Love Your Work

When I was writing my first book, Design for Hackers, I developed a ritual. I would lay all of my research materials on the floor. Graphic Design history books were splayed out. I had research papers or articles printed out and stapled. There were highlights and sticky notes everywhere.

In the center of all of this, I had a whiteboard. Well, it wasn't actually a whiteboard. Whiteboards were too expensive. It was a piece of tile board -- tile board is what you would use for the wall inside of a shower. A whiteboard can go for more than $100. I bought this piece of tile board at The Home Depot for $11.

It looked like a scene from a movie. I was the detective, trying to catch the killer. Where had the killer struck before? Is there a pattern to the killer's behavior? Where will the killer strike next? My living room looked like a detective's office.

If a friend invited me out to do something, I would tell them a lie. I would say I couldn't go out.

But that wasn't the lie.

"Writing" doesn't always mean writing

Saying I couldn't go out while I was kneeling over my research material on my living room floor wasn't the lie. I really didn't have much time for socializing while writing my first book.

The lie was that I would say that I was writing. In actuality, I would do little, if any, writing during this evening ritual.

I might scribble a note here or there. I'd write one or two-word concepts on sticky notes, and arrange them on the whiteboard by feel. I'd draw lines amongst the sticky notes. I might even sloppily squeak an outline onto the whiteboard with a marker.

But nothing I produced on these nights had any hope of showing up in my book. My computer was nowhere to be seen. I hid it in another room. Writing? I wasn't really writing, per se.

The speech that changed the way we see creativity

In 1891, German scientist and philosopher Hermann von Helmholtz celebrated his 70th birthday. At the party thrown in his honor, he rose to give a speech. He reflected on his illustrious career.

He had achieved one groundbreaking discovery after another. In physics, he formulated the concept of energy conservation. In art, he devised theories on color perception that influenced Impressionist painters. In medicine, he invented the ophthalmoscope.

But Helmholtz was about to make one more contribution, this time to our understanding of creativity. He said:

[Inspiration] comes quite suddenly, without effort, like a flash of thought. So far as my experience goes it never comes to a wearied brain, or at the writing-table. I must first have turned my problem over and over in all directions, till I can see its twists and windings in my mind's eye, and run through it freely, without writing it down; and it is never possible to get to this point without a long period of preliminary work.

And then, when the consequent fatigue has been recovered from, there must be an hour of perfect bodily recuperation and peaceful comfort, before the kindly inspiration rewards one. Often it comes in the morning on waking up.... It came most readily...when I went out to climb the wooded hills in sunny weather.

It wasn't until years after I wrote my first book that I discovered this passage. But when I did, my experience writing that first book came back in a flash.

Research becomes writing

No, I wasn't "writing" during these evening research sessions. Not in the sense that my fingers were moving on a keyboard, and that words were appearing on a screen.

Yet I had come to learn that this work I had put in the night before would pay off the next day.

The next morning, I'd amble across the creaky hardwood floor, sit down in a chair, and put my fingers on the keyboard.

The notes from the night before were nowhere to be seen. The books were back on the shelf, the sticky notes were in the trash, and the whiteboard -- okay, tile board -- was erased and stowed away.

I eventually learned that those nighttime research sessions made all of the difference. Even though my notes were nowhere to be seen, the success of my morning writing session depended entirely on whether I had taken the time to immerse myself in my source material.

If I hadn't done my ritual, my writing session was agony. A dull pain would form in my stomach. My shoulders would round forward. My knuckles would tighten and my fingers would turn into claws. I'd struggle to get anything out.

But if I had done my ritual, it was different. As if by magic, my fingers would move on the keyboard, and words would appear on the screen. Now, I really was "writing."

So when I heard about Hermann von Helmholtz's speech, it all made sense. This was why I had settled into this pattern. This was why I had learned to perform this ritual with a whiteboard, sticky notes, and books strewn about the floor.

I had been "[turning] my problem over on all sides." When it came time to write, it didn't matter whether I kept my notes. The "angles and complexities" were now "in my head."

I couldn't go straight from research into writing. I had a "wearied brain." Instead, I needed to wait until the morning, my "hour of perfect bodily recuperation and peaceful comfort." That's when the writing would finally come easily.

You fall flat when you try to power through creative blocks

Helmholtz's speech probably brings back memories for you, too. You remember times when you felt hopelessly blocked. You were writing a report, designing a logo, or trying to make a tough life decision.

You gathered all of the information you could, and racked your brain for a solution. You panicked, certain you would never gain clarity. You began to question your abilities. You may even have questioned your right to exist.

But then, seemingly out of nowhere, the solution appeared. This time, the writing flowed, the perfect logo appeared in your mind, or that decision that was once unclear suddenly became obvious.

It might have happened when you sat down to take another crack at the problem, but more often it happened somewhere else. You were taking a shower, you were playing catch with your kid, or you were waiting at the check-out counter at the grocery store.

Wallas's "Four Stages" of creativity

Social psychologist Graham Wallas also related to Helmholtz's speech. Thirty-five years after the fact, he formalized Helmholtz's observations on the creative process into what he called four "stages of control." These four stages make the random and mysterious creative process seem a little less random and mysterious.

• The first of the four stages is Preparation. During Preparation, you're learning everything you can about the problem. As Helmholtz would say, you turn it "over and over in all directions," until you "can see its twists and windings" in your mind. You know it so well that you don't even need to refer to your notes in order to talk about it or to brainstorm solutions.
• The second of the four stages is Incubation. Incubation is the period during which the "consequent fatigue" of the Preparation stage reaches the point of "[having] been recovered from." Incubation happens any time you aren't actively working on the problem. You could be working on something else, taking a walk, or even sleeping.
• The third of the four stages is Illumination. Illumination is the "aha" moment -- the moment neuroscientists would call insight. It's when the solution comes "quite suddenly." It's a "flash of thought," that arrives "without effort." The moments of Illumination are the moments that make creativity seem so mysterious, because they are sudden and unpredictable. Your breakthrough idea may come while making breakfast, clipping your toenails, or "[climbing] the wooded hills in sunny weather."
• Finally, Wallas suggested a fourth stage, which wasn't mentioned in Helmholtz's speech. Verification is when you evaluate the idea you arrived at during the Illumination stage. You make sure your calculations add up. You check your facts and correct your grammar. You put the finishing touches on your masterpiece.

So, the four stages of control -- which scientists widely refer to as the four stages of creativity -- are Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. More than 120 years later, Helmholtz's observations still stand up. With Google Scholar returning more than 6,000 articles citing Wallas's four stages -- mentioning these stages is practically a requirement for any research paper on creativity.

Respect the Four Stages of creativity

Within the first few months of writing my first book -- though I didn't know it at the time -- I had discovered the power of working with these stages. Though I knew that I wouldn't write a single useful word in my evening research session, I was okay with that. I had tried enough times to sit down and write without doing a deep dive like this first, and it was painful enough that I never wanted to do it again. I knew that somehow, the things I explored tonight would connect together tomorrow.

Furthermore, I knew that the things I wrote the next morning wouldn't be ready for print. There would be awkward sentence structures, unnecessary explanations, or things I'd need to look up one last time.

My research session would be my Preparation, my night's sleep would provide Incubation, and my morning writing session would bring Illumination. Later -- when I edited my writing -- I would do my Verification.

By being comfortable working according to the four stages, I had reduced the pain of writing. Since it was no longer painful, I was less likely to procrastinate. Since I knew not to push too hard to reach a solution, I stopped burning out.

If you're going to make it as a creative, this is the most important thing to remember, and it's easy to lose sight of it in our results-driven world: If you are going to do creative work, you have to respect the Four Stages of creativity.

Too often, we expect to reach creative solutions right away. We expect to sit down, and learn a few things about the problem. And then we expect the perfect solution to come to us.

We stare at the blank canvas. We cower in front of the blinking cursor. We agonize over the tough decision. And the fact that we can't make any progress at all certainly doesn't help the matter.

So, respect the Four Stages: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. Don't expect a solution if you haven't immersed in the source material -- you haven't done the Preparation. Don't hope for a creative miracle if that source material hasn't had a chance to sink in -- it hasn't gone through Incubation. And when you do put pen to paper, brush to canvas, or bow to string, don't expect what comes out to be worthy of Carnegie Hall or the Louvre. You'll still have to do your Verification.

The world we live in doesn't respect the Four Stages. People call brainstorming meetings where they expect to reach a solution. Movies show songs being composed in a flash of inspiration. And each of us, from time to time, gets burnt out, because we tried to power straight through a creative block.

Now that you know this little secret, just to make things easier, every once in awhile, you might have to tell a little "lie."

Image: Horse and Cart, Georges Seurat

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About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David helps you make it as a creative.

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/four-stages-creativity/

Demir and Carey Bentley are co-founders of Lifehack Bootcamp, where they help professionals make more of their time and energy, to get more results. They once found themselves getting sucked into the prevailing values of the place they lived.

The place you choose to live can have an outsized influence on how you choose to live. If where you live is a bad influence on you, you'll do things that aren't good for you. If where you live is a good influence on you, you'll do things that are good for you.

The place you live can influence you through cost of living, through weather, through how you get around – even through through culture. If people in a place value one thing, it can make it hard for you to value another thing.

To design your life, start with your surroundings

If you're going to love your work, you need to design your surroundings so you can pursue your values. One way to do that is by choosing the right place to live.

The influence of place has long been an interesting topic for me because I've long felt like I was born in the wrong place. It wasn't until after college – after I had traveled a small amount – that this feeling really hit me.

"Nebraska" for many people is synonymous with "the middle of nowhere." For me, until then, it was simply where I lived. As I struggled to find work after college and to set up a life somewhere, that was when I really started to feel profoundly unlucky for being born and raised in "the middle of nowhere."

As an aspiring designer, the design scene in Nebraska seemed nonexistent to me. I wanted to live in a cosmopolitan city such as San Francisco, or Seattle. Even Minneapolis was a bustling metropolis, in my mind. Yet I still felt stuck, because of family ties, a lack of social connections in other places, and simply because I was afraid of change.

Now, I've lived in some big cities. I lived in the Bay Area. I spent a couple of months in the NYC area. I lived for eight years in Chicago.

The sneaky influence of cultural mindset

Now, I know that much of the fear I felt for leaving "the middle of nowhere" was cultivated by the mindset of the people who lived there. When I finally did leave Nebraska for California, it didn't calm my nerves much to hear the fear-laden objections of the people around me. "The traffic is horrible," "you'll never buy a house," or "the people are different" (to which I thought, yeah, that's kind of the idea).

Same thing when I moved from San Francisco to Chicago. I remember one guy said, "What's in Chicago, besides a bunch of big buildings?!" Uh, you run a Ruby on Rails dev shop, genius. (That technology was invented by a Chicago company.)

It took many years of living many places to recognize how, no matter where you live, you can get swept up in the concerns that prevail the culture. Those big cosmopolitan places where I was desperate to live were no exception.

How to leave "New York"

Which brings us to the topic today of lifestyle design. How to "leave New York," or really anyplace that's a bad influence on your behavior.

Demir and Carey were living in NYC, working tons of hours, and paying the price with failing health. Now they live right around the corner from me, in Medellín, Colombia – when they aren't traveling the world.

I joined them in their home, just a few days after having their very first child. We talked about how they escaped the toxic mental distortions of the NYC lifestyle, traveled the world, and designed a new, better-balanced life, in another country.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• Demir says he started doing "irresponsible things" when he finally hit his "Office Space moment." What did he do that would have certainly gotten him fired? It's a funny story, but there's a lesson about lifestyle design in there, too.
• What's the "champagne moment" exercise? If you have a vision of a better life, but don't know where to start, learn a mental hack you can apply this week to make progress toward that vision.
• Looking for the next travel destination, and wondering whether you can get some work done? Learn about the "Pilates test." What does Pilates have to do with finding reliable WiFi?

Thanks for sharing my work!

On Instagram, thank you to @amrassaid and @motherhoodandmerlot.

On Facebook, thank you to the Hello Boss Girl Bossgirl Breakthroughs Group.

On Twitter, thank you to @winterknit, @StefanHeineken, @SaraTaricani, and @jovvvian.

My Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David helps you make it as a creative.

Follow David on:

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/demir-carey-bentley-lifehack-bootcamp/

As I kicked and punched at the man, I glanced at the knife in his right hand. And I felt it dig into my side.

It all started as I crossed paths with the man. He reached in his pocket, and pulled out the knife.

I then did what surely only an idiot would do. I began to fight him.

A few seconds earlier, as the man approached me on the path, he stared at me fiercely. He charged toward me, and bared his gritting teeth. His eyes reduced to snake-eye slits, and glowed under the harsh night lamplight. He shook his head from side to side, growling.

When the man transformed from just another passerby into a mortal threat, I felt something I had never felt before, and that I haven't felt since. A bolt of lightning rose from my stomach, to my chest. I heard a deep growl grow into a roar. An authoritative "NOOO!" It wasn't until I heard that roar echo off the surrounding buildings that I realized -- it had come from me.

It's worth noting, I've never been a "tough guy." I had never been in a fight. Yes, my older brother beat me up more times than I can count, but if someone at school threatened me, I would always meekly back down.

So as I watched myself, from outside of my own body, kicking and punching at this man with a deadly weapon in his hand, I was saying to myself, What are you thinking!?

But there was no going back. The struggle had begun, and for the first time ever, I was literally fighting for my life. Is this how I die?, I asked myself.

But the snake-eyed man suddenly didn't look so fearless and dangerous. His eyes widened, his eyebrows soared, his mouth gaped open -- its corners bending downward. I guess he thought he had picked an easy target. It turned out, he was wrong.

As the man evaded my frantic kicks and punches, an economist took over my mind. I was fighting for my life. He -- was fighting for -- what? An iPhone? Some money? He still hadn't said anything, so I didn't know for sure.

And that's when I felt the knife dig into my side. Right between my left ribs.

Only, thankfully, it didn't happen.

The knife was still by the man's side -- dangling from his right hand, as he repeatedly grabbed at me with his left.

I had only imagined him stabbing me. It must have been a simulation run by the economist that had taken over my mind.

And that simulation had brought the economist to this conclusion: I had way more to lose than this guy. And that was my advantage.

All I had to do was make some space, and this guy would cut his losses and move on.

But the pavement was wet. I hadn't run more than a few paces before I slipped, head-first, down the sloping sidewalk. The flesh of my left hand was being ground off by the concrete, as I used it as my brake pad.

As I slid down the hill, I glanced over my left shoulder. I hadn't gone far, but maybe this was enough distance to get him to give up.

But he didn't give up. He was following me.

I still don't know how, but I somehow got to my feet faster than he could catch me. I vaulted myself over one guardrail. I vaulted myself over another guardrail on the next path over. I scurried down a steep hill, slammed into a chain link fence, and ran like hell.

When I arrived at home, only a couple of blocks away, my hand was bleeding, my toe was bleeding, my shoes were ripped, and a button was broken off of my favorite shirt. But, I was safe.

We all know what you're supposed to do when someone pulls a knife on you. Give them your wallet. Give them your phone. Do what they tell you to do. "Your life is more valuable than your iPhone," people will say.

Yeah, no shit.

Just because I got away with my decision, doesn't make it a good decision. Annie Duke would call that "resulting" -- rating the quality of your decisions on the outcome, rather than, well, the quality of your decision.

You should not fight a guy who pulls a knife on you. That would be a bad decision.

Except that, you aren't making a decision. You're merely reacting. It's a non-decision.

This is the error we make when we play armchair quarterback to other people's "decisions." "Why didn't the cop shoot the assailant with the deadly weapon in the kneecap, instead of the chest?" "Why didn't they just leave the room when the sexual assault began?"

We know what the ideal action would be. We don't know shit about what it's actually like to be in that situation.

That feeling I felt that night. That feeling I hadn't felt before, that I haven't felt since, and that I hope to never feel again, is a well-known phenomenon. It's called "fight or flight." It's what happens when you are in a seriously dangerous situation, and your sympathetic nervous system takes over.

I didn't stop and politely ask the man with a knife what he wanted. I didn't then simply hand it over. "Have a nice evening!" That would have been the right "decision." But I wasn't making a decision. I fought, then I "flought."

In the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky introduce us to two different types of thinking. There's System 1 thinking -- that's the thinking that you do in the moment. It's "fast" thinking. Then, there's System 2 thinking. That's the more deliberate thinking. That's the "slow" thinking.

Really, System 1 hardly qualifies as "thinking" at all. At least not what we normally think of as thinking. Not the "what were you thinking," thinking. I wasn't thinking. It was System 1.

System 1 is your dumber self. Because of System 1, we make all sorts of bad decisions. They aren't always as bad as fighting a man with a knife. Sometimes it's simply checking your email while you're still in bed in the morning, or buying that scone to go with your morning coffee. If System 2 had a say in the matter, it would remind you that checking your email is a bad way to start your day, or that eating a sugary scone for breakfast is going to make you feel like crap.

The good news is that we can use System 2 to make decisions ahead of time. Before System 1 -- our dumber self -- has a chance to make its poor non-decision, System 2 can make sure it never even gets a chance.

Colombians have an expression. "No dar papaya." "Don't give papaya." You give papaya, someone will take it.

It means don't walk around with your cell phone out. Don't wear a fancy watch. I've even heard a taxi driver use this expression when talking about someone who got robbed while in a taxi. He shouldn't have had his cell phone out while in the taxi, the driver explained. "Don't give papaya."

After four years in Colombia, it's still not clear to me at what point someone is not "giving papaya," but instead being robbed by a criminal.

"Don't give papaya" is what an American would call "victim blaming." It's a way of saying "if something bad happens to you, it's your fault."

Deeper than that, "don't give papaya" is a way of convincing oneself that there's justice in what is sometimes an unjust world -- especially in a place like Colombia.

Let's be honest here. I don't like the expression, but the Colombians have a point. Long before my System 1 was making poor decisions, my System 2 could have made better decisions. It's not my fault that a man pulled a knife on me, but I'm the one who cut through the park at night. I'm the one who was seduced by the temperate air to walk home, instead of taking a taxi.

Most important, I'm the one who has to live -- or not live, as it could have been -- with the consequences of each of those decisions. So, my fault or not, I'm going do things to prevent that from happening again.

So, since that incident, I do things differently. I try to design so that System 1 doesn't make bad decisions. I design for my dumber self.

I took some Krav Maga classes, to help practice how I react in a panicked emotional state. I printed out paper backups of any two-factor authentication codes, so I worry less about losing my cell phone. I don't walk through parks after dark, and I take taxis after 8pm.

I don't only design for my dumber self to prevent the situation I was in, but other potential situations. I only take taxis from apps, where I'll have a record of the driver and plate. I'm sure to check the plate number on the app, and make sure it matches the car I'm getting into. This policy has led to at least one screaming match with an obstinate rideshare driver in the United States.

I make decisions and policies with System 2, and I practice them. System 1 doesn't get a chance to make a non-decision.

I also design for my dumber self in matters that aren't life or death. Habits, routines, and the way you shape your environment with System 2 can all prevent System 1 from making bad non-decisions.

So, I deleted Twitter and Facebook from my phone. I use a newsfeed blocker on my desktop browser. I use the first hours of my day to do my most important work. Each Sunday, I plan my week ahead of time, to make sure I'm set up to address my top priorities. If I want to get some writing done, I don't take my laptop to the cafe -- I only bring my iPad, and an external keyboard.

I don't give the papaya of my attention and focus to those who seek to juice it for all it's worth.

I use System 2, so System 1 won't get me in trouble. I design for my dumber self.

Image: The Age of Bronze, Auguste Rodin

My Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

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About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David helps you make it as a creative.

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-dumber-self/

Things were not going well for Neil Pasricha (@NeilPasricha). He came home from work one day, and his wife told him she no longer loved him. Around that same time, Neil's best friend committed suicide.

Neil needed something to lift his spirits. Something to remind him, every day, that there was something good in the world.

That's when Neil started his blog, 1,000 Awesome Things. At the end of each day, he wrote about one little awesome thing from life.

Today, Neil has written several awesome books, including The Book of Awesome and Awesome is Everywhere. His blog, 1,000 Awesome Things was named Best Blog in the World two years in a row from International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, Neil is the Director of The Institute of Global Happiness, and he has a fantastic podcast called 3 Books, on which he's interviewed titans such as Judy Blume, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Sedaris.

Neil's new book is You Are Awesome, and it's all about resilience.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• Neil says "You never know when you're making art, who in your own personal life is going to resonate with it." What surprised Neil about the difference between running a blog, and a podcast.
• Neil also says "no one should be embarrassed of any book ever." What is "book shame," and why does Neil feel it should be wiped off the face of the planet.
• Neil also says "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." (And he admits he stole that from Game of Thrones). Hear the fascinating science behind how reading cultivates emotional intelligence.

Listener Showcase

June designs patterns for really cool crocheted figurines. I've seen them. They really are amazing. Check out June's work at planetjune.com and on all of the socials at @PlanetJune.

My Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/neil-pasricha/

There's an expression, to burn your boats. It originated with a military strategy. Hernán Cortés famously "burned the boats," after arriving in the New World to conquer the Aztec empire. (He actually "scuttled" his ships. He sunk them.)

I recently burned my boats, when I killed off a $150,000 passive revenue stream.

The birth of a passive income muse

In March of 2007, I was sitting with some friends on the cable-locked chairs and tables – at two in the morning – on the porch of a closed restaurant in Austin, Texas.

We were doing the kind of thing that we did at the time, after a night of parties at the SXSW conference: We'd sit around and talk about our ideas. Facebook and Twitter were still fringe services – most of the mainstream world knew nothing about them. The internet seemed full of opportunities.

The subject of my dating life came up. I was terrible at finding a girlfriend, but I was good at finding dates. I described in great detail to my friends the way I had optimized my process of online dating. I had something to say about what you should write in your profile, what your pictures should be like, and what to say in your messages.

I've since learned that this is the way I approach many things. I like to get deep into the details, to break it down into a framework, then do my best to explain it in a clear way.

I thought I was talking about something very obvious or unexceptional, like tying your shoes, but my friends were on the edges of their seats.

As was standard at SXSW at the time, whatever you talked about, there was an idea for a business there. "You HAVE to blog about this," one friend said. Then, of course, the rest of them piled on.

Now, almost 13 years later, I've made well over $150,000 off of the blog that I created because of that conversation.

I burned my boats

Last month, I killed this blog. I didn't so much kill it as I let it expire. Literally, I simply let the domain expire.

I burned my boats.

At the height of this blog's revenue, I earned $11,000 in one month. The amount of work I did on the blog during that month: approximately zero. It was a passive income "muse" as Tim Ferriss would call it.

In the days before I killed this blog, I wasn't earning near that much, but I was earning something.

Why burn your boats?

Intuitively, it makes no sense to burn your boats. Intuitively, it makes no sense to kill off a passive income stream. Something that's earning you a profit, without you needing to do any work.

But our intuitions aren't always correct. Our intuitions sometimes see opportunity where there is no opportunity. Our intuitions sometimes see harm where there is no harm.

Opportunity where there is no opportunity

First, the opportunity where there was no opportunity. The revenue was way down on this site. I made maybe $300 in 2019 off of this site. But, I didn't do any work on this site.

I had a couple of opportunities there. I could invest some time, write a little content, build a few links, and maybe I could bring that revenue back up. I also could sell the site. I even had an interested buyer.

But these opportunities weren't the opportunities they seemed. This has a lot to do with the perception of harm where there is no harm.

The real pain of loss aversion

In behavioral economics, there's the concept of "loss aversion." That losses feel about twice as bad as gains feel good. Losing a $300 a year income stream feels about as bad as gaining a $600 a year income stream feels good.

Which is to say that it hurt to kill off this passive income stream. But I reminded myself that the reality was probably not as bad as it actually felt.

Added onto that hurt was that this passive income stream held a special emotional significance. This passive income stream made possible the business that I have today.

The start I didn't have the heart for

First of all, it wasn't easy for my friends to convince me to start this blog. I didn't write a book called The Heart to Start because starting things always came easily to me. I was full of objections.

Primarily, I didn't want to build a personal brand around online dating tips. I didn't want to be known as the "online dating" guy.

But my friends pushed me to start the blog. When I presented this objection, that I didn't want to be the "online dating" guy, they said I could make up a name.

So that's what I did. I started the blog under a pseudonym on WordPress.com, and began to write. It wasn't until I really got rolling that I even bothered to buy a domain, and eventually started hosting the blog on my own server.

And I'm glad I got started.

Early days

So, I worked on this blog for about three years before I made any money on it. Yes, I knew that the revenue potential was there, but mostly it was something I did on the side. I enjoyed the freedom of writing under a pseudonym. I enjoyed the focus of writing on only one subject.

Most of all, it was a good outlet for me. I'd come home from a disastrous or depressing date, and there'd be emails in my inbox. People telling me that my blog posts were helping them. I wasn't writing anything risqué or manipulative or even ground-breaking. To me, it was common sense stuff – but it helped people, and that kept me going.

Perfect timing

When I did finally start making money from this blog, the timing could not have been better.

November 22, 2010, is when I signed my contract to write Design for Hackers. That month, I made $659 from this blog. It wasn't a lot, but I needed all of the extra money I could get.

I had just spent three years on my own, searching for some idea that was closer to my core – something other than being the "online dating" guy – and I had just found it. I had written some blog posts about design, gotten a book deal, and eagerly signed the contract.

I now had no clients. I had a meager first-time-author advance, and I had a book to write. If I missed a single deadline, I'd have to give back my advance.

But writing a book is an all-consuming process, and I didn't have the time nor energy to find some other way of bringing in income.

Fortunately, that's when this passive income muse took off. That November, I had made $659. In December, it went down to $517. But in January, the revenue skyrocketed. I made $1,799, then $1,856 in February. By April 2011, this site brought in $4,726. It was paying all of my living expenses. Meanwhile, I was finishing the first draft of my book, Design for Hackers.

How did I make that much money?

I talk more in-depth about this passive revenue stream in my course, Blog 2 BLING!, but the basic way this worked was that I was referring people to Match.com. At the time, if you searched for "match.com promo code," my site was maybe the second or third result.

I got 100% of the first purchase a customer made through my promo codes. If they signed up for six months for $120, I got $120.

How passive income brought me closer to my core

Yes, I could have doubled down on this site. Yes, I could have dropped the Design for Hackers thing, and made more money. But it wasn't what I was passionate about. It wasn't the intersection of my Love and Money Venn diagram.

But, it did get me closer to that intersection. So, this passive income site meant a lot to me. If I hadn't had that income coming in, I don't know if there would have been a Design for Hackers. I wouldn't have had the runway to get where I am today, where – as you can see in my monthly income reports – I'm keeping my head above water as an independent creator, living in South America.

Losing opportunity to create opportunity

So yeah, it hurt to let this site die. It also hurt to pass up what seemed like opportunities to revive the site, or at least sell it.

And this is where the value of burning your boats comes in. It's about opportunity costs. When you burn your boats, you can't go back. When you burn your boats, you aren't spending any energy thinking about your alternatives. When you burn your boats, you are committed to your mission.

Yes, it's nice to have something to fall back on. Yes, it's nice to have your options open. You get something out of it. But sometimes you get more out of not having those options.

Opportunity costs are something you might think about in investing. Say you're returning 4% a year on an investment, with no chance of losing your money. Depending upon your strategy, you might want to keep your money there.

But say there's another investment with unlimited upside, and a chance of losing a good amount of your money.

It might be worth it to take your money out of that 4% investment, and put it in the unlimited upside investment. But you only have so much money. At what point do you put it all in the unlimited upside investment?

Yes, I could have spent some time and money trying to revive this site. I could have even given it to someone to manage it, for a revenue share. I would have made more money than I was making.

But what would I have missed out on? How much better could I make my podcast with that time? How much progress could I make on my next book? What courses could I build with that time?

Don't learn what you don't need to know

Additionally, I could have sold the site. I would have to collect together all of the loose ends, collect the money, and make the hand-off.

I would have had to do a process I hadn't done before, and that I don't plan to do in the future. I'm not in the business of flipping websites, so what's the point of learning to sell a website.

Not to mention that if I did sell the website, what might they do with the user data? What might they do with the brand that I created?

In the end, it wasn't worth it.

A strategy for the scatterbrained

At one point, this passive income stream got me where I wanted to go. Toward the end, it was doing little more than take up space in my mind.

As I talked about on episode 180, I'm a "Perceiver" in Myers-Briggs. I see possibilities everywhere. I don't want to close doors. I don't want to let go of opportunities.

I'm scatterbrained, I get shiny object syndrome.

Can you relate?

Where do you need to burn your boats?

Something to think about: Where do you need to burn your boats? What opportunities do you have that are taking up mental space and other resources? What could you accomplish if you freed up that space?

Burn your boats, burn your boats, burn your boats.

Image: Worn Out, Vincent Van Gogh

My Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

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About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/killed-150k-passive-income/

How's it going? Really, how are things going for you? If things are going pretty good, you might want to tear everything down, and start all over again.

Nick Kokonas (@nickkokonas) is Co-Owner of The Alinea Group and CEO of Tock. The Alinea Group is a collection of restaurants Nick started with world-class chef Grant Achatz, including their first restaurant, Alinea – a three-Michelin-star restaurant that received the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2016. Alinea is also ranked in the top restaurants in the U.S. and the world on numerous lists, including World's 50 Best Restaurants.

Tock, Nick's other company, is a reservation system for buying tickets to some of the best restaurants in the world. With Tock, Nick has completely re-thought the economics of restaurants, eliminating wasted seating inventory, and making available variable pricing based upon the popularity of reservation times.

Nick is a truly original thinker. He's demonstrated this on his appearances on some other podcasts, including The Tim Ferriss Show and Noah Kagan Presents. But this conversation is full of fresh insights, including:

• Nick says "people are far more afraid of success than failure." What drives Nick to tear everything down and start over, even when things are going well?
• Nick also says "if you're trying to innovate. A/B Testing things as a terrible idea because people won't know what they want." But there's an important distinction he draws. Find out when he tests, and when he doesn't.
• At Alinea, they intentionally make the first moments of dining there incredibly awkward. Seriously, I was cringing hearing him describe this. Nick said "there are people who hate us for it, and I'm okay with that." Find out why.

Thanks for sharing my work!

On Instagram, thank you to @booknotes101 for doing a giveaway of The Heart to Start.

Thank you also to @characelik, @5wisdomsproject, and of course @tomjepsoncreative.

On Twitter, thank you to @mischievousmali, @geekosupremo, @Palle_Schmidt, @LouisSzabo, @LovinDaLife, and @LWCvL.

Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/nick-kokonas/

Four years ago, almost to the day, I moved to Colombia. Four years ago, I decided to become a writer.

Four years is how long it takes to get a college degree. Today, I'm graduating.

It might seem strange that I didn't think of myself as a writer. By the time I set out on this mission I had already written one best-selling book.

But writing was still frightening to me. Every time I sat down to write, I felt a sense of agony and fear, and I wanted to run away.

Today is my "graduation day"

Now that I've dedicated myself to writing for the past four years, I feel confident in calling myself a writer. Since it takes four years to get a degree in something, I declare today, January 9th, 2020, to be my graduation day.

Something to ask yourself as you listen to this: What transformation have you made? What commitments and changes and sacrifices did you make to make that transformation?

My quest to becoming a writer took some big commitments, changes, and sacrifices – but by making these changes, I was getting something I wanted.

Why I moved to Colombia to become a writer

By moving to Colombia, I was doing two primary things things:

One: I was choosing a place where I knew I could build routines I wanted to build to do the things I wanted to do. I wanted apply the things I had learned about how to be more productive in producing creative work.

Second, really, wrapped up in the idea of being able to build the routines I wanted to build, was a behavior-shaping constraint: By moving to Colombia, I was also moving myself far away from distractions. When I lived in Chicago, for example, I could easily fly across the country on a whim, just because there was a neat conference going on, I got a speaking opportunity (usually not paying much, if at all), or even a friend was having a cocktail party in New York.

But now I can't fly to any major U.S. city on a whim. From Medellín, I have to connect through Miami or Panama City. What might have been a two-hour journey, now is usually seven at the least. Sometimes I even have to spend the night at a hotel in a connecting city to get to my destination. That extra friction means that if I want to go somewhere, I better have a damn good reason. Instead, I stay where I am, and I write.

Another thing I did to make myself a writer was I started wearing really ridiculous glasses. Friends made fun of me, and some people straight up told me that I looked ugly in the glasses, but I didn't care. It was what I was going for, honestly. I was using my manner of dress to influence my behavior. As I talked about on episode 172, I was changing my identity so that I could change my actions. Now that I've done the action a lot, my identity is solidified.

I was very strict with how my habits and routines helped me write for the past four years. I made sure to not waste any time in beginning to write each day. I didn't eat breakfast, I didn't shower. I simply put on some comfortable clothes, meditated, then sat down to write.

For the first few hours of each day, I made sure to face a blank wall (which I talked about on episode 46). I knew the morning was my most creative time, but it was also my least-disciplined time. I needed to face a blank wall so I could be sure not to get distracted. My identity as a writer wasn't solidified. Each time I sat down to write, I wondered whether I would manage to write anything at all.

After four years, I can finally say "I am a writer." Here's what that changes

Now, four years after I started this mission, I declare that I am a writer. I have graduated. I no longer wear the dorky glasses. Much of the time, I even wear contacts (You'll never convince me to voluntarily slice my eyes to fix my vision).

Each morning, I no longer face the blank wall. I no longer put in ear plugs. I know that I am a writer, so I know that I can write, and I'm not in a panic each morning trying to convince myself that I can write. After I meditate, I take a shower, put on some less-comfortable clothes, and go to a cafe. Even with noise and people, and even though I'm groggy, my writing muscle is strong enough that I can write.

Sometimes I do have trouble getting started, and I want to put in ear plugs, but just as a challenge, I won't put them in and I'll see if I can write even with all of the conversations going on around me (It helps, by the way, that most of those conversations are in Spanish, which is not my native language. If I hear a conversation going on in English near me, it's much harder.)

Many things that I picked up while transforming myself into a writer, I still do. I still try to choose a tool that will reduce distraction. Right now, my favorite writing tool is an iPad with an external keyboard – one that actually plugs in. I still manage my work according to mental states. I still don't eat breakfast.

But I simply have more comfort and confidence in my ability to write. I know that I wrote yesterday. I know that I wrote every day for a thousand days before that. I know I can write today.

Other self-education projects

This isn't the first time, by the way, that I've created a self-education program for myself. Way back on episode 52, you heard me talk about my $40,000 DIY MBA.

When I got fired from my job, I considered going to business school. Then, I thought to myself, Would I rather spend a bunch of money to earn a degree? Or would I rather spend a bunch of money to build a business? I could learn in the process of building that business, I figured.

I decided to cash out a good portion of my retirement portfolio – $40,000 – and give myself the freedom to teach myself. That $40,000 bought me a year of exploration. By the time that year was over, I could support myself with my business.

And that business continues to teach me new things. In fact, I often refer to my own business as a Personal PhD program. I may not be expanding the bounds of all human knowledge, but I am expanding the bounds of my own knowledge. It's like a PhD in my own curiosity.

So, I declare that today, January 9, 2020 is my graduation day. I may have written a lot before, but from today on, I am officially a writer.

What's your graduation day?

Here's something worth asking yourself: What skills have you picked up, what transformations have you made, without acknowledging them? In this world, we have fewer and fewer rites of passage. We have fewer ceremonies. We have fewer opportunities to reflect upon what we've achieved, to throw away or burn our old shoes, and step into our new shoes.

It's a powerful thing to do. As we go into this New Year, take some time to reflect. What were you once afraid of that you are no longer afraid of? What did you once do as an amateur, that you now do as a pro?

What's your graduation day?

Image: Maternity, by Mary Cassatt

My Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/graduation-day/

This is the time of year when we make resolutions. Very few of us will actually keep them.

The reason we can't keep resolutions is that resolutions don't work. We would be better at reaching their goals if they built habits, instead.

BJ Fogg (@bjfogg) is a behavioral scientist at Stanford University. He specializes in "Behavior Design."

BJ has a new book coming out, right now in the beginning of 2020. It's called Tiny Habits.

I wanted to have him back on the show to announce the book. But then I realized that this episode on how to build good habits is so good that it's worth running again.

Here's what you'll learn:

• You need to pick habits with the right characteristics to be successful in building those habits. What are the components of a habit that will stick?
• What are the most common mistakes people make in trying to build habits?
• You've probably heard that it takes 21 days to build a habit. That's actually a myth. How long does it really take to build a habit?

Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Sponsors

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/bj-fogg-bestof/

Socializing is good. But socializing as a default – out of some Fear of Missing Out – is not good.

David's voice double fills in for him once again – and it's getting better.

Image: Still Life With a Burning Candle, Pieter Claesz

Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/art-staying-in-bestof/

Twelve years ago, David met Rob Hunter (@vegashacker) on Craigslist. They had both left their jobs at the same time. They were both determined to make it.

So, David and Rob spent several months wandering from cafe to cafe in San Francisco. They put in twelve hour days, not making a dime. David says it was one of the most exciting times of his life.

Today, David has this podcast, best-selling books, and lives in South America. Today, Rob is one half of Focused Apps, makers of hit iOS games including Hit Tennis and Emoji Me, which has more than 40 million downloads.

Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays

Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays

About Your Host, David Kadavy

David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative.

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Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/tale-two-bootstrappers-bestof/