out my C Ds And tapes to friends. And never getting them back. And I forgot who I loaned them to. And so I'm like, Well what maybe if I organized this, I could like have an inventory of all the stuff I have. You know, bootlegs and CDs and the whole thing. And whenever I loan one out to someone, I'll just like

Note the date. And who it was and then I'll have the I'll build a system that will send me a reminder about that thirty days later. And I can go, Hey, hey, Bill, remember that CD that I let you have? I said you I need this weekend, like I still don't have it. And then I would get all my stuff back.

And so, you know That's kinda what what what I've been doing ever since is is building stuff that that works for me. Yeah. So I want to Tell a story through your words.

about how the world welcomed you with open arms and immediately started buying everything that you had to sell. So I I'd like to read a bit of text here. Oh. Okay. Uh and I'm pretty sure this is Not a misquote since You uh typed it out and sent it to me.

Uh some time ago. Here we go. Way back in the nineties when I was getting started as a web designer, I sent my work into an award site called High Five dot com. At the time it was the shit, if you were awarded a high five award, you were recognized. Now I sent my stuff in and I'm gonna leave his name out just so I don't have anybody chasing me around. The guy who ran it emailed me back. I don't have the original email anymore, but basically he told me I sucked. I had no business being in the web design business and that I should never email him again. That rejection filled me with so much fire, not anger, not resentment, not disappointment, but fire. Fire to kick ass and prove his impression wrong. I loved the rejection it made me.

And That was in response to question I asked you which was how is a failure or a parent failure set you up for later success? That was in my my last book, Tribe of Mentors. And my my question about this, and you can certainly Take this anywhere you want. If you want to elaborate, correct, do anything else. But

My question Uh Speaking personally as someone who has struggled with anger. I mean I I spent so much of my childhood being bullied really badly. I was born premature, really, really small and with a lot of health issues up until about sixth grade. That

I I built up this anger that I used as fuel to then later compete and fight and do all of these things so that I Wouldn't you. be taken advantage of again, effectively. I mean there was just a coping mechanism.

And now I've realised that Anger is very often not helpful and that it is the acid that damages the vessel. Not That which it is poured upon, right? So the the the line, I'll read it again, that rejection filled me with so much fire, not anger, not resentment, not disappointment, but fire.

Yeah. How In what was the self talk that made it fire and not anger or resentment? If that makes any sense. How do you transmute?

what could be a negative response into something that's actually helpful in a case like this. Yeah, I remember that distinctly because Um It was the first time I got enough courage up to sort of submit work to a d to a award site thing. And

The rejection was so uh in your face, like you suck, basically don't do this. Um That it Because it was so

It was almost a caricature of a r of a rejection. Like to reaction someone would be like, You suck, don't do this. Like no one would ever say that, but he did. Um That How it just it almost made me laugh and be like I'm just gonna prove you wrong. It was that kind of energy

Um, that was the fire. Like I I've always in those cases I've always responded to um those sorts of moments as as as as motivation To prove somebody wrong. Or to like Prove myself right, maybe.

Uh and maybe that's sort of the bit of the flaw I still have to work out, or one of those two, but I I just wanted to to say I okay. Well, fuck you, I'm gonna show you that I can do this. And I don't even know. I don't I shouldn't even care, right? Like now I realize that this is kind of like my reaction to someone, like Who cares about this guy? Who cares what he thinks about my work? Um, it's also tied to the fact that like I I just

And I know you know look. Um Obviously I come from a a position of privilege to say this whole thing, but like I've just I don't let people offend me. And I I have been in situations

Where uh like for example, I'm I mentioned I mentioned earlier, I'm Jewish. I remember in college some people called me a kike. Which is a fucking horrible slur. And I I've I've had people like I've walked by a penny and they're like, Oh, you should pick that up. Like I've I've had some of that. Shit, right? Um and It's like it doesn't matter to I don't care. Like I don't it's to me That kind of stuff.

uh just does never upset me.'Cause it's like that's just a reflection on the other person's i ignorance or point of view. I've never let that kind of stuff get to me. And I think that Is that something your parents in instilled in you? I mean that's not the no that's not the most common reaction. Yeah, I don't know where it came from. I don't know where that came from, but I've just never

I've never Remembered ever feeling offended by anyone sort of slight at me. For whatever reason. And like look. Yeah, I I'm you know, I'm five seven, so I'm a relatively short guy. Like there's been those kinds of things that that you have. Like there's all sorts of stuff. that that that you get, you know? Um and I know a lot of people have it way fucking worse than I do. So I I

I totally get all of that. I'm just using like look all the only examples I have are my own, right? And so But I I but I've been in those situations where I could see someone flipping over it and be like, Wha f what the fuck? That's the horrible thing to say. And how could you ever say that to somebody? And I've just never felt that way. I've felt like okay. That's where you come from, fine. That's fine. Like I I I don't really even have the energy or the care to try and set you right or whatever. It's not my job. I don't really want to do it.

Um I y it is what it is. It kind of just r uh bounces off me in a sense. Um But one thing one reaction I have had is is motivation. That's the thing that I've always had when someone says I can't do something or Or I'm not this enough, or I'm not that enough. it's motivation to prove prove that wrong

Um, and I don't know if it's the the the the dark and dirty side of it is like is it actually revenge or is it motivation? And I'm not sure that I necessarily know. uh what that is. Maybe I think it's motivation, but maybe it's more revenge, which is a pretty crappy uh emotion or whatever that would be called. Um but Um I never do it.

Trying to hurt somebody. So Maybe it is motivation, not revenge, but I'm not totally sure to be honest. Um But I don't know where it came from, uh But

Um I just never remember ever being angry about something that someone said about me or how they've judged me or whatever. I just never really cared. Well to to maybe provide a contrast to that It's um

It seems like you have an abhorrence for wasting time. It seems like you have a strong dislike. uh for wasting time and you've you've talked about this before, written about it. What rules for yourself, commandments. systems, anything do you have in place to help minimize time wasting?

So something I I I think I mentioned I wrote this up in your book actually as a response is sort of um First of all getting better at saying no is is critical thing to begin with. And being honest about the things you really want to do and things you really don't want to do and not sort of just doing things because you feel obligated because it'll make someone else feel good. Like who knows how someone else is actually going to feel. It's sort of presumptuous to suggest that I should do something because it'll make someone else happy. Uh, it's actually kinda hard to know what makes people happy and and uh so I I try not to

I try not to go down that road because I think you can find yourself in in a difficult spot. And Yeah. It's it's it's really hard to do. Um So

I've just tried to get better at saying no and really recognizing the things I like to do and I don't like to do. I've kind of Describe My s my life is a weird description of my life, but partial description of my life is like I just try to do everything I can to avoid hassles. I don't like hassles, and to me hassle is like something I don't want to do in the future. It's almost never something I have to do now. It's something I have to do in the future.

And so something I've been getting better and better at is Is is basically just being honest with people who ask me to do things far, far in advance. And say I can't make commitment that far in advance. I know that you need a commitment that far in advance. You're planning an event or you're doing I I totally understand that, but I

I I find that Um, I tend to Um uh this is a strong word and it's not fair uh to what other people are doing, so it's gonna come off strange, but I I don't think of it in terms of That that they're what they're about to do isn't worth it. But I I tend to regret things that I say yes to far in advance.

Because Not because of the thing itself. But because it actually prevents me from having opportunities to to to explore other things in the moment when I get there. That I might be more interested in doing. So

This comes back to the goal setting, perhaps. Maybe it's all the same thing, which is that I don't know how I'm going to feel Six months from now, on Friday night at four o'clock. uh speaking uh you know where I'm scheduled to speak at an event. Maybe I'd rather not be doing that six months from now. The only way I'm gonna know that is to basically wait until that moment and decide whether or not I wanna do that. But of course I can't cancel on people.

if if I've if I booked events, you know. So I've just I've just found in in my life that The things I put on my calendar,'cause it's so easy to put something far in advance on your calendar'cause it's it costs nothing. In a sense Um, it doesn't take any of your time now. It doesn't take any of your time next week. It's like, you know, four months from now, sure, I'll do that. And then it comes up on that, and like, I wish I wouldn't have said yes to that, not because of the thing itself, but because

of the feeling of of being now obligated to do something that I may not choose to want to have done in that moment had I had the choice then. Or now. Can you give us some sample language or just a basic

Kind of template that you would use to polite decline. Yeah. Politely decline something. Somebody hits you up. Let let's just say you actually know them. They're like, Hey Six months from now on such and such a date we're having this event A B C impressive speakers are coming, would let that blah blah blah. Right. So then what does your response look like? Well, I mean sometimes I will say yes, but most of the time I'll say

I'll say you know, thanks for writing. I appreciate the invitation. Um I can't book anything that far in advance right now. I I have a hard time filling my calendar six months ahead of time or something like that. I'll p Let me think about the language. Basically I would say I'd say uh um I

I can't book anything that far in advance. Um Sometimes it's because I'll I'll be specific, like my wife is pregnant and I like you know, like that's too close. So I can't do that. But there's other times I'm just like, I just can't book that far in advance. Um

If if there's an opening closer and you need someone, like let me know then. Um, I'd be happy to do it, or perhaps another time, but six months from now is it's just too far out for me to book things. Is kind of what I'll say. Um And

You know Uh I I always try to First of all, it's an honor to be invited to anything. The fact that anyone wants to hear me talk is is still surprises me. Um and it so I I'm always appre I always appreciate it. I'm sure I always make sure to lead with that. But then I just

I I'm honest about it, which is I can't put anything on my calendar that far in advance. I can't book things that far in advance. Um also another thing like for example um I've been asked a lot recently to speak uh internationally in and um And I'll just tell people which is true. Like I I just don't like to travel internationally for business.

Um, if I wanna go somewhere, I'd I'd like to go somewhere because I, you know, for personal reasons, but I I don't like to travel internally for business. So I'll just say like I I'm just not traveling internationally for business right now. It's not something I'm really doing. So I appreciate the invitation again. If you ever have an event in the United States, let me know. That kind of stuff. Um 'Cause I think if you just make up stories, it's just why? Why why not just be honest and and and and clear about it and And you know, people are very understanding, actually.

They go, I totally get that. Um, hey, if we have an opening, I'll I'll let you know. Uh, if not, no big deal, maybe another time. Uh maybe there's some other thing we'll have coming up that's that's sooner. I said, Yeah, of course, let me know if something's sooner. That'd be that'd be great. So I kinda do it that way. And by the way, this this um I was sort of inspired by and I don't know if this is true.

I read somewhere Uh, that Warren Buffett kinda does this with meetings. I don't know if if the again, I don't know if this is true. I read it. Um Which is that if you want to meet with him Uh you basically have to

write his assistant or whatever the day before. So if you if you if you write I'm sure there's exceptions to this rule, but for most cases, if you want to meet with him. You can't say Hey, uh I'd like to meet with you know, I'm gonna be in Omaha in March, uh March twenty second. Uh can I can I s you know, meet up with Mr. Buffett or something. And uh

The answer would be when you get in on the twenty first. Uh email me then. And if he has any openings the next day. Then he'd be happy to meet with you. And

Now of course he's Warren Buffett. People people have written about this people like, Oh, he's Warren Buffett, like Thing is is that yeah, he is Warren Buffett, but you are you. And your time is yours just like his is his and his attention is his and yours is yours. And who cares how wealthy he is? What does that have to do with any of this? Who cares what position he's in? I understand that like, yeah, he he he is in a position where

He can maybe say no more frequently than others, but s so can a lot of people. I don't think people give themselves enough credit and give no enough credit. As they as much as they should. Um People will will protect money.

uh they'll protect all sorts of things, but they won't protect their their attention and their time. And and uh I I think more people should get better at that. So I've been practicing getting better at that. And it was sort of inspired in part by by hearing about If it's true or not, I don't know, but hearing about how Buffett does that. And how people respond to the boundaries that you set, particularly if you do so tactfully. Tells you quite a lot.

About. uh the uh the The nature of your true relationship that's true too with these people. I remember one time I was going through a very difficult period.

And was Trying to set up a number of different rules to simplify and clear my calendar. And it also just took me a long time to get back to people, even people I cared quite a lot about. But the people who are really close to me know that that is the case. Who knows? I could be lost in the Amazon jungle for three weeks. Like they don't get too upset about things. And uh at one point I got uh

Got an angry text from this uh More of an acquaintance. Very powerful guy. And he said He was like Tim.

Dude, what the hell? Like you're harder to get a hold of than the president. I just talked to him last week or something like that. And uh Then we hopped on the phone and he was really upset and I said Well The president has a bigger team than I do and number one. And like number two, like I hate to say it, but you're being really aggressive right now. Like

Of all the things on my list of priorities, including my family and this, and I mentioned a few things that were pretty heavy, like you're kinda number seventeen right now. And that doesn't mean that you're unimportant to me, but it means that you just have to wait until I'm done with the first sixteen. So like if If you can't do that, I get it, I suppose, but Mm. It's not going to change.

And uh It's a it's definitely a learned skill. Uh I mean I I've absolutely and you've maybe had this experience, but when my first book came out, I was so Absolutely. Astonished.

That anyone would pay me anything to talk about. Anything. that I said yes to everything that came in. And then uh Six months later, I I was like, Oh my God, I feel like I'm in death of a salesman. Like this is yeah this is awful. And um

Over time become Better at setting parameters. You've mentioned Uh we're talking about Warren Buffett.

Clear thinking. And clear writing. which she seemed to value very highly, and in doing a little bit of homework for This conversation uh I've read, and you can tell me if this is true or still the case, but how one of your top hiring criteria

is whether the person is a great writer. uh whether the person can communicate well. in written form. Uh is I'd love for you to say whether that is still the case or not and why that is the case.

Yeah, it's definitely the case. It's sort of been the case for forever for us. Um It's the case because First of all, most communication is written. these days. Uh in and first of all, let me step back. Like we're remote companies. So Especially most of the communication is written.

uh if you're gonna have if you're in a a local company and you're having meetings all the time, sometimes verbal is enough. But for most in most cases People are writing more and more and more than they ever have before. Um And One of the most costly and inefficient things is having to repeat yourself.

Uh Or Answer questions. about something that should have been clear in the first place. It's it's really quickly. If if you can't

Communicate clearly. Um you're communicating probably three or four times more. frequently than you need to. Um And that can be really inefficient and really frustrating. Extremely frustrating.

So we've always looked at writing as uh like clear writing as as a as a prerequisite for every position we have with the company because everybody's supposed to communicate with themselves, with the rest of the company, with their team, and most of it's done done v via the written word. And We also, for example The first by the way, the first the first sort of gatekeeper of it is is the is the cover letter. So when people apply for a job If they don't

If they just like send a resume or whatever, they're out instantly. That's not even something we look at. Um I I always read or I always want to see a cover letter of some sort. It can it can just be an email, of course, with a with an attachment of the resume or whatever, but um I want to see how you how you open the the the conversation you know how do you describe yourself? Uh why why are you applying for this job and not just any job?

And you can tell very quickly. If someone's gonna if someone can Explain themselves that someone can advocate for themselves and advocate for their ideas and their p position and who they are and why they should work here. Um, if if they're if they're clear minded, if they're friendly, like all that stuff comes through in writing. I think if you pay enough attention to the words, you can see a lot of that. Um

And uh um Also, for example, When I hire designers. I look at their design, but I look at their writing almost a little bit more. Um, whenever we we hire designer

When we get down to the last five candidates that we are really think could be finalists. We hire them to do a project for us. Um fifteen hundred bucks. a week and they do a project for us. So we can kind of see their actual work. But even more importantly is we ask them to write up Why they did what they did.

Um Because There's a lot of great designers out there, but People have to advocate for themselves. And so I wanna see why they did what they did. I wanna hear their I wanna well not hear, but read their their their point of view and and their line of thinking and how they came up with the solutions and

And that helps me when I read that helps me understand what would be like to work with that person for real. Um, if it I know are they able to explain why they did what they did? Are they Glossing over little details that actually matter, like what is it? How do they how do they see their work and how do they write about it? It's a very important part of of the job here at Base Camp. So Um yeah, so writing's important in every position. It doesn't matter what position you're in, you still have to be a a great writer. We typically start by looking at the cover letter, um, the the actual like work assignments to get hired here.

um typically involve writing no matter what what the position. And I just think it's it's always proven in our case to be a really good indicator. of someone's success here. Whenever we've

And s we hire someone we're like ah I don't know, there's just the writing wasn't quite right. It it almost always pans out that it turns out that they're not the right fit for the company, even if their work was great, but they're just unable to really convince people and persuade people based on their sort of a a a missing uh But

It's not magic, but I'll call it that in the writing or or you know, where where you read something go, This is this is great. I'd love to dig a little deeper on the example you gave with the design finalists. Let's say you're hiring for a position, you have a handful of folks, you've narrowed it down to And uh you're paying you're gonna pay each of them fifteen hundred dollars for a one week project. Do you assign them a project? Give them a range of projects? Could could I love a little bit more in terms of specifics and then when you ask them like why did you do what you did what what you ended up Doing.

Do you provide them with guidelines for how to answer that or you'd you keep it totally open ended. I'd I'd love for you just to walk us through a hypothetical or real example of what the project Could look like And how it unfolds from there.

Yeah, and the first of all the reason why we do that is because You basically can't trust anyone's design work. In the past. And The reason why is because a lot of people work with

Other people. And you don't really Really know. What they did. Like you'll you'll we'll get we'll get you know resumes like I I I did Nike dot com. It's like no you didn't. Like you worked you know, you worked on Nike dot com. I can't tell what you did exactly um

And so you'll see a lot of that, or you'll see people share screenshots with you of things, and you're like, you know, I just don't know the process that went into that. So it's hard for me to to judge it. And it's not But I don't think the work's good or bad. It's none of that. It's like I just don't know what I'm evaluating here. So the the idea is that Um, once we get down to the five finalists, after looking at work and looking at writing and the whole thing, we f these five people could be great fits for this per particular position. We give them all the same assignment.

And the assignment It sometimes there's actually uh uh there sometimes there is a choice, like two or three different assignments, but for the most part, historically it's been one. Lately we've been doing a few, but it's been one. Um Where everybody who's who's applying for this job does the same project.

Um, everyone gets a week to do it. They have to figure out how to fit that in with the rest of their Yeah. Most people have jobs already, so they've maybe have to work At night or whenever they do it. Um and we're we're you know, I'm well aware of the fact that they don't have a lot of time. So I'm not expecting perfection.

This is part of the reason why I look at the writing and the explanation of the work because I recognize that You know, who knows? Maybe you have a full time job, maybe you have kids at home, maybe you don't, maybe whatever it is. Whatever it is, maybe you only have an hour a day to do this on the side and you're already tired. I get all of that. So I'm more interested in the in you know how you approach the project and how you describe what you did and why you did it. Um so anyway, they would do for example, we take a screen from Basecamp and say Um so to get

Get really specific about this. Like Uh Here's the here's the way you add people to a base cam project. Um What would you do to make this better? Now you have no data.

You're not talking to anybody about it. I just wanna know what you would do. Like what would what would you do? Because A lot of the work at Base Camp is all based on what would you do? We don't We don't do a lot of user testing. Um we don't do we do use customer interviews and stuff, but we don't get into a testing lab, we don't watch people use our product, we don't do any of that. So and we don't really look that much at at like usage data to

really determine what we're gonna do. So a lot of this is is about gut and feel and and what would you do? What's wrong with the screen in your opinion? I'm really interested in people's opinions. I want people to have a point of view. Yeah, hire them. Um, I don't want people to say, Well, I need this data and that data to make decisions. I go, Yeah, yeah, I I get all that, but what would you do? I want to know what you I'm hiring you. What would you do? So Anyway, so they do the work.

And then um they they uh present it and I say I say present it any way you want. So there are no guidelines. Um I I just say present it any way you want, but what I I guess the one guideline is like I wanna understand Why you did what you did. So some people present this work as like an elaborate website with a bunch of different screens. Some people present it as a PDF, a static PDF. Some people

write something up and sort of tell a linear story with screenshots interspersed. There's a variety of different ways people do it. But ultimately I'm looking at the explanation of the work and the and the and the sort of the the the thought behind the ideas that are presented. That's what I'm most curious about. It's not necessarily whether or not the work is great, because I you're already a finalist, so I already know that you're capable of designing. Things well.

What I want to make sure I understand is is where the ideas are coming from. how they're filtering through your head. how they're filtering through your fingers into the design itself. Um and and why you did what you did and can you defend it. One of the things is Even when I disag even when I I should say, even when I agree with the

the the solution I'm I'm always gonna push back on it. Um in these kind of situations because I wanna see how people take criticism as well. That's a big part of this, which is like constructive criticism and critique. I want to see that.

One of the things we don't do and we don't believe in at all are like these riddles and this bullshit tests crap. It's not the the the the McKinsey how many golf balls can you fit in the seven forty seven type stuff. Yeah, yeah. The all like everything we try to do at at Basecamp is about real stuff. So like this is actually a real project that we would take on and it's not bullshit and it's real. So that's riddles and stuff, forget it. So real work. I want to see how you explain it. What you do with it. why you do what you do with it, and then I'm gonna push back on it and see how you respond on it or respond with it. And that says a lot.

Um, one of the designers we hired recently um for IOS Um Tara. A man is her name. And and one of the things I was really impressed with when she When we were going through it.

She goes, you know, I don't even know if I like what I did here. And I loved that. Because that shows First of all, a real sense of confidence in like talking to an employer and going, I don't even know if I liked what I did here. Like that's

Most people like this is the best thing in the world. This is the the best idea ever. Like this is But she's like you know, I I think I like it, but I'm not totally sure. And I like that we dug into that and then we got into like why She didn't think it was great. And that was just a very real conversation. I felt like I could work with someone like this. Absolutely. Because

They're they don't think that everything they do is gonna be great and they're they're self aware enough to recognize that and we can talk it through and figure it out. And that was that was a great thing. So Um There could have been, for example, in this case there weren't, but there could have been five designers who were better than her visually anyway. I still would have gone with her. Because of her sort of her approach to the work and her honesty about it. That's what I'm looking for when I talk to somebody who I'm about to hire.

H what would be an example of Pushing back. But let's just create a hypothetical or a real example. Yeah. And then What would uh trip the wire as far as red flags go or

uh positive indicators. Sure. So um I'm I I can't really it's hard to describe that particular project because it it we'd all have to be looking at it to to Yeah, could be anything. I'm just wondering I mean, in other words, this pushback like wow, I think this really sucks. What say you? Or is it like hmm, not sure how I feel about that. Or is it something else.

Yeah, it's more it's more the obviously the latter. I I I don't ever say anything sucks. Um I was using that just because of the rejection. Yeah, totally. Yeah, right. The the the five five thing, too. No, it's it's more um You know, I'm not sure that that I see why you know you went down this road or um Doesn't this seem like a lot of steps or uh you know Um

Just Why you know this word uh save, maybe it should be preview. Like uh w why is it save? Like I kinda it throw usually pushbacks with questions. Like I I don't understand this or help me understand this. That's kind of the the real one I like to use it, which is like help I don't I'm not sure I get this. Can you help me understand this? Um But

Sometimes the the red flags are are very they're very clear. It it's they people hunch down into a defensive posture. en and fight for their idea, which is fine. It's good to do that sometimes. But not when it's like help me understand why you know why you went this direction. It's like oh I you know, I went this direction because I felt like it was the best possible thing. Like there's some sort of when when people get rushed about things.

I actually like when someone takes a pause and goes, Hm. Let me think about that. Well, here's what I went through to get to here. Like the reason I use the word save was because uh you know, this this reason or that reason, or the reason I call it a draft and not a preview is because of this and that. I'm more interested in people retracing their steps. than than just sort of

purely explaining They're The the outcome. Um That's not really gr the that that's kind of a

Deeper thing, but You'll see people in in design reviews who get very defensive very quickly. And they they they s you can tell that they're not listening anymore. They're just um They're telling you what they want you to listen to instead of listening to what you have to say. That's very obvious in design reviews, when that comes up, it's it's very clear.

So it's it's that But I just Fundamentally I'm looking for uh a a deep degree of introspection in in the work and An understanding of how they ended up there.

It's kinda like if you think about uh back in, you know school where you your teacher would ask you to show the work when you did a math problem. Um What they're basically looking for is they're looking to see if you understand how you came out with the answer versus like, did you somehow memorize this or guess? Okay.

Or was it lucky? Or did you actually understand how you arrived there? It's kind of the same thing. I want people to show their work basically. And that doesn't mean Showing Like all the drafts of the design work necessarily. It's not like going through previous versions. It's again coming down to explaining The the path.

that they took to land where they landed. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And this this is also um with the uh understanding that uh

Very different company. But Uh I've spent a lot of time with Matt Mollenweg. of automatic

which runs WordPress dot com among other things. And He values written communication exceptionally. highly. Uh and and they do all their interviews via text. And uh also have every at least for a long period up until maybe

I wanna say at least fifty or a hundred employees had Uh every prospective Employee knew they would have to spend and I don't know if this is part of the vetting process or post hiring a week or two handling customer service.

Yeah. uh and which also and not to say it's perfect for every company, certainly, uh, but Also tells you a lot more than just how They handle.

A user error in a customer service situation. If they refuse to do that, what does that tell you? Right? If they do it poorly. What does it tell you? There's a lot more than just the words. That come out of them. Yeah, and you know, actually it at our company

Everybody works customer service also. So Um No matter what position you're in, every every single person rotates one day through customer service every number of days. Like we have fifty four employees in the company, about fifteen or sixteen on customer support. So about thirty of us Every thirty days we rotate through. into one day of customer service and

That's another reason why it's important for you to to be able to write. Is because Um on that one day a month. Or one day every forty days or whatever. Uh you are uh on the front lines speaking with customers and and

empathizing with them, understanding what what what what they're dealing with. Helping them understand what they don't understand, helping us understand what we don't understand. all that stuff, which is what customer services are really all about. Of course it's also about like troubleshooting and solving immediate problems. But a lot of it too is Is it's getting

to the real like what what are they really asking for and why Uh And what are we doing wrong? And what where are our blind spots? It's all that stuff. And A lot of that comes down to having a conversation with the customer and all of our customer service is done via via email or or or or Twitter or or chat or something. So we don't have a phone although We do do some phone support, but we don't have a phone number that you can call in, for example. So it's all written. So we want to make sure that if we're gonna put someone in front of customers, they know how to write.

as well. So that that is a big part of it too. I I didn't know that automatic did that as part of their Part of their um hiring process, but I I I love the idea. Yeah. It's uh such a key such a key skill for so many reasons for people who want to become

better writers, better communicators. Are there any books, resources, exercises that you would recommend? There is one of my favorite books. It's called revising prose. And the cover is horrible. It's like uh That's how you can spot it. Yes. It's like a CD ROM and a pencil or something. It's like what? I don't even understand how that happened.

Maybe they've revised it since, but I I think it's that bad still. Um It it's it's so horrible. Anyway, revising prose. Thank God Thank God the title is so catchy. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Right. But what's cool about it is that um and I forget the author and y you know, you can look it up and put it in the notes, but Um

Is that he dissects things one sentence at a time. And His his ability to to take a sentence and cut it up and explain it and simplify it. I I think it's a wonderful skill.

And a great Great book. Uh So it's not really even about writing paragraphs or stories or how to organize and outline stuff. It's like A cent at a time. and figuring out how to structure things. Love it. Great book. And it's actually, you know

There there's this class I've talked about before. I've written a blog post about this. This class that I'd want to teach. If I ever taught a college class. Uh I think I think one of the the biggest disservices that that that college does actually is that it doesn't teach people to write well. Um, in fact it teaches a lot of people, especially in MBA programs, to write very poorly.

Uh so true. It's so true. And a lot of it's based on length, like write a ten page thing and you know, uh or whatever. So the class I always wanted to teach, if I was ever to teach, would be a a a writing class. You I don't care what the subject is, doesn't matter. Pick a subject. I want you to write like a a five page version of that. Article I want you to write a

one page version of it. I want you to write a five paragraph version. A five sentence version and a one sentence version. Um, that's the assignment. And we would do that over and over and over and over with different topics. I don't care the topic, it doesn't matter. I just want you to be able to write at different levels of resolution and continue to clarify it as you cut things out to the point where you can write it in one sentence. And of course.

There'll be more detail in the in the in the five paragraph version. Maybe it was three pages, one page, three paragraphs, one sentence, whatever it is. But this this idea of Going from writing the long piece and then cutting it down and editing. Editing is something that's rarely taught. And really getting trying to hone in on what it is and realize and like the the big idea here is that you can realize that so much of the stuff that you put in the five page version just doesn't really matter that much. And actually the one page version is probably better. And maybe the the three paragraph version is much better than the one page version. And you there's probably a point where You you you begin to lose it. But

It's still the great exercise. So I I'd love to see that kind of Writing instruction Versus Length which sent like long And then I think it's a good thing.

Not actually editing. This is the other thing that that um Blows me away about Education Um that's when I was talking to my w uh my son's in in pre school.

I was talking to the the head of the school about about this. Um And the thing that's not taught in schools is iteration. And iteration is everything outside of school. um where you you do something and then like you you you you know launch it or ship or whatever and then you're on to making a better version of that thing pretty quickly. In school we would always do something and sort of hand it in and that assignment would be done.

And then you go on and do another assignment, you never get to revisit things. Uh In in in the in the professional world, you're revisiting things all the time. And um I would love to see, you know, you hand something in this like this w one page to to to to you know. five page to one page to five paragraphs, whatever. That's a version of a short term version of like revisioning in a sense. Perhaps the better way of doing that would be

You first hand in the five page version. You get it back with notes. then you're required to write the one page version of that. Um but anyway, the point is is that Being able to revisit something that you did.

And make it better. and hand it in and revise it again and hand in and revise it again. Um Is something that you don't see often. Sometimes you see that with drafts in a in a document, but it's Not really quite the same as

being able to come back to the idea so for example if you're doing something in school and you're building something or you're doing a science project or whatever, and you you do it and you're done, you present it and it's over. Like maybe a month later you're gonna have a better idea for something that you did and you go, I wanna do that again. But school doesn't give you a chance to do anything again, really, unless you like unless you're stupid and you're held back and they say you can't go for further. You know, of course not stupid, that's the wrong word, but like the school's like You're you know, y you didn't you didn't

hit the criteria. So we're gonna let you do it again. Like in some ways Of course there's a lot of other reasons why this probably isn't necessarily a good thing for people for for kids. Um, but uh to get a chance to do it all over again, maybe you see it Better the second time. Um, so anyway, I I would love to see revision and iteration built into education, and this sort of writing assignment is sort of a way to get at that.

And I pulled up this book and it the cover is truly awful. Uh Like what is the C D even doing there? Uh on top of how'd that happen? I don't even know how that happened. But revising pros Richard A. Lanham, does that sound right? It's gotta be'cause the cover is this pen and a C D on top of a page with a bunch of markups on it. Richard A. Lanham. Another book that I found very helpful. I haven't read it in a very long time, but it's called Simple and Direct. Should be fairly easy to write. I don't remember the

Name of the author. And uh I had the I had the great Good fortune. maybe too m too many modifiers on that, but now that I'm thinking about writing. The great good helpful fortune of

Taking a class in college, I was at Princeton undergrad with John McPhee, who's the senior writer at the New Yorker. It's one of Pulture or two at this point, and The course was called The Literature of Fact. It was about nonfiction writing, creative nonfiction. uh which doesn't mean making up fifty percent. It means taking fact and weaving it into a narrative, which John McVeigh is exceptionally

Good at and actually one book that I think you would really enjoy is called Draft Number Four, which is about his writing process. I think you'd be fascinated by it. Okay, from a structural standpoint. Uh really fascinating. And it gets into the weeds, which is not for everybody, but I think I think you'd appreciate it. And uh I remember the first time it was a The first time we had our writing assignments returned to us. So every week we had

A seminar. A Which was about twelve students or so we had to apply to get in. A Writing assignment.

And then a one on one session with McFee to go over the writing assignment that he had already marked up and given to us. And I remember when he handed back the first writing assignment uh man to all these students. And before he handed them out, he said, look, He didn't say look,'cause that's not what he would say, but he said he said I want you to know that you're all good writers. You can all write. So I don't want you to be intimidated by what I'm about to hand back. And so you came us back. You just saw

student by student the their faces drop and I got mine back and there was more red ink on the page than Black ink that I typed out. It really looked like there was more red ink. And uh It bicame so clear. How

uh fuzzy so much of my thinking was, how many unnecessary words there were, how much grystle and fat there was in between the actual meat that was necessary on the page. And the reason I bring up this big this this story is that Over the course of the next few weeks, as we were learning more, practicing more and honing the sharpness of our writing. getting progressively less red ink, ideally. my grades in all of my other classes went up.

And there was a very clear, super clear correlation between cleaning up my thinking and everything else running more smoothly. It was really it could not have been more obvious. And uh Such a such an incredibly valuable skill. It is, you know, something that I would also encourage people to do.

is to read Tom Petty lyrics. Um sounds weaker. But if you read Tom Tom Petty has such a wonderful efficiency in his storytelling and his lyrics and Um

Every word really counts and there's no filler. It's and he paints these really Broad pictures. with four or five words per per phrase and really truly is I thought one of the best I mean one of the best songwriters, of course, but really a great just a great writer in general.

when you read the lyrics. So I would look at look at that and go, look at the pictures he can paint and the emotions he can evoke and the The story he can tell. with very few words. He's extremely economical with his with his with his language or was and um it's a great thing to read. So just go like Look at some of his albums, go look go look up the lyrics online and and don't even listen to the songs, but just read them and you go, I I see where he's going with this. And It it it's it's a I always enjoy doing that from time to time. He's just such a he was so good at that.

I will have to check that out. Elmore Leonard also another fantastic one for people to look up. And it makes me think you were talking about the uh the one page, three or five paragraph, three paragraph, one paragraph, one line. It makes me think of the The Hemingway story in one line, which I'm sure I'm gonna get slightly wrong, but there's something right. Uh Used baby shoes never worn. Or I I fucked it up. Baby baby shoes for sale. Baby shoes for sale. Comma never worn. Uh the sort of five or six word story

Uh it's it's a va really valuable exercise. Uh and and it's it's not just for academic purposes, as you pointed out, translates to everything. No doubt. Uh Vintage watches. Oh my god. There you go. Tell me about tell me about Vin vintage watches. I'm into I'm into that. Um

I'm into vintage watches. Uh let's see why. Well, first of all, I'm into watches. Um I'm into a lot of things that um Seem like there can only be one way to do it, but there turns out there's a lot of ways. So for example, I love Uh chair des like designing chairs. I don't design them myself, but I love looking at chairs.

Which are are are very simple things. It's like you know, you sit on'em and that's what they do. And you're like, well, there can only be a few ways to do a chair, but it turns out there's so many different ways to do a chair. It's really interesting. And watches are the same thing. Vintage, do you have any favorite chairs, just as a side note? Uh I d I like a lot of uh stuff that she uh I'm his name is French, so I'll probably Get it wrong, but G Jean Provet. Uh if I'm getting that right. Um I love his designs, his styles. Um there's a bunch of others. I'll maybe I'll send you an email afterwards to some of my favorite shares. Perhaps I'll send you some links. Sure. Um

But um I uh so watches are similar in that like a watch basically like look, it's there to tell the time. Some watches can do more than others, but basically it's there to w tell the time and like okay, there's You've got to especially if you look at analog watches, which is why one of the reasons I like vintage stuff is it's like, you know, a hand a couple hands, three hands, maybe, or two hands. And But there's so many different designs and so many different styles and so many different elements and so many different approaches to it.

That there's an endless amount of of curios in it for me. Um, and plus the cool thing about mechanical watches Uh is that Um There's such a it's a combination of all the things I like. So it's design.

It's engineering, it's materials. It's it's like uh patina and like seeing age on things. I love things that age well. Um It's it's art. Um, it's science. Like if you if you crack open one of these watches and look at the movement, like there's some serious engineering going on in there and some science material science and some really fascinating stuff.

And like the idea that That mankind can capture time and tell it this way using springs and gears. It's kind of an amazing thing and be that accurate. So I've always sort of I I haven't always been into them, but my dad was into them. still maybe still is. I I don't know if he collects stuff anymore, but he used to when I was younger and I got into them Um and the vintage thing I'm actually

Kind of into vintage and modern these days, but m more so I found vintage interest more interesting because There's more character in in in the objects. Because they have time on them. actually have, you know, age on them. And that's kinda cool to see how things age. And that's one of the reasons why

Um like I like a lot of natural materials in general. Now we're like I'm branching into architecture discussion here, but I like brick. Uh I like wood. I like things that that pick up age over time versus like um A lot of modern materials, I feel like uh they don't age very well. They look great when you do the photo shoot, right after it's built, and then they just age poorly. And they show their age in a way that's not flattering, but in fact it it takes it detracts from from the quality of the object. So

It's cool to see the other thing is I'll say about vintage watches is that it's really cool to be able to look down on your wrist and go This thing I have my wrist. Has been working for fifty years. And If someone looks after it five more times over the next fifty years.

Next hundred years, it'll still work. There's basically nothing that is being created today. Where that is true anymore. Except Really? Watches, mechanical watches.

Most other things these days are disposable. And so it's kind of a great reminder that you can actually build things that last and you can look down your wrist and go, someone else fifty years ago was looking down at the wrist, seeing the exact same thing, and it worked just as well. And fifty years from now, my kid can look down on his wrist or her wrist. And see the same thing I looked at. tell the same amount of time and it's gonna work as well. And I I just kinda love that idea. So anyway, that's sort of why I'm into it. So a few things. The first is at some point I need to introduce you to uh

Peter Atia, M D, who is a close friend of mine, and a an extreme Watch nerd. Okay. Uh I think you guys would have a lot to talk about. If you could only pick And I have no idea how many watches you have. You don't have to Div divulge that, but if you could only choose one to three watches. to keep

Do any do any come to mind where you're like, Yep, these are definitely on the list. Yes. So uh I have a uh it's called a rolex milgaus six five four one is the model number, what they would call the reference number in the watch world. It's from Nineteen fifty eight.

And I just think it's the coolest fucking thing ever. So I just love the way it looks. It's so cool looking. It it it's it's awesome. So anyway, Rolex Milgow six five four one from nineteen fifty eight. Um That's that's definitely one keeper. Um I have uh like an old Patek Philippe uh

blanking on the reference right now. Um It's it it it was it was built for um Similar to this mill gauss that I was talking about, by the way, milgauss means one thousand gauss. So it was a It was a it was a watch built for scientists who worked in high magnetic environments. And uh watches watches

Typically vintage ones, especially now modern ones were a little bit different. But um they don't work well in magnetic environments because the the spring that's inside them once it's magnetized it can't tell time properly anymore, basically. So so these watches were built for for scientists to be amagnetic or anti magnetic. And so the Milgaus was one of them and then and then uh Patek made one. I can't rem believe I can't remember the reference right now. Anyway, you can send it you can send it with your links to the chairs. I'll send it to you. Exactly. Um it's also an an anti magnetic watch.

Um and it was sort of their answer to the Milgaus. So it's it's funny that like the two things I I come to mind immediately are like watches for scientists. Which, you know, it's just there's what a cool Niche. Um

you know, to to makes make s a product for. scientists in the fifties. Like how cool like kind of if you can imagine scientists in the fifties with their white coats and like learning all sorts of new things about physics in the world and biology. Uh, and all sorts of really cool stuff happened back then. Um

That those are the two watches that immediately come to mind. that that I really, really dig. Um Th there's another one, um Actually which is a I'm gonna get this name wrong too, so I'm just gonna call it a

It's It's Jajère Le Côte or Gère Le Colte or something like that. I can never g I never exactly know what it is. Um Anyway, uh it's called the Polaris. From N sixty eight. Um it's a dive watch built for for divers.

And it has an alarm on it. um a mechanical alarm, which is really cool and really unique and and and rare, especially at the time, which I think is really beautiful and just a really neat complication for a w mechanical watch to have an alarm on it. Um, so you could say like for example, at five o'clock, I want this thing to buzz very loudly, so I would know that it's five o'clock. Which of course is so silly and easy to do with an iPhone or any digital thing, but mechanically it's actually quite a challenge in very few watches have ever had a mechanical alarm. I also look like the way it looks. So anyway.

There's some of that stuff that I'm into. There's other bunch of other things. Um But those are the kind of the three that the initially come to mind as ones that I'm I'm really into. If if you had to give a TED talk on obsessions And it couldn't be

Related to your company. Couldn't be related to watches. This has these are personal obsessions. Yeah. What what might you talk about that That a lot of people wouldn't know about. Well, I don't know if I'd be able to talk about it. I'm imagining all of the the uh unacceptable socially awkward sexual fetishes that you wouldn't be able to talk about on the TED stage, but Continue. I guess I didn't finish the sentence. I said maybe I wouldn't be able to talk about it with authority, let's say. So let's say um

One of the things that I I'm really into strangely is is Prairie restoration. Okay, so stand back here for a second. Let me let me fill you in on this. So um I maybe ten years ago I bought a a farm up in uh rural Wisconsin.

About three hours from Chicago where I live. It's like fifty miles west of Madison, Wisconsin, for those who kinda know the geography. And it's uh very rural land, it's kinda hilly, it's very beautiful. I bought it and um I'd always wanted some land. I I love nature. I love just getting out and walking in nature. Just

The most refreshing thing you could ever do. Um And Uh so I bought this land. And

I looked at it and I thought it was just beautiful and amazing. And it was. But I learned a couple years in that was full of weeds and invasive species and like not really The way it should be. Uh or should or was But modern farming and and and the fact the land's been tilled a bunch of times and there's invasive species and stuff, it's sort of took over the land. So I got on this kick to to to find a prairie restoration specialist, which I learned that there's this thing called prairie restoration, where you could sort of bring the land back to the way it was to prairie in this particular part of the country.

and the prairie is is in fact the um the most endangered natural habitat in the United States. There's only like something like a thousand or something acres left of it in the entire United States. So people talk about old growth forests being gone and stuff. There's actually more old growth forests in the United States than there's prairie. Prairie is like Gone basically.

But I I visited some actual prairies that have been restored and also some some that are still around and and danger due to agriculture, I assume? Or basically farming. Yeah, like uh the peop you know, all the land has been tilled basically for farmland. Um And um And I visited some of these prairies and they just are the most beautiful thing. Uh

hundreds of species of plants and flowers and and and and and sh and shrubs and insects and birds and it's just these this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing. And so I have this land, it's it's a quite a bit of acreage and I and I start hiring hired this guy to to help me restore it. We've been doing it for seven, eight years now or something, bringing the land back to the way it was, like five acres at a time. um and planting native species and and uh and getting rid of all the invasives and also doing the same thing There's some force on the on the property, and I'm doing oak savannah restoration. So

A lot of invasive trees have grown up uh around these big, huge, beautiful oak trees that are hundreds of years old, but they've been crowded by these other trees. So we're getting rid of some of the other trees and letting the oaks be the way they were, and then returning the forest floor to the way it was and It's just such a Incredibly rewarding, but super slow process. It takes like you seed these prairies. First of all, you have to like kind of get rid of everything that's there. And then weeds pop up and you have to get rid of everything that's there, because there's what's called a seed bank in the soil.

So the seed bank is basically hundreds of years worth of seeds that have just been waiting to sprout. And so you have to kind of like you clear out all the living stuff, and then like there's all these seeds that are then now exposed in sunlight, and then they sprout. And you have to basically just kind of nuke it all for a while. Until there's nothing basic left in the soil. um or invasive species left in the soil. And then you can go and get

Native species by actually doing seed uh gathering. You can gather seeds at certain prairies or you can buy seeds, native seeds. You can also find individual prairie plants and what's called prairie remnants, which are like small vestiges of old prairie that might still be on your property and harvest the seeds from those. So it's this really, really slow, amazing thing. Then you seed it, and then it might take five or six years for a prairie to grow because Prairie plants typically invested all their energy in the first few years in the in the roots.

So you don't see anything growing. It's really frustrating. It looks like shit for a long time and all of a sudden figure is it. It starts to come up and then It's just so rewarding and so wonderful to walk through. And um So that's something that I'm really into in a deep way, and uh probably most people don't know about it in general. I didn't know about it until a few years ago, but I love it so much. And

I'm kind of on this crusade now to to like this anti corn crusade. You know. I I wanna basically Whenever land comes up next to my land, I want to buy it because most of it's corn. And uh corn is sort of at the root of a lot of different problems. Uh and I just want to like get rid of the corn and return the land to the way it was.

And sort of create this patchwork of land and then eventually put it in some sort of truss so it can never be touched and there can always be these these beautiful tracts of land. Forever. Uh, of course it'd have to be maintained and that would have to be how the trust would have to be able to figure that out. Maybe part of it is farm to to fund that. But anyway. That's something that I would probably love to talk about, although I don't know enough about it. to give a TED talk, but I could certainly talk someone's ear off for about an hour on all the little detail that I've learned.

What a fantastic project. It's such a fun thing that it's sounds therapeutic too in in in the sense that having to embrace slowness in At least one

compartment of your life. Seems To be a nice counterbalance to Potentially external or internal. drives not necessarily in you, but in a lot of people certainly, myself included at times, to

do bigger things faster. Right. No doubt. And the other thing about that I'll say is that you can't even speed this process up if you wanted to. And that's what's so awesome about it. And by the way, the process is multi-layer multi-layered and multi-tiered, and probably by this point you're like, I should never have asked him this question for but anyway, uh real quick. Um What's cool about it too is not only do the plants like new plants come up and and all sorts of species bloom, but you start to see new insects. And new insects come a few years later and they they they just somehow you're like, Where'd they come from? And like they're still out there, but they find it and they and they

And they're they're they're wired to proliferate in these environments. And then you see new birds and new bird species. There's like a hundred and something bird species now in on my property, when originally there weren't, there was like forty. And you're like where they come from and they just come from they find it somehow and they come in. And then like The other thing I've been learning is if you build a pond, for example, I don't have any pond, but I have a river, but if there's a pond, if you just fill a pond with water, Within a few years you will have fish.

And you're like what? How does that happen? Like how how could that possibly be? And it turns out like Fish are, you know, a bird might be eating a fish and drop it before it's dead and it pops into into there. And that could have been a pregnant fish, and before you know it, like the whole thing is like life.

It's just waiting. First of all, it's not waiting, it's everywhere. But like if you restore a property, restore some some some land and give it some space and let it do what it does. Nature is so so resilient. And Just wants to thrive.

And it's so cool to watch it happen on its own schedule and say in nature isn't in never it's never in a hurry. That's the thing that I love so much about it. Is that it's never in a hurry. But it accomplishes everything. And that's a quote that I read somewhere and I don't know where I read it, who said it, but I love it and I always think about it, which is that

It'll take its time and it'll get wherever it needs to get done done. And however long it takes, it takes. Um, which is such an Analog uh or such an opposite not an analog, an opposite to humanity, which is always rushing, which is actually typically destroying

Um and which is getting faster and faster and faster. And I I don't think it's you know the right path, but it is what it is. Thank you for sharing. I I love that. It also makes me think about how much of life is setting the conditions for good things to happen, not trying to force good things.

And and uh to give another example that Yeah the kind of biohacker slash nutrition crowd might be interested in is the contrast between probiotics where you're say swallowing bacteria you hope will take root in your gut, among other things, right? Which often does not work very well.

Uh contrast it with prebiotics where you're consuming different types of foodstuffs. Could be certain types of fiber. Baobab route, for instance.

which is effectively This is very simplified, but restoring the soil conditions in your gut so that the types of bacteria you want to grow naturally begin to take root and grow. And you can't just take a handful of seeds and like Drive them into the ground.

Expecting them to pop out overnight. doesn't work that way. And so thinking about setting the conditions is something I've been thinking a lot about to setting the conditions for em g positive emergent properties. And then secondly, you know, just think about this today because watching a documentary last night where this mother was giving her Some advice and she said, I just want you to learn patience. You need to learn patience. And you I've been th I've thought over the years a lot about this word.

And whether I need more or less patients, and I was thinking today. that it's it maybe it's unproductive. to think of it in terms of more or less patients, but rather in terms of Developing the ability to Discern between the

The things that can And should be accelerated. can't be accelerated and if you attempt to accelerate them will just do more damage. Related to that, I mean, I love this idea that that you're bringing up about about probiotics versus um prebiotics and

Creating the conditions for growth. Or creating conditions for desired outcomes or whatever. And and I'm gonna tie it all back. I mean, we're tying this like Let me tie like prairie restoration to business building, which is Um And and and and gut building, basically. And and you know, that gut health and the whole thing, which is that

Part of it too is is not only creating the conditions for things to thrive, but also not creating conditions for certain things to thrive. So Um, something, for example, our business is self funded. Yeah, we we did take from Bezos in two thousand six, but that was uh personal founder shares. None of that money ever went to our business. David and I took some money off the table. So we've been a hundred percent Bootstrapped and funded by customers ever since day one, which means we've created a situation where we don't have to answer to anybody. We don't have to be on anyone else's time scale. Um, I don't have to build something that I know is gonna have to be sold in seven years because a fund is coming due and like they need their money out of it. Or

I also don't have to build something that grows at a certain rate because you know you need to grow at a certain rate for a certain return. We don't care about returns. Our the conditions we've set. Or not to uh have returns thrive and and you know generate returns for others But actually what we've tried to set up is profitab conditions for profitability.

And for sustainability. Because As long as we make more money than we spend, we can exist for as long as we want. There's no external. Um pressures, artificial pressures that we've set up or conditions that we've created that will force us to make a decision about when we have to sell the business at some point.

So it it's not only about creating in conditions for thriving It's about like In fact putting up barriers for certain things not to happen, and I've been thinking a lot personally about putting a lot of I've been putting a lot of energy into making sure certain things don't happen.

versus putting energy in to make sure certain things do happen. And uh I think if you can prevent a lot of things from happening by thinking about what you don't want you do create the conditions then for other things to come in, which are the things that you actually do want. So Um, I I think there's a lot of similarities here between nature and business and and you know, gut health is nature as well, of course.

and and conditions and letting things sort of thrive and preventing other things from happening. I mean it's cool, like for example, we have hundreds uh over a hundred species of birds now on the property. We didn't put bird seed out. Like you know, you don't put bird seed out. What you do is you put seed out that grows in the ground. that then creates the conditions where it actually it grows seed. So it does actually grow bird seed, right? It grows birdseed. It just takes five years and then birds find it. And then like everything just happens the way it naturally should at the right pace and the right scale and It's just very rewarding to to see that happening and I think it does color your your impression of other things and sort of shows you in many ways how sort of silly speed is

in a lot of other things where it's injected unnecessarily in in sort of the damage that it does. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's uh It's a topic we could go on and on with for for hours, I'm sure. So maybe we should do that at some point. But uh let me wrap up with just a just a few more questions. And one one of them

I've asked you before. Uh and this will sound familiar. And then I'll I'll pause for a second and buy a little time. If you could have a giant billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? It could be a quote, could be a word, could be a question, could be anything. Could be someone else's quote. Now I asked you this question in uh Tribe of Mentors, and you gave you said one of these quotes and you gave about 15 to 20. Maybe more, twenty five. fantastic quotes. I mean these are these are excellent quotes, but right now in your life it doesn't have to relate to anything in the

External wider world. Uh let me let me read a few just to give people a taste and then uh I'd love to know which one you would pick. Sure, right now in your life, but let me pick a few here. If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in the dark with a mosquito, Betty Reese. Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. Eric Hoffer.

Uh this one has proven very popular. The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have, John Rawls. And I'll read the three. I'll read one more since we've mentioned him a few times. Price is what you pay, value is what you get. Warren Buffett. Uh where where would you go at this point in your life with a message, a word, a quote, a question, anything on a

Gigantic billboard, metaphorically, of course, getting a message out to millions or billions of people. Yeah. Um well I think it'd be fun just to say the word billboard on a billboard and just leave pay for it pay for it for a hundred years and and there it is. It's called billboard. Um but that would be kind of fun, but also a gag. Um I I like that that John Rawls quote. So much.

Which is uh the fairest rules are the ones you would I forget. Can you agree the fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would Have. Yeah, I that to me. Is

At the root of so many things. Um, we've been dealing with a little bit of this in our in our own business. Uh it's a little bit slightly different, but just like information asymmetry and recognize that not everybody has the same information. So they look at things through different lenses. And it's very important to recognize the fact that you can't just come at something one way Because you know it. If someone else doesn't know it.

You can't assume that they knew that. And you know, there there's It's the same sort of idea which is which is um Uh you you you almost you can't be upset when someone has a pr a reaction to something when they just have a different set of information. And similarly You know, um

Uh You The rules are are, you know. rules are based on like who has the power to make them. Basically today, that's kinda how it is. In almost everything.

Um and so It's a good reminder that um r rules basically are the fairest to those who make them, unfortunately, but they would be the fairest if no one knew who they applied to. And it's just a good reminder, it on a lot of different levels. It's one of my favorite quotes, and I think that's probably something I would put up on a billboard. It'd be hard to read at seventy miles an hour as you speed by it, which is why I still like billboard. But um As a quote, I think it's the most meaningful one of the most meaningful quotes and most important quotes to to keep in mind whatever it is that you do.

Definitely. And I'll read uh I'll read one more Just because actually I'll read two more of your quotes because there are many to choose from uh Here's one that applies certainly to a few things we've talked about in the conversation. Quote Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. William Bruce Cameron. And then the uh next and last one I'll read is By Albert Schweitzer.

In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet. Yeah. I've got a story, but let's maybe for another time about that quote. Well let's do it. Let's just get into it. Sure. So um

I don't know, a number of years ago I was invited to to go to this, uh John Meta invited me to go to this thing. Um uh at the at the glass house, uh in New Canaan, Connecticut. I think it is. Um the Philip Johnson Glass House. And it was a a like a summit on simplicity and there was I think ten or fifteen people invited.

And um Uh, one of the people invited was it was this older man, this Japanese man. I think he was in his eighties or close to it. Almost everyone else was much younger, much, much younger, twenties and thirties. Fourties maybe. Um

And Like I said earlier, I love old I love older people. So I sort of gravitated to him. He was really well dressed and just it seemed interesting. And um I noticed that he was um whenever we were going so the f the Philip Johnson glass house, the whole campus, I think is about fifty acres, and there's maybe a dozen different buildings. And it's kind of a neat idea because Philip Johnson had this idea that it's actually one building and the hallways are just outside. Um, which is kind of a cool thought.

Um but really it's like twelve different buildings. Like for example, his o he has an office, which was a separate building, which doesn't have a bathroom, doesn't have plumbing. Because he didn't need it'cause it's like it's still part of the house that has plumbing. I just have to walk outside to get there. Anyway, we were walking between these houses and you have a fifty acre site, so there's quite a bit of distance between And I noticed that this guy

was always last in in in the line to walk. And I kinda s sat back with him on on one of the walks and And You know I but he was also like It wasn't because he was old. That would be the first thing you would think that he's just older, so he's gonna walk slower.

But actually he he's like no in I could tell that he was physicable to walk as fast as everybody else. It wasn't that he goes No, everyone's just walking too fast and they're missing things as they go. Um He was so he just kneeled down and he he looked

He took like this square foot of ground. And um Uh and by the way, I'd noticed as he was walking he was looking down as well. So he's walking slowly and looking down. And he he just He kinda took the square foot of of of land and like pointed out.

Some flowers and some insects and some shapes and some stuff and says like This is beautiful. People feel like they have to go all over the world to see something new. All they have to do is look down. Um And if you walk slowly and look down, like there's a world under your feet all the time. In the interesting world.

And he goes, these people ahead of me. They're younger. Yeah, maybe they can walk a bit faster, but look at everything they're missing. Uh And I just that really just kinda totally smacked me in the face.

I love this point. Like, yeah, they're going faster and they look like they're going somewhere, but look at everything they're missing along the way. And so uh that uh point about that other quote that you just brought up about you know going to the moon missing the flowers like That's sort of a similar thing, which is No, especially today where everyone's rushing all over the place trying to get somewhere and you're like, Where are you actually going and what are you actually missing? And I I thought that that

that moment uh this guy actually stopping and physically explaining that to me and looking down and pointing out some things was a really poignant thing and something I always have always remembered since then. What a lovely story. Yeah. He's a lovely man. I think he's still around. I'm sure he uh from what I understand is he's a Japanese um

garden expert. He has an amazing Japanese garden apparently in his backyard somewhere in Northern California. Uh And he's also like a wine connoisseur and supposed to be a really fascinating guy. I never really caught up with him afterwards. I always meant to and I I missed that opportunity and I should probably figure out how to get in touch with him. But wonderful man, really interesting person and and I appreciate the lesson he he taught me there. Well if you track him down, let me know. Sounds like maybe the type of person to have on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Someone who can really embrace the the joy of missing out. Yeah. Uh Jason, well this has been so much fun. I really appreciate you taking the time today. to uh to chat with me and share your stories with the world also.

Well, thanks for having me. This is super fun. It's always fun to talk to you and thanks for giving me so much time to do that. My pleasure. And is there is there anything else before we wrap up that you would like to Ask of the audience, suggest to the audience any closing comments of any type? No, I don't have any actually. I like answering questions, so I don't I don't have any proclamations or anything to to share. So I I don't um If anyone wants that to to get in touch, I think you're you'll have some of that stuff. So feel free to hit me up on Twitter or wherever. Oh, the other thing actually I will mention, um, David and I, DH H and I are doing this new uh YouTube channel, which is kind of a

Something people have been asking for for a while. We're calling it getting real. And we're basically showing what our Like kinda like you asked me, like what's your day like? What do you people always like, What's your morning like? And what what do you do? Like well, why don't I just show you? So Um, we're doing these videos of actually walking through code samples, walking through design decisions, walking through design reviews and making them all public.

So I think it's kind of a neat thing to t to to check out if you're interested in sort of how we look at design and how we look at code and how we look at writing. One of the things I actually did was I wrote an article for Inc. recently and I just recorded my screen and sort of talked out loud as I was writing it. to sort of show like here's how I write an article. I don't start with an outline, I start with a blank sheet. I got kind of just write and then I was sort of doing the director's cut as I went. And editing as editing live as I went and sort of a Fun sort of thing.

Um, so I'm doing some of that, which would be kinda fun to follow if people are interested in that. Um, other than that, I don't have anything else to to share. You've you've written a lot. And you have many popular articles, essays, blog posts, et cetera online. If someone wanted to start with

one or two. Are there one or two that you could mention as a gateway drug into The mind. Of Jason. Well speaking based on our conversation today, there was this the article I wrote about like I've never had a goal.

Uh, which would be a good thing to start reading, I think. That w or a good place to read. I think probably it's on it's on our blog Signal versus Noise, which is on medium If you search for my name on Google and say never had a goal, you'll probably land on the purple. I'd probably be a good Jason Freed never had a goal. That'd probably be good one to read. And then um Uh I also wrote one about not having expectations, which might be another interesting thing to to look at. Um

If there's any other ones I'll I'll uh I mean there there are some other ones, but I'm not sure if they'd be good places to start, but those might be a good place to start. Great. And I'll uh I'll include Shares. Maybe Prairie Restoration, uh the Polaris watch. Yeah, I'll send you all that stuff. We'll we'll include all that in the show notes, so for people listening, you'll be able to find all of that at Tim.blog forward slash podcast and just search

Jason, and he'll pop right up and you can find all these links and more as well as every other episode. And uh Jason, at some point maybe we'll do a round two and it'd be lovely to see you in person sometime. Yeah, you're down. Where are you now? I'm in Austin, Texas. Okay, you're in Austin. Okay. Well uh

At some point, yeah, we'll run into each other again. But I'd love to do it again and if we want to do it in person, it'd be even better. So let me know. I'm around. Definitely. Yeah, you know, Austin, Texas. It's the third coast, as they say. They said that about Chicago too. So I I think every every other place is the third coast. Yeah. Uh fantastic. But we need water to be a coast. I mean at least in Chicago. Yeah, we have lakes. We do have some creeks. Uh we're not entirely dry. There are rivers. Uh so we do we do have that. Uh but uh uh to be continued and to everyone out there on the interwebs and beyond. As always. Thank you for listening.

Be safe or not. and uh pay attention to what's under your feet. So until next time. Thanks for listening. Oh. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read.

and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off. for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourourworkweek.com, that's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by WordPress.com. I love WordPress. I have used it. For so many years, it's my go-to platform for blogging and creating websites.

I use WordPress.com for everything, every day. My site, Tim.blog, is built on it. The websites for my books, including Tools of Titans, Tribe of Mentors, it's all on WordPress.com. And the founder, Matt Mollenweg, one of my close friends, has appeared on this show. many times just search Matt Mollenwig Tequila Ferris for quite an exciting time. Whether you're looking to create a personal blog, a business site, or both. You can make a really big impact right out of the box when you build on WordPress.com. And you'll be in good company. It's used by the New Yorker, Jay-Z, Beyonce538, TechCrunch Head, CNN, and Time, just to name a handful. And one of my friends at Google, she'll remain nameless.

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This episode is brought to you by Peloton, and I'd heard about Peloton over and over again, but I ended up getting a Peloton bike in the whole system after I saw my buddy Kevin Rose, I've known him forever, some of you know, and he showed up at my gate at my house a while back and he looked Fantastic. And uh I asked him, I said, dude, you look great. What the hell have you been up to? Because he's always doing a weird diet or another, but it only lasts like a week or two. So he always regresses to the mean after like 75 beers. And he said, I've been doing Peloton five days a week. Now that caught my attention because Kevin does nothing.

Five. days a week and you know I love you Kevin but it really piqued my curiosity ended up getting a system and it's become an integral part of my week. I love it and I really didn't expect to love it at all because I find cycling really boring usually. But Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes. right into your home. You don't have to worry about fitting classes into your schedule or making it to a studio with some type of commute, et cetera. New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite New York City instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors or find your own favorite class on demand. And in fact, Kevin and I rarely do live classes and you can compete with your friends, which is also fun. Kevin, I'm coming after you, but we usually just use classes on demand. I really like Matt Wilfers and his high intensity training sessions that are shorter, like 20 minutes.

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when cycling never had caught my attention before. It's really pretty stunning what they've done with the user interface to keep your attention. The belt drive is quiet and it's smaller than you would expect. So it can fit in a living room or an office. I actually have it in a large closet, believe it or not. and it fits with no problem. So Peloton is offering All of you guys, listeners of the Tim Ferris show, a special offer, and it is actually special. Visit OnePeloton, that's O-N-E-P-E-L-O-T-O-N, OnePeloton.com and enter the code Tim. All caps T I M at checkout to receive$100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. Now you might say, meh, accessories? Wait, I don't need fancy towels or whatever. other supplemental bits and pieces. No, the shoes you need. You need the clip-in shoes and those are in the accessory category. So this hundred dollars off

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