Love Your Work

Jeff Goins is the author of The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do. In The Art of Work, Jeff explains why finding your calling doesn't always follow the neat storybook path that you expect. You have to listen to your life, engage in painful practice, and build bridges all to let your story emerge. In this discussion, we talk about how clarity comes with action, what makes practice deliberate practice, and why frequency matters more than quantity. He'll also share the most cringe-inducing story of asking someone out I think I've ever heard. Don't worry, there's a lesson to be learned from it. Here's the interview. Sponsors: http://kadavy.net/treehouse http://kadavy.net/audible http://kadavy.net/activecampaign Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-26-jeff-goins-listen-to-your-life/

I recently turned 37, and this is everything I've learned so far. I originally wrote this post on Medium.

Here's the text of the post, in case you're reading this description:

37 LESSONS FROM 37 YEARS I have been alive for 37 years. Here is everything I've learned: 1. Whenever possible, act now. 2. You're worth so much more than your eyeballs. 3. What you think is "all in your head," may actually be in your body. Find a good doctor. 4. Trust your subconscious. It knows your path better than you do. 5. Get therapy. 6. You're bombarded with mediocre opportunities. 7. Thus, it's your challenge to ignore mediocre opportunities. 8. You're bombarded with mediocre friendships and relationships. 9. Thus, it's your challenge to ignore mediocre friendships and relationships. 10. Most people are dying to distract themselves from their own thoughts. 11. There is a lot of money to be made in distracting people from their own thoughts. 12. Thus, everything around you is built to help people distract themselves from their own thoughts. 13. So, ignore most everything, and make space for your own thoughts. 14. Nobody reads the whole article before commenting. 15. Nearly everybody is "juicing." They're making themselves sick trying to catch up with one another. 16. Thus, your challenge is to catch up with your self. 17. You can only know so much. 18. And, your brain is ruled by biases. 19. Thus, you can hardly trust what you think you know. 20. And, you can only know so much about a person. 21. So, if you feel jealous when comparing yourself to someone else, you're wrong. 22. Take improv classes. It will get you out of your head, and into the moment. 23. Take voice lessons. It really is possible to improve your singing. 24. Only sing in a key that is comfortable for you. 25. Take lessons in a social dance (Salsa, Swing, Tango, etc.) You'll learn to cooperate, and you'll have instant community anywhere you travel. 26. Traveling sucks. It's much better to live in different places for short bursts. 27. What you think is a personality flaw may just be the bad influence of the place where you live. 28. What you think sucks about where you live may just be a flaw in your perception. 29. If you merely suspect something is holding you back. It's not. You are. 30. When you dream of something, that thing seems impossible. 31. When something you dream of feels impossible, it makes you unhappy. 32. Thus, be comfortable with where you are. 33. But still, dream, while being comfortable with where you are. 34. When you use a bookmark, you invite yourself to forget what you've read. 35. Thus, don't use bookmarks. 36. Smart people do dumb things when the pressure is on. 37. Even though it's cliché to end a list with something pithy, it ties it up nicely. Clichés are clichés for a reason.

Sponsors

http://kadavy.net/treehouse

http://kadavy.net/activecampaign

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-25-37-lessons-from-37-years/

Steve Case is the former CEO of AOL – America Online. Many of you probably chuckle when you see someone with an email address that ends in AOL.com, but for me and many millions of others, AOL was our first contact with the Internet.

Steve has a new book out called The Third Wave. The premise is that the first wave of the internet was building the infrastructure – things like getting computers with modems into people's homes, and getting them on the internet, the second wave was software-focused – things like Facebook, and now that we have all of that built out, it's time to change more entrenched industries like Healthcare, Food, and Government.

Steve stresses that perseverance is going to be critical in the Third Wave, which is something for all of you Lean Startup practitioners to consider: you can't necessarily abandon your idea because you don't get traction right away. You'll also have to form partnerships – sometimes with big, entrenched organizations that are slow-moving. So, opportunities to create something world-changing by just writing a few lines of code are becoming scarce.

I really enjoyed the book – especially the parts about the early days of AOL. AOL had a huge impact in the 90's, and I remember flipping through channels and seeing Steve on CNN giving some kind of Senate testimony. I don't remember what exactly he said, I just remember thinking it was really next-level stuff to my 17-year-old brain. It was the first time I had any awareness of how entrepreneurs and technology shape culture and shape humanity.

I hadn't realized before reading the book that it took AOL about a decade to really get traction, so it was interesting to hear those stories of the perseverance that is going to be so critical in the Third Wave.

I think Steve's theories about the Third Wave make a ton of sense. Thanks to having infrastructure, we had a good decade or so where our world was reinvented by software, but now there are big challenges in changing slower-moving industries. Even if you're a solopreneur like me, even if you're an employee for life, and you don't have interest in disrupting entrenched industries, it's important to think about these larger trends and how they effect the world around you, and your relevance.

Sponsor: http://kadavy.net/treehouse

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/steve-case-podcast-interview/

The most popular question (and answer) from my Quora session was "What tips or hacks have saved you the most time and/or energy in your life?" This answer had more than 24,000 views, and was featured in Inc.com. Inc also has tweeted it a couple of times to their 1.6 million followers.

What ended up coming out was a somewhat cohesive philosophy for full output I've devised over the years, and some of the most effective ways of redesigning ones life to fit within that framework.

If you're interested in seeing this answer, as well as other answers from my session, go to http://kadavy.net/quora

Sponsor: ($50 off Pavlok) http://kadavy.net/pavlok

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-24-save-time-mental-energy-with-mind-management-and-perpetual-productivity/

Jodi Ettenberg used to be a lawyer. She took a year off to travel 8 years ago, and never went back.

Her blog, Legal Nomads, won a Lowell Thomas Award for best travel blog and has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, BBC Travel, CNN, and more.

Legal Nomads is full of tips on packing, planning, and budgeting for travel, as well as beautiful hand-drawn typographic food maps and t-shirts, and guides and translation cards for eating gluten-free while traveling. Jodi has written a book called The Food Traveler's Handbook, which shows you how to find cheap, safe & delicious food anywhere in the world.

This interview is full of wisdom on the benefits and challenges that come with a life of travel. Jodi is really insightful when it comes to recognizing how travel relates to all of human experience. If you're someone who has ever thought about making a big change Jodi did, or if you've ever struggled to be more minimal and have less stuff, you'll find this conversation especially inspiring and enlightening.

You may notice that there are a TON of book recommendations in this interview. There are links in the show notes for all of the books Jodi mentions. Remember, if you buy through those links, you'll be supporting the show.

Sponsors $50 off Pavlok http://kadavy.net/pavlok Free install of SumoMe http://kadavy.net/sumome

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/jodi-ettenberg-2/

The economics favor digital distraction, but we have everything we need to make humanity great. We have the behavioral science knowledge, and with increasingly ubiquitous technology touchpoints such Apple Watch and The Internet of Things at large, we have a growing opportunity to shape behavior with technology.

The big question is: will this power be used for "good" or "evil?"

Sponsor: http://kadavy.net/treehouse

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-21-the-behavioral-revolution-not-the-information-revolution/

Nir Eyal is the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. So he is really manufacturing the drug. Fortunately, he's also concerned about the implications of digital distraction, so he agreed to have a discussion with me about it on the podcast.

In this discussion, we cover our views on the potential effects of distraction. Is it making people less creative? Is it as addictive and harmful as smoking? Do we have the agency to free ourselves from technology? And, of course, is it making us vulnerable to a potential robot apocalypse?

Join the discussion in the show notes at http://kadavy.net/podcast

Sponsor: http://kadavy.net/treehouse

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/is-silicon-valley-leading-us-into-the-robot-apocalypse-love-your-work-episode-21-w-nir-eyal/

Sometimes, the things you feel like you should do create so much cognitive burden you can hardly get anything done. When I feel that way, I know it's time for me to have a "Week of Want." I give myself a whole week where I can work on whatever project I want, without having to think about what goal I'm trying to achieve.

This has brought me great results many times, including writing a blog post, which connected me with Timeful, which later sold to Google.

I talked about the Week of Want a little in my interview with neuroscientist John Kounios, but in this mini-episode, I explain the technique in-depth.

Sponsor: Get 50% off my White Hot Course when you use WHITEHOTLOVE at http://designforhackers.com/whitehotcourse before April 16, 2016.

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-20-kill-your-todo-list-sell-your-ideas-to-google/

Andrew's famous "Relax" app has been a key ritual for me for a couple of years now. Andrew has a whole empire of apps with guided recordings that help people not only relax, but Quit Smoking, reduce anxiety, lose weight, or build confidence, amongst many other things. His apps have been downloaded more than 10 million times.

I have literally found Andrew's apps to be life-changing for me, but I've also been fascinated by these apps as a business. They seem so simple.

But, behind Andrew's apps is more than 20 years as a hypnotherapist, and in this interview I'll be digging into how he got into such an unusual career, what are some misunderstandings about hypnosis, and how did he create his own luck to have the best-selling "self-help" recordings on the Apple and Android app stores. We'll also find out why he lights a candle to do his work.

Andrew's Relax app: http://kadavy.net/relax

Treehouse Sponsor: http://kadavy.net/treehouse

Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-19-relax-andrew-johnson-on-building-an-app-empire/

READ ME! Lots of people beat themselves up for not being able to meditate. I think they're too hard on themselves. If you can simply make a habit of meditating 2 minutes a day, you can begin to enjoy meditation to the point where you're ready to do longer sessions. I have little formal meditation training, but this 2-minute meditation is roughly how I do my sessions. Part of it is rooted in what I know of mindfulness meditation, and, from what I've heard of Vipassana meditation, may have some influences from that as well. I started meditating about 10 years ago, off and on, and have "practiced" regularly for about 5 years. Progress has been very slow, but grew more profound as I grew more disciplined about doing it regularly. Meditation has helped me eliminate anxiety, and think more deeply and clearly about whatever I face in work in life. I now relish sessions that are sometimes longer than 90 minutes! There's one BIG limitation about presenting a guided meditation as a podcast: It makes you likely to meditate using a device that is also full of distractions. If you have a device on which to play this file that isn't going to distract you with a notification – either while meditating, or while glancing at the screen afterward – I highly recommend that. It might be an iPod, or I use my iPad, because I don't allow notifications on it. If you don't have anything like this ready to go, don't let that prevent you from trying it out! Try putting your device in airplane mode, instead. This 2-minute format is inspired by my "10-Minute Hack." The idea being that, by setting an absurdly simple goal for yourself, you can "trick" yourself into doing more than you originally set out to do. You can learn more about this trick here: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/the-10-minute-hack/ Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/2-minute-meditation/