The Playbook with Colin Jonov
Formerly The Athletic Fortitude Show.... Colin Jonov’s Athletic Fortitude Show has rebranded to The Playbook with Colin Jonov, evolving from a sports-centric podcast to a universal guide for mastering life’s challenges. While retaining its foundation in mindset and performance excellence, the show now expands its scope to empower everyone—athletes, entrepreneurs, professionals, and beyond—to live life to its fullest potential
The Playbook with Colin Jonov
Bestselling Author & CEO Eric Jorgenson On Authentic Curiosity, Selective Perfectionism, and Success
Through authentic curiosity and selective perfectionism, Eric Jorgenson has built a unique career translating complex ideas into accessible wisdom. His journey from blogger to bestselling author to CEO demonstrates how following one's genuine interests creates distinctive value in a world that rewards uniqueness over conventional excellence.
• Collecting ideas that resonate personally rather than following rigid frameworks
• Dedicating extraordinary effort to projects that align with your deepest values
• Understanding that relief comes from unburdening desires rather than achieving them all
• Choosing a few meaningful desires carefully instead of pursuing endless wants
• Becoming a "unique specialist" by following genuine curiosity across domains
• Prioritizing personal health as the foundation for all other achievements
• Developing "high agency" to reshape reality rather than accepting limitations
• Recognizing that most people aren't thinking about you—they're thinking about themselves
• Finding success by building win-win relationships in business ecosystems
• Embracing authenticity as the path to creating distinctive value
For more on curating wisdom and building an authentic career, visit ericjorgenson.com and explore The Almanack of Naval.
You're essentially a translator of brilliant minds for the masses. What is your framework for taking someone's complex and scattered thoughts and turning them into a coherent philosophy?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's a framework so much as an emergent process. I just collect the things that I find useful. I collect the things that stand out to me. I think anybody you could go write a book about Naval and collect all of the things he's ever said and you might pick out different pieces and you might build a different mosaic and it might be equally interesting or more interesting to some people.
Speaker 2:But I think there's just some taste that we all have of what speaks to us and then it's just a process of like staying with it for long enough to try to really hone and sculpt it into something where there's just no waste, not a lot of confusion, not a lot of fluff, um, and you're just like it. Just it truly feels like doing a giant jigsaw puzzle, um, but you get to like pick and choose your own pieces and like put it together into something cool. So I don't know, I'm not following a rigorous process, I'm just like this is kind of the mode that my learning takes. I'm just like I would build these books, even if nobody read them, just because I feel like it makes me smarter and better and helps me install these ideas into my own head and improve my own life.
Speaker 1:I think what's interesting is I've listened to and read enough of Naval's content to know that he wouldn't let just anyone do this, though, so what do you think it was about? Either the wisdom that you have or that you were able to pick out from his stuff that got him to sign off on this type of project, as well as some of the other people that you have coming up next um, I actually I don't know if I have any special sauce there, like I.
Speaker 2:I followed him for years. I learned a lot, um, and I don't know if there was anything like special. We had some mutual connections but, like I didn't ask for any special access, I didn't have a pre-existing relationship. I just sort of tweeted this idea, and Naval is pretty good about letting people work on his work. Akira the Don makes all this music remixing his ideas, and people retweet his shit all the time or do threads that are exactly his threads all the time, and people grow their accounts based off of it. Um, and he just doesn't seem to mind as long as it is like remixed and hopefully improved upon and spread like um, it feels almost like open source in that way.
Speaker 2:Um, I think through the process, I did a good job of like showing my work, and so I would sort of check in with him quarterly and I think, like I think a lot of people say they're going to do something and like don't actually do it, and so I think it may be.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like a job interview where everybody gets offered the job but most people don't show up, or they show up, they don't show up for the.
Speaker 2:You know two years that it takes to actually like complete the project and earn the earn the job.
Speaker 2:Um, so I just stuck with it, showed my work and I really, you know there's an audience of one that takes.
Speaker 2:I wanted it to be something that I loved, but I also wanted it to be something that he was proud to be associated with, and so, like you know, I'm not known for being a perfectionist in my personal life, I would say but like I really wanted this project to be perfect because I wanted him to be proud to be associated with it and that really like forced me to keep raising my bar and keep raising my bar and really put a lot of a ton of hours and a ton of money into making this thing like as good as I could possibly figure in, get in that particular moment, and I think that showed through. I think that's part of like the success of the book is just like having that crazy high bar for it and making it something that he was like nope, yeah, you, you should put a lot of work into this and like I think we were all we are all surprised by like how many corners of the world it's reached.
Speaker 1:It is truly one of, if not the most impactful book that I've read in my life. It was given to me by by my mentor and it just it completely opened my eyes to the way I view work, the way I view life and how I spend my time right and how I am intentional in some of the things that I do, and everything I'm hearing from you is you are not a perfectionist, but this was something where you're like, hey, I have to put the time and energy and I want this to be special for me and for Naval to be a part of, and for Naval to be a part of. What was it that drew you to his stuff in particular, to take a more unorthodox route to writing a book than most people take?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what drew me to him in the first place? I have been a huge Buffett and Munger fan for a long time, so I love Charlie Munger. Poor Charlie's Almanac is the reason that this book is called the Almanac of Duval and a lot of what I appreciated about Munger. This like timeless wisdom, this focus on principles, this willingness to sort of zig when everybody else is zagging and be a little like, be a little irreverent in the service of truth, the service of wisdom. I saw that in navall, but with a whole bunch of uh, kind of more modern like technologically focused mental models as well. Like you know, if navall is silicon valley's charlie munger like that's, that's me. I'm like the middle of those two, like I'm a midwestern kid, hard working, family values, grew up in Detroit but I also moved to San Francisco. I love sci-fi and futuristic tech. I worked in venture-backed startups. I run a small, crazy moonshot venture fund.
Speaker 2:To me, naval is the very center of two really core pillars of my personality. I've been drawn to him for a long time, followed him for 10 years, learned a lot from him just through podcasts, through Twitter, all this stuff, and it really emerged like the idea for this book came out of reading principles and reading all of the books. The compilations of Buffett and Munger, like the Berkshire Hathaway letters or like Peter Bevelin's books, are. They're remixes of Warren and Charlie. All they do is do interviews during the annual shareholder meetings and they write letters. Warren and Charlie don't write books, they give talks or they give interviews. But still there's all these books about Buffett and Munger that contain their wisdom. That was life-changing for me. I was like well, sort of exists. I wish Naval would write a book. He's probably not going to write a book. I'm a huge Naval fan. Have been for a long time. I love writing, I love books. Maybe I can put this thing together, but I think there's something like I didn't want to write a book about naval. You know it's like a.
Speaker 2:I think when I started this project I was 27, 26, somewhere like late 20s, and I was just like who am I to like try to rephrase the ideas of this person who is like brilliant and experienced and wise and it's very like thoughtful writer, essentially like on twitter and as a speaker.
Speaker 2:He's just like every word is deliberately chosen.
Speaker 2:It's like I don't, I don't sully that with like an attempt at rephrasing things, so I'm just gonna get out of the way, I'm just gonna use the puzzle pieces that he gave me and try to build something that I would wish that he had written, but like it does still rely on my taste to assemble it and put it in this context.
Speaker 2:Um, but I do trust myself to do that, like I think if I have any talent at all, it is in like recognizing the genius of others, and so that is what come. That is what comes through in the books, that's what comes through in investing, like that's what comes through in the company, like hiring people and just like sorting through all the ideas that the team generates and being like that's the one, like we're going to double down on that, um, or hearing all the different customer requests, and being like that's the product we're going to build, like go on that. So it's really like it's really just honing and honing and honing the system of like recognizing good ideas when you see them, and I feel like that's something I've been working on my whole life, almost accidentally, just as I read, as I listen, as I meet people and just appreciate the kind of ideas that they have to share.
Speaker 1:Now, is this something that feels like play to you? Obviously, work comes with everything, but is this something that feels like play to you? That's natural that only you can compete in.
Speaker 2:I think so, think so. I mean, this is a pattern that I see myself doing over and over again. You know, um, I really like my first blog was curating like timeless articles and stitching them together and trying to like, learn and understand what was a new concept, a new business concept. So I would say I'd go to my email list and say what's the most important or useful thing you've ever read about network effects? Like send it to me and I would consume all these dozens or hundreds of things in like a week or two. And then I'd write an article that synthesizes it, pulls out, highlights, links back to the original material. And that was how I like you know that was my self-assessed mba was like doing just processing all this information and trying to create useful things and curating truly evergreen, really useful content. The blog was called evergreen. It's all hosted on my personal site now but, um, I learned so much doing that and it was just like I have so much fun like turning over rocks and finding gems and like having these little aha moments, and then I get another like burst of energy and excitement by sharing them and seeing somebody else respond to them and seeing somebody else like have that same moment and then we're kind of bonded over this new, like shared idea that we both appreciate.
Speaker 2:And there's so many, I don't know, there's so many little breadcrumbs, I guess, through life that once you start to see that pattern in your own behavior emerge, you're kind of like, oh yeah, and then you know, like Charlie Munger has a quote, like the best thing that someone else can do is help another to know more, like or the acquisition of knowledge is morally, is a like moral prerequisite.
Speaker 2:Like I'm butchering both of those. They're not word perfect and they should be, but they're just like all those things start to stack up and um, now, like david deutsch is kind of the new, like frontier of that for me. Or it's like the root of all evil is ignorance and like the the process of gaining new knowledge is like an inherently human, that's the system of human progress. And so like we should always be trying new ideas, criticizing them, trying to come up with better explanations for the world around us that help us, you know, improve and grow and build new things and understand the universe around us. And like there's something very rewarding about being like tied into that on a human level and just making more of that progress through time.
Speaker 1:I always reflect in my own life as I try and look and find my own patterns that have led me to a certain place. When did you start to notice the different patterns in your own life that led you to this unique skill that most people can't do? Was there an aha moment or was it a string of events that led to this?
Speaker 2:Oh it's. It's still a thing that I've like forget and re-remember or gain conviction in over time. Um, I mean, nothing's a straight line, right. Like I don't think I'm a great writer, but I can show you moments in time where I learned that other people thought I was good, or that I realized there's thought, or that I was surprised by reactions to my writing. Like, still I'm not. I would not say like I'm a writer.
Speaker 2:Like that is who I am, that's what I am, that's my unique skill. Like, um, I think I'm realistically above average, but I know so many people who are so much better than I will ever be that like it's still hard to be. Like that's the thing that I am uniquely. But I think you I do agree with that kind of like you combine, you combine a lot of different things that are authentic to you and you gain conviction in them over time and they probably change to some extent. But like this, this um, searching, collecting, curating, sharing cycle is like definitely a thing that over and over again, I'm seeing sort of pop its head up, um, and then that gets reinforced. Like you have to time that observation to then see it get even stronger over time.
Speaker 2:So that's, but I do a lot of things that aren't directly that, and so it's. It's always foggier than to us, than I think it probably seems to other people, like other people in your life could probably tell you very more specifically or more with more clarity, like what those things are that are uniquely like, authentic and unique to you, that you can't stop doing and that you do even if nobody's paying you to do it, and um that you're uniquely known for that's fascinating to me, that you did not have, like the unique confidence that I am a good writer, or that there's things that occur in your life where people told you that hey, hey, you're pretty good at this, or hey, this is pretty unique to you, or hey, this is pretty special and it kind of just clicks for you.
Speaker 1:Is that something that is applicable to everybody?
Speaker 2:Or do you think people can build that awareness to where they're like nah, this is my skill set, this is what I can do, this is what I'm about, about well, I think everybody can build it and it's a process of refining it and getting clarity around it and reinforcing it, and some of it comes from just like zooming out and getting a different sample size right. Like you're an athlete, so I might meet you and be like that dude is fucking jacked. He can do like handstand push-ups, he can do standing backflips, he can do all kinds of crazy shit that, like my body will never do. Um, and you might not think of yourself as that, because you go to the gym with all these even crazier athletes and like you've been smoked by all these people in your world who are, like you know, 10 better than you, but to me those skills are very similar and like I didn't even know that that other level of excellence existed, but you live with it every single day, um, and so I think some of it is just like remembering, which truly is like when people are really dedicated, they get deeper and deeper and deeper into these subcultures of excellence.
Speaker 2:Um, which is a double-edged sword, right. On the one hand, that environment is making you better and it's really helping you become even greater, because you're forgetting how high up the curve you already are. On the other hand, if you're beating the shit out of yourself because you're like, oh, I'm still like I'm not that good, I'm not a good writer, I'm not like that athletic, but you're actually in the top 1%, you just forget that the whole other 99% of the population exists, like there's a healthy version of that and there's an unhealthy version of that. I think Use it to get better, while remembering that you are still great. You are still making progress. You could be happy with where you are, or you can be happy with what you are and where you are and still striving for more.
Speaker 1:at the same time, do you get to appreciate how you played a massive role in changing a number of people's lives Like do you actually take the time to reflect and understand that you are a pivotal piece in changing millions, if not billions, of lives?
Speaker 2:Uh, no, like, not. Like there's a I feel like there's a version of that that sounds bad. But like I don't walk around all day like patting myself on the back, um, for a thing that I did five years ago. Like there are moments where I really do appreciate it and I get incredible like DMS or emails from people where I do have that moment of like so good to know, to know that you played a small role in somebody else's life changing and and there's like so there's very specific anecdotes or or people where moments where that happens like this is one of them, like this, that's fucking awesome to hear and I am like I have a physical, like beautiful response of appreciation and gratitude and that's awesome.
Speaker 2:But I don't think it's helpful to live in that all the time. But I carry that as inspiration for my next project and as motivation to continue to do what I do and to continue to share it and write the next book and do the next thing, because I think in some ways that's fuel. It's not why I do it, but it like helps me, it helps draw me towards that finish line a little bit, to know that, like, people are impacted, people are exciting, people are waiting for the next thing, or that they, you know, appreciate the work. But I would do it. I would do the work even if nobody read it, but it's awesome that millions of people get benefit from it. Um, it truly is, and that's it's not why I do it, but it definitely helps.
Speaker 1:Um when you have high achievers like yourself and it's, you know, high achievers like yourself, right, and I asked other, like elite people. Like you said, there's the 1%, right, and there's levels to this. But I like to ask that question do you take the opportunity to appreciate some of the work that you've done? Because it is remarkable, it does change lives, whether you're an athlete, whether you're a coach, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're an author, the work that you do matters and carries impact and I don't think when we're going through it and I was the same way as an athlete I didn't sit in those moments and appreciate them when they were there.
Speaker 1:I couldn't appreciate the big plays I made or the impact we did off the field with things. You don't think about it in those moments and then later in life, like, people bring it up and you're like, oh, you know what, that was pretty cool or that was substantial or that did mean something. My problem with myself is I want to get better and I have gotten substantially better at having the joy in the moments and realizing in the moment I'm doing something cool or special or, in your case, impacting billions of lives. And I don't know if that's unique to high performers that they can't enjoy things in the moment moment, but how to get us there in a healthier, more perspective, or a healthier perspective so, uh, that's a, that's a good question, a good story.
Speaker 2:That, I think, makes it useful. So I think, uh, the way I heard your, your first question was like do you live in the past? Like, do you live in your achievements? And like, not really, like I no? Um, the question of like can you be more, can we be better at being present? Hell yeah, like, there's a very unhealthy version of like I'm always living in the future that you can't appreciate the moment, you can't appreciate the accomplishment. You can't appreciate the achievement, the progress that you are experiencing in this present moment because you're already focused on the next thing. It's already not good enough what you just did, and you have to. You know you're already planning for that next. You know the next company, the next investment, the next game, the next book, whatever it is, and I think that's that is hard Like, on the one hand, that's probably a path to like Kobe, michael Jordan.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, like I think they spent a lot of time being very unhappy and very hard on themselves on the path and if that's the outcome you want and that's the trade-off you want to make, like rock on, not my business, understand what you're getting into, go for greatness. Fuck yeah, I'm rooting for you. Um, if you're like I want to be a great husband, I want to be a great dad, I want to be a great brother, I want to achieve you achieve some things in the business world or in the athletic world, but I also don't want to do the whole rest of my life to do it then you've got to understand that, take those moments of celebration and live in that moment and be proud of yourself and have a healthier relationship with yourself and those around you, because it's really hard If you don't have that root of comfort within you, like it's hard for other people, uh, to lean on you or for you to lean on them. So, actually, like in the I think athletics is really good at celebrating the moment because you've got distinct wins, like did we win the game or lose the game? Did we win the championship or lose the championship? We won the championship, hell yeah, grab the gatorade. Like, grab the champagne. Locker room party. We're going out tonight. We've got a break before the next season. You have clear milestones and clear goals in a way that the whole rest of the world, I would say, envies deeply.
Speaker 2:When do you celebrate as an entrepreneur. Is it when you hit a million in sales? Is it when you hit 10 million in sales? I hit the sales number but my margins aren't that good. I hit the sales number but, like, my margins aren't that good. I hit the sales number but I had to take out a loan. So, like I'll celebrate when the debt's paid off. Or like the book sold 100,000 copies but hasn't sold a million my last one sold a million I'll celebrate when this one reaches 10 million.
Speaker 2:Like there's, it's hard to know when to celebrate in most areas of life and when to enjoy your progress and live in the present. Um, and one thing that like for the athletes dude, I I was. I was like watching I think it was the nba championship, uh, and I was watching the locker room champagne party and I was like that looks so fucking fun, like I'm so sad that I will never have that in like my career. And I was like why not? Like I can buy champagne shit's cheap. Go to trader joe's, get some two dollar bottles of champagne.
Speaker 2:My buddy had a big like work event coming up. He was running an incubator, so he had an annual cycle where he would like graduate startups. Uh, after his demo day, and so I got all our friends together, got a big group chat, we bought a bunch of champagne and we like bought ski goggles and had a like locker room champagne party outside his demo day and like it was this moment of celebration that we just like absolutely copped from you know, professional sports, um, and try to like bring it in and have that moment of like. We're making a memory, we're living in the present, we're celebrating your accomplishment, we're celebrating and I think there's a bunch of really cool ways to do that that, like healthy cultures can adopt. Um, but yeah, that difference between like past, present and future, like live in the present, appreciate your growth um, I think is like the the root of like a healthy you know healthy relationship itself it's funny that you bring up like the celebration as like, hey, that's our clear-cut moment to like be in the moment.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I think it happens with a lot of guys that probably approach the game in an unhealthy manner. I was one of those people. When you're popping the champagne, you're in those moments you kind of realize that everything that you've been working towards is more of a relief feeling than a gratifying feeling. And I think that's one of the most parallel things that I've noticed going from athletic world to entrepreneur. Life is you have this idea of what success is, or a point that you can't wait to hit, and then you hit it. And whether there's a champagne popping party or whether it's just you by yourself in your living room looking at a spreadsheet or whatever, it's always that well, what's next? And how have you in your own life maybe satisfied or fulfilled that point where you're not like what's next?
Speaker 2:and it's just this continuum of growth and celebration when necessary uh, I try to keep like, for better or worse, I keep a lot of different kind of files open, so, like I'm trying to build a business, I'm trying to build a, you know, a venture portfolio, trying to write some useful books, uh, trying to stay in decent shape, trying to have a great family life, and so it's really like I think it removes some of the like massive pressure on one thing.
Speaker 2:When you're like all right, I've got like I've got a lot of ways to win every shit day at work, but I get a couple good hours playing with my baby, then that can still be a great day, you know. But that sense of like the more Naval has really incepted me with this. I take this idea up from the book and I still am untangling it because it's a super, super, super deep idea. But, like understanding desire feels like such a such a foundational part of, like the human experience, um, and so it involves things like you know, understand that every desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
Speaker 1:Right, I use that quote all the time. Sorry to interrupt you, but like please that hit me so deep when I've heard him and read about it for the first time that exact quote and definition and it forced me to be like I can't have all these desires or else I'm gonna to be miserable but continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of things creating desire in us constantly, unconsciously, and so I think his prescription is a few desires carefully chosen. A few desires carefully chosen is the recipe of a good life, because you're not running around desiring all these things that you don't actually care about. Doing the work to achieve, like James Clear, is a good thing of like if you desire something but you have no desire to do the work to earn it, like that is a very clear recipe for unhappiness, like permanent unhappiness. So just reconcile that. Just like get rid of that desire by understanding that you don't want to do the things that it takes to get there and that's totally okay. Nobody said you had to desire that, but Instagram has a way of.
Speaker 2:I can't conceive of a greater engine of desire creation than Instagram Just nonstop highlights globally. Some of them aren't even humanly possible. You have no concept of the whole rest of their life. You're just creating this surreal, surreal montage of like one potential outcome. But if you're envying all these different pieces of millions of different lives, that, um, for all kinds of reasons, are like unreasonable. Um, so I'm like careful with sort of my, my diet and media diet there. Um, but a few desires also keep you. Having like a, a handful of desires, not just like one overarching one, keeps you from that kind of sense of being. Like my whole life hinges on this one thing that I don't have perfect control over. Um, it's funny you said that, uh, I've been following this guy, uh, james Pierce, who's enlightened.
Speaker 2:He has achieved enlightenment. This is the thing I talked with Naval recently. He's like there's enlightened people all over the internet, dozens of them, truly enlightened beings that you might go your whole life hearing about but never actually having met before. You can watch them on YouTube.
Speaker 2:James Pierce talks about the relief that you described of being like I achieved this thing that I desired, but I didn't actually need it. I just needed to be unburdened with the desire to achieve it. Like that's that moment of relief that you experience of like I didn't need to win the championship, I just needed to stop need to win the championship, I just needed to stop wanting to win the championship. And you did it by winning it fantastic. But like you could have also achieved the same relief by like, acutely, just stopping to desire, stopping desiring it, and like, maybe that, maybe somebody on the other team had that experience of like they lost the game. But they also got to stop desiring to win that goal, because they graduated out and that was their last game and they also had that palpable sense of relief just wasn't accompanied by like also winning, but they got to stop desiring too have you found any examples in your life where you've been able to rid a desire that you were chasing without actually accomplishing it?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, like all the time. Um, so like, uh, I really I love comedy and I love comedians and like there's like, depending on how much comedy I'm consuming at the time, like we're so memetic, we're such memetic creatures, you know, like we, we adopt the desires of, like the thing that we're focusing our attention on right, and so, like you see people acting all this you see like 13 year old kids start acting like anime characters and you're like, oh, you watch a lot of anime. Or you see girls start talking on speakerphone for no reason. It's like you've been watching a lot of trash reality tv, because all of them do that for the mics, but there's no mic. You're just sitting on speakerphone at the pool because you've been watching too much reality tv. Um, and so my version of that is like I watch a lot of comedy, I love comedians, I love the sort of jester's privilege to like tell the truth to society because you're making people laugh. Um, I respect so many comedians as like great writers and observers of the human condition, and if I'm watching a lot of comedy, I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 2:There's a big part of me that's like I could do that, like I want to be a comedian. Like I want to get on that stage. I bet I can write a tight five. I bet if I practice, I love it. Like, should I move to new york and be an snl writer? Like, try to get in the writer's room, like that would be fun. Um, I bet I could do it. And then I'm like, wait, wait, wait. These guys travel 300 days a year and work in shitty bars for 10 years to try to break through. I've got a wife and a kid. A great job that I love. This other work. Why am I spending any time desiring to do this thing that's going to take 10 years of work, that I have no desire to actually do? And then it's like, oh, poof, gone.
Speaker 2:I have zero desire to be on the New York times bestseller list because I know it's a crock of shit and like heavily manipulated and just like this, like it's a thing that so many authors want. I talk to aspiring authors like all day, every day, as that ceo scribe, and like it's like I want to be a bestseller. I want to. And I was like okay, what does that mean? Why they're like well, that's, they're like well, that's what, that's what authors have, that's what famous authors have, like do you know how they choose that list? Do you know what it means? Do you know how many copies you have to sell?
Speaker 2:Do you know that people cheat their way into that list all the time? Like I don't actually care about it, um, or I care about it still because I care about the perception, because other people don't actually know that it's crock shit. So, like I want it, I still want to put that sticker on me because other people will respect me more as a result of it, and like there's nothing wrong with wanting to be respected and wanting to be recognized. Like I think we all have that, um, but there's like versions of it that are unassailable and there's versions of it that are just like associating yourself with something and so like I don't know it, just depending on what sort of uh perspective people have and what information they have.
Speaker 1:Like those desires change constantly it's funny because you described honestly, very similar to how I operate in my own mind. Like last night i'm'm watching the US Open tennis and I'm like I could be a really good tennis player. I should just go join a country club, I should start playing tennis and then I start walking it back. I'm like, well, if I really want to be just a good recreational tennis player, I'm gonna have to put this number of hours in, pay this money, spend this time away from my kids on the weekends. I'm like probably not worth it. I'm like I'll just be a good recreational pickleball player which takes zero effort to me. I just show up for a couple hours and have some fun.
Speaker 1:It's a nice little derivative of tennis that I can be solid at. But that's like that. I call it kind of like catastrophizing or spiraling, is exactly how my brain operates. Where I'll get these desires? Because I love sports and I'll be watching sports. I'll be looking at all these different things. I'll be like I can do this, I would be great in that role. And then I think about oh, do I really want to pay the cost of entry? And 99 out of 100, 99 out of 100 times, the answer is no, um for you, go ahead, ahead.
Speaker 2:You were going to say something, I think, like it's so funny that Morgan Housel has a great thing about fancy cars. That sounds exactly like that. That is like you think if you buy this fancy car, people are going to see you in it and be like, oh, he's like Colin's awesome, he drives a Lamborghini. But like they actually just see a lamborghini and imagine themselves in that lamborghini and like it's like we're not looking, we're not watching tennis. Being like, oh wow, nomad djokovic, he's so good, he's so tall, he's so handsome, he's so accomplished. Just like you and me are watching. Being like we probably do that, should we go do that? Like I think I probably do a lot of that. Like it's just such a funny.
Speaker 2:Like we're all so convinced or so, so earnestly, like projecting this thing, that like we think other people are evaluating us on. And it's just like everyone's just walking around thinking of themselves all the time and very little actually matters. You know, through that lens of like, what are other people thinking about? Like, what are other people thinking about? Like what are they thinking about me? What do you think about this decision I'm going to make? We're thinking about how I'm going to spend my time or how good I'm at tennis or what car I drive Like nobody cares. Nobody's thinking about you, they're just thinking about themselves all the time.
Speaker 1:That's literally so. I go through that with some of the athletes I work with. So I work on athletes with like an identity lens, creating identity outside of sport, and one of the number one, I guess, adversaries that athletes are facing today is that fear of opinion of others because of what media and social media has become, and it's really hard to get people to recognize exactly what you just articulated is nobody's actually thinking of you, they're thinking of themselves. Like you just said, we may appreciate something Novak Djokovic does, but at the end of the day we're thinking I could do that, or maybe I could do that at a recreational level or taking things from that to apply to my own life, not necessarily sitting there thinking about that specific person judging Novak Djokovic. And even if I was, you shouldn't care what I think. You're not coming to me and asking me for advice, same with all these other people. But you just articulated it beautifully Nobody's actually thinking of you, nobody actually cares.
Speaker 2:This is where the simulation hypothesis is actually like, very useful, like to just actually embody the fact that you're in the matrix and it's entirely possible that nobody else is real and actually, the further they are from you they may or may not like the less real they are. Um, so, like your, you know your wife, your kids, your family, your parents like real, your friends, your coach. Your very, very real, but not load-bearing necessarily in your daily life. But commenters on the internet, especially in a bot age and an AI age, and internet trolls very literally might not be real and, like you know, internet trolls like very literally might not be real, like it's just so far from anything that affects your daily life in a way that, like if you give them equal weight in your head to the people who are actually like living in your house every day, but you're going to drive yourself fucking crazy. It's impossible.
Speaker 2:There are billions of them. They all believe something different. They have no respect for, like, your feelings or the cost of are billions of them. They all believe something different. They have no respect for your feelings or the cost of accommodating them. You will get no reward for following that feedback from them. They're building that muscle. To just shut it out and dismiss it instantly, before it even enters your brain is so, so useful.
Speaker 1:Knowing that, how do you measure your own success Like? What does success look like for you and each of your desires?
Speaker 2:It's a very. It's a very, I'd say it's a very like a loose rubric, but they're all a little different. So, like, when I'm writing a book, I want to be really proud of the book. You know, I got to put my name on the front. I've got to talk about it forever. I've got to, like you know, be willing to put it in front of.
Speaker 2:The test I always give authors when they come to me is, like, if you are not willing to put this book in front of the most intimidating person in your network, the most important person, the person you respect the most, who you're like a little afraid of their opinion of you, then you did not work hard enough on your book and you didn't invest enough in making it great across all the different domains. And there's a lot of people that half-ass a book because they like think it'll be useful. And a book is not useful unless you whole ass it, like you've got a full send and you've got to get like true excellence to the point where, like you are proud to put it in front of people or you're going to kind of secretly, subconsciously, hide it and not talk about it and we'll do you any good anyway. So in the like for my books, I um. So in the like for my books, I need to be proud of them. That doesn't mean I need to get good feedback from that person who's most like that, that like hypothetical person who's most important or intimidating in my network. It just means I need to like, have worked hard on it and be proud enough of it when I'm really honest with myself that I can put it out into the world confidently.
Speaker 2:Um, some of my books have like millions of readers. Some have thousands of readers. I am equally proud of them as pieces of work, but like, so that's fantastic. Um, it's really hard to predict. You never know quite what books are going to do what, especially when it's like you know you're kind of, you're making art and you're doing it, you're trying to. You hope it'll have a good impact on people. You hope people respond to if you can't control it. Um, so I find it best to not like anchor and have any specific goal on it.
Speaker 2:Um, in running a business um, I'm ceo at scribe, which I've been for about two years now. Um, it's a this kind of like a publisher for the internet age. Um, it basically does the opposite of what all the traditional publishers do, but at the same like level of quality. I work with hundreds of authors a year to help people write books, help people publish books, help people market books. But I view my role there as the center of the ecosystem. The ecosystem is not just my team, but customers, the team members and employees, our potential future customers, our investors, our suppliers, the freelancers we work with and the broader community. So there's all these people that need to have win-win relationships with this company that I'm sort of trying to balance all of the different interests. And so if I can find win-win relationships between everybody involved which is a constant rebalancing act because it's a dynamic system but if everybody feels like they are better off for being a part of this ecosystem and that's true over a long period of time, then that's my measure of success there.
Speaker 2:I want investors to be happy they invested. I want the team to be happy they work here. I want customers to be happy they did business with us. I want suppliers to be very happy that they're working with us and I want us to have this like earned reputation for excellence over a long period of time. So like that's my goal there.
Speaker 2:It's not dollars. It's not money, it's not a milestone, it's not a Mount Rushmore of customers. It's just like am I being a good steward of the ecosystem, the investing like? I want my investors to make money? Um, I want to be in the top. Like you know, if you're in the top quartile of funds, like the top quarter, you're basically like you're in venture, you're delivering some of the best returns in any asset class that there is. Um, so, like, that is a responsibility that I have to my investors and the bar that I want to clear for them. However, the true North Star of the whole exercise is like can I fund people?
Speaker 2:The tagline for a fund is obsessive geniuses building utopian technology, and so I want to find the true pioneers and misfits and kooks that are building crazy stuff. That will be a mega cap company like the. What are the most important companies in the world in 2040 or 2050 and where are they today and who's building them and what do they look like at the earliest stages and how can we be sure that those people have the resources they need to get off the ground and move faster? And that's like. That's a really super fun exercise. It's going to take decades to figure out if you were correct on that.
Speaker 2:Um, it's like you can't anchor on that day to day but you can try to sort of become ever better at it by studying the recent past and, you know, being super immersed in the present and like navigating those things and reading about what you know the future could look like over the next couple decades, and trying to understand where the you know this is one of the tests of reality. Can you understand where reality is going and forces it? Um, it's just a wildly fun thing to do with, like buddies and we get to meet, so we get to be really, really fun. Um, and he just it feels like living in a sci-fi book. So like that is like you know, the overarching of all of them is like am I having fun? Am I still a good person? Am I still present with my family? Um, am I still being responsible steward of?
Speaker 2:Like all the you know the different responsibilities that I have in life and taking care of the people around me, and like taking care of my health, um, which is like the foundation of all of those. And so you try to like not, you can't if I'm successful at the company and the fund, but I'm like slowly eroding my personal health and my personal relationships, like that's a loss. Like big L, no, when you get no credit, zero points, god have mercy on your soul. Like uh, stop, reset, unplug. Like go to the cabin in the woods, restart. You got to clear the slate because you're you're too focused on winning the wrong thing and not zoomed out enough. For me personally, that's like the, the choice that I'm trying to make and the people that I look up to always have that kind of balanced um, a balanced life and a long-term perspective.
Speaker 1:Going off deeper on that point. When you have conflicting goals or conflicting measurements of success and one starts overriding the other, how do you know when it's time to prioritize or create a season of one over the other? Particularly, if you think about from the revenue side of things, your investors aren't happy. You need to right the ship relatively quickly. Well, hey, I'm also not spending as much time as home being the father I want to be. How do you create a process to make those types of decisions?
Speaker 2:Have you read the book the Courage to be Disliked?
Speaker 1:No, I have not, it's out of my list though. It's a list though.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a. A lot of people are turned off by the title and I don't blame you Like I was at first too Um, but I, I kind of did, I, I listened to it actually, so I popped it on a long drive one day and it was um. I don't ascribe to every word in that book, but one of the things in there it's it's a dialogue, so it's a really easy read and it's like kind of a seeking a kid trying to learn from a master and they have this discussion and it's all about um, this psychologist called um, so it's adlerian psychology, and one of the things that really stuck with me in it was, um, the separation of texts, and so he's got a really, really clear prescription for, like, you are responsible for the things you're responsible for, and it's much more extreme than you might think of. Like, if you're a parent, you might feel like you're responsible for your kid doing their homework, but you're not. The homework is the kid's responsibility, right? And so, like, there's a lot of things that people are always trying to sort of like put tasks on your plate and make them feel like it's your task or vice versa. You might spend a lot of time being like oh my God, I've got you know, like describe as like 27 people. And so you know there are a lot of CEOs who are like it's my responsibility to make sure every one of those 27 people are all doing everything every day, and like maxed out efficiency and that everything is getting done, and like that's a quick way to burn yourself out.
Speaker 2:And so, like you know, I try to revisit that like what are my true tasks? What are the hours that I have in the day? Am I being responsible with my time and am I tackling the right things in the right order? And I try to externalize that. So if I tell my wife my health is the most important thing and this was a huge unlock for me that Naval said he's like my personal health is the single most important priority in my life. It's not my businesses that have billions of dollars at stake, that thousands of people are depending on me, it's not even my family's health, it's my personal physical and mental health, and that's the first priority I tackle in a day, because if I don't have that, everything else comes down and I can't do any of the other responsibilities in my life. And so I've tried to.
Speaker 2:When you're working really, really hard, you can convince yourself like I don't have time to go to the gym, you know, I'm just I'm gonna eat, you know, fast food, I'm gonna do this um and like trying to, and this is. You know I'm not perfect. It's an ever-improving sort of standard um that you're trying to work towards. But, like, make your schedule and your decisions reflect your priorities and understand what tasks are truly yours. You cannot outsource your workout. You cannot outsource deepening your relationship with your partner. You cannot outsource your parenting. You can get help, but you can't outsource your presence as a parent to a certain extent.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of things that we take on that aren't actually our tasks.
Speaker 2:Or there's a lot of times that, like we take on that aren't actually our tasks.
Speaker 2:Or there's a lot of times that I take on 40 hours.
Speaker 2:I mentally wake up and say I'm going to do this and this and this and this and this and this and this.
Speaker 2:That's my goal for the day I just assigned myself and around like 2 pm I realized I assigned myself 40 hours of work to do in this like eight hour day, in which there's going to be at least two hours of surprises that I didn't account for and it to do in this like eight hour day in which there's going to be at least two hours of surprises that I didn't account for, and it's like, okay, I need to just like readjust my expectations, retriage my list.
Speaker 2:What is the single most important how leverage thing that I need to do like right now? Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to like tackle that and I'm getting better at like like every single day, I leave important things undone every single day and that used to like really stress me out, um, but it's stressed me out for long enough and I've come to more terms to deal with it that, like you can just allow things to be undone in an unstressed way, like, um, my mom actually told me once I was like you'll die with work left undone and I was like, huh, fuck, that's correct.
Speaker 1:Honestly. That's something I probably need to hear right now because I'm in one of those stages. So usually I say my physical and mental health is my top priority because everything's downstream from there, similar to what Naval says. But this last probably six weeks is the least I've worked out and eaten correctly in my life.
Speaker 1:For that line that you said I don't have time, when in reality that just means it's not a priority when it's supposed to be, because I've been taking on extra work tasks, I've been trying to do more, I've been trying to create more opportunities, I've been doing my best to spend more time with my kids and I need that reset Like, hey, you're going to die with work undone, because there's a lot of times I go to bed and I'm thinking I didn't respond to that email. I need to do this tomorrow. This needs to be a priority. I still need to find, at you know, at least 30 minutes to work out and finding that soft landing to where I can be like it's okay if everything doesn't get done, and probably everything is going to be perfectly fine if that gets done a little bit later than expected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you know, especially it's. It's unfortunate that, like, those epiphanies usually come in the hardest moments of like when you have, especially it's. It's unfortunate that, like, those epiphanies usually come in the hardest moments of like when you have, when you have a crisis, when you have a near death experience.
Speaker 2:Um, I find that people are really good at it when they're actually married to, like doctors, um, cause like, no matter how yeah, okay, yeah, so like you can't complain to her, like I don't know if she's like got a rough assignment or not, but like my mom was an er nurse for like decades, yeah, so, like you know, there's a lot of people whose jobs are literally life and death, um, or who are getting like screamed at by people who are dealing with life and death, and it's just like our shit is not that hard, like it's just work, um.
Speaker 2:And you know, the people that are a few decades ahead of me, that are like mentors or people in my network that I'm in my house, are just so like, actually, xavier, um, who's one of the the partners of enduring ventures, who is my partners in scribe, um, you know we were getting we had a super stressful period and I was like felt like everything was on fire and I was like he was just kind of like working through the problem in this like calm way and I was like I think I asked him like aren't you like worried about this? And he's like I don't really get stressed about much anymore and I was like what a good line.
Speaker 2:Like every word of that is like a useful thing and he just like delivered it so casually. He's like, yeah, it's just like. And then I did a follow-up later. I was like what would make you stress? And he's like like imminent physical danger, like I don't know, um, but like we don't deal with that most like it would take a lot to deal with that in like the legal, you know, western American business market is like, yeah, this dude was doing startups in Africa and like lived in Tanzania for a while and like on safari, like he's done.
Speaker 2:He's done business in harder, much harder places than, like you know, america, um, and so I think you know his bar for stress is just like I'm like. And so I think you know his bar for stress is just like I'm like, oh yeah, it's like fuck whatever, we'll be fine, which is just a useful thing, cause then you go back to being like all right, this is, this is a game and I can like have fun playing it and like I can do my work with a good attitude and like um Naval had another. I don't think it's in the book, but he had a great tweet of like imagine how productive you'd be if you weren't stressed. Like your brain just works better, um and more creative. You're looser, like I'm sure the athletics version of that too is like you can't get too wrapped up in the stakes. You gotta just like stay loose, play for love of the game and like things take care of themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's funny in the the athletic world that like stay loose, like getting in that flow state. There's so many different components that like stay loose, like getting in that flow state. There's so many different components that like wrap into it. But then once you're there, it's like you're not even thinking like you, you're just, you're just doing. And I talk to different athletes all the time in that space Like well, how do you get there? And everybody's a little bit different. Some people it's, you know, for the love of the game, some people have to force themselves to to care less.
Speaker 1:But the point remains, like I always say, it comes back to like that midwit meme. Are you familiar with the midwit meme? Oh yeah, like I'm like, I am like firm all into that midwit meme where it's complete opposite ends of the spectrum get to the same conclusion and everybody else is just in the middle. And I strive, obviously to be on the right end of the midwit meme. I like to not think thumb's not the right word, but you get what I'm saying. I want to be so in tune with myself.
Speaker 2:The trap of the midwit meme is that you can't be the person on the right, so you just need to embrace that you're the person on the left or you will end up the person in the middle.
Speaker 1:Aha, well, thank you. I needed that because I'm probably the people.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely in the middle right now, if you're still trying to be the one on the right, yeah, then you're the one in the middle, like that's. That's how I read the meme. Just embrace that. You're the one on the left. As soon as you own it, as soon as your desire to be the one on the right goes away and you embrace being the one on the left, you're having a good time and you're getting the same result.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic. It pumps me up because I think I've brought this up three straight podcasts.
Speaker 2:I me up because I think I brought this up three straight podcasts, I think you're the first person that's actually seen the midwet meme.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, what are these people doing with their lives? Get on the internet, hey man. That's what I'm saying. Some of these athletes man. Some of these athletes man. But you articulated it much more eloquently than I could have and provided me my own education, which is why I love the podcast in general, just learning from other people. You talked about being the CEO of Scribe. That was another venture that seemed to have come up in an unorthodox manner. Where it was, you were just trying to save Scribe from going into bankruptcy and then, all of a sudden, you become CEO. Can you walk me through that process of how that happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of a wild. I didn't know this was a thing that really happened, so I was as surprised as anybody else. But the quick version of the story is I was a customer of Scribe's, I published the almanac and of all with Scribe and I love my experience. I thought I think what they do is there's a really important counterbalance to traditional publishing. I think it's like the model that makes sense in the age of the internet where, like there's no gatekeepers to who can publish what there's no, like you don't need a bunch of editors in New York like telling you who can publish it and how to publish. So, scribe, the business model is like you just pay us to do the work of a traditional publisher but we don't take any editorial control, we don't take any creative control or legal control and you keep a hundred percent of your royalties. So if you want to like bet on yourself as an author, like you hire scribe um, and whether you sell a thousand books or give away a thousand books or sell a million copies, like you are the CEO of your book, which is the truth anyway. It's a whole long rant about the 150-year-old business model of traditional publishing, but I'll spare you, but the founders of this business were Tucker Max and Zach Obrott. I don't know if the name Tucker Max means anything to you, but he was like a god-tier blogger-turned-author. He sold millions and millions of copies.
Speaker 2:Hilarious books, um, like absolute savant of a writer, um, and just a brilliant guy. Uh, he, he did like frat tire, like the original frat tire stuff, um, which is hilarious, but his, he started this business because he had four new york times bestsellers and all his. All these people kept reaching out to me like help me write a book, how do I get a book out there? How do I market my book? So he's starting this business and built it up for eight years. They sold it to a guy who, uh, through a whole series of misadventures over like 18 months, bankrupted the company like never hired a cfo, never a board, just like destroyed the company, misrepresented a lot of things along the way. It turned into this huge mess and I was an author who got caught up in that, and so I was like a customer of a bankrupt company. I'd prepaid all this money and the business disappeared overnight.
Speaker 2:It was chaos, but I know people who buy companies and who do turnarounds and so I started making some phone calls to friends and these guys Steve and Xavier from Enduring Ventures I met at a few conferences. I followed them a long time. They had a background in publishing and they had worked in turnarounds before, and so they flew to Austin. They met the team. They were like this business fundamentally makes sense. The team is amazing. We think we can build this thing back up.
Speaker 2:And so it ended up that the bankruptcy was complete and total in a giant crater. So they had to start a new company, buy the assets from the bank, hire some of the team. I was just like all right, great, I helped this company get back on its feet. Some of the team, a lot of the team, kept their jobs and I got to keep writing books and publishing with Scribe. And that's what I wanted.
Speaker 2:And to my surprise, they called me a month after they had bought everything and were like hey, we think you should come run this company. And I was like I haven't really been a CEO before. You guys know that right. And they were like yeah, but we like your instincts. You're a creator in this market. You've been a customer, you told the story, you sold us on the company. How do you want to give it a shot.
Speaker 2:And so some long conversations with my wife and trying to figure out how we could fit it into our life, but decided to give it a try. And so, two years in now and growing a very healthy growth and rebuilt the team and, um, a bunch of customers are coming back and we were able to finish. We've given away millions of dollars of like free work and try to make up for all of that um, chaos that happened with the authors that we can, and it's super, super fun to like work with authors like I love. I love our customers. I love talking about their books and how they're going to use their books to build their business. And, um, lots of podcasters, lots of creators. Creators want to add a book to their portfolio and use it to grow their perception, grow their audience, come stream, unlock new opportunities. And it's super fun. I get to merge my entrepreneurial side with my creative writing side and meet all kinds of interesting people and get to build this ecosystem and work with a bunch of fascinating, talented people in the publishing world. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:How have all the different experiences that you've lived in your life allowed you to be so competent in so many different areas that seem to somehow all interconnect anyway?
Speaker 2:Um, I have no idea. Like I, uh, uh, this is one of those like I've got a post. Um. It's like when you're a sufficiently general generalist, you become a unique specialist and like I think there's a really interesting thing to lean into where, like, the more unique you become, the the more advantaged, like, the more unique value you can create. Um, and so I think there's there's all kinds of like forces working against this right, like um, there's so much pressure to be like all right, you want this good degree, then you want to go to this like good school, and then you want to get into this like prestigious organization and do you know, your first two years in this management program. Like you need to go through investment banking and you want to go through like this firm, and if you can't get to this from you go this firm.
Speaker 2:And it's like people are pursuing sameness. Actually, when they do that without it's, it's like the zero sum, like how high can I climb on the status hierarchy, which is a very clear game, and so I understand why people want to play it, especially to athletes. It's probably quite natural. Right, like you put me in a room with 20 guys, I'm going to try to beat them all and be the number one guy in this room at this activity, like, whatever the activity is, I'm going to try to do it. But the like quote unquote real world actually rewards uniqueness, I think, much more reliably than excellence actually rewards uniqueness, um, I think, much more reliably than excellence. And so you can get rewarded for being the best at something, or you can be the only person who could do something, and one is a much easier path, I think, than the other. Um, I don't begrudge either one of them, but I think there's a lot more forces pushing you towards, like, be the best stuff. Um, and there's, it's a lot. It's a much clearer view, and so I think a lot more people feel like they have to chase it, even if their heart isn't really in becoming the best at that thing.
Speaker 2:And so I would say I sort of accidentally did a bunch of stuff because I just like, pursued what I was curious about. I didn't go get an MBA, I just started writing a blog. Writing that blog led me to writing this book. Writing this book led me to writing this book. Writing this book led me to being ceo of this company. I'm like I don't know the jury's out on whether I'm a competent ceo for like 10 more years, but, like, to the extent that I am competent, it will be because of like the people that I met that I uniquely sort of sought out or found interesting. It'll be because of the books that I chose to read. It'll be because of how I pursued this job and like how I, how I tried to tackle it and improve at it and improve myself as a result of being in it.
Speaker 2:So I think there's like a, there's just an amount of like faith it takes to embrace your own like leaning on your own curiosity, and it's not an excuse to do nothing, but it's an excuse to like be yourself. Um, and that's a difficult like instruction to follow. Like, because the next question, like who? Who are you? Who am I? Like what? That's a really deep like buddhist rabbit hole that you could spend a lot of time in like ayahuasca and acid, and like meditation retreats, going down and still not come up with an answer, because there may not actually be an answer. Um, so you don't need to like write a paper about who you are and then like execute. You just need to live in the moment and like do things that you find fun and interesting, like I'm bringing david deutsch up again.
Speaker 2:He had he just had an interview the other day where he talked about like we create value to the extent that we are unique. He also talks about the fun criterion of like. If you are having fun doing the thing, that's the most reliable indicator that you're doing something for its own sake and that means you're doing something that's true to you and you're doing something that is more likely to be unique and that you're likely to go further because you're enjoying it and so you're likely to get better results as a you know, as a byproduct. So there's a lot of like. You see, that's a piece of wisdom that, like you see pop up over and over and over again across all these different domains, which, to me, just puts like tally marks next to like. All right, that's probably something close to a fundamental truth, um, but it's something that's hard to learn because, like, everything that we are taught in school is like.
Speaker 2:The first 20 years of most of our lives are like you're all going to sit in this room, you're all going to take this same test, we're going to grade them all the same way and we're going to stack rank you based on this and we're going to evaluate you on the same thing as a group every time, and it's not unless you're in a Montessori program or something like that, that you're in like a montessori program or something like that, that you're actually, like, encouraged to be unique and individual, and so it takes us all some time to unwind this like zero-sum, stack ranked, fucking brainwash thing that we all go through for our first 20 years of our lives.
Speaker 2:Um, or you just embrace being weird very early on and opt out of the game. Uh, which is what you see, why you see some of the teal fellows be so successful. I don't know if you follow any of the like teal fellowship stuff, but those are, like you know, the dropout geniuses. Um, and they have a higher rate of building billion dollar companies than y combinator, like just because they're so just doing their own thing for its own sake from the time they're 14 years old, like they don't need anybody telling them who they are. They don't do any time soul searching, they just like chase what they're curious about with like gusto from the very first moment do you think so?
Speaker 1:like calling yourself like that, that generalist line that you used? Would you say that's equivalent to being like a jack of all trades, or is there a distinguish between that? I have a follow-up question based off your answer um, I don't.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people treat those as interchangeable. Um, and I don't know. That would require like knowing the definition inside everybody's head. Like, um, I think jack of all trades might imply that you have to be able to do everything um, which may or may not be true. I think a generalist, especially with like one or two deep specializations, um, implies like a little more of a spectrum. But like, yeah, I don't know if I have a great yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the reason I ask right is because I've given a critique of myself where I'm really good in a lot of different domains. I can talk to different perspectives, I can talk to different industries and different skill sets. But I would say sometimes I wonder, if I just deep dove into one area that I'm good at, could I be elite at that one thing, whereas my general curiosity, though, like true curiosity, takes me in different domains and so I know a lot about a lot of different things and I can use it to kind of shape my own uniqueness. But I always have that question in my head Would I be better off spending all my time doing this one thing?
Speaker 2:It sounds like what you are authentically doing. What is natural for you is to be a generalist, and you're just spending a bunch of time questioning whether you should be authentic to yourself or whether you should force yourself to do something that is inauthentic to you, that you're not already doing that was well, well, right back when you phrase it.
Speaker 2:That's why you do what you do well, when you phrase it that way, the question answers itself right. Like you're, you're evaluating yourself from this, like, uh, you know, what would the optimal colin do? Like you're playing yourself in a video game of like what should I make this guy do to get the best outcome? And that's not. Like, that's not actually the question. The question is like, what does colin do already? And like, how can he, how can we do more of what he loves to do? Naturally, um, and like that's, let that happen, you know?
Speaker 1:um that's awesome. That helps now for you. You've been in the shoes of being an entrepreneur, you've been an author, you're now investing, you're an angel investor, your ceo. What attributes do you look? Do you look for either in a person or in a company where you're like this is it?
Speaker 2:On the investing side.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is a trillion dollar question that I would like to spend a lot of time writing about. I think there's a lot of things I do think one is authenticity, which we've talked about a bunch. Is the thing that this person is doing? Is it their life's work? Is it something that almost only they could uniquely either discover or build or exploit or explore? Is there a long trajectory of them already doing it To some extent? I also want to know if they're a generalist.
Speaker 2:To build a company over a long term, you could be the most brilliant engineer in the world, but if you don't interface to the rest of the world, if you can't help people, if you can't communicate in a way that people can get on board, like, you're not going to get traction. And the world is full of like and history is full of like unaccomplished geniuses because they just they couldn't interface, um, and so they either need a partner who can interface or they need to have that skill that is like the ability to build belief and coordinate people and get them on board. They need the determination to stick with something for a very long period of time. They need like an almost missionary zeal to stick to do this thing and stick with it through multiple, multiple stages. They need to be a person who knows how to grow, because the person you are, who starts the company, is not going to be the person who needs to run the company at a hundred million dollars and at a billion dollars and to be the CEO of it. You know that whole time, but it certainly helps, I think, like a a certain. I'm reading this book about the Teal fellowship right now, cause I'm going to have the creators on my podcast shortly Um, and one of the things they talk about is like we don't have a great word for it in English, but like, uh, craftiness, almost like a, a combination of, like determination and craftiness.
Speaker 2:That is a little bit like irreverent, um, it's like industrious irreverence or something like that, which is why, y Combinator, when they're looking for founders, they always ask what system have you had? That's one of their standard questions. They want to see someone who's active, someone who's irreverent and someone who can close a loop and actually make a change in the world that the world was not expecting or didn't want to have happen or wasn't quite built to. Like. Allow that outcome, um, and that's actually a pretty good, uh, reliable indicator. I want, I mean, maybe first and foremost, somebody that's like high integrity that I'm excited to talk to, like I do not want to be like backing evil, you know, bond villain types, um, and so there's I mean there's people who are highly ambitious and very smart but who have like this weird dark energy that, like you just have to um, like intuit, even if they say all the right things, you're just like I don't know, I can't put my finger on it, my gut says no and I'm just going to trust my like deep genetic, you know, subconscious ability to like assess motive and just like steer clear of this. There's some science, but it's a lot of art, and the individual selection, I think, as a portfolio selection, is a little more scientific.
Speaker 2:Going back to our tagline like obsessive geniuses building utopian technology, there's a lot of people that are going to make money doing things that I don't think make the world a better place, to serve more people, to help them live longer, be smarter, more creative, be more knowledgeable, and I just try to put assets toward the people that I think are building singular, irreplaceable, high-impact companies for the future, and I think there's a paradox there where, if you successfully do that you will dramatically outperform financially all the people that are just focused on driving financial returns, because they're going to be necessarily short-sighted.
Speaker 2:Where you're long-sighted and the big returns in venture come from the second decade in the 20 years, not the first 10 years, it's just really, really hard to grow the, to like analyze that from a financial perspective. When the company is, you know, a year or two old. You know there's no trajectory there, there's just a person and a vision and the technology and the sort of moment that that company is like born into um. So I'm sure that sounds like an inane ramble, but like it's a. It's a thing that I haven't yet written an entire book about. So my thoughts aren't organized. They're just like all in there, stew Um, not on Iraq, you know.
Speaker 1:Um, for those intangible pieces. Is there any advice you can give to people to develop some of those intangibles? Whether you know, I think integrity is one that's pretty natural, but some of those intangibles, whether you know, I think integrity is one that's pretty natural, but some of those other ones, the craftiness, the authenticity how can people develop those skill sets?
Speaker 2:I. We've talked about authenticity a lot. Um, I think craftiness is an interesting question of like. Whether it's born or or developed, the answer is always has to be both to some extent, I think. Um, I, craftiness and agency is like another good word for it. Um, if you're unfamiliar with this term or you want to just go deep on it, uh, my buddy George, bring um a post that should be a book. It's on high agencycom. Like, please go read that essay. It's like one of the best essays ever written and it's you know, if you're not modern wisdom, wasn't?
Speaker 2:he goes on, yeah him and chris are buddies, that he goes on, I don't know, once a year or something like that yeah, I definitely listened to him talk about agency with chris williamson yeah, I think that was his most recent episode, um, but like, george is a really good mental model.
Speaker 2:He's got. All his episodes on modern wisdom are good. I'd go back through the history, um, but I think the essay is much better than the episode, even because it's just, I mean he wrote and wrote and wrote and like a bunch of us edited that essay and like tried to refine it. So it's just a little tighter than the, tighter than the conversation, but some of these ideas repeat, um, I mean I think you can practice agency. I think you can say, like what is the thing that I want to have happen in the world? And like how can I make this happen? Um, you know what would improve my life and how can I get it done? Like what's the thing that doesn't work now? It works shitty now in my life that I can make work better that most people don't even bother to improve. Um, so I like I mean there's famous examples of it. There's probably a lot of personal examples, but like the example that you can identify these people by like who would you call to get you out of a third world jail? That's like one of the metaphors you use. You know agencycom.
Speaker 2:Um, but it's even like one that's going on in my life, is like I haven't solved this test yet, but it's a place that I'm uh like practicing this mindset, which is, the house right next to ours is up for sale and, like most people would do nothing, um, I'm like, oh, having the right people move next door would be a huge quality of life improvement for us. So how can I be sure that an awesome family, maybe with young kids that are close to the same age as us, with a couple that we like hanging out with, how can I build a community here? And so I'm like you got the listing called a bunch of friends send the listing to their family members, called the real estate agent, and I'm like, hey, you know we live right next door to this listing. Like you know, if I can help you sell this house to the right family, please let me know. Like you know they can come over anytime. We got like a shared fence. We'll be good neighbors. Come, use the pool, like all these things to try to like just push the universe in your favor a little bit. And I'm sure there's like an even higher agency way to do it. It's probably like go recruit your neighbors or something like that, which is not a thing that I've like put hours into yet, but I think there's like you collect these stories Actually, founders podcast is like I'm like wearing the shirt right now, it's one of my very favorite pieces of media and like, if you listen to a bunch of these stories of the history of founders, like you will hear stories of high agency over and over and, over and over again and they'll just start to slowly rewire your brain as to like what's possible.
Speaker 2:Um, like a famous example uh, it's kind of an arcane example actually, but like um, there's a book called the fish that ate the whale. That david did an episode and like, read the book. But if you don't have time to read the book, definitely listen to the episode. It was this like penniless Russian immigrant to the United States in the early 1800s and like literally zero dollars, homeless teenager living in New Orleans. And after a few decades in the book he's the sole owner of the biggest fruit company. He's importing bananas from Central American countries and he owns the company that owns 70% of the land of Guatemala. And multiple times in this book not just once, multiple times he has to hire a militia and overthrow the government of a central american country in order to protect his business and keep bananas importing to the united states at low cost. Now, I'm not like endorsing that as a strategy, but like that's fucking high agency. So like, expand your scope of what you consider possible in the world. Uh, and that's. This is a trait that you see across. So so, so many great founders. Richard Branson's another great one. Read Richard Branson's books and you will see.
Speaker 2:From a very young age he was 16 at a private school he's like I'm just going to go start a magazine, I'm going to drop out. I'm going to buy a houseboat. I'm going to start a recording studio on this houseboat. I'm going to start an airline Fuck it a whiteboard because his flight got canceled. He just breaks shit and does shit in fun and interesting ways. High agency people are just fun to be around. They always have a story. They're always working on something new. It doesn't always work, but they just push the boundaries of reality a a little more than than you might expect. Um, and a lot of times, reality rearranges itself around willful people who are like taking action and like that's the, that's. That is an endless well of like interesting stories and an interesting life hey, I appreciate you, man, um, appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker 1:What's next for you? What do we got to look forward to? Uh, what do you have to promote out here?
Speaker 2:Uh, I'm very soon, very, very soon I'll have an updated version of not the whole book of the almanac and of all but the audio book. So I've got I did an interview with them all on extended interviews. We're going to add some cool like bonus chapters to the audio books. If you love the naval book, um, check that out and it should be in a bunch more bookstores soon. So we're doing a push on that.
Speaker 2:Um, final stages of the book of elon uh, which is a curation of elon musk's most useful ideas, so that should be out early next year. Um, and again, if you like naval, you'll love that book. Um, I'm excited to get that one out there. I'm getting incredible early feedback on that one. So, um, I hope that, like, my mission with that is to make like millions of musks and just like, help people be high agency engineering builders in the next generation. Really like, build some cool sci-fi shit. Um, if you want to write a book like, come chat with me and scribe, I'm happy to do that. Um, if you want to invest in some crazy sci-fi shit like asteroid mining and you know nuclear fusion and you know the at&tT of the solar system, come check out our fund. We're doing fun stuff.
Speaker 1:Heck, yeah, man. I appreciate that. Appreciate you coming on Listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week. Download the pod. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check us out at athleticforgecom. Five stars only, baby. Appreciate you, Eric.