Podcast appearances and mentions of nat chat

Welcome to our "Party on the Bottom!" In this town-hall format Nat Chat, Natalie tackles the world of denim. (And, yes, she addresses the Gen Z backlash against skinny jeans.) With a focus solely on jeans (no skirts or shorts here!), Natalie aims to demystify denim by discussing everything from raw denim and sizing intricacies to maintenance and cleaning tips, ensuring that by the end of the episode, you'll feel informed and confident on your next shopping expedition.One of the critical areas explored in the episode is the concept of raw denim. Natalie explains that raw denim refers to fabric that hasn't been washed or distressed, giving it a distinctive dark, uniform look. She emphasizes the importance of understanding terms like "once-washed" and "unsanforized," which can be particularly intimidating for first-time buyers. Moreover, she reminds listeners that the sizing can vary greatly across brands and types of denim. The key takeaway? When in doubt, reach out for guidance from sales associates or customer support teams to ensure you're making an informed decision. And listen to Wear Who You Are (obviously!). Remember that jeans can be versatile pieces for personal expression! Whether you're holding on to your beloved skinny jeans or experimenting with wider fits, the ultimate goal is to wear what makes you feel great. So tune in and join the conversation—by the end, you just might discover your inner denimhead!Show Notes & Resources:Selvedge JeansSlubs in DenimRaw denim companies:MomotaroPure Blue JapanNaked & FamousNudiesOniFollow Us:Follow the podcast on social media, and submit your questions by sending us a message here!@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Pods

In this solo Nat Chat episode of Wear Who You Are, host Natalie Tincher welcomes listeners to 2025. With many Americans still working remotely, Natalie is all about helping us keep it comfy yet professional. The episode also includes an opening section all about the distinction between "hard" and "soft" pants—what are they and when do you wear them. This episode centers on the concept of how what you wear can actually influence your mood and productivity. So, say goodbye to those pajamas! Changing into something a bit nicer can help you transition into work mode. Natalie shares practical tips on setting your outfit according to your to-do list. If you've got a creative day ahead, dress for it! And if you're tackling spreadsheets, perhaps go for something straightforward (yet stylish). Throughout the episode, Natalie peppers in her personal styling wisdom, detailing her go-to outfits for desk days—think cozy yet chic ensembles that keep you ready for anything from a Zoom call to a quick trip outside. Part of the problem (as we all know) is that our days now encompass so much—how do you dress for them all? The episode wraps up with reminders of the joy fashion can bring, even in remote settings. Clothing helps us feel connected and conveys a little piece of our personality, which is a beautiful tool that often goes underutilized. So let's get started!Style from the Inside Out: https://www.bu.style/courseQ the Makeup ArtistTo book your Q the Makeup Artist appointment with Rebecca Robles, head to bu.style/makeup-servicesFollow Us:Follow the podcast on social media, and submit your questions by sending us a message here!@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Pods

In this solo episode of "Wear Who You Are," host Natalie Tincher takes listeners on a Nat Chat that blends community interaction with expert advice, all centered around the art of finding and celebrating wardrobe "hero pieces." Inspired by questions submitted via Instagram (proving that many fashion dilemmas are COMPLETELY universal), Natalie invites everyone to join her in crafting a closet that makes them feel fabulous and confident. As always, you'll learn how to apply the BU Style methodology to help distinguish between long-lasting fashion trends and those pesky microtrends that seem to pop up overnight only to fade just as quickly (remember Mob Wife?!), likening them to moments from pop culture that came and went without leaving a lasting impression. You'll learn how hero pieces are the ones that make you feel like the best version of yourself—those pieces that transform your mood and feel like a superpower. Natalie shares concrete anecdotes and examples, and even weaves in testimonials from real clients who have applied this methodology in their own lives. This episode is also super actionable, and contains additional advice about some of those jeans brands that promise to fit across multiple sizes. That's how we start the episode off!If you're interested in learning more about the BU Style methodology, consider a Q the Stylist one-on-one session with Natalie, or submit your questions via Instagram to be answered via the podcast!Follow Us:Follow the podcast on social media, and submit your questions by sending us a message here!@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Pods

The Wear Who You Are team is thrilled to be back with a Town-Hall style episode in which Natalie answers your important style questions. First up: are you on the hunt for stylish yet ethical clothing options that won't break the bank? Look no further! In this informative Nat Chat episode, Natalie delves into the world of ethical fashion and explores practical tips for buying ethical clothes within budget.BU Style always says that “everybody has a style and every style has a seat,” but sometimes this stuff is expensive! And we wouldn't be truly inclusive if only people of a certain means could afford to sit there. So BU Style is here to share practical ways to find affordable clothes that don't compromise on values or style. We're talking best practices, apps, app navigation, consignment, and how to transform your Strategic Shopping List into a fierce targeted plan to navigate online resellers. This is highly practical advice.As a bonus, Natalie also answers a burning question about pants. . . but you'll have to tune in to hear what specifically. Episode digressions include: the electoral college, Shein, and elder millennials. Don't miss this Nat Chat episode!--Links & resources:History of Clothing SizingThredUpPoshmarkDepopTrue FashionistasGood On You AppFollow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

Who was the first person you learned about style from? It was likely your mother, grandmother, or another mother figure in your life. In today's special Nat Chat episode, we talk about what we learned and carry with us about fashion and style from the mother figures in our lives, including my amazing mom, Jan. It may surprise you that she wasn't into fashion, but she still taught me important lessons on personal style that remain core to my practice today.Bonus: Tune in to hear a few stories from a surprise guest, who happens to be my actual favorite!--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

Do you find yourself putting together a great outfit and don't have the right shoes? Did you ditch your heels post-Pandemic but don't have an appropriate replacement? Today's Nat Chat episode is the first of multiple episodes dedicated to footwear. In it, I walk you through my process of identifying your shoe needs and how to thoughtfully fill in your gaps to find your perfect pair—your ‘sole'mate. This episode will surely knock your socks off ;)  Episodes Resources & Notes:See my "shoulder season" closed-toe shoe edit for inspiration. --Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

Cue the confetti! We're celebrating one year of Wear Who You Are! In today's episode, I'll share what I've learned in the last year of creating a podcast and how this community has connected with it. In the spirit of learning and growing, I'll share one part of my style I've avoided figuring out what wearing who I am could look like for years. Now, I can't put it off any longer!As such, I invite you to join me for our first Wear Who You Are community challenge. Let's face our fashion fears together!Additional Show Notes: —Join our Wear Who You Are Community Challenge--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

In this Nat Chat, we delve into the world of styling and self-expression through your wardrobe choices. I believe strongly in buying better and buying less. Each piece in your closet should have multiple ways to wear it—and each way can be a tool in showcasing all the dimensions of your unique style brand. Knowing how to maximize the use of your clothing and aligning it with your unique personality is such a useful, empowering, not to mention time-and-cost-saving practice.I encourage you to experiment with outfit combinations like a chef does with ingredients. To help you out, I address common challenges in styling and provide practical tips to make the process easier. This is my ultimate favorite part of my client process. I hope this episode helps you find inspiration and excitement in your closet!--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

'Tis the season for holiday shopping. In today's Nat Chat, we're rounding out our shopping series and discussing box subscriptions and rental services. We'll talk about how they work, when they are useful, and when they create style discovery roadblocks.--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

Does the thought of walking into a department store make you panic? Are you guilty of making impulse purchases that you never wear? Do boutiques intimidate you? In-person shopping can feel scary for some, but it also comes with opportunities to connect with community, make thoughtful purchase decisions, have a full sensory shopping experience, treasure hunt for deals, and more.In part two of our three-part Nat Chat shopping series, we discuss the main types of in-store shopping experiences, the pros and cons of each, and strategies to support your in-store shopping experience and goals.  Additional Show Notes:- Revisit boutique shopping strategies in previous episodes with Nicci Hicks (episode 10) & Candice Caprice (episode 7)--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

It's no secret that the state of shopping has vastly changed in the past decade. On top of it, the pandemic accelerated e-commerce growth, with online sales in the United States increasing by 44% in 2020 (census.gov). Whether I like the new direction of shopping, I have to participate in it. I might as well take advantage of the best parts of each shopping experience and pass on my strategies to you.In today's Nat Chat, we discuss the vast world of online shopping: the current climate, the pros and cons, and my advice on how to make it less overwhelming and more focused to fit your needs.--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

The weather is changing and a new season is here. Are you ready for it? Have you thought about how your existing wardrobe fits into your seasonal strategic planning? In today's Nat Chat, we talk through why the first step to creating a smart and sustainable style strategy season after season isn't shopping — it's sorting through your own closet. I will give you the questions you should ask and process you should go through to help you avoid a “closet full of clothes with nothing to wear” syndrome. So pour yourself some coffee or wine, cue up your favorite playlist, listen to this episode, and get ready to sort through your fall wardrobe.--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

In today's Nat Chat, we talk about why I think body type classifications should be done away with right along with the “how-tos” on dressing them in a “flattering” way. While we're at it, we touch on why the word “flattering” is subjective and should be used with caution. I also share my ABCs of how to identify your own wardrobe fit goals. This is a short episode jam-packed with my style strategy insights to support you!Take the BU Style Six Assessment--Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleSign Up for Nat's NewsletterRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

In today's Style Strategy session, we discuss the difference between inspirational and aspirational style. We'll touch on why it's important to be inspired but not aspire, how to start checking yourself, and ways to use inspiration to build on your unique personal style. Links & resources:Follow the podcast on social media:@bustyle@natalie_tincherCheck out the website for more info at www.bu.styleRate, Review, & Subscribe to the podcast on Apple & SpotifyThis Podcast is brought to you by Upstarter Podcast Network

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, Neil, Nat, and Adil continue with the next book on their Great Books Project: The Iliad by Homer. This book explores the themes of fate, gods, and the glory of war. Listen along as we dive in to the stories of the Trojan War centering around the greatest warrior, Achilles. We cover a wide range of topics including: The consequences of Achilles' rage and wrath Bicameral mind and the development of consciousness How war and battles were depicted at this point in time  What differentiates us from animals? Why gaining new experiences can expand your viewpoints And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode. Links from the Episode: Mentioned in the show: Episode 81: The Book of Exodus (0:28) Episode 80: The Book of Genesis (0:39) Riverside (1:18) Clubhouse (1:40) Twitter Held Discussions for $4 Billion Takeover of Clubhouse (2:05) Nat Chat episode featuring Neil (13:21) Bicameral Mentality (26:20) Achilles and Patroclus (55:49)  Nat's Ethics notes (59:36) Godfather movie (1:09:28) Books Mentioned: The Pioneers (5:16) The Peloponnesian War (12:13) Prometheus Bound (14:26) The Odyssey (26:16) The Mahabharata (38:21) The Qur'an (56:20) (Book Episode) The Epic of Gilgamesh (57:56) (Book Episode) Infinite Jest (1:06:30) (Book Episode 1) (Book Episode 2) (Nat's Book Notes) East of Eden (1:09:07) (Nat's Book Notes) The Three-Body Problem (1:10:16) (Nat's Book Notes) Atlas Shrugged (1:12:27) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) People Mentioned: David McCullough (5:16)  James Patterson (8:34) Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (45:04) Jason Momoa (45:18) Russell Crowe (45:33) Brad Pitt (45:50) Tom Hiddleston (46:00) Vladimir Putin (49:57) Joe Biden (50:02) Nassim Taleb (1:06:16) Show Topics: (6:08) In today's episode, we're discussing The Iliad by Homer, written around 8th century BC. We've moved forward ~500-1000 years from where we started on our book list. Make sure to check out our Great Books List and follow along with us as we put out new episodes every 3 weeks! (11:00) Homer included a lot of data on the ships back then, and The Iliad stores that historical information. There's some element of using stories to record historical information. (13:16) Reading about history makes you reflect on the accuracy of the narrative as it could have been written to serve the story they would most like to portray. As we read more of these books written in the same era, we may see some of the same historical events happening and spoken about in different ways, similar to how news outlets report the same events or world issues in much different ways. (16:29) Very rarely does everyone objectively agree that something or someone is good or bad. Most conflicts will have people on both sides of the coin who have different backgrounds, values, and opinions. (19:47) These gods are depicted as very human-like, and they do not closely resemble gods in the way that we typically think about gods. They are imperfect, and they also get urges and emotions just like we do. (21:18) The stories of Achilles and the consequences of rage. Not only does he lose his bride, but also his best friend. On top of that, he loses his honor and dignity. As the story ends, it's all about how he regains that honor and dignity and is able to move on from his mistakes. (26:20) Bicameral mind: Humans back then were lacking what we call consciousness today. They heard and obeyed demands they heard in their minds from what they identified as gods. They didn't hear their own mind as their own thoughts and urges, but rather as gods telling them to do it. When did consciousness develop? (28:42) It's implied in this text that we are not like the animals, and being able to suppress our urges of rage and wrath is what differentiates us. We have morals and know right from wrong.  (34:23) Praying- Did it mean back then what it means now? Or is it more similar to manifestation and paying more attention to the things you wish for, such as money? It's conceptually similar because it's a ritual that takes up a big part of your headspace. (38:13) Neil makes a connection to the concepts in The Mahabharata where the good guys do a lot of bad things to win the war, and the bad guys act more honorably than even the good guys in some ways. (42:21) The Ajax and Hector fight scene. Nat explains the difference in ancient military conflicts where many may have been resolved by the two armies marching up and meeting. If one army is much larger, the opposing army would admit defeat. If the army size is more balanced, they would choose a fighter on each side to battle against each other. (44:55) It's not a complete episode of Made You Think without a tangent! Who would play the characters of the Iliad if it were shot as a movie in today's time? (46:58) Achilles' battle with Hector. There are a lot of these duels, and while most remained honorable and respectful, this one does not. War was portrayed very different back then, and while it was still brutal, there were rules to war where everyone was on the same page rather than it being a free-for-all. (51:21) The book has an interesting way of depicting the dynamics of male relationships. Achilles was extremely distraught over the loss of Patroclus. What was the extent of their friendship and how much of it has to do with the translation over time? (56:17) Adil shares his experience reading the Qur'an where the author offers different translations side by side to help the reader get the full Arabic meaning of the text. When you translate a text into English, a lot of the meanings and artistry in the original language may get lost.  (1:00:15) We all have ideas and concepts that we have focused on for long periods in our lives. Once you exhaust the value from an idea, you move on to new ideas and viewpoints that build from the previous. For example, you may read something early on in your life but not extract much value from it until later in your life when you have a new foundation on a given topic. (1:03:01) Gaining experience to attach your newfound knowledge to. We each experience things at different points in our lives. Examples: losing a loved one or having kids. These experiences often change how you may think about things in your life. (1:07:53) A monastic person spends a lot of time alone with the voices in their head, and they in some way become a trusted person when it comes to certain matters: Interpreting dreams, helping others to identify the significance of their thoughts, understanding consciousness, etc. (1:08:58) In most good books, it's clear who the good vs. bad characters are, but this is not true in all cases. There are many books and movies with very complex characters that go deeper than just whether they're good or bad. (1:10:59) That wraps up this episode! The next book on our list is The Odyssey by Homer then it's back to the Bible for the book of Deuteronomy. You can catch our previous 3 episodes of the Great Book Series here - Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, and Exodus. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS, @adilmajid, @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!

Todd, Toastie, Meg and Nat CHat up more content ideas , work proposals for kids, and volleyball season heating up.  all right befoe the staff appreciation party.  Todd also, has a chance to catch up with Gillian for a litttle interview.  

Happy Monday! Glad to have you back for another episode of Nat Chat, an audio version of my newsletter Monday Medley. Join me in recapping my best finds from across the Internet with topics ranging from nutrition, finding good business partners, and sleep tech. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter if you prefer a readable copy of this podcast! Resources mentioned: 6 Big Nutrition Lessons (0:18) How to Migrate from Notion to Roam (0:26) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (0:31) The Brain (0:41) White Oak Pastures (0:48) Their Most Popular Items (1:12) Cat Lavery (1:21) BestSelf (1:23) In one extensive article (1:37) Sleep Tech video (2:05) Youtube Masterclass(2:19) How Ali balances his double life (2:37) The Hero's Journey(2:45) Intermittent Fasting (2:55) Make Chicken Great Again (3:30) Ethical Meat Eating Article (3:38) Solving Problems by Letting Go (3:52)  If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here. And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next Monday!

Happy Monday! Glad to have you back for another episode of Nat Chat, an audio version of my newsletter Monday Medley. Join me in recapping my best finds from across the Internet with topics ranging from empires, fruit and vegetable classification, and mediocrity. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter if you prefer a readable copy of this podcast! Resources mentioned: The Mental Model Behind Every High-Performer I Know (0:21) Starting a $400,000 Side Business in 1 Month (for Free) (0:30) 5 Life Lessons from a Book too Evil for Prisons (0:35) White Oak Pastures (0:45) Avoid the Fate of Empires (1:15) College as an Incubator or Girardian Terror (3:14) Thread on Bill Grundfest (4:36) The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial (5:22) Brandon Zhang podcast (5:43) Signaling as a Service (6:28) Confusion around tomatoes (6:40) Ketchup was considered a vegetable (7:40) If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here. And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next Monday!

Happy Monday! On this week's episode of Nat Chat, I'm covering this week's Monday Medley newsletter. Join me in recapping my best finds from across the Internet with topics ranging from energy, wildfires, and privacy. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter if you prefer a readable copy of this podcast! Resources mentioned: 9 favorite tools I use for better sleep (0:12) Humanity's relationship with energy (0:18) "Student Mindset" podcast (0:31) Making future habits easy (0:45) Alex Tabarrok wildfire article (2:16) Chaos Monkeys (4:31) The Social Dilemma (4:34) Previous piece for Wired (5:45) Hedge funds (6:12) Protein poisoning (7:12) Getting sweaty (7:24) Purpose by Sovereignty (7:55) If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here. And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next Monday!

Happy Monday! On this week's episode of Nat Chat, I'm covering this week's Monday Medley newsletter. Join me in recapping my best finds from across the Internet with topics ranging from airlines, journaling, and limiting beliefs. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter if you prefer a readable copy of this podcast! I've sent one out every Monday for 230 consecutive weeks now, so don't miss out. Resources mentioned: Why you shouldn't try to read 100 books per year (0:13) Sovereignty (0:28) Purpose product (0:31) Overlooked Variable that's Key to the Pandemic (1:00) Plus Minus Next (4:26) Morning Pages in Roam (5:02) Blue light glasses (5:11) Coinbase is a Mission Focused Company (6:24) Growth Machine (7:37)  Zestful (7:41) Airlines depend on their frequent flier programs (8:20) Limiting beliefs (9:52) Analyze how you can work out of your system (10:05) If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here. And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next Monday!

On this week's episode of Nat Chat, I'm talking about a wide range of topics featured in my Monday Medley. From supersonic speed to a good night's sleep, join me in recapping my best finds from across the Internet this week.  Make sure to subscribe to the newsletter here if you prefer a readable copy of this podcast! And don't forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel. Resources Mentioned: My YouTube channel (0:23) Helping David Perell migrate from Evernote into Roam (0:30) Highlighting important notes in podcasts.(0:35) A marathon 2+ hour interview of me (0:44) Nick Maggiulli (1:10) Retire in Progress (1:12) Sovereignty (1:17) Dream (1:24) Medley 210 (1:50) Boom Supersonic (1:53) The first XB-1 Supersonic Jet (1:58) Article by Patrick Collison (2:16) Fear caused by bicycles (4:31) Lost opportunity to lead Airbnb's seed round (5:40) What makes Y Combinator so special (6:28) My favorite sleep tech this week (6:48) BluBLOX (6:56) Blue Light Filtering Test (7:00) Fascinating Visualization (7:16) It's Decorative Gourd Season (7:40) If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next Monday!  

Today's episode of Nat Chat features an audio version of my September 21st edition of the Monday Medley, an email newsletter where I provide interesting finds from around the Internet. Make sure to subscribe to the newsletter if you prefer a readable copy of this podcast! Resources mentioned: The Brain (0:44) Infinite Jest (1:02) Sovereignty (1:24) Purpose (1:33) Why I Stopped Angel Investing (2:11) Exercising your options at an early stage company (3:28) Best income producing assets for growing wealth (3:47) Great tweets and lessons from Startup L Jackson (4:10) Invest $7mm in Shopify (4:22) Ali Abdaal (4:55) Thomas Frank (4:56) Final Cut Pro X for YouTubing (5:07) First day practicing archery (5:25) Centenarian Olympics (6:08) Faking the language (7:21) Babbling (2:23) Improving Idea Flow (2:24) Calling Joe Rogan out(8:03) Keep housing prices reasonable (8:44) If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here. And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across. Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next Monday!

Nat Chat is back! I am excited to bring you an audio version of my Monday Medley, an email newsletter where I provide interesting finds from around the Internet, spanning as broad of topics as the rest of my website. Resources mentioned: 75% Rule (1:04) Scale by Geoffrey West (1:52) The Brain (2:09) I sent the authors a couple questions (2:36) Sovereignty (2:51) Their "Dream" product (3:19) Original animated movies and the live action remakes (4:46) Why the "Karen" meme naming is so accurate (5:13) Terry (5:50) Supercharge Your Productivity with Notion (6:02) Effortless Output course (7:17) what my setup looks like now (7:23) The Way of Zen (9:04) Is economic growth over? (10:16) What happened in 1971 (11:11) The Sovereign Individual (11:35) interesting interview of Andy Mant (14:08) Unconventional Medicine by Chris Kresser (14:52) Wearing sunglasses might mess with the signals our body needs (16:02)      If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here. And should you come across anything interesting this week, tweet me @nateliason. I'd love to hear your thoughts and neat things you may come across!

In today's episode, Natalie talks about coming into a creative burst, how important it is to follow your intuition when exploring creative paths. She gives an update on her own life and personal projects, from new book ideas to reviving others that are years old. Enjoy this relaxing, chatty episode as we try to ease back into a normal routine during this pandemic.

In episode 4, Natalie speaks candidly about the updates in her life. In this Nat Chat series, we discuss some life updates and personal projects that are in the works or soon to become a reality. Touching on lots of different topics relevant to the episode, today’s main focuses are on loss, getting through school, the ESSICR book relaunch, and more, Find us on Instagram: @mindful.creatives

Sorry peeps you are stuck with Me (Nat) this week! The peaches are going to be running a series of deep dives to get to know us a bit more. Every week we chat all the rants and bants about particular topics but over the next few weeks were are going to run a few personal episodes so you get to know the peachy bods within the pod a bit better. In this episode I talk you through a physique post-show improvement season update, the approach I have taken and how my mindset is at the moment. I reveal my biggest achievement to date, what spurred me to begin competing, my plans for next year, some past whacky hobbies and some advice for office workers. Happy Friday all! x

NEW: Support us via Patreon at www.patreon.com/madeyouthink/ to get bonus material, exclusive hangouts, episode discussions, and more! This is a special one! In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and I discuss a music album, The College Dropout by Kanye West. The flow of the album is based on Kanye's decision to drop off out of college. It starts with graduation, it discuss problems in university, growing poor in Chicago, rap bragging and more. Man, I promise, she's so self-conscious She has no idea what she doin' in college That major that she majored in don't make no money But she won't drop out, her parents'll look at her funny We cover a wide range of topics, including: Antifragile marketing, or the art of turning negative things in sellable points To play in a rigged game Kanye’s self made singer and producer story Consumerism as the new black drug Why people still believe in higher education Why all breweries have at least one IPA And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to listen to The College Dropout by Kanye West! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on In Praise of Idleness, an essay that talk about the importance to balance work and life and not falling into consumerism, as well as our episode on Antifragile by Nassim Taleb, a concept well known by Kanye and famous people that act weird. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Ye by Kanye West [1:42] Life of Pablo by Kanye West [1:59] Yeezus by Kanye West [2:13] Kanye West - Lift Yourself [2:20] The Blueprint by Jay-Z [5:14] Kanye West - Big Brother [5:36] 50 Cents - 21 Questions [19:17] Genius Lyrics [21:43] Booz Allen [25:44] Conor McGregor throwing a dolly to a bus [33:41] The Gap [41:05] GLC [41:59] Consequence [42:45] Cheesecake Factory [1:11:16] Nat Chat [1:11:28] It's Not Liberal Arts And Literature Majors Who Are Most Underemployed [1:13:09] Monopoly: A Manifesto and Fact Post - article about rent seeking in medicine and education [1:15:05] University of Phoenix [1:17:04] CNBC [1:21:57] Juul e-Sig company [1:28:20] Going Clear documentary [1:31:14] Chaka Khan - Through the fire [1:32:20] Who wants to be millionaire [1:32:48] MTV [1:33:02] Get Rich or Die Tryin by 50 Cents [1:33:22] 8 Mile [1:34:04] Roc-A-Fella Records [1:36:56] Capitol Records [1:37:40] Damn by Kendrick Lamar [1:39:21] Books mentioned Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [0:14] Antifragile by Nassim Taleb [1:34] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [3:24] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [3:47] (Nat’s notes) The 50th Law by Robert Greene [33:03] (Nat’s notes) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [36:41] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson [40:02] In Praise of Idleness [1:08:43] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) People mentioned Kanye West Jordan B. Peterson [0:47] (on Twitter) (12 Rules episode) Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:34] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Metro Boomin [6:29] Ludacris [7:48] Twista [10:06] Eminem [10:06] The Beatles [12:22] Bernie Mac [13:04] John Legend [21:04] Naval Ravikant [30:41] Jamie Foxx [22:13] Jamie Foxx on the Tim Ferris Show [22:13] Pusha T [30:21] Drake [30:21] Conor McGregor Throws Dolly at UFC 223 Fighter Bus video - YouTube [33:41] Floyd Mayweather [33:41] Myke Tyson [34:42] Muhammad Ali [34:54] LeBron James [35:04] J Cole [38:56] Kendrick Lamar [38:56] William Shakespeare [44:22] J Ivy [51:06] Talib Kweli [52:17] Common [52:17] Aisha Taylor [1:04:17] Earth Wind & Fire [1:04:48] Keith Sweat [1:04:48] Maze [1:04:48] Teddy Pendergrass [1:04:48] Luther Vandross [1:04:48] Mark Zuckerberg [1:17:32] Mos Def [1:23:33] Freeway [1:23:33] The Boys Choir of Harlem [1:23:33] Donald Trump [1:29:15] Colin Kaepernick [1:29:15] The Rock [1:30:54] Pepper the Poochon [1:42:00] Show Topics 0:00 – Kanye's been a lot in the news lately because he is an interesting character, a provocateur. Kanye knows how to get media attention for his last albums by acting weird and insane in a very antifragile manner. Even Nassim Taleb mentioned him! Kanye grew up in Chicago and probably experienced some stories about being poor. Connections between the album and books and concepts from books discussed. 5:04 – He was a producer and produced some famous hip hop albums. Change in how producers are considered today, compared to when Kanye produced Jay Z's Blueprint. Producer as a brand. Kanye is a "full-stack" artist, he produces and signs his own songs. 10:24 – While this album was in progress he had a car accident that injured his jaw. Appreciating rap from an outsider perspective. Interwoven comedy element in the album. Why he included a song about Christianity. Kanye's soul signature. 13:41 – 1. "Intro (Skit)". Impersonating a professor asking Kanye for a graduation speech/song for kids graduating. Sets the tone for the rest of the album. 14:33 – 2. "We Don't Care" – Kanye responding to the request. Growing up poor in the slums of Chicago. Drug dealers as ideal of prestige and claiming other people's kids on income tax. Success is living beyond 25. Sense of being a self-made singer. Fuck you for the game being rigged, but also fuck you for not playing it. 20:53 – 3. "Graduation Day". His professor is really mad and tells him he is not graduating. Kanye invited unknown artists (at the moment) to sign together some songs. 22:36 – 4. "All Falls Down" (featuring Syleena Johnson). People in college who is not upper-middle class and is unsure what they are doing. The illusion of college as a ticket to upper-middle class. Parental pressure to go to college. "It's nice to have white parents" argument. 27:41 – Consumerism. Buying stuff to come up with insecurity. Kanye and Antifragile. There's nothing bad he can do to sell less albums. Starting beefs as strategies to up rappers popularity. Black people feeling continually under surveillance by internalizing the view of society. Reference to slaves' promised land. 38:00 – Kanye's uniqueness to escape the braggadocious rap era. Saying the things everybody is thinking, but sounds impolite if said by other than comedians or rappers. 40:16 – 5. "I'll Fly Away". Gospel cover. 40:50 – 6. "Spaceship" (featuring GLC and Consequence). Experiences working, from a black person perspective. Being the token blackie of a Gap store.  Working for the mob. Chicago state of mind. Dead end feelings. 43:11 – 7. "Jesus Walks". This song was, at the time, was out of place because it talked about God. Layers of meanings. Doing the bad thing, being conscious about that, but willing to be OK with God. The need for an ideal of better life, more positive and constructive than a drug dealer. Challenging the radio stations to broadcast music outside the mainstream topics, 48:38 – #8 "Never Let Me Down" (featuring Jay-Z and J. Ivy). Poor Jay-Z verse. Civil right activists in Kanye's family. Comparing the great injustices our grandparents had to deal with, with our current inability to vote. Racism still being alive, despite all the progress made. 52:17 – #9 "Get Em High" (featuring Talib Kweli and Common). Upbeat and funny song. Building self confidence and middle fingers up. Becoming famous and hitting up girls. First solo appearances, opening Talib Kweli's shows. Name-dropping. Featuring guests as guest posting. Dancing for cash, or publishing under independent labels as a way to being antifragile from industry cycles. 59:07 – 10. "Workout Plan (Skit)". Intro skit. Girls talking about losing weight workouts. 59:18 – 11. "The New Workout Plan". 1:02:32 – 12. "Slow Jamz" (with Twista and Jamie Foxx). Bluesy soul song "for the ladies". Tribute to big soul R&B musicians. 1:05:15 – 13. "Breathe in Breathe Out" (featuring Ludacris; co-produced by Brian "All Day" Miller). Probably a filler song, or a song that ties the artistic sides of the album. The need to do gangsta rap to widen the audience and give the album a push. Parallel with breweries, that need to have at least one IPA in their portfolio. Dichotomy of doing mainstream stuff to support the artistic stuff. 1:09:04 – 14. "School Spirit (Skit 1)". How school screws you and wastes your time. Getting class after class, but not knowing anything and don't make any money. 1:11:07 – 15. "School Spirit". School hierarchy is not synced to the real world. 1:11:32 – 16. "School Spirit (Skit 1)". Funny skit. Dying broke but covered by degrees. School getting more and more expensive, and more and more useless.Sentiment that everyone should be given an opportunity to move up vs effective paths to get people out of poverty. Option to move back home and not taking loans. 1:15:05 – Why people still believe in higher education and why it is a bubble like the housing one. Schools getting paid regardless of the graduates being employment situation. The problem of online certifications. Alternative signalling mechanisms. How to demonstrate competence in any field. Entrepreneurship and Marketing can't be learnt on books. 1:23:21 – 18. "Two Words" (featuring Mos Def, Freeway and The Boys Choir of Harlem). The game is rigged. Reference to the '70-'80 crack addiction in poor communities. Different treatment for drugs used by different ethnics. Why marijuana is being legalized (as more and more is used by white or rich people). Why Hemp was ostracized by the Paper industry. 1:31:58 – 19. "Through the Wire". A song recorded while still recovering from a car accident where he could have died. Despite all the horrible things happening, he will not stop doing music. Turning a negative into a positive. 50 Cents playing up the story of being shot 9 times. Tragedy helps the triumph make possible, or at least, making a strong selling point. Eminem's case. 1:35:00 – 20. "Family Business". Coming up with a new rap style. Family gatherings. 1:36:22 – 21. "Last Call" (co-produced by Evidence; additional production by Porse). A summary of Kanye's story. Record labels would not give Kanye a chance because he was not dressing as a typical gangsta rapper. Kanye being so sure to sign with Capitol Records and being dropped at the last minute. The need of one big shitty thing before everything else goes well. 1:40:07 – Announcement. Patreon is a site where you can support your favorite show (like MYT) for small amounts in return of goodies you wouldn't get otherwise. Support us via Patreon at www.patreon.com/madeyouthink/ and be the first to interact with us in unique ways. You can always support our supporters, Perfect Keto, Cup & Leaf, Kettle & Fire, Scentbird via our Support page. Reach to us via the newsletter, we had pretty interesting conversations with listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

We’re now on the 9th episode of Daniel Carbonel’s Wake Up to Freedom Podcast and he’s brought in a very special guest who is the REAL DEAL SEO Expert with tons of experience under his belt. As you may already know most of Daniel’s guests often talk about their humble beginnings and how they developed their internet empires by honing their internet marketing skills. Nat too was once just an average college dude that was reaching for the stars, until one day he successfully redirected web traffic to a site called, Sumo (formerly Sumo Me) where it went from 5,000 – 170,000 monthly visitors! If you’re into SEO as well, then you’re probably interested on how he did that, right? Well, don’t fret, because that’s exactly what we will discuss in this blog post. Getting to Know Nat Eliason Nat Eliason is the owner and operator of Growth Machine, host of the Made You Think and Nat Chat podcasts where he hosts all of his writing on psychology, self-education, philosophy, health, finance and including himself in general. Before Nat became the big success that he is now, he only had a degree in philosophy and good writing chops, but he was able to do great with that skill and developed his SEO and general digital marketing skills. After working for Sumo he left and started his own business called Growth Machine, and it’s pretty self-explanatory on what they do here, which is build your website from zero to hundreds of thousands of page views per month in a matter of months. He has proven his SEO skills with this that is why many high profile companies either want to hire his services from Growth Machine or want to hire him to work for them exclusively! But Nat doesn’t like to be confined in an office doing the same thing over and over for years, no, his dynamic personality is reflected in what he does. His Made You Think podcast is one of the best podcasts to listen to as much as the podcast of Daniel Carbonel – Wake Up to Freedom Podcast. Nat likes to read books a lot, but he doesn’t just read any typical books, no, he’s particularly meticulous when it comes to reading content and he loves thought-provoking books most of all. What Kind of Business Should You Create and How Best to Apply SEO to it in Order to Keep it Going? When Daniel Carbonel asked Nat about what was the most difficult part in creating his lifestyle business, Nat gave a very compelling answer which will resonate in each one of us. He said that “creating something really good that would stay good that allows for the lifestyle business level of hands-offness.” And that your business must come from your passion – things that you love doing that even if money wasn’t an issue, you’d still do them because you love doing them. In other words, Nat is telling you to find what you are passionate about, root out the skill or skills that’s a derivative of it, and then build a business around it. For Nat, his passion was primarily writing and from that, he derived skills like content marketing and SEO. And as for keeping your business going, well, Nat recommends that you find a niche, narrow down on the needs of the customers in that particular niche, and then offer a solution to their problems. If you keep identifying the problems in every website niche that you research and be able to provide the most efficient solutions for addressing those problems, then you will never run out of customers. Nat’s Advice on How to be Motivated Nat is against procrastination because it makes a person unproductive and wastes his or her time, which is not good for business or someone who wants to have an entrepreneurial mindset. Believing in the 80 – 20 principle is also counterintuitive as it only makes you think that you are or you can be better than anyone, when in fact, you really aren’t. It will inflate your ego making you think that doing 20% can get you 80% results, so it’s, therefore, better to give it your 100% or none at all. For instance,

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?” “I . . . don’t know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?” “To shrug.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a piece of philosophy disguised as a novel. Probably the 10th longest book in Latin language, Atlas Shrugged is a controversial, polarizing book that attacks Socialism, references Postmodernism and develops Objectivism, Rand’s philosophical system. So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? We cover a wide range of topics, including: Money as the root of all evil or source of all good Why academics and politicians see successful businessmen with distrust Wealthy kids arguing for socialism The truth about law (spoiler: you are not obliged to obey it) A 3 hour long discourse Writing sex scenes And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson, a book that foresee how governments will react with new tech, as well as our episodes on Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (part 1 & part 2), a book about the power of myths and humans collaborating for a greater outcome. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Ford [11:11] Delta [11:11] American Airlines [11:11] Cup & Leaf – Nat's Tea Project [24:05] Effective Altruism [32:03] CMU [33:09] Tony Robbins on the Tim Ferriss Show [34:22] UBI – Universal Basic Income [35:52] Crypto episode [36:48] Patreon [37:30] Drizly and Minibar [42:56] AirBnB [44:09] Uber [45:32] IRS [46:25] Neil Soni on Nat Chat [55:30] Harari on UBI [56:33] Al-Qaida [1:02:40] ISIS [1:02:40] Amazon [1:05:02] NASA [1:06:16] SpaceX [1:06:16] Boeing [1:05:40] Voldemort Effect [1:15:17] Books mentioned Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Harry Potter [6:49] Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [20:47] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode part 1 & part 2) Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins [34:22] Sovereign Individual [36:48] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Finite and Infinite Games [41:55] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [42:44] (book episode) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand [1:17:59] People mentioned Ayn Rand List of Atlas Shrugged characters Francisco d’Anconia Hank Rearden Dagny Taggart John Galt Plato [5:10] Socrates [5:20] Tony Robbins [34:22] Peter Thiel [48:30] Aristotle [50:40] Ron Paul [1:09:23] Nathaniel Brandon [1:17:02] Leonard Peikoff [1:17:45] Simone de Beauvoir [1:21:07] Show Topics 6:55 – The structure of the book is an interwoven of essays spoken by the characters. Re-reading the book may help understand better the concepts. 9:05 - The book starts with a parallel world set in the 50ties, with two kinds of people: the industrious productive ones running big infrastructure businesses of the Nation, and the socialists, government ones (described as parasites). The main plot is that the productive ones start disappearing, and the socialists intervene to try to keep the economy running and avoid collapsing. 13:19 – The idea is that the more one tries to control the economy, the worst it's going to get. The example of limiting book sales to 10k. 15:24 – Introducing the characters of Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden. Money as the root of all evil. Criticism of money made by people that never understood how someone actually makes money. 19:00 – Tangent. Most of the critiques to money as the origin of all evil originates between academics or congressman, people that project their experiences "playing politics" and assume businessmen are filthy rich because of a more aggressive political game. 21:11 – Examples of activities that make money without creating value. High frequency trading, hardcore rent seeking. The money test, or how to know if you are effectively creating value. Feeling guilty when asking money, cutting through bullshit. 25:05 – Counter-argument: money as the source of all good. Money allows us to cooperate. 29:47 – We don't see that many successful people in business arguing for socialism. On the opposite side, we can see many wealthy kids arguing for socialism. Why people in the artistic communities advocate for socialism while earning millions on performances. The different approach to socialism between wealthy kids and kids with scholarships. Forced redistribution may not be sustainable in the long term. 34:22 – Tony Robbins about the ideal amount to tax, so to pay for public services, and not to discourage taxpayers to fly away. Striking a fine balance is even more important when technologies that enable us to avoid taxation are widely available. 38:28 – Hank put on trial by the government. The nature of laws is that they have to be enforced by force. Most people won't voluntarily do what government order them to do unless pointed with a gun. 42:56 – Most people think of laws and rules as things they have to follow, instead of options that have consequences. The idea that a rule is just something that typically advantageous to follow. Startups influencing how new rules for grey areas will be legislated. Why NY regulators don't go after illicit listing on AirBnB. 47:24 – John Galt speech (spoiler alert). Layout of objectivism, Ayn Rand’s main contribution to philosophy, as some sort of adaptation of Aristotelian ethics and metaphysics. In Rand's objectivism there can't be contradictions. Or, going against postmodernism, there is no complete subjectivity. 51:39 – Objectivism: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification. Reality is not going to change if we hide away from it. Meaning of life and meaningful work as the purpose of life. Reason, purpose, self-esteem. 55:00 – Why people is unhappy with their job. Our jobs is where we spend most of our active ours, and if that is not purposeful, it's hard to be satisfied. Corollaries from Sovereign Individual. We are in a time where in response to new technologies, government reacts in a more socialist direction, so the more productive people go somewhere else. The importance of cryptocurrency in this movement vs gold. 59:52 – Logic against postmodernism. Not saying anything, keeping the mouth shut and dying, is the only way to fulfill the argument of objectiveness non-existence. 1:01:43 – The roles of governments. The need of a third-party force as a result of the concept of property. Protection, Roads, Public Parks: how would they work if left to private initiative. Social Security, a legalized Ponzi scheme, works only if enforced. Alternatives to Social Security and who pays for it. 1:11:29 – Tangent. Criticism to Atlas Shrugged as it doesn't convince someone who is convinced of the opposite. University is very liberal biased. It's very tough to get grants to do research that doesn't confirm liberal ideology. 1:13:56 – Outlawing ideas make them more compelling. The case of silencing gender differences. 1:16:43 – Diving into objectivism in School. The contrast of female characters of Ayn Rand books. Sex scenes and description of scenes. 1:22:11 – Tangent. Rand’s sex scenes are more emotional-psychological than physical. Philosophy of love, related to the meaning of life. Love as a sense of achievement. Interpretations of love possession. 1:26:29 – Closing quote. “In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.” 1:27:30 – Sponsors! With Scentbird you select and queue perfumes you want to try, and receive them on a monthly basis. Their cartridge system is very convenient, very discounted  and travel-friendly. Use the coupon mentioned in the episode to get 50% off on the first month. Perfect Keto's MCT oil is one of the best fats to keep a ketogenic diet. Their MCT oil powdered version is fantastic to mix in to your coffee drinks, or mushroom coffee. It is much easier than cutting a piece of butter, and it has a creamy texture. For the mushroom coffee, go to Four Sigmatic and get 15% off. Their mushroom coffee energizes you with less caffeine. Kettle & Fire for delicious, organic, grass fed, bone broth, good for getting the micronutrients that it's difficult to get if you don't eat organ meats. You can cook it, drink directly from the carton, or try it with cumin and chili, heat and sip it. It is shelf stable for a really long time. New sponsor! At Cup & Leaf you can find the finest teas reviewed by Nat, with a 20% off! Try the organic Earl Grey cream and milk Oolong, a pretty unique tea. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

Solitude is what you have the least of here, especially as plebes. You don’t even have privacy, the opportunity simply to be physically alone, never mind solitude, the ability to be alone with your thoughts. And yet I submit to you that solitude is one of the most important necessities of true leadership. In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat cover the first speech on this show! Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz is a speech held by the professor at West Point Military Academy. In it, Deresiewicz goes against the common thinking that Yale’s professors or MBAs are leaders, just because they are the best at following what they are told to do, and looks at solitude and moments of deep work the roots for true leadership. Multitasking is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. [...] Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Turning chaos into order vs maintaining the order The “clever” app that interrupts you to check if you are in the flow Guns and drug wars in Chicago Nat and Neil's rituals for solitude Why starting your podcast with your friends will bring you to the best of deep thinking A new sponsor that will make you smell better And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to read Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on The Way of Zen by Alan Watts, a book that lingers in the benefits of meditation, as well as our episode on Work Clean by Dan Charnas, a live episode with the author of the book brings the shows how to work and manage like a chef. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show William Deresiewicz on Nat Chat [2:12] On Political Correctness by William Deresiewicz [2:46] William Deresiewicz Speech at West Point 7:26 Yale University [7:32] CMU - Carnegie Mellon University [7:56] McKinsey [12:35] Kanye West tweets [16:49] AirPods [20:14] Slack [23:36] Asana [23:36] IKEA [30:39] Salesforce [32:03] HelpSpot 32:28 Ephemerality vs Value by Nat Eliason [37:29] Snapchat [37:40] Blinkist [38:43] Mentorbox [38:43] Joe Rogan and Colion Noir on Chicago's gang violence [47:22] Russell Brand - Legalisation of Drugs [48:47] Ron Paul’s view on abortion [50:36] Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show [51:52] Wait But Why articles on AI part 1 and part 2 [51:59] Melting Asphalt [52:25] Sam Harris’ reply to Robert Spencer about immigration [52:32] Books mentioned Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [1:25] (book episode) Excellence Sheep by William Deresiewicz [7:38] (Nat’s notes) Extreme Ownership by Jocko [11:34] 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson [18:09] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Antifragile by Nassim Taleb [18:09] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [25:29] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) In Praise of Idleness [26:44] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Ulysses by James Joyce [27:08] Way of Zen by Alan Watts [30:08] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Work Clean [31:08] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler [34:23] Amusing Ourselves to Death [36:02] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [45:19] (Nat’s notes) (book episode part 1 & part 2) The Riddle of the Gun by Sam Harris [47:10] (article episode) The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson [52:25] People mentioned Sam Harris [47:10] (Guns episode) Kanye West [16:49] Jordan B. Peterson [17:09] (on Twitter) (12 Rules episode) Dave Rubin [17:21] Donald Trump [44:14] Show Topics 3:13 – New sponsor! Scentsbird are the Netflix for perfumes. They will send you premium perfumes and colognes like Dolce and Gabbana, Chanel and Armani on a monthly basis. Their their cartridge system is very clever and light, super convenient and easy to carry even on airplanes (try getting big bottles on airplanes). Listen the episode to get 50% OFF the first month subscription. 7:13 – Leadership. "Excellence sheep" concept, or what people do to get a position at Yale. Being the best at following orders doesn't make you a leader. People's confusion between leadership and being good at what one is supposed to do. Turning chaos into order vs maintaining the order. 12:05 – West Point vs Yale Leadership concept. One line Commander's intent employees. 13:18 – Solitude. Bringing Chaos back to Order requires solitude and focus. Creative thinking is not possible nowadays unless we take the concentrated effort to avoid all kind of interruptions. Kayne West and Jordan Peterson on tour. Multitasking and interruptions vs learning. 16:29 – Generally, our first though may not be the result of our creativity, but a subconscious recall of someone else's idea. Places where many ideas come because we are concentrated (and not multitasking), even on other activities. 21:07 – Meditation and background processing. Tips for reducing notifications distractions. Training your friends to not expect immediate response. Following a team at bird's eye view without babysitting them. 25:00 – The effects of talking about ideas on this podcast. 27:02 – Good work starts slow and needs time to get up to the core ideas. Experiences writing good articles or books. Japanese Zen practices and working clean are part of the many activities that foster conditions for creative spark. Organizing the CRM. 33:43 – Different types of flow. Getting "lost" in a mindless activity or reading a fiction book that helps "defrag" your hard drive. The absurd notification app to check if you are in flow or not. Differences between a book and a tweet or the newspaper. Nat & Neil's secret to read 60 books a year like top performers CEOs. Discover the fiction book we are reading listening to back episodes and participate of the give away! 40:43 – What is solitude: introspection, concentration of focused work, sustained reading. And... deep friendship. The traits of good long conversations with friends. Taking the part of the Devil's advocate, and the problem to link our identity with ideas. Not reasonable ideas are just as logical as reasonable ones, but with different inputs. Trump's voters example. 45:18 – Immigration. Extreme views like open borders and racism. Naturally moving toward the middle. Tailor-made narco-economy and guns in Chicago. The reason to legalize drugs. Libertarians against Abortion. 51:59 – The bad habit of everyone should have an opinion on everything. Replying emotionally on Twitter without being informed. Trump bringing peace in Korea. 57:07 – Solitude being the essence of leadership. Nat and Neil's rituals for solitude. Physical stresses that help freeing the mind. 1:01:40 – Sponsors! Scentbird is a monthly premium perfumes subscription service. It’s very convenient, for guys and girls. Use the code mentioned in the episode to get 50% off on the first month. Go to Four Sigmatic for your mushroom coffee needs. Perfect Keto is the one-stop shop for all your ketogenic diet needs. Learn on their blog why MCT oils and powder are amazing fats for your diet. Kettle & Fire for your collagen ancestral needs. Try the meat one with quinoa. The chicken one is good for sipping. Amazon has crushed their earning thanks to the MYT affiliate link! Let your friends know about the show. Share angrily on Twitter as our show is antifragile. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” Albert Einstein No books today, but a selected list of questions asked by Listeners! Neil and Nat answer one by one detailed questions about topics you had but they never talked about. We cover a wide range of topics, including: What Neil and Nat do to survive Routines to get into flow Favorite podcast show and why they stopped listening to Tim Ferriss The future (and present of work) Balancing power and happiness And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to ask more questions replying the mailing list! (What? You still haven’t signed up for the mailing list?!) If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Daily Rituals by Mason Currey, a book that discuss the crazy schedule creative people have to get into the flow, as well as our episode on Homo Deus by Yuval Harari where we talk about how AI may make humans useless.   Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Unlimited Brewing [4:22] Made You Drink Beer. Coming Soon? [5:14] US regulation doesn't allow to sell beer online [5:14] Brewmaster’ Reserve, Neil’s beer blog [5:49] Neil Soni on Nat Chat [6:40] LegalZoom [8:45] Maryland Government incorporation website [8:47] Incorporate.com [9:51] W-2 Form [10:52] Nat Chat [11:22] Growth Machine [11:47] Nat's personal site [12:15] Wendy’s Twitter campaign [16:52] Deep House Relax playlist [27:56] Asana [33:03] Evernote [33:12] Sam Sheridan [36:42] Fat Tony [40:05] PwC [52:33] Tiago Forte’s Progressive Summarization [55:05] Flatgeologist [57:32] Slack [1:04:02] Vitalik Buteron, founder of Ethereum [1:10:53] Nat’s articles on sex [1:14:21] Stamena app - Nat’s app [1:14:21] Black Mirror [1:38:46] Trump-Miller story [1:41:55] Books mentioned Daily Rituals by Mason Currey [28:59] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Taleb [32:21] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [37:58] Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennet [38:07] (book episode) The Goal [44:29] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter [37:58] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [43:20] (book episode) Work Clean [44:29] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Principles [44:33] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene [46:30] (Nat’s Notes) Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [48:12] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins [57:13] Finite and Infinite Games [57:42] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson [58:06] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) East of Eden by John Steinbeck [58:48] (Nat’s notes) Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk [59:22] (Nat’s notes) Deep Work by Cal Newport [1:03:01] (Nat’s notes) So Good They Can’t Ignore You [1:03:01] (Nat’s notes) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [1:10:10] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) The Sovereign Individual [1:19:29] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Mastery by Robert Greene [1:28:04] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) People mentioned Albert Einstein [0:00] Donald Trump [18:28] Elon Musk [18:28] (on this podcast) Dan Bilzerian [18:33] Adil Majid [19:17] (on this podcast 1, 2, 3) Pepper the Poochon [32:54] Taylor Pearson [44:20] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [48:02] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Flatgeologists – Flat Earth Society [57:32] Jeff Bezos [1:11:31] Bill Gates [1:11:31] Mark Zuckerberg [1:11:31] Warren Buffet [1:11:31] Randall Eliason [1:42:42] Show Topics 0:00 – Perfect drinks to enjoy the warm weather. 3:38 – Question #1. Why do you actually do for a living and how you've got there? Neil has a company that helps you build your brand beer, either for events (weddings, parties, conference, etc), venues (chef that wants to pair beers), and already established brands. How Neil bootstrapped his company while trying to have reduce his home brewing costs, and even before having customers. If you ask enough, you can see the Made You Drink beer soon. “You don't know where things are going to go until you actually start working on them”. 8:20 – Nat helps ecommerce and tech startups appear on the front page of Google and increase traffic from Google through SEO and content. Stats of his company. 1428 – Funny fact, Nat and Neil went to the same university in Pittsburg, and went through the same Startup Accelerator, but never met before. Why Twitter is the catalyst for the best friendships, and why it's so hard to monetize it. Paying twice to build and reach your audience on Facebook. Who controls Twitter and Facebook celebrities' accounts. 19:58 – Question #2. Favorite podcasts. Mentioned Jocko Podcast Joe Rogan Experience Sam Harris’ Waking Up Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Invest Like the Best podcast History on Fire Unchained A16z Kevin Rose Shane Parrish’s The Knowledge Project Rhonda Patrick’s Found my Fitness Bill Simmons Podcast Skip and Shannon: Undisputed Podcast Good Beer Hunting Brewers' Journal Podcast Episodes: Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan’s, Daniele Bolelli from the Drunken Taoist on Joe Rogan’s, Jordan Peterson's Biblical Series, Al Pacino and Kevin Durant on Bill Simmons’. Recommended Tim Ferriss Episodes: Jamie Foxx, Jocko Willink, The Erotic Playbook of a Top-Earning Sex Worker (NSFW), Naval Ravikant, Peter Thiel, Dom D’Agostino, Kevin Rose, Kelly Starrett, Derek Sivers, Kevin Kelly, Ed Cooke 27:56 – Question #3. Routines to get into flow, specially If you need to write a 2-3000 words blog post. How much coffee Neil needs to get into flow. Neil's realization to keep going until getting a decent piece of work. The playlist to get into the mood. Nat tips: making super easy to start, getting all notifications off, being super clear on what are the next steps, changing context. The template Nat use for writing a massive article, and why he doesn’t starts with the intro. The endure-for-20min-and-then-you-can-quit psychological trick. Being in-interruptible. 28:18 – Question #4. Is doing business an intellectual challenging activity? What if it is not? The overlap of intellectually curious people and entrepreneurs. Early days of a business are very intellectual and exploration, while growth stage is a lot tweaking and optimization. Why intellectual people have the need to compulsively start new companies. Books that coincided with the business stage. How to find motivation to start exploring. 48:23 – Question #5. Advice for college student graduating in 2018? What problems to work on? First thing: think before graduating. Find an internship that has the potential to get you full time, in an area you are interested in. The problem with Ivy League students going to Google, Facebook or big consulting firms. Realize how low risk your life is. Focusing on skills rather than problems. The awareness that you may not know what problems are out there. 55:05 – Question #6. How do you apply the insights from books? Start a podcast and speak with your friends every week :). How Nat takes detailed notes "reading" the book 4 times. Writing as an exercise to build the synopsis with other books' concepts. No need to change the structure of your business. New concepts are useful to see problems from different angles, not overhauling processes. 59:39 – Question #7. How to network online? Tips to connect through the most powerful platforms, Twitter and cold email. 1:02:59 – Question #8. Future of Work: Deep Work vs Shallow Work, solopreneurship, and attention deficit, etc. Trade off between Improved communication and increased interruptibility. The problem with open office workspaces. Trends: remote working, polarization of work between employees and contractors, performance based work environment. Before, power was a function of the organizational structure or buildings, now it's a function of ability or what you do, because it's much easier to show usefulness. 1:13:20 – Single person companies that make over $1 million a year. Personal branding. Having proof of concept on our own site. 1:14:21 – Nat’s proof of concept that you can have 1 person business based on SEO. How Nat arrived to get 8k daily visitors by chance writing sex articles. 1:19:00 – More trends about work: It will be possible for fewer people to do more. The Internet as the effect of compounding of technology. AI is starting to replace White collar jobs. How AI would be able to replace the 90% of the writing work right now. 1:28:04 – Question #9. Is there a trade off between happiness and achievement? Does a gain in power detract from happiness? The Internet gives us the ability to compare us to the whole world, in detriment of the in-group. Opportunity costs of least profitable ventures. The problem with Digital Nomadism. Considering second and third order effects in the happiness-power equation. The intersection between personal achievement and service to the community. What's happiness anyway? Doing sacrifices for achieving joy, as athletes do. 1:43:00 – Sponsors! Get new questions through the email list. Sign up. Find upcoming books, events, and know about new sponsors! A new cool sponsor coming. Hop on Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee and other mush wonderful goodness. Suggestion: enjoy an iced mushroom coffee Mocha flavor. Check Kettle & Fire for their delicious grass fed bone broth, one of the only companies that do this. Suggested: the beef for cooking, the chicken for drinking. Perfect Keto for all your ketogenic related needs. A ketogenic diet is high in fat, and your body burns ketones instead of glucose for energy. Some benefits include improved mental functioning, much lower hunger swings, and ancestral body functioning. The supplementary ketones are very useful to pop in and out the diet and speed the process. Definitely try the coffee or the sea salt chocolate. Leave reviews on iTunes. Everything you buy on Amazon through our link supports the show. Bookmark it with an emoji :). If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

Traditionally, power was what was seen, what was shown and what was manifested and, paradoxically, found the principle of its force in the movement by which it deployed that force. Those on whom it was exercised could remain in the shade; they received light only from that portion of power that was conceded to them, or from the reflection of it that for a moment they carried. Disciplinary power, on the other hand, is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility. In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen. In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and I discuss Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault. In this book Foucault discusses the history of, and differences between, discipline and punishment. We find that, despite being one of the founding fathers of postmodernism, Foucault’s ideas are reasonable and well thought out. “In monarchical law, punishment is a ceremonial of sovereignty; it uses the ritual marks of the vengeance that it applies to the body of the condemned man; and it deploys before the eyes of the spectators an effect of terror as intense as it is discontinuous, irregular and always above its own laws, the physical presence of the sovereign and of his power.” We cover a wide range of topics, including: Freedom of speech vs. Freedom from offense Whether language is interpreted by the speaker or the receiver Hierarchy in modern society A gruesome public execution How obtuse writing is intellectual signalling by serious philosophers And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on The Riddle of the Gun about other types of Freedom, and Daily Rituals, about artists and geniuses that achieve great things because of their "discipline". Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show North Star podcast [12:30] Hardcore History podcast episode [14:15] Egalitarianism [26:28] Turnover in the richest people [29:15] The Panopticon [33:18] Nat Chat with Adil Majid [37:47] Machiavellism [38:35] Growth Machine [38:44] Self-driving cars [44:20] Slate Star Codex [46:56] Black Mirror [57:13] Unregistered podcast [58:00] UK man arrested for making offensive joke [1:08:56] V for Vendetta (2005)  [1:11:30] Students no longer support free speech [1:12:00] Kaepernick kneeling during anthem [1:13:32] Cognitive dissonance [1:21:36] Power Law distribution [1:23:40] Bruno Mars’ cultural appropriation [1:27:32] Books mentioned Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault (Nat’s Notes) Daily Rituals by Mason Currey [5:47] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) The Stoics [7:16] The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault [9:26] Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician by Michihiko Hachiya [20:06] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Riddle of the Gun by Sam Harris [20:06] (book episode) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [21:12] (Nat’s Notes) Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [28:32] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) The Sovereign Individual [30:21] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell [31:28] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Recession Proof Graduate by Charlie Hoehn [35:40] (on Nat Chat) Seeing Like a State by James Scott [40:00] Albion’s Seed by David Fischer [46:56] Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari [48:25] Godel Escher Bach [1:07:52] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Das Kapital by Karl Marx [1:20:05] People mentioned Michel Foucault Jacques Derrida [4:40] Immanuel Kant [5:20] Steve Jobs [5:25] David Perell [12:30] Emperor Hirohito [20:38] David Selverian [32:15] Charlie Hohen [35:40] Andrés, our Podcast Editor [36:37] Adil Majid [37:45] Eminem [39:58] Nietzsche [59:10] Aristotle [1:00:50] Stephen Fry [1:09:40] Ron Paul [1:09:55] Jordan Peterson [1:19:30] (12 Rules for Life episode) Karl Marx [1:20:05] Show Topics 00:55 - We broke a record! Up to now, every book we’ve done we’d recommend - this one we don’t recommend. We would not wish this book on other people. 01:20 - We’d intended to read a postmodernist book, having been so negative about them in the past, but it turned out this wasn’t so much about postmodernism. While it doesn’t have a lot of the key themes we see today in postmodernism, the ideas are still very relevant to the conflicts that are talked about. Big focus on power-dynamics. 02:35 - Foucault’s not really arguing for anything in particular, it’s more his interpretation of the history of punishment. The language is very verbose, it’s almost unreadable. Derrida and Foucault are both famous for being difficult to read. Intellectual signalling. There’s a temptation in philosophy to write like this. 05:30 - Fallacy of correlation: just because great people happen to have bad habits does not mean you must copy them to become great yourself. They were great despite the bad habits. 06:20 - The idea that if something is easily understood it’s not suitable for teaching at uni. 07:40 - Kept pushing this episode back because it was a slog to get through the book. There are interesting ideas in it, regardless. 08:20 - The evolution of the prison system. The book is a four part history of discipline and punishment. 09:16 - This is said to be Foucault’s best work. The writer was born in France and moved to Berkeley to teach, he was gay, and an early advocate for gay rights. He later moved to the San Francisco area to be around that scene. He eventually died of HIV/AIDS. 10:15 - Foucault’s book The History of Sexuality book is very supportive of the non-heteronormative lifestyle which is where the postmodernists get a lot of their ideas about sexuality from. 10:50 - Sign up for our email list, we send out what books we are going to cover ahead of time and because of that we feel obliged to always finish a book. Sign up to help pressure us, it’s a great email list. 12:00 - Possible follow-up episode for this that’s more about postmodernism in general. Would be interesting to see a pro argument for it. 13:30 - Let us know on twitter (@nateliason) (@TheRealNeilS) if you’d like us to try out a slightly different format for the podcast where we do more of a deep dive into a school of philosophy, find out where it came from and its key ideas. 13:50 - The history of punishment. A brutal public execution with fireworks. One of the last public executions in France. Very graphic, an all day event that people traveled to see happen, in the 1750s. It was gruesome and every part of it got botched. 16:00 - In this section, Foucault says that punishment was historically a warning to others. Punishment was a way of the sovereignty speaking to the masses, saying to them what would happen if they out-stepped their boundaries. 17:30 - Part of what Foucault is arguing is that in the transition to prison, society moved from pure punishment - in which the person who commited the crime serves as a broader example to society - to rehabilitation of the individual. 18:00 - There is a thread of humanism in the book. The idea of rehabilitation is linked to the idea of every person having a soul that can be redeemed. The idea of making a person pay in life so that God would judge them less harshly in the afterlife. 19:00 - Believing in the value of people seems to be a major shift in humanity in the last 2-300 years, but this could equally just be a function of telling history. Previous societies more communal than the modern-day, individualistic US. 22:55 - Foucault points out here that while punishment was confined to those who did wrong, discipline became a part of life. All elements of society were built around these disciplinary structures. 23:40 - Punishment started as crimes against the sovereign and shifted to crimes against others. An individual has a place, but a place also has an individual. Everybody is integrated but also interchangeable and expendable. 25:35 - The strict imposition of hierarchy in all parts of life. Before, people could be punished for breaking the law but now you could be punished for only breaking societal norms. Start of a class system. Foucault suggests these are all artificial constructs imposed on us but that we all go along with. The postmodernist idea that the patriarchy is an artificial manifestation of power rather than an emergent result of inequality. 28:32 - Taleb said in Skin in the Game that it’s not how close together wealth classes are that a society uses to measure its equality it’s how easily there is movement between those classes. In Florence, the same few families are at the top of society since the 1600s. 29:15 - 80% turnover in the richest people in the last 20 or so years. Also above 50% of people will have at least one year of being in the top 5 income. 30:26 - Possibilities of a return to city-states. 31:28 - Any idle time is a waste. Punishment punishes you for not being somewhere you’re supposed to be according to a timetable but discipline allows you to make a greater use of that time. Through discipline you can multiply your positive output, like negative reinforcement vs positive reinforcement. 32:15 - Apprenticeships are still around in the modern day only not codified as they were previously. Cold calling/emailing firms can work as a way in if you can offer them something valuable. Like Andrés, who puts together the podcasts. 39:58 - Some of Foucault’s sentences are so long you need Eminem’s lungs to read them out loud. 40:00 - Foucault says that buildings become designed to maintain control over the people within them. Cities that have emerged organically are very much unknowable from the top. So they are redesigned to zone them or make them into grids. 43:00 - Washington DC was designed from the top-down to be more organic feeling. Apparently they designed it to be hard to navigate to prevent invasions. In places like India, the cities have been constructed from the bottom up and so eCommerce is difficult as deliveries are really hard to do. 44:20 - Question of how self-driving cars will change the layouts of cities. 45:10 - There’s no great way to take skyscrapers down or even deal with them when they age, they were never planned to be taken down. In Munich there are a lot of pedestrianized areas with pop-up bars and cafes. 46:55 - There were a few main groups who founded America including the Puritans, the Quakers and Catholics, a lot of whose beliefs are codified in law, leading now to a more socially conservative country compared to much of Europe. 49:50 - Ranks and hierarchies play on our nature as social creatures and our in-built desire to know where in the hierarchy we fit in. This can be seen in the importance of titles in big companies, how it’s taken so seriously on the inside that from the outside it can seem almost funny. Titles are a cheap form of compensating somebody, like giving kids gold stars. 54:08 - Division is a big theme in the book. Among the Postmodernists the oppressor is like the entity that has the plague. Foucault calls out that humans have always had this distinction between good and bad, healthy and unhealthy. A tribal view. This is one of his ideas that we see the most in the modern day. 59:07 - Nietzsche was not a nazi, you can see how some of his ideas led to nazism but there is not a complete match up. 59:46 - There are a lot of things we think are normal now but were thought of abnormal in the past. 1:00:50 - Aristotle said that women can’t think well enough to vote; he wasn’t sexist, that’s just what people thought at the time. 1:01:10 - People take Foucault’s basic ideas too far when they say that all distinctions between individuals have to be disregarded. Foucault would say that it’s wrong to say one difference is abnormal where the other is normal but differences in themselves are fine. The difference can’t be argued but any judgement made on those differences is subjective. 1:03:00 - There was nothing objectionable in this book besides the writing style. 1:03:35 - The word “normal” is very loaded. Supermajority and outliers. Distribution judgements vs. value judgements. Gender normative views. It’s all about terminology. 1:06:32 - Words shape people’s thoughts, the use of words can change opinions and win arguments. People’s interpretations of language shapes their worldview. 1:08:00 - Postmodernism treats language as interpreted by the receiver whereas in most of life we have to treat language as interpreted by the speaker. 1:09:36 - You don’t have a right not to be offended. You can’t have freedom of speech and freedom from offense. Freedom of speech is not there so people can talk about the weather. 1:10:40 - Germany has so many anti-Nazi laws meaning that people can go to prison for things they say. It is thought of as a free country but the interpretation of freedom is very different to that in America. 1:11:50 - It’s strange that freedom of speech is something that needs to be defended. 1:13:44 - Virtue signaling with upper-middle class white kids feeling the need to do walkouts to defend minorities from being offended. Very patronizing and even offensive. 1:18:30 - Postmodernists say you have to not assume anyone’s gender because gender is fluid, and people who decide to change gender are now that gender. Logic is a patriarchal concept! These ideas are not from Foucault so the modern postmodernists must be getting them from somewhere completely different. 1:19:30 - Jordan Peterson and Foucault would get along. 1:20:00 - The issue a lot of philosophers have where their ideas get taken way further past where they themselves drew their conclusions. Karl Marx, towards the end of his life recanted some of the more extreme ideas of Das Kapital. 1:20:44 - If there is something we are missing about these arguments, please let us hear about it, tweet us (@nateliason) (@TheRealNeilS)! 1:21:36 - A lot of the most post-moderny kids on campus are the outcasts. 1:25:40 - Racial jokes used to be part of bonding but now it seems that people are too afraid to say things. 1:28:12 - Closing thought: anytime you see a modern philosophy it’s worth going to the original source. 1:30:00 – People that make this show happen: Perfect Keto is the one-stop shop for all your ketogenic diet needs. The ketogenic diet is really effective for weight loss. Perfect Keto’s exogenous ketones helps you get into ketosis. Use the 20% coupon mentioned in the episode or go to www.perfectketo.com/think. Kettle & Fire bone broth helps you warm in this winter. Theory says we were scavengers and sucked up the bone colagens. K&F bone broth is excellent to get all those nutrients we don’t get anymore. Also it helps combat modern diseases like small intestine bacterial overgrowth. The mushroom coffee from Four Sigmatic energizes you with less caffeine. Chaga mush, linesmain mush stimulants give a really nice buzz, and the Cordyceps elixir is a caffeine-free stimulant. They hot cocoas are instead relaxing and a good dessert They have a new matcha product. Finally, you can help the show for free shopping on Amazon through our affiliate link. Subscribe to the Mailing List to receive bonuses, giveaways, future episode links and more. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

“Skin in the Game is about four topics in one: a) uncertainty and the reliability of knowledge (both practical and scientific, assuming there is a difference), or in less polite words bullshit detection, b) symmetry in human affairs, that is, fairness, justice, responsibility, and reciprocity, c) information sharing in transactions, and d) rationality in complex systems and in the real world. That these four cannot be disentangled is something that is obvious when one has…skin in the game.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and I discuss Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Taleb. In this book, Taleb touches in many of the topics he’s covered in his previous work, such as virtue signaling and probability, and most of all, true risk taking. "[...] what people resent—or should resent—is the person at the top who has no skin in the game [...]" We cover a wide range of topics, including: Academia and its capability —or lack of it— of predicting real life. Having skin in the game and how it affects your behavior. How minorities impose their preferences to majorities. Judging a complex system by its elements. Sam Harris’ scalding opinion of Nassim Taleb. Virtue signaling. And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb. "Not everything that happens happens for a reason, but everything that survives survives for a reason." If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Antifragile by Nassim Taleb to dive deeper into Taleb’s work, and our episode on 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, so you too can imagine the awesome podcast Jordan and Taleb could create together. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Nassim Taleb on Medium [01:45] Nat Chat [01:04] (Antifragile episode) Twitter [03:48] Uber [13:04] Venture Capital [15:30] Y Combinator [15:37] Startup Company [15:37] Hedge Fund [17:09] Cryptocurrency [18:16] Gilgamesh coin [19:00] Lindy Effect  [21:40] Virtue Signaling [24:32] Middlebury College [24:43] Statin [28:25] American Heart Association [31:30] Coca-Cola [35:20] Confirmation Bias [38:47] The Placebo Effect [38:50] The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority by Nassim Taleb [40:29] Kosher Food [40:29] New Atheism [45:16] Reddit [45:26] Facebook [45:27] Starbucks [45:30] Dick’s Sporting Goods [46:00] Box Company [46:52] Google [56:42] Mutual Assured Destruction [01:02:04] JPMorgan Chase [01:09:00] Apple Inc. [01:09:30] Amazon [01:09:30] Uber [01:09:33] Instacart [01:09:33] Fat Tony [01:09:52] The National Football League (NFL) [01:18:36] Tesla [01:12:54] In-n-Out Burger [1:23:33] Chipotle [1:23:33] D'Souza rips apart smug leftist student over "white privilege" [1:27:30] Humanitarians of Tinder [01:33:17] Toms Shoes [01:33:45] Malaria nets [1:34:33] Sam Harris on Nassim Taleb “insufferable” quotation [1:43:10] The best podcast ever by Sam Harris [1:49:10] Russell Brand Podcast’s Under the Skin [1:49:10] Books mentioned 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson [00:39] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Taleb [01:04] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Taleb [02:00] The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb [02:00] The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms by Nassim Taleb [02:00] Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs by Morton A. Meyers [14:05] Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor by Tren Griffin [26:30] Merchants of Doubt: by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway [34:54] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter [39:34] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System by Donella Meadows [52:13] (book episode) Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician by Michihiko Hachiya [01:01:28] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford [01:37:03] A History of Private Life by Paul Veyne [01:40:39] Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris [01:47:35] Lying by Sam Harris [01:47:35] People mentioned: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile episode) Hillary Clinton [06:58] Steven Pinker [06:58] [1:35:59] Ayn Rand [07:54] Anne Hearst [24:52] Charles Murray [24:57] Aaron Levie [46:51] Donald Trump [01:06:40] Marco Rubio [01:07:22] Chris Christie [01:07:31] Jeff Bezos [01:11:58] Bill Gates [01:12:05] Mark Zuckerberg [01:12:14] J.K. Rowling [01:33:00] Alexander The Great [01:36:39] Jordan B. Peterson [01:41:32] (on this podcast) Sam Harris [01:41:32] Scott Adams [01:49:26] Russell Brand [01:49:47] Jocko [01:53:40] Show Topics 01:30 – Taleb's bibliography, his previous releases. Contrasts and relations between his previous works and Skin in the Game. A greater focus in philosophy and morals, rather than the mathematical focus of his other books. Skin in the game concept for business and non-business people. 06:38 – Taleb's use of criticism of other people, perhaps partially for publicity reasons. Criticizing people at your own weight vs needless harassment. The Ayn Rand effect. 08:50 – The books’ introduction. Academia vs real life. You can’t predict the behavior of a system by studying the behavior of individual elements within the system. Emerging qualities of complex systems. Academia back-explaining knowledge that’s created practically. Skin in the game for Roman architects and medicine scientists. 14:57 – True progress is only possible when you actually stand to lose something should you fail. Defining “rent-seeking” as opposite for “skin in the game”. Different types sorts of investments and whether they constitute rent-seeking. 19:25 – The contents of the book can become a lens through which you see the world. 20:03 – Sponsors. Get a shot of Four Sigmatic Mushroom Coffee mixed with MCT oil powder from Perfecto Keto. Follow our advice, we have skin in the coff… in the game. 20:59 – You can’t judge whether something is robust, if it can survive stressors, if you’re not at risk in case it can’t. The test of time. 23:30 – Business plans and their usefulness, or usefulness for procrastination. 24:54 – Book 2: A First Look at Agency. Advice, and knowing when to listen to it. Advice that’s helpful to the person offering it, rather than who’s being advised. Incentives and metrics under judgement. 26:50 – Judging actions by their intentions, rather than their effects. Nazism vs Communism. Diets, cholesterol, weight, and its effects on health as single elements of a complex system. 35:36 – Avoiding doctors when you have low-risks health issues. Prayer and religion developing related to health, and the high risk of medical procedures. The Placebo Effect. 39:20 – Book 3: That Great Asymmetry. Ant and ant colony metaphor. Predicting a complex system’s behavior through the behavior of singular elements. A small vocal minority affecting the behavior of large groups. The minority effect on holiday greetings and restaurant choices. 45:56 – Gun regulation, and changes in policy meant for advertising. Virtue signaling and what you do out of your beliefs, versus what’s done for public recognition. Standing up for your opinions even if, or specially if, it has social consequences. 50:57 – The free market, bottom-up or top-down models. Changing the parameters of individuals will not change the parameters of the emerging system. 52:57 – Book 4: Wolves Among Dogs. The trade off between security and freedom. Working as a dog, comfortably but restrained, versus working as a wolf, with much more freedom, but less safety. Tactics big companies use domesticating their employees. English manners as a way to domesticate lower classes. 00:59:39 – Suicide bombers and Mutual Assured Destruction. Reasoning and incentives in terrorists perspective, and how to discourage them to commit suicide. Sacrificing oneself and sacrificing the whole nation. 01:02:26 – Freedom and social media. Voluntarily adopting habits of the lower class as a signal of freedom. Nassim Taleb and Twitter. 01:05:53 – Book 5: Being Alive Means Taking Certain Risks. Politicians and relatability. Feeling like a politician is a real person, or simply a scripted facade. The case for Trump and his relatability. 01:08:36 – Resentment against people at the top who don’t have skin in the game, who are not really risking anything. Economic equality and what it truly means. Unfair barriers put up to keep people in the 1% when they might not really be earning their spot anymore. Florence example, where a handful of  families has kept the power for more than 5 centuries. 01:14:38 – Peer approval, the minority effect, and real freedom. 01:17:06 – Book 6: Being Alive Means Taking Certain Risks. Between two people who are equally qualified, the person who looks less “the part” is a wiser choice, as they have had to overcome more challenges to get to where they are. Quarterbacks vs common sense. Elitism and food: steaks, fast-food, and wine. Big mansions and living away from everything. 01:27:38 – Virtue signaling. Protesting or complaining without putting action behind your beliefs. Charity that’s mostly for show and its negative consequences. 01:35:12 – History and violent events: decreasing in frequency, but increasing rapidly in intensity. War, urban violence, and the magnitude of violence. Life that isn’t covered in history outside of big, dramatic events. 01:41:26 – Book 7: Deeper Into Agency. Religion, Beliefs, and Skin in the Game. Sam Harris, Nassim Taleb, and Jordan Peterson. Religion, science, and scientism. 01:49:22 – Sam Harris’ podcast and its infamous guests. 01:50:38 – Book 8: Risk and Rationality. The last section of the book, and concepts in it that are being explored in-depth by Taleb for the first time. “Skin in the Game” as an entry point for Taleb’s work. 01:52:26 – You don’t necessarily need to know what is the reason for something, even if you know that there is a reason. 01:54:31 – Ergodicity and non-ergodicity, or assembled probability vs individual probability. Paranoia and risk reversion. Risk taking and relative risk rather than objective risk. Bathtubs’ and bullets’ potential to scale to kill people. Terrorism, gun violence and non-multiplicative risks. 02:01:35 – Ties back to Taleb’s previous work. Static and dynamics probabilities and life expectancy. 02:05:37 – Wrapping up and sponsor time! Make sure to grab your own copy of “Skin in the Game” through our Amazon sponsored link. To help the podcast maintain the freedom of the market, check out as well our sponsors: Kettle & Fire for all your delicious bone broth needs, with up to 30% OFF! We recommend Perfecto Keto’s coffee-flavored exogenous ketones. Four Sigmatic: for your mushroom coffee and all your other mushroom needs. And as always, don’t forget to check out our Support page. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com    

It’s the consistency over a long period of time where you really start to see the breakthrough. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Nasos Papadopoulos. Nasos attended Oxford University, where after a while, realized that being on the path with finance and economics just wasn’t for him. He took a long break to travel and explore new opportunities, eventually getting into meta-learning and the science of learning. He started the site Metalearn.net where he educates other people on learning more effectively and efficiently. He also has a popular podcast and a course on the topic, all focused on helping people get better at learning. Nasos is an excellent guy to learn from for those wanting to learn more effectively and efficiently, stay motivated, and getting to know their learning strengths and weaknesses. We cover a wide range of topics, including: What Nasos has learned by focusing on learning how to learn The niche and lesser-known aspects of learning The fixed and growth mindsets and their impact on learning Figuring out your own learning strengths and weaknesses Applying Hebb’s Law and becoming more self and other-aware Overcoming the sunk cost of highly investing in the wrong area And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Nasos on Twitter! If you enjoyed this episode and our discussion on learning and self-education, be sure to check out my episode with Zak Slayback, and my episode with Connor Grooms, where we delve into these topics and more.   Find Nasos online: Website [0:35] MetaLearn Twitter [49:18] Nasos’ Twitter [49:20] Mentioned in the show: Oxford University [0:15] Metalearn.net [0:35] MetaLearn podcast [0:48] Nat’s episode on the MetaLearn podcast [1:24] Italki [20:45] Make Me a MetaLearner course [24:47] Self-authoring Suite [25:44] 5-Minute Journal [30:45] Hebb’s Law [31:32] Python [32:58] Duolingo [34:23] Codecademy [34:24] Sesame Street [34:26] Books mentioned: How Will You Measure Your Life [11:12] The 4-Hour Workweek [11:50] Intelligence and How to Get It [21:17] People mentioned: Clayton Christensen [11:13] Tim Ferriss [11:50] Plato [12:05] Aristotle [12:06] Carol Dweck [16:53] Elon Musk [18:24] Richard Nisbett [21:15] Howard Gardner [22:49] Dr. Jordan Peterson [25:36] Scott Adams [45:32] 1:19 - Introduction to Nasos, him detailing his schooling experiences and time at Oxford University, and then rethinking his whole perspective on the educational system. 7:30 - How Nasos’ perspective on continuing to work in the financial field changed, after barely missing a top score on one of his finals. Also, a bit on his traveling experiences and what he did after having this huge change in perspective. 10:33 - How Nasos was paying for travel and a few of the impactful books he read shortly after leaving the financial field. 12:18 - How and when Nasos first began his company, MetaLearn. 13:32 - Some of the most important lessons that Nasos has learned from studying the science of learning. 16:44 - Neuroplasticity, the growth vs the fixed mindset, and some explanations on these. Also, why the growth mindset can be harmful towards learning. 19:30 - Using some of these techniques for improving your language learning, speculation how much of a role IQ plays, and some thoughts on intelligence in general. 24:18 - Figuring out your own strengths and weaknesses with learning, re-evaluating yourself, and self-analyzing with external perspectives on yourself. 28:06 - Nasos’ personal experience with self-awareness and learning that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all. 29:50 - What Nasos has been doing to be more self-aware and other-aware. 31:23 - Nasos detailing a few examples of learning based on making connections to past knowledge. Also, how Nasos has applied Hebb’s Law. 34:05 - The gamification of learning (Duolingo, Codecademy, Sesame Street) and Nasos’ thoughts on this. 36:42 - Nasos on blending the learning games with effective learning techniques. “I think if you have a piece of your learning process that is purely gamified, that’s great as long as it’s not the only thing.” 38:44 - How Nasos keeps himself motivated with learning new things and working on his entrepreneurial creative project. “I come back to: ‘Why am I doing this, why does this matter to me, what impact is this having on the people around me and the wider world?” and that keeps me motivated.” 40:26 - Nasos’ advice on letting go of the sunk cost of investing heavily in something that you didn’t enjoy doing or wasn’t meaningful to you. 43:37 - Nasos’ current long-term goals with Metalearn and other projects. Also, a bit on systems-based thinking and Nasos’ advice for others looking to become more effective with learning in general. 48:55 - Wrap-up and where to find Nasos online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast When it has meaning to you, the other motivational stuff just becomes irrelevant.

When you understand what people are trying to do with a college degree, which is buying a signal that says ‘I’m worth hiring’, you realize that signal is really not that strong. And if you set your mind to it, you can create a better, more powerful signal in a much shorter amount of time and for much less money. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Isaac Morehouse. Isaac’s the founder of Praxis, an alternative education system, which focuses on giving participants a lot of applicable skills and a broader understanding of subject knowledge at a self-paced rate. It also pairs participants with startups and gives them more hands-on experience with 6-month apprenticeships. Two previous Nat Chat guests, Hannah Phillips and Zak Slayback, have both had experiences with the system. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Problems with the current education system and how it negatively impacts students. Why going to college is a riskier choice for most people. Why you don’t need a degree to get jobs and careers that you’re excited about. How you can begin self-educating yourself. Challenging the status quo and dealing with pressure from peers. The mistakes that most people make when learning a skill. And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Isaac on Twitter!   If you enjoyed this episode and our discussion on self-education, be sure to check out my episode with Zak Slayback. If want more on education and improving college, you’ll enjoy my episode with Blake Boles, as well as my episode with William Deresiewicz.   Find Isaac online: Website Praxis Twitter Mentioned in the show: Praxis [0:28] MailChimp [7:00] Shopify [10:09] Github [10:22] Stop Telling Good Arguers to Become Lawyers article [19:39] Quora [51:30] Praxis blog [52:45] Isaac’s website [53:13] Isaac’s books [53:20] Isaac’s podcast [53:22] Books mentioned: Smartcuts Shane Snow [34:42] (Nat’s Notes) The Inner Game of Tennis [44:22] (Nat’s Notes) The Future of School [54:20] People mentioned: Hannah Phillips [0:58] Zak Slayback [1:00] Aaron Watson [1:58] Shane Snow [34:42] 1:43 - Intro to Isaac and some information on the alternative education system Praxis. 4:17 - Isaac’s story with developing Praxis, flaws in the college system, what makes a college degree not that valuable, and why it’s not the best usage of time and money. Also, why many people will prefer hiring people with hands-on experience compared to people with just a degree. 10:39 - Whether or not Praxis and the self-education process works even if you’re not going into a startup or new-age company. Also, a bit on soft-skills and hard-skills, having tangible evidence of work experience, and demonstrating your abilities. “The key is the ability to demonstrate is more important than what it is that you’re demonstrating.” 13:57 - The safety concerns with the risks associated with leaving college and not getting a degree. A bit on the societal and prestige concerns of not having a degree, as well. “That’s the safety you’re giving up. The safety of the good opinion of others. Other than that, there is no safety you’re giving up.” 15:22 - The negative habits picked up through the college system that makes success harder for you. Also, the de-schooling process necessary for some Praxis participants and a bit more on the safety concerns regarding a degree. “Once you have anything more valuable than a degree, which can include a year of work experience, demonstrating a product, nobody asks about your degree.” 20:05 - The social pressure of your friends making more than you, and you judging yourself negatively because of that, even if you’re enjoying what you do more. Also, the extreme benefits of having low-income as a young person and the extreme importance of opportunity-cost. “It’s amazing the number of things that you can do when you stop looking at ‘I need a salary and a title that’s impressive to other people.’” 23:34 - Traveling and learning, keeping net income low, and being brutally honest with yourself with what you actually value. Also, some discussion on the need to experiment, figuring out what you like and dislike before making a career choice, and not being shackled to your previous definitions of success. 28:09 - Treating everything you do like an experiment, getting real experience in the field you want to go into before actually deciding on it, and some discussion on the transference of skills in one field to other fields. Also, a bit on the unique aspect of having skills in several areas come together. 35:54 - What Praxis does differently compared to the traditional college system and why it’s much better for the participant at Praxis. Also, a few of the things that Praxis participants do while there and the importance of getting some real-world practice to theorize and apply feedback upon before you begin learning something. 41:50 - The biggest mistake that people make when teaching themselves something by studying something without ever going out and doing it. Also, this same problem found in schools and a perfect analogy for this at 42:43. 45:00 - Humans being naturally entrepreneurial, how the education system damages this natural entrepreneurial aspect, and rekindling that natural entrepreneurial ember that we all have. 46:58 - The issues with the lonely aspect of going these non-traditional routes and some solutions for this feeling of loneliness. Also, being more vocal about what you’re about and what you’re interested in and how that attracts people with similar interests. 52:20 - Wrap-up, where to learn more about Isaac and Praxis, and what the best resources are for starting down this path are. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast Realizing that we can show our work and demonstrate our ability, and get opportunities by building our own credential, just opens things wide up.

Nat Eliason is the founder of Growth Machine, a new content marketing business and the host of the Made You Think and Nat Chat podcasts. In this conversation we discuss: - How to teach yourself anything with the sandbox method - How to run and manage self-experimentation projects - Career lessons from building a thriving blog, podcast and a business So whether you’re looking to upgrade your learning or run a few more self-experiments this episode has you covered.

The best of them know that their peak performance never comes when they’re thinking about it. In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat cover The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. Before you say “I don’t play tennis,” it’s not really about tennis. It teaches you how to better learn and teach by getting your conscious mind out of the driver seat, and letting your true ability present itself. If you enjoyed either The Way of Zen or Finite and Infinite Games, you’ll like this book as it describes many similar ideas. We cover a wide range of topics, including:    Improving your sense of calm during stressful situations. The nature of the subconscious and conscious minds. Getting into the flow-state and letting the subconscious express itself. How to better trust the subconscious mind. Why you should take time off to play more often. Learning things easier by observation and imitation. Why you should sometimes let things happen, rather than make them happen. And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Inner Game of Tennis and to check out Nat’s Notes on the book! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to listen to our episode on The Way of Zen by Alan Watts, to learn about Zen Buddhism and improving your life with it, and our episode on Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse, to learn how to push past your own self-limiting beliefs and to rethink everything. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more.   Mentioned in the show: Lifehacker [3:20] University of Wisconsin [4:44] Buzzfeed [6:08] The Inner Game of Everything article [6:17] USC [6:30] The Components of Optimal Sexuality paper [8:13] Video of person climbing through drive-through window [13:03] Tai-Chi Push Hands [20:13] Nat Chat [28:24] Nat Chat episode with Thomas Frank [28:24] Nat Chat episode with Neil [32:18] Unlimited Brewing [33:19] Nat Chat episode with Charlie Hoehn [35:39] Game of Thrones [37:35] Starcraft [38:00] Discord [41:01] Reportive [47:56] RocketReach [47:57] The Five Levels to Expertise article [48:53] Deep House Relax playlist [1:02:35] Spotify [1:02:37] Listenonrepeat.com [1:03:07] Instapaper [1:04:28] Medium [1:04:35] Youtube Red [1:04:39] Adblocker [1:04:59] The effect of lipids on alcohol metabolism [1:07:46] Dota [1:19:36] Hearthstone [1:19:36] Books mentioned: The Inner Game of Tennis (Nat’s Notes) Godel Escher Bach [0:46] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [1:34] The Way of Zen [2:42]  (Nat’s Notes) (Neil’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Rise of Superman [3:30] Finite and Infinite Games [3:45] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Switch [12:24] Winning Ugly [17:40] The Art of Learning [19:03] (Nat’s Notes) Thinking Fast and Slow [22:53] Antifragile [26:14] (Nat’s Notes) (Antifragile episode) Principles [29:41] (Nat’s Notes) (Principles episode) Mastery [30:03] (Nat’s Notes) (Mastery episode) Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind [30:50] (Nat’s Notes) Play It Away [34:03] The Score Takes Care of Itself [1:23:22] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Timothy Gallwey Elon Musk [0:53] (How to Think Like Elon Musk episode) Pete Carroll [1:55] Steven Kotler [3:30] Phil Jackson [5:38] Al Gore [6:34] Nicole Kidman [7:45] Juliette Binoche [7:47] Derek Sivers [9:40] Plato [11:47] Chip and Dan Heath [12:24] Warren Buffett [14:59] Brad Gilbert [17:41] Boris Becker [18:01] Josh Waitzkin [19:03] Daniel Kahneman [22:47] Alan Watts [23:24] (Way of Zen episode) Thomas Frank [28:29] D.T. Suzuki [30:40] Shunryu Suzuki [30:52] Charlie Hoehn [34:02] Dreyfus Brothers [48:54] Ray Dalio [57:53] (Principles episode) Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:08:20] (Antifragile episode) Conor McGregor [1:21:27] 0:00 - Introductory quote, a bit of background on the book, and some discussion on the flow state. “Trying to get into flow is paradoxical.” 3:44 - Some similar books to this one, examples of this book in popular culture, and a bit on the paradoxical nature of trying things that should happen more naturally. 8:38 - A common complaint found in most sports and how this applies to many different areas of life. Also, the issue of how our actions often do not match up with our thoughts. “It’s not that I don’t know what to do, it’s that I don’t do what I know.” 10:45 - (Tangent #1) - Thoughts on consciousness and being in control. The conscious mind, instinct, and the subconscious. “The mind is a three-part system and like a chariot. You’ve got two horses pulling the chariot which are desire and passion. The driver is reason.” 15:45 - Some more discussion on the mental dialogue that goes on and the correlation between “out of your mind”, “being in the zone”, and being in the flow-state. Also, a bit on agitating other players to get them out of the flow-state. 19:42 - Using high-intensity interval training and trying to calm down as fast as possible afterward, to transfer that into calming down much faster in stressful situations. 22:15 - The discovery of the two-selves (self-one: the conscious mind and self-two: the instinctual mind) and the differences between them. Also, a bit on trusting the instinctual mind more and a bit on the struggle between the two selves. 24:53 - Actions performed by the subconscious versus the conscious, and some discussion on the nature of learning various things. 26:55 - A bit more on trusting the subconscious mind, some positive examples of the subconscious mind, and an example of how consciously trying to do things can sacrifice natural fluidity. 30:33 - How to quiet your conscious mind so that you can get more into the subconscious state of being. Letting your subconscious express itself more. Also, a bit on the benefits of taking time to play and naturally explore things that you’re interested in. “Man is a thinking reed but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking.” 36:24 - More on taking time out of your day to play, and why television is not a good idea for play. Also, a bit on video games in general, games taking you out of the conscious and bringing you into the subconscious, and some of Nat and Neil’s experiences with gaming. 41:08 - A bit more of letting go of the conscious and letting go of judgments, as well. Trusting the subconscious and letting things happen, rather than making them happen. 43:08 - Discussion on learning by imitation and some thoughts on the importance of observing someone do something, since they may not be able to teach you everything through description. Also, a bit on why apprenticeships are so effective. 48:50 - The five levels of expertise and why you need different methods of learning at different levels. 51:05 - Changing your habits and changing your perspective from wanting to have control of everything to a more relaxed perspective where you trust the subconscious. Also, a bit on how things seem weird when you consciously focus on them, and how complex reading and communication seems. 55:34 - Thoughts on repeating things over and over before they become innate knowledge. Some discussion on simple processes emerging into something greater and the problem with programming these processes or innate knowledge. 1:00:36 - Trusting the subconscious and the difficulty with that. Some thoughts on what may help you trust the subconscious and get into the flow-state. 1:04:12 - Avoiding all ads and the negative impact of advertising on your subconscious mind. A bit on Tylenol and ibuprofen, hangovers, and the placebo effect. 1:09:17 - The recent backlash against wisdom teeth surgery, how only a third of people getting the surgery actually need it, and the negative health consequences. Also, how teeth back in the primitive times were perfect with no issues and how modern-day grain-based diets have negatively impacted our teeth and jaw formations. 1:12:50 - Discussion on allowing yourself to focus and some tips for getting out of the conscious and into the subconscious. A few examples of common transfers of conscious to the subconscious here, as well. 1:16:56 - The next section on the meaning of competition and some discussion on finding the balance between easy and difficult challenges, to maintain focus without getting bored or frustrated. A bit more on games, the competitive aspect of them, and antagonizing others for an advantage. 1:21:38 - The last section on taking the inner game off of the court. Responding appropriately to situations and maintaining an inner-balance. “The people who will best survive the current generation are those who can keep their heads while all are about to lose theirs.” 1:24:02 - Wrap-up, some closing thoughts, and some information on the bonuses included with a newsletter subscription. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

“If you can get into a job that has a really small team where you can work closely with the founders, you learn at a much more accelerated rate than if you were working in a much larger company dealing with managers.” In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Vincent Nguyen. Early into his college career, he already knew that the traditional college path wasn’t for him. He started a blog on the side called Self Stairway and over the course of seven months, he began posting on publications, connecting with influencers, and eventually got the opportunity to take on an apprenticeship with the company Empire Flippers. He took the apprenticeship, dropped out of college, and moved to the Philippines. After six months of working with them, he was promoted to be their marketing director and after a while, he branched off to start his own company, Growth Ninja. He’s been doing that for over two years now and helps sites grow through Facebook advertising. Vincent’s a good example of the great opportunities that you can gain from getting an apprenticeship, as well as showing that you don’t necessarily need a degree to be successful. We cover a wide range of topics, including: The multiple opportunities that an apprenticeship or blog can present you Disregarding college and self-educating yourself Resources for others looking to easily get an apprenticeship Advice for others looking to get into entrepreneurial pursuits The parental concern towards those choosing to not go to college Vincent’s journey from being an apprentice to becoming a marketing director And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to check out Vincent’s company Growth Ninja!  If you enjoyed this episode and our discussion on entrepreneurship and bypassing college, check out my episode with Zak Slayback, where we deep dive into both of those topics and much more. If you enjoyed the discussion on apprenticeships, check out my episode with Charlie Hoehn, as well as my episode with Cory Ames. Find Vincent online: Growth Ninja Self Stairway Mentioned in the show: Self Stairway [0:24] Empire Flippers [0:42] Tropical MBA [1:39] Entrepreneur On Fire [10:02] Marc and Angel’s site [10:11] Vincent’s video for Empire Flippers [10:44] Zapier [13:22] Dynamite Circle [28:04] Reddit [36:49] GetApprenticeship [37:34] Jobs.dynamitecircle.com [38:00] Sumo [38:14] We Work Remotely [38:30] Remote Ok [38:31] Tropical MBA podcast [40:45] (Vincent's first and second episodes on there) Books mentioned: The 4-Hour Workweek [39:50] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: John Lee Dumas [10:01] John Saddington [10:04] Neil Patel [10:07] Marc and Angel [10:11] Joshua Becker [10:14] Taylor Pearson [37:36] (Taylor’s Nat Chat episode) Tim Ferriss [39:34] Ramit Sethi [40:15] Derek Halpern [40:24] 1:30 - Introduction to Vincent, a bit on his first apprenticeship, becoming a marketing director for Empire Flippers, and then leaving to start his own company. 3:53 - Some of the internships Vincent was doing before he left for his apprenticeship at Empire Flippers. 6:20 - A bit on Vincent’s self-improvement blog Self Stairway and some of the things that he did there. 9:25 - Vincent detailing the video that he did which greatly helped him land the apprenticeship at Empire Flippers that eventually led to him starting his company Growth Ninja. 14:36 - Some more on Vincent’s apprenticeship with Empire Flippers, some info on the company being based in the Philippines, and what Empire Flippers does. 17:31 - Vincent’s transition from being an apprentice to becoming the marketing director of Empire Flippers and how he developed the skills for that role. 19:37 - Discussion on Vincent dropping out of college and some of the concern that his parents had. Also, some general discussion on the concern that most parents have with their kids going to college. 24:28 - What made Vincent not want to go to college and what peaked his interest in entrepreneurial pursuits. 26:19 - Some of the reasons that Vincent left Empire Flippers to start Growth Ninja. 28:38 - The beginning experiences that Vincent had with starting Growth Ninja. Also, what it was like for him leaving Empire Flippers to start his own company, and how he maintained a relationship with Empire Flippers afterward. 31:09 - What the business has been like for Vincent in the past two years. Also, some discussion on existential crises, finding out what you want to do in life, and some helpful perspectives on choosing something that you want to do. 34:46 - What made Vincent choose to keep his company local instead of remote. 36:05 - A bit on Vincent’s first apprentice and how he found her. 37:20 - Some really good resources for people wanting to find apprenticeship opportunities. 39:38 - Some of the books that had the largest impact on Vincent with entrepreneurial confidence. 41:40 - Some last thoughts and things that Vincent wished he had known earlier when getting started with his entrepreneurial pursuits. Some good advice for others interested in making better decisions and being more successful. 43:25 - Wrap-up, where you can learn more about Vincent, and where to find him online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast Always be open to criticism and feedback. Don’t be so convinced that you’re right and don’t be so sure of yourself.

Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and I discuss the book Principles by Ray Dalio. We’ve been fans of Dalio’s work since it was just a PDF floating around the Internet, and this massive tome delivers so many useful guidelines for how to live and work. We covered a wide range of topics, including: Using meditation to improve your clarity with decision-making Developing machines and software for tasks likely to be repeated Seeking out and accepting constructive criticism without your ego getting in the way Improving your life by being more radically honest and expressive Reflecting more upon pain to promote growth The two five-step processes for confronting your own weaknesses and for getting what you want out of life Improving your ability to effectively make decisions And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Principles here and to check out Nat’s Notes on the book! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on How to Think Like Elon Musk, to emulate Musk’s way of thinking for huge advantages in both work and life, and our episode on Antifragile by Nassim Taleb, to learn how to profit from chaos. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Mentioned in the show: Bridgewater [1:44] Futures [4:08] Morgan Stanley [5:20] Tim Ferriss’ interview with Dalio [9:23] Theranos fraud [11:56] Made You Think episode 13 - How to Think Like Elon Musk [14:27] Nat Chat podcast episode with Sebastian Marshall [16:59] The Lindy effect [22:16] The Daily Show [24:10] Growth Machine [26:35] Bookinabox [29:22] Dogfish [29:39] Carnegie Mellon [29:44] Biblical Series Podcast [31:36] Evernote [33:25] Calendly [38:24] Estee Lauder [40:19] Theory of Constraints [57:06] Neil’s article on the Lindy effect [59:49] Myers Briggs [1:10:42] Article on China rating citizens [1:12:06] Black Mirror [1:12:10] Chris Sparks article on Medium about rating life goals [1:18:12] Nat Chat podcast episode with Justin Mares [1:19:46] Article on Nat’s daily/weekly/quarterly review [1:23:07] Crypto Made You Think episode [1:26:50] Tucker Max’s article on paying celebrities to tweet about his book [1:29:17] Books mentioned: Principles (Nat’s Notes) The Way of Zen [13:04] (Nat’s Notes) (Neil’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Godel Escher Bach [14:14] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars [15:48] (Nat’s Notes) Letters From a Stoic [21:58] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Antifragile [22:32] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Amusing Ourselves to Death [24:08] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Finite and Infinite Games [26:08] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) The Goal [27:04] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) The E-Myth Revisited [27:05] (Nat’s Notes) Hero With a Thousand Faces [34:54] Lessons of History [34:55] (Nat’s Notes) The Power of Myth [35:02] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) Spiritual Brain [35:30] Steve Jobs Autobiography [37:45] The 50th Law [45:46] (Nat’s Notes) Mastery [46:17] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) The 48 Laws of Power [46:22] (Nat’s Notes) Extreme Ownership [54:50] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Ray Dalio Adil Majid [1:18] Tim Ferriss [9:23] Elon Musk [14:25] (How To Think Like Elon Musk episode) Sebastian Marshall [16:59] Adam Smith [22:28] Colbert [24:11] Tucker Max [29:19] Dr. Jordan Peterson [31:37] Carl Jung [34:32] Joseph Campbell [34:36] (The Power of Myth episode) Will Durant [35:20] Dalai Lama [35:39] Steve Jobs [37:45] Robert Greene [45:59] (Mastery episode) Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:00:41] (Antifragile episode) Euthyphro [1:14:31] Socrates [1:14:32] Chris Sparks [1:18:11] Justin Mares [1:19:46] Clay Matthews [1:22:47] Jocko [1:26:27] Taylor Pearson [1:26:57] Anna Kendrick [1:30:10] Chrissy Teigen [1:30:12] The Rock [1:30:28] Gary Vaynerchuk [1:30:38] 0:00 - Introductory quote and some information on the book and on the author Ray Dalio. Also, some of Dalio’s achievements and a bit on how he began with investing. 9:07 - Dalio leaving this company, some discussion on his meditation practice, meditation being a big factor in his success, and the emotional ups and downs that come with startups. 12:46 - Some more discussion on meditation drastically improving your decision-making skills and being more level-headed. 14:45 - Meditation on helping you systemize your thinking and some thoughts on the creation of these principles in the book. “It’s a very useful tool to have these decision-making criteria set-in-stone so that you know what you’re going to do and not let your emotions override you.” 17:34 - Journaling and writing out exactly why you’re doing things, then reflecting back on that later. Narrative fallacy with reflection, as well. 19:57 - Giving more attention to the history of what’s been happening instead of only what you notice in the current time period. Also, a bit on the persistence of certain problems throughout the time. 22:46 - Dalio beginning to improve his systems, develop understanding and principles, improve his reasoning, and more. Tangent at 23:36 on seeking out the smartest people to learn from them and how the opposite largely happens today. “Your arguments can’t improve if they’re only up against people who agree with you already or the weakest version of the other person’s argument.” 24:41 - The underappreciated aspect of constructive criticism, and how the ego can negatively impact this. How having someone much more skilled than you rip apart your work and give you blunt feedback on it can help you grow tremendously if you don’t let your ego get in the way. 25:48 - The destructive nature of college forcing you to put so much ego into your work and to not show your work until it’s perfect. How this negatively impacts the way that you handle feedback. 27:12 - Spending more time now to optimize and spend less time on things in the future. Building machines for tasks that will most likely have to be repeated in the future. Also, putting the machine first and yourself/ego second. 31:15 - Giving yourself the same advice that you would give to someone else in your position. Also, treating yourself the same way that you would treat someone else that you care about, which rarely happens. 34:16 - Some of Dalio’s influences, Nat and Neil’s favorite book recommendations from Dalio, and some discussion on his book recommendations in general. 36:09 - Delving into some of the principles from the book and how they develop. How a majority are simple rules for engagement in everyday encounters. Also, a bit on saving mental energy by making systems for daily activities and creating software for decisions where ever you can. 39:52 - Optimizing certain aspects of businesses, the importance of speaking up in a business if there’s something to optimize upon, memory and past decisions, and some discussion on improving upon group decision-making. 43:51 - The advantages of lowering your verbal filter and being radically honest with improving life, business, and relationships. “There are things that just go unsaid for so long, but everyone’s thinking them, and then they just blow-up at a certain point.” 45:11 - The first principle and a bit on taking action on problems now, and not waiting for them to improve. “Embrace reality and deal with it.”. Developing a reflexive action towards pain that causes you to reflect upon it, rather than avoid it. “Pain plus reflection equals progress.” 50:15 - The five-step process for confronting your own weaknesses. (#1 - 50:20) (#2 - 50:26) (#3 - 50:39) (#4 - 53:53) (#5 - 54:46) 54:53 - Taking ownership of things, even when they’re not your fault. There is usually always some way that you played into it (hiring the wrong person, training them wrong, a faulty machine you designed, etc). Also, how management can cause issues down the line, with the issues listed earlier. 56:55 - The five-step process for getting what you want out of life. (#1 - 57:31) (#2 - 58:26) (#3 - 59:03) (#4 - 1:02:46) (#5 - 1:02:55) 1:03:45 - How the principles are outlined and organized. Also, the third principle, to be radically open-minded and the two impediments to this. 1:06:45 - The two-step process for decision making. A bit on avoiding the first solution that you find which confirms your already held beliefs, as well. The confirmation bias. 1:10:35 - The fourth major principle on understanding that people are wired very differently and a bit on challenging other people’s perspectives to get to know certain aspects of them. Also, bringing up controversial topics to test them. 1:14:54 - The last major principle on learning how to make decisions effectively and some discussion on creating a decision plan, then reaching out to others in a field related to that decision and getting feedback from them. “The biggest threat to good decision making is harmful emotions and if you can systematize as much as possible, then emotions won’t get in the way.” 1:18:03 - Using the expected value calculation and using this with deciding which goals to currently go after. Also, making goals much larger and trying to reach for the inflated goal, eventually reaching beyond the original goal or at the original goal easier. 1:21:49 - The first work principle and how the life principles somewhat form the work principles in the book. Also, how you should go about reading the book and what may be of the most help to you. 1:23:52 - The last section on creating your own principles. Wrap-up and a bit of information on the newsletter and the episode outlines. 1:26:28 - Some fun closing thoughts and stories. (Tangents starting at 1:22:47 on Clay Matthews from the GB Packers and on other goodies.) If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

If you’re spending less than an hour a day on whatever’s most important to you, that’s something you can pretty easily take up to ninety or a hundred and twenty minutes and get more than fifty to a hundred percent more on results. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Sebastian Marshall. Sebastian and I delved into a lot about productivity, life and habit tracking, and developing really good systems for achieving your highest output. He’s been writing on his blog for eight years and runs a company now called Ultra Working, where he helps individuals and companies get the most out of their day-to-day systems. Sebastian’s a great person to learn from for those wanting to optimize their systems for high output and productivity, and to become more disciplined with their habits. We do get a bit in the weeds about time tracking in the beginning, so if that’s not as interesting to you feel free to skip ahead. There’s a TON here and we share a lot of interests, so we dove deep on the finer points of productivity. We covered a ton, including: The huge advantages of tracking your life, habits, and work Hacking your productivity and achieving more in less time Developing high-output systems and outlining templates for those systems Getting started with pursuing projects that you’re interested in How Sebastian and I began hacking productivity and more Minimizing boredom and benefiting from failure And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Sebastian on Twitter! If you enjoyed this episode and our discussion on productivity and time management, be sure to check out my episode with Chris Sparks, where we discuss tons of great productivity advice and more. Also, if you want to hear more about using failure to grow, check out my episode with Matthew Barby, where we discuss this and more. Find Sebastian online: Blog Ultra Working Twitter Mentioned in the show: Ultra Working [1:34] Rescue Time [2:46] Lights Spreadsheet [4:59] Sebastian’s resources [9:17], [25:46], and [59:24] The Strategic Review [18:10] Getting Stuff Done Like a Boss [29:50] Things app for Mac [30:19] Growth Machine [45:02] Posttraumatic growth [56:15] Key Decision Analysis [59:51] Ivan Mazour’s website [1:02:02] M/M/1 Queuing Theory [1:02:35] Ambition Life Calendar [1:05:25] Give Get Win [1:09:28] Books mentioned: Gateless [20:58] Sebastian’s books [29:20] The Power of Habit [39:29] (Nat’s Notes) The Willpower Instinct [39:30] (Nat’s Notes) Principles [56:35] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Peter Drucker [20:23] “What gets measured, gets managed.” Kai Zau [20:58] Tiago Forte [29:49] Justin Mares [44:15] (Nat Chat episode with Justin) Tasha Meys [50:23] (Nat Chat episode with Tasha) Charlie Hoehn [51:28] (Nat Chat episode with Charlie) Toyotomi Hideyoshi [53:18] Ray Dalio [56:35] Ivan Mazour [59:29] 1:15 - Introduction to Sebastian and some major problems today with people not tracking their time properly or investing their time as wisely as they should.4:21 - What Sebastian’s current tracking system looks like after seven years of refining it, how to follow it on your own, and some advice for others looking to successfully adhere to their own system. 13:09 - Why this tracking system works very well and some discussion on why you may feel like you’re doing well, but if you take a closer look, you’re not. A bit on your emotions fooling you. 17:33 - Sebastian on what he tracks, how he tracks it, and what everyone else should be doing if they’re starting to track things. (You don’t have to track everything) “For a lot of juice out of life, pick the one or two activities that are really the most important to you and just track those.” 20:30 - Some of the things that led to Sebastian and Kaizo starting Ultra Working. Also, a bit on what Ultra Working does and what their goals are. 22:50 - How the program developed, some results that the company has had with people, and some more on what they do at Ultra Working. 25:26 - The work cycle system, how you can benefit from it, and a bit on both how and why it works. 29:35 - Nat’s personal system for getting things done and the ranking aspect of it. Also, a bit on how Sebastian ranks his system and some discussion on the importance of pre-estimating how long things are going to take. 34:44 - Thoughts on overestimating how much you actually work, scheduling more in less time, and the negative impact of bragging about working hard if there’s not much to show for it. “Don’t tell me how hard you’ve worked, tell me what you’ve got to show for it.” 38:22 - How Nat got into productivity hacking and how accelerating productivity has helped him in various ways. 42:01 - Nat on minimizing boredom and some tactics everyone can use for minimizing boredom. 46:47 - Discussion on the pleasure of succeeding, taking control of things, and making progress on things. Also, how someone can get into the habit of being analytical and productive, and finding that first thing that gets you on the track towards that. “You need some big thing to happen, probably a bad thing, to motivate you to action.” 52:12 - How finding mastery in one thing, transfers well to mastering other things and a bit on the benefits of hitting rock bottom as a way to become better (post-traumatic growth). 56:34 - Tracking the things that you do wrong, asking yourself what you could have done differently, being open to failure, and learning from these failures. 59:18 - Another method that you can try for improving your decision making, especially with difficult decisions. 1:03:25 - Sebastian’s current long-term goals and projects. Also, some of Ultra Working’s recent projects. 1:07:22 - Some discussion on how useful being proficient with math can be and working more with numbers. Also, some closing thoughts and where you can reach out to Sebastian at. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast “Most people are very subjectively analyzing how their life is going, and with most people, their emotions are lying to them.” “Failure’s more demoralizing to people than success is pleasing and exciting.”

The goal is essentially to increase net-profit while increasing return on investment and increasing cash flow. Today we’re discussing The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. It is a business novel that Eliyahu used to introduce the “Theory of Constraints”, a sort of meta-theory for business (and life, really) that you can use to advance the output of just about any system. It is very much a “zero-to-one” book, where you’ll see the world differently after reading. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Improving all of your systems with the Theory of Constraints Discovering bottlenecks in various systems and effectively optimizing them Identifying your goal and making positive progress towards it Becoming a better manager or employee by using the Theory of Constraints Improving your time-management skills, productivity, and workflow Useful mental hacks for waking up easier and for making habits stick And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Goal and to check out Nat’s Notes on the book! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our other episode on How to Think Like Elon Musk, to emulate Musk’s way of thinking for extreme advantages, and our episode on Antifragile, to learn how to profit from chaos.   Mentioned in the show: The Theory of Constraints [1:13] AlphaLab [5:31] Sumo [7:35] Zirtual [12:13] Unlimited Brewing Company [13:21] Growth Machine [18:26] Joe Rogan Podcast [28:20] Nat’s article on how to start a podcast [39:37] Deep House Relax on Spotify [40:28] (Nat and Neil’s favorite playlist for deep work) Last of the Mohicans’ soundtrack [40:39] Halo soundtrack [40:45] Matrix soundtrack [40:51] Tron soundtrack [40:52] The Magician on Soundcloud [43:05] OWSLA and Skrillex mix [43:24] Praxis on Medium [45:45] Medium [45:45] Getting Stuff Done Like a Boss course [46:34] Building a Second Brain course [46:45] The Forcing Function [47:00] Nat Chat podcast [47:02] Nat Chat episode with Chris Sparks [47:02] Tiago Forte’s main courses [47:09] Neil’s post on viewing books similar to VC [48:00] Four Sigmatic’s Mushroom Coffee [1:02:18] Athletic Greens [1:02:28] Game of Thrones [1:05:48] Stranger Things [1:05:49] Buffer [1:07:57] Made You Think episode on Thinking Like Elon Musk [1:09:18] Tesla [1:09:18] Boosted Board [1:11:28] How to Legally Own People article [1:13:26] Books mentioned: The Goal (Nat’s Notes) Antifragile [4:29] (Made You Think episode) (Nat’s Notes) Work Clean [50:22] (episode coming 12-19 or 12-26) (Nat’s Notes) Principles [52:17] (episode coming 12-5) (Nat’s Notes) Emergency [1:19:43] (Made You Think episode) (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Eliyahu M. Goldratt Zak Slayback [4:04] Joe Rogan [28:20] Daft Punk [40:55] Rapper Nas [41:55] Lil Wayne [41:58] Future [42:02] Ivan Pavlov [43:22] Adil Majid [43:29] Tiago Forte [45:32] Chris Sparks [46:59] Elon Musk [1:09:18] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:13:26] 0:00 - Introductory quote, a bit of background on the book and the author, and how you can use this book to help you out in both business and in life. 7:24 - Some examples from the book applied to the real-world and some flaws in various business systems. 10:36 - What the actual goal is for various systems, some details on the goal’s infrastructure, and why these three metrics are important. “The goal is essentially to increase net-profit while increasing return on investment and increasing cash flow.” 19:40 - The next part on the daily goal metrics (throughput, inventory, and operational expense) and some details on those. 21:10 - How to use these metrics if you’re not a manager or a CEO and are without a big-picture perspective. Also, some discussion on these metrics, applying them to members of a system, and some real-world examples. 28:44 - Figuring out all of these metrics and operations and then applying them in day-to-day situations. The beginning of how the main character in the story does this. 30:47 - The bottleneck issue from the book and applying it to real-world scenarios, the funny story of discovering and solving the bottleneck from the book, and some discussion on it. (Tangent #1 at 31:29) 35:05 - The order for optimizing around a bottleneck properly. Also, some examples of optimizing various bottlenecks and improving your time management skills. Nat and Neil’s favorite music for working, as well. 41:00 - (Tangent #2) The issue with typing the words to a song or podcast instead of the words meant for your writing and some more thoughts of various music types for various types of work. 43:49 - The Theory of Constraints coming into play in the book and some information on Tiago Forte and his courses on improving systems, creative output, and productivity. 47:48 - Books and small investments improving your ROI ($10-$20 books possibly giving you insights that make you $1000+, save you time, or offer valuable enjoyment) and some thoughts on doing your quality insurance before you buy books. 50:22 - Discussion on the book Work Clean and some ideas from it for improving your peace of mind, organizational ability, and productivity. 52:29 - The idea of losing an hour on the bottleneck which is not just being lost to the bottleneck, but to the whole system. Also, being a better manager by analyzing not only possible bottlenecks with others, but for your own bottlenecks, as well. 57:04 - Examining your life for possible scenarios that create bottlenecks for you (drinking and eating unhealthy afterward, etc) and fixing those scenarios. Also, some useful mental hacks for waking up easier at 1:00:36 and 1:01:38. 1:02:10 - Waking up and daisy-chaining your habits immediately afterward. Some explanation and examples of doing this. 1:03:55 - Applying the Theory of Constraints to creative work and making sure you apply the theory towards positive things instead of negative things. 1:09:37 - The steps for identifying the constraints within a system and then beginning to fix them. Some issues on having someone on salary versus hourly, compensating people for their work, and having slack in a system discussed here, as well. 1:16:23 - Some last thoughts and some pieces of advice for others on goals and systems. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com What is the bottleneck and how do I optimize around the bottleneck right now? To even identify what the bottleneck is, you really need to clearly identify the goal.

Find one thing that if you did it every day, would ensure that you move forward, and then make sure that it happens every day. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Chris Sparks. Chris shares his story with getting heavily involved in poker while still in college. Chris had planned to get into advertising but instead went all in with playing poker. After a year, he was living in a multi-million dollar mansion in Los Angeles up until 2011 when the US shut down online poker, seizing all of the money that he and his friends had in their exchanges. He went to London, continuing to pursue poker and travel, but soon began getting into more entrepreneurial projects. Currently, he’s now a high-end productivity coach. Chris is an excellent person to emulate for those wanting to become highly productive and efficient, as well as successful. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Tons of advice for those looking to be more productive and successful Chris’ story on becoming a worldwide top-twenty online poker player Becoming more efficient at learning things Chris’ advice from traveling and top-performers Building positive habits and commonly found productivity-hindering habits Chris’ personal system for improvement and productivity And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Chris on Twitter! If you enjoyed this episode and our discussion on self-education and entrepreneurship, check out my episode with Zak Slayback, as well as my episode with Connor Grooms.   Find Chris online: Website Twitter Facebook Medium Mentioned in the show: The Cools [9:17] Gin rummy [14:09] Coachella [29:56] Chris’ Medium page [52:04] The Forcing Function [54:15] Books mentioned: Getting Things Done [48:31] The Motivation Hacker [48:35] (Nat’s Notes) So Good They Can’t Ignore You [48:40] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Chris Moneymaker [13:45] Cal Newport [48:38] 1:30 - Intro to Chris, a bit of background on him and his story, and why he currently won’t go back to the UK. 7:24 - Chris' time in Europe, what came next for him after getting out of the poker scene, and how he got into more entrepreneurial projects. 9:50 - Chris detailing his two-year traveling experiences and working on his bucket list. Also, some of the major things he did while traveling and detailing some of the powerful lessons that he learned. 12:57 - Chris’ really interesting story with poker and becoming one of the top twenty professional online poker players in the world. Also, his original career path and what made him stray away from that, eventually to consider playing poker as his full-time job. 18:25 - Chris’ experiences in Brazil and some life-changing moments he had there. 21:00 - How Chris learned to play poker so well, what that process looked like, and how you can emulate this to improve your own learning abilities. 24:13 - Chris moving to LA from Detroit with some of his closest poker friends, him detailing some crazy stories from that, and then going on to live in a multi-million dollar mansion there. 29:23 - How long Chris lived in that mansion, his experience with losing most of his net worth to the government, and his reaction to getting the news that the US banned online poker. 31:57 - Chris’ story with learning marketing, google analytics, and getting into productivity coaching after losing most of his money 34:26 - Some of the first things that Chris worked on with various entrepreneurs in productivity coaching. 38:07 - Some productivity and prioritization advice from Chris to others. 40:59 - The common bad habits that Chris notices with his clients and some more powerful productivity and positive habit forming advice. “True success comes from small improvements every day.” 44:24 - Chris’ personal system for reflection and system improvement. Also, some tactical pieces of information and advice that you can apply to your own life. 47:53 - What has helped Chris out the most with learning the mechanics of productivity. Some advice for others, as well. “Getting access to what all of the other top-performers are doing and deconstructing that.” 49:52 - What Chris was first sharing and helping others out with in the beginning. Advice for others looking to be successful also mentioned here. “If anyone finds it useful, it’s selfish to not share it.” 54:03 - Wrap-up and where to find Chris online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast The biggest thing that you can do, particularly in college, where you’ll never have as much serendipity and exposure to people from all over who have all of this free time and opportunity to do things, is to work on projects together, do things that scare you, take advantage of the massive amount of resources at your school that you’re already paying for, and take on opportunities to expand your skillset through projects and activities.

We all have these things in our life that we accept as a first principle while having no scientific basis or reason for believing in that thing. Today we do a deep dive of the world’s raddest man: Elon Musk. We’re exploring the wildly popular Elon Musk series by “Wait but Why,” focusing on the last article titled “The Cook and the Chef: Elon Musk’s Secret Sauce” which explores just how Musk might be able to do all the things he can do. And most importantly, we discuss how any of us can use these tools to enhance our own thinking and work. How any of us can be more chef than cook. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Emulating Musk’s way of thinking for extreme advantages Musk’s businesses and how he began them How Musk thinks compared to the way most people think Challenging your existing beliefs and redefining your perspective A strategy for designing your reality and pursuing your goals How the way that you think is much more influential than your natural-born talents Shedding dogma-based thinking and instead, thinking based off of first principles Turning fear into excitement And much more. Please enjoy and be sure to check out the article!   Mentioned in the show: Hyperloop One [15:20] Boring Company [15:20] Neurolink [15:21] OpenAI [15:38] Square [16:28] Elon Musk’s cameo in Iron Man 2 [17:23] Diagram for designing your reality and pursuing your goals [26:34] The history of SpaceX article [29:27] Unlimited Brewing Company [30:53] Zara Clothing [32:17] Shark Tank [35:24] Crispr [41:57] Zip2 [45:08] Paypal [45:24] eBay [45:29] Elon Musk and Peter Thiel’s early days [46:40] Peter Thiel blood transfusions from children article [47:45] PayPal Mafia [48:28] The 49ers [49:34] Made You Think episode on The Sovereign Individual [51:37] Bitcoin [51:50] Made You Think episode on Cryptocurrency [52:03] Uranium on Amazon [55:57] AC Propulsion [56:38] Ad Astra [56:55] Nat Chat podcast [57:28] Calvin and Hobbes comic strips [1:00:30] Crony Beliefs by Kevin Simler [1:02:42] Melting Asphalt [1:02:51] Jordan Peterson’s Biblical Series podcast [1:06:02] Made You Think episode on The Way of Zen [1:18:18] Tyranny article [1:18:26] Made You Think episode on Emergency [1:20:25] Two Somali immigrants rape case in Canada [1:22:07] Good Beer Hunting podcast [1:29:37] Magic Hat [1:29:42] Estee Lauder [1:37:35] Growth Machine [1:42:53] Made You Think episode on Finite and Infinite Games [1:44:15] Uber [1:49:11] Airbnb [1:49:12] Tim Ferriss Podcast [2:03:25] Killing the Lion: Turning Anxiety into Excitement article [2:04:55] Made You Think episode on Amusing Ourselves to Death [2:12:58] Made You Think episode on Letters from a Stoic [2:13:05] Grand Theft Auto [2:13:28] Bookinabox [2:15:37] Books mentioned: Steve Jobs’ Biography [14:52] Tropic of Cancer [24:22] The Goal [25:53] (Nat’s Notes) (episode coming 11-28) The 50th Law [38:10] (Nat’s Notes) Principles [39:13] (Nat’s Notes) (episode coming 12-5) The Score Takes Care of Itself [49:40] (Nat’s Notes) The Sovereign Individual [51:37] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode) Surely You’re Joking [1:07:45] (Nat's Notes) The Way of Zen [1:18:18] (Nat’s Notes) (Neil’s Notes) (MYT episode) Emergency [1:20:25] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode) The E-Myth Revisited [1:41:58] (Nat’s Notes) Finite and Infinite Games [1:44:15] (Nat’s Notes) (MYT episode) Pragmatic Thinking and Learning [1:47:45] (Nat’s Notes) The Red Book [1:50:33] The Cook and the Chef on Amazon [2:15:40] People mentioned: Elon Musk Jim Cramer [3:09] Tim Urban [3:38] Albert Einstein [9:03] Peter Thiel [12:10] Jeff Bezos [13:18] Steve Jobs [14:50] Walter Isaacson [14:52] Jack Dorsey [16:27] Henry Ford [18:50] Genghis Khan [18:50] Marie Curie [18:50] John Lennon [18:50] Ayn Rand [18:50] Louis C.K. [18:50] Henry Miller [24:24] Eliyahu M. Goldratt [25:54] Ray Dalio [39:13] Galileo [44:25] Reid Hoffman [48:59] Max Levchin [49:03] Bill Walsh [49:37] Kevin Simler [1:02:44] Dr. Jordan Peterson [1:06:02] Richard Feynman [1:07:40] Tim Ferriss [1:17:22] Justin Mares [1:17:45] Sam Harris [1:32:24] The Dreyfus Brothers [1:47:47] Carl Jung [1:50:33] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [2:00:02] (Antifragile MYT episode) Seneca [2:02:39] (Letters from a Stoic MYT episode) Robert Greene [2:02:42] (Mastery MYT episode) 0:00 - Perspective challenging, introductory quote and an outline of what the discussion will be about. Also, some information on giveaways, upcoming episodes, the mailing list, and the podcast notes. 3:31 - How the Wait but Why article is outlined and some talk about challenging your existing beliefs. Some examples of challenging your beliefs, as well. 9:40 - The first section on us being constrained by existing beliefs and then, some examples of how Elon Musk thinks. 11:48 - The possible benefits of being on the Asperger or autistic spectrum in regards to life and business. Also, some thoughts on Elon’s companies, his deadlines, and the huge scale of the things that he does. 15:50 - Some discussion on how Musk may allocate and divvy up his time, and the many different projects that he has going on. 18:06 - The software versus hardware idea, how a different way of thinking is more powerful than your natural-born intelligence or talents. 20:08 - How where you’re born can have very little impact on your success, and some examples of very successful people born or raised in poor situations. 26:12 - Discussion on the strategy for designing your reality and pursuing your goals from the article (diagram here). Also, some examples of various companies operating using this system and being successful. 34:21 - How Elon uses this thinking strategy, continually adjusts it, and tests everything. 36:56 - Learning to not become attached to any of the goals and be willing to let it go if something better comes in. Also, being honest with yourself and be willing to invalidate things, instead of validating them. Some examples of doing this and lying to yourself. 40:50 - The story of Musk when he was in college, and how he thought “What would most affect the future of humanity?”. Also, how he focused mostly on expanding the list of things that were possible, instead of focusing on his wants at the time. Musk’s thoughts on engineering being preferable to science, as well. 45:06 - Elon’s first companies and how he was able to fund his next companies. 47:28 - (Tangent #1) The possible health benefits of blood transfusions from younger people. Also, some discussion on various trees of people who are either all successful or not. 50:46 - The history of PayPal, some of its original goals, and some of the feats that the company has accomplished. Also, what came next for Elon after PayPal. 58:12 - The comparison between most people’s way of thinking compared to Musk’s and the importance of always asking “Why?”. 1:02:23 - Some discussion on The Great Depression mindset and how it may be negatively affecting most of us, as well as our future generations. Rooting out these negative beliefs that are passed onto us by our peers, environments, parents, and more. 1:07:37 - The problem with learning things based on dogma, rather than on first principles. Making your way of learning and thinking more antifragile. Also, some examples of these things based on dogma. 1:13:30 - Thoughts on tribalism in political parties, life, social circles, and religion. Some discussion on blind versus conscious tribalism and universal based income, as well. 1:20:59 - Testing people on how tribal they are and challenging their core beliefs. Also, some more talk on tribalism and various issues in the world like rights, cultural differences, health care, and laws. 1:29:22 - Some examples of us not using first principles in our judgment, and some thoughts on various events that completely change your perspective on something. 1:36:20 - Some core heuristics from the Cook and the Chef article for improving your thinking and life. Also, thoughts on growing a business and how you can be the Chef instead of the Cook. “The Chef creates, while the Cook, in some form or another, copies.” 1:45:39 - The necessary need to become the cook and develop intuition before you become the chef. Also, how Musk is the chef and how this all relates to his way of thinking. 1:54:39 - How the ability to become a Chef is infinitely greater now than it was a hundred years ago. How easy it is to try things risk-free currently and the large number of things that we can now try. 1:56:58 - Explaining the three types of cooks and then, the chef. Where most people lie in regards to these four types and recognizing these types, as well. 2:02:45 - Obtaining an accurate view of reality and the benefits of an extreme honesty policy within a company. 2:04:16 - Two mental tricks to overcoming public speaking anxiety and some details on these tricks. Also, how the chef doesn’t give into rational fear and turns fear into excitement, and how the chef doesn’t get tied up in their own identity. 2:10:39 - How a misplaced identity and getting caught up in your history can affect what you allow into your want pool and your view of reality. Thinking things are a lot riskier than they are and the selection bias within stories. 2:13:21 - The final part regarding us essentially playing Grand Theft Life. Us taking much more risks and going after the largest opportunities if our life was inside of a simulation, similar to Grand Theft Auto. 2:15:18 - Wrap-up, some closing thoughts on the article, some bits on the future of the podcast, where to contact us, and information on what our newsletter offers. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com The more I learn about Musk and other people who seem to have superhuman powers—whether it be Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Genghis Khan, Marie Curie, John Lennon, Ayn Rand, or Louis C.K.—the more I’m convinced that it’s their software, not their natural-born intelligence or talents, that makes them so rare and so effective. - Tim Urban

Just work on doing things for you and developing skills while doing it. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Hannah Phillips. Hannah started her own media company while still in high school which began with photography. Not long after, it quickly grew into branding and social media management, as well. By the time she was ready to go to college, she was making enough money to support herself and decided to focus on her business instead. She did end up going through Praxis, which was discussed in my episodes with Zak Slayback and Aaron Watson. Through it all, she’s been able to develop her skills in photography, media, and social media marketing, and grow this business that’s supporting her, despite her only being 20 years old. Hannah is an excellent person to learn from for those of you with a creative ability or for those that just want to get into something entrepreneurial. We cover a wide range of topics, including: How Hannah started and grew a successful media company How she primarily learned through self-education Getting accepted into Praxis and what the curriculum looks like there How others can pursue a similar, artistic lifestyle A couple of Hannah’s favorite books Advice for those wanting to get into entrepreneurial pursuits And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Hannah on Instagram! If you enjoyed this episode and the bits on sidestepping college and self-education, be sure to check out my episode with Zak Slayback, as well as my episode with Bekah Lundy. If you enjoyed our discussion on entrepreneurial endeavors, be sure to check out my episode with Justin Mares and my episode with Tasha Meys.   Find Hannah online: HP Media Instagram Mentioned in the show: Praxis [1:34] Pittsburgh Thunderbirds [1:49] Men’s Futures of Pittsburgh [4:44] HP Media [7:02] Photoshop [8:20] Pinterest [25:33] Books mentioned: The War of Art [20:00] (Nat’s Notes) Impossible to Ignore [20:25] Pitch Anything [21:24] People mentioned: Zak Slayback [0:41] (Nat Chat episode with Zak) Aaron Watson [1:27] (Nat Chat episode with Aaron) Chris Bosh [20:28] Oren Klaff [21:25] 1:18 - Introduction to Hannah, her association with a previous podcast guest, Aaron Watson, and how she got into Praxis. 2:15 - How Hannah got started with doing photography for the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds, a professional ultimate frisbee team. 4:31 - Hannah’s first professional clients that she had for her photography and her thoughts on whether she’s always been interested in sports photography. 5:34 - How long Hannah’s been professional photographing and when she started her media company. Also, Hannah speaking about when her business first started to become profitable and detailing a bit on her company’s journey. 7:06 - The main things that Hannah focused on in the beginning of her company and detailing a bit on what she does now. 8:01 - How Hannah learned branding, consulting, social media marketing, and other skills. 8:47 - Hannah discussing her decision on not going to college and instead, working on her company full-time and self-educating herself. 10:12 - How Hannah found the confidence to not go to college and be okay. Also, her experience with being homeschooled. 12:13 - Hannah discussing her homeschooling experience a bit more, some discussion on self-directed learning, and what her education looked like in the later years. Also, advice for others looking to learn more and become more successful. 14:26 - Whether or not Hannah did any mentoring and her experience with giving speeches. Some discussion on her journey with Praxis and the impact it had, as well. 16:54 - What the application and qualification process for Praxis looks like, and what you have to prove. Also, what the curriculum looked like for Praxis. 19:56 - Some of the books that Praxis required students to read and Hannah discussing a couple of her favorite books. Some detail on pitching and sales, too. 23:06 - Hannah’s favorite person that she’s working with currently and what she does for that person. Afterwards, a bit about her experiences with Instagram marketing. 25:40 - How she got linked up with a marketing company while in Praxis and her speaking about cutting her apprenticeship short with that company. 27:30 - Hannah’s speaking about her financial security and her long-term goals with her company, HP Media. Also, Hannah’s thoughts on why so many artistic and creative people don’t make a job out of those skills. 31:20 - Hannah’s first project that she did outside of the school environment and what her first photography project for someone else was. 33:02 - Some things not mentioned so far that Hannah believes is really important for entrepreneurial success. 34:10 - Hannah’s biggest challenge she’s had from making her business her lifestyle and how she maintains her motivation. 36:10 - Some habits and small things that have helped Hannah do her best work. 38:36 - Wrap-up, some last pieces of advice from Hannah for others looking to be more successful and happy, and where to find Hannah online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast Work on goals and projects that are in no way school or work related, just because that gives you something to feel good about accomplishing.

The most effective way of learning for me was just failing over and over again. Being in a place where you don’t know anything and where you have to force yourself to learn. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Bekah Lundy. Bekah started off as a student of The University of Minnesota, where after a year, she started to get into web development and realized normal college just wasn’t for her. She left and went through a coding boot camp called Turing. Seven months later, she started working as a developer for a start-up called Apto in Boulder, Colorado. Bekah’s story is a great example for those who are wanting to leave a traditional career route to pursue things that they’re actually passionate about. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Self-educating yourself Finding the confidence to stray from the traditional career path Learning to program and code Using failure as a way to accelerate learning Being passionate about your work Turing, the effective coding boot camp And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Bekah on Twitter! If you enjoyed our discussion on learning, self-education, and leaving college, be sure to check out my episode with Zak Slayback, and my episode with Connor Grooms. If you want to learn more about coding, check out my episode with Max Friedman, and my episode with Darwish Gani, where we discuss coding in detail and much more. Find Bekah Online: Twitter Linkedin Mentioned in the show: University of Minnesota [0:22] Turing [0:32] Apto [0:38] My journey to becoming a 19-year-old Full Stack engineer [0:41] Full Stack [0:41] Codecademy [5:40] Harvard [11:32] Stanford [11:45] Number Guesser project [16:18] Codewars [35:50] People mentioned: Mark Zuckerberg [11:32] 1:29 - Introduction to Bekah, what she does, and where she works. 2:36 - Bekah’s story on leaving college and becoming a 19-year-old Full Stack engineer. 8:50 - How Bekah found the confidence to take the leap, leave college, and go to Turing, a coding boot camp, instead. 11:17 - Some discussion on the option of temporarily dropping out, and maybe returning later. Also, how important and useful temporarily dropping out can be. Some information on the flaws of college learning, as well. 15:28 - What Bekah’s project-based learning and education looked like at Turing. 19:19 - Bekah’s experience with learning to be comfortable with failing over and over again, as well as self-education. 21:57 - Techniques that Bekah learned from Turing that helped her with learning to be comfortable with failing quickly. Also, how people could incorporate these techniques without an organization teaching them. 24:22 - Bekah’s experience with learning on her own and doing side projects before she went to Turing. 25:07 - Some major resources that helped Bekah with learning to code and program. 25:56 - What the application process is like for Turing. 29:02 - The other boot camps that Bekah looked at before deciding upon Turing and the factors that mattered the most to her when deciding. 31:02 - What the tuition is like for Turing and some information on scholarship programs. 32:05 - What the hiring process looked like after completing Turing. 34:47 - Bekah’s thoughts on what she’d do if money were no longer a concern for her. 35:38 - What Bekah does in her free time to keep her coding skills sharp and updated. 36:19 - Some last thoughts on leaving college, learning to code, and going against the traditional route. 36:58 - Wrap-up and where to find Bekah online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast So many students don’t realize that it’s an option to do this soft drop-out, go try something else and if it doesn’t work out, you can always come back.

The difference in even doing a little bit of preparation between doing nothing for a disaster is massive. Today we’re discussing what you should know about preparing for doomsday, centered around the book “Emergency” by Neil Strauss. What will you do when a massive hurricane, earthquake, or fire hits? When a terrorist attack happens? When the power grid goes down and you’re stuck in your home with rapidly depleting supplies? These aren’t fun topics to think about… but it’s better to plan for them now than suffer the consequences of hiding our heads in the sand. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Surviving various disasters and life-threatening situations Minimizing your damage from threats and disasters Protecting yourself from terrorist threats Future societal outcomes after apocalyptic events Leaving the country to avoid disaster Hiding caches and finding water Utilizing the five flag system for optimal security And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Emergency and to check out Nat’s notes on the book! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Antifragile, to learn how to turn chaos to your advantage. Our episode on The Sovereign Individual, to better prepare yourself for the cyber-economic future. And last, our episode on cryptocurrency, to learn how cryptocurrency works and how it can benefit you. Mentioned in the show: New York Times [1:10] Made You Think episode on Cryptocurrency [3:48] Made You Think episode on The Sovereign Individual [4:09] Infowars [5:07] Lord of the Flies [15:35] Made You Think episode of The Power of Myth [18:24] The Federalist Papers [25:10] FEMA [28:32] Article on the Dutch flooding risks [31:53] 500 Startups [36:53] Y Combinator [36:54] Start-Up Chile [37:34] Estee Lauder [40:20] Sovereign Man article on places to get a passport [41:27] Made You Think episode on Amusing Ourselves to Death [43:50] Huffington Post [44:53] Fox News [44:54] Pocket app [45:40] Doomsday Planning for Less Crazy Folk [51:45] Bug Out Bag [1:01:52] (Bug Out Bag essentials checklist) Nat Chat podcast [1:05:28] CERT Training [1:04:30] The guy who fasted for over a year [1:08:16] Documentary on Koreatown protecting itself [1:13:56] New Yorker article on interviewing North Koreans [1:22:23] Making a solar still [1:26:50] Online simulation on a population and dying [1:43:15] Tesla [1:48:23] Nat Chat episode with Zak Slayback [1:48:55] Books mentioned: Emergency (Nat’s Notes) The Game [1:03] (Nat’s Notes) The Truth [1:05] (Nat’s Notes) The Sovereign Individual [4:09] (Nat’s Notes) The Lean Startup [7:30] (Nat’s Notes) Amusing Ourselves to Death [43:50] (Nat’s Notes) Contagious [46:36] (Nat’s Notes) Deep Survival [1:25:22] Man’s Search for Meaning [1:26:05] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Neil Strauss Ariana Grande [3:30] Adil Majid [3:48] Taylor Pearson [3:50] Alex Jones [4:49] Jordan Peterson [10:50] Carl Jung [10:54] Madison and Hamilton [25:16] George W. Bush [28:24] Rodney King [51:10] Nassim Taleb [51:48] Laurence Gonzales (author) [1:25:22] Viktor Frankl [1:26:05] Samy Kamkar [1:45:48] Elon Musk [1:48:23] Zak Slayback [1:48:55] Related links: Nat’s 5-day water fast article 0:00 - Powerful introductory quote, the beginning of the discussion, and some information on what the book’s about. 4:39 - Some thoughts on prepping and some popular misconceptions with prepping. Also, thoughts on why you may want to get into prepping for disasters. 7:27 - Discussion on various disaster scenarios, looting, gangs, and the social unrest that arises. Also, how these situations can make us irrational. 11:50 - Thoughts on various genocides around the world and the death tolls of them. 15:00 - The author’s perspective on possible outcomes during various apocalyptic events and some discussion on these events. Also, some talk regarding tribes and the events that happened from the year 1900 and onwards. 20:33 (Tangent #1) Discussion on what may happen with nation states and states succeeding in regards to war. Also, some talk about various laws and types of governments. 27:46 - The author’s three strategies regarding various disasters and surviving them. Also, some information on why rescue teams don’t always show up as soon as the disasters happen and some thoughts on how many people have died during recent natural disasters. 33:48 - The first challenge of escaping. Describing the five flag system and detailing how to go about achieving that system. Also, evading income tax by living in Puerto Rico and getting paid to start a business there, same with Chile. 42:23 - Some signs that you should leave the country and some discussion on these signs. Also, discussion on the media being warped to make us think a certain way. 46:30 - What makes things go viral and get shared. Some thoughts on these driving forces. Also, how much it typically would cost to achieve the five flag system mentioned earlier. 49:56 - The next part on surviving these disasters and traveling away from the country to avoid possible disasters. 52:30 - Some more discussion on survival, hunting, diet, and training yourself to survive beforehand, especially training your instincts. Also, some in-depth discussion on escaping from Long Island and the usefulness of being able to sail. 1:04:26 - How the author learned how to do all of these things. Also, the three qualities and the three skills that will help you out greatly in various disasters. What you should learn to survive in various situations mentioned, as well. 1:09:00 - Urban survival versus wilderness survival and some thoughts on this. Some talk about protecting yourself with weapons and owning guns, as well. 1:16:42 - What you should do first when a disaster hits and what you should do last. 1:18:42 - Where to find safe drinking water in your home if you run out of water. Also, storing water, protecting yourself from nuclear threats, and some talk on bomb threats in general. 1:23:20 - What to do if you’re in a building where a bomb explodes, minimizing damage from shooters, what to watch out for when lost, information on solar stills, and the minimum amount of water needed daily for survival. 1:31:05 - Some other things that you can do to help your survival chances. 1:36:20 - Information on hiding items and caches, and some more information on finding water and drinking from streams. 1:39:36 - The last section on rescuing and EMT training. Also, what’s currently most likely to kill you here in America. 1:44:23 - (Tangent #2) Self-driving and the possible fragility of the self-driving system. Some thoughts on security, hacking, driving, and fossil fuels, as well. 1:49:34 - Wrap-up. Some last thoughts on surviving various disasters and prepping. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com People who can stay rational and who can maintain hope, tend to always survive these dire scenarios more.

Seeking out experiences where you’re forced to learn, will create so many of these moments, where you’re going to look at things completely differently when you’re done. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Cory Ames. Cory was going to college at Gonzaga University where he took on an apprenticeship with a marketing agency. His apprenticeship with that agency quickly earned him bigger and bigger roles, where within a couple of years, he was actually running the whole company while being only 23 years old. He figured everything out on his own through various projects in college and by reaching out to others to learn from them. Currently, Cory’s out of that marketing agency and is working on some of his own projects. Cory’s a great model to follow for those wanting to pursue their goals, those wanting to self-educate themselves, and for those wanting to get into entrepreneurial pursuits. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Deconstructing skills and learning them on your own Self-educating yourself outside of the college environment His journey towards running a multi-million dollar company at only 23 years old Finding the confidence to leave school and pursue your goals Promoting your skillset and finding clients for your skills Resources and books that have helped Cory out along the way And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Cory on Twitter! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more on self-education, be sure to check out my episode with Zak Slayback and my episode with Zen Dude Fitness, where we go in-depth on self-educating yourself and much more. You’ll also like my episode with Tasha Meys, where we discuss finding mentors, promoting your skillset, and more. Find Cory Online: Twitter Linkedin Website Cory’s Newsletter Mentioned in the show: Gonzaga University [0:28] Nat’s Wiki Strategy article [1:30] WordPress [8:26] Firegang [12:09] Moz’s Whiteboard Fridays [15:50] Clickminded Course [16:30] Backlinko Blog [16:32] Airbnb [16:58] Zoom [27:55] Books mentioned: The 4-Hour Chef [3:25] (Nat’s Notes) The Art of Learning [3:30] (Nat's Notes) The 4-Hour Workweek [8:08] (Nat’s Notes) Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got [36:55] People mentioned: Casey Ames [1:35] Taylor Pearson [1:36] (Nat Chat episode with Taylor) Tim Ferriss [3:25] Josh Waitzkin [3:30] Tommy Griffith [16:30] Blake Boles [23:19] (Nat Chat episode with Blake) Jay Abraham [37:10] 1:17 - Intro to Cory, what he’s currently working on, and him detailing his experience with learning photography. Also, how he’s finding people to reach out to, to learn photography. 5:34 - Some of the things Cory’s learned so far with photography within the deconstruction phase. 6:59 - How long Cory has been learning photography and some things he’s been doing for income. 7:27 - Cory’s journey to becoming CEO of a multi-million dollar marketing company being only 23 years old. 9:07 - What Cory was first doing for that marketing company and discussion on how large the company was. Also, what happened after he got the job there. 12:25 - What gave Cory the confidence to leave school and not go back. Also, some info on Cory’s affiliate website. 14:55 - How Cory learned SEO and a few resources that were really helpful for him learning SEO. 17:29 - Some other projects and things that helped Cory with self-educating himself. 19:43 - What Cory was studying while he was in college and what steered him away from college the most. Also, detailing some of the pros and cons of college. 23:03 - Cory’s experience with traveling to South America and some lessons that he learned while there. Also, his experiences and his traveling after leaving South America and living in Austin, Texas. 27:13 - How the team at the marketing company worked together and his thoughts on managing travel and working. 29:57 - Cory’s progression from the lead SEO role to then leading the company. Also, why he resigned from the company. 33:20 - Some things that happened after Cory resigned and what he plans to work on in the future. 36:18 - How Cory finds the clients to work with and some advice he has for others wanting to find clients. 37:55 - Some big long-term goals and projects that Cory’s currently striving for. 39:14 - Some thoughts on working with the state and local level of politics. 40:39 - The life-changing books that Cory’s read and experiences that he’s had. 43:02 - Wrap-up, where to find Cory online, and where to reach out to him at. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast Build skills that can help other people, and then just have enough conversations about it with other people and their projects.

Unschooling is more about self-directed learning, finding out what you’re interested in, and going really deep into something. In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Blake Boles. While in college, Blake stumbled upon a book that really opened his eyes to the world of unschooling, alternative education, and how students could be learning better outside of the traditional systems. Shortly after graduating, he worked in California doing outdoor education and then ran off to South America for three months, where he decided he wanted to work within the alternative education field while also traveling. He then started Unschool Adventures, where he takes students on two-month trips to interesting places around the world. Blake is an excellent guy to follow if you’re into the alternative education and unschooling movement, as well as the digital nomad space. We covered a wide range of topics, including: Alternative educational systems The unschooling movement and its goals Finding the motivation to leave the traditional school system Fixing the existing school systems The importance of self-directed learning Turning your passions into a career And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Blake on his website! If you enjoyed this episode and the bits on turning your passion into a career, you’ll like my episode with Tasha Meys, where we talk about that and more. If you want more on the schooling system, be sure to listen to my episode with William Deresiewicz, where we discuss that in-depth.   Find Blake Online: Website Unschool Adventures How to Live Nowhere Mentioned in the show: Unschool Adventures [0:55] Lonely Planet [3:27] Summerhill School [9:05] Astro Camp [9:41] Not Back to School Camp [13:41] Couchsurfing [34:16] Minerva [34:37] (Nat Chat episode with the founder) Liberated Learners [36:49] North Star [36:54] Lord of the Flies [37:53] Arthur Morgan school [40:20] Mooc [43:12] Blakes website [51:44] Blake’s newsletter [51:44] How to Live Nowhere [52:47] Books mentioned: Dumbing Us Down [11:11] A Different Kind of Teacher [11:13] Excellent Sheep [30:15] (Nat’s Notes) (Nat Chat episode) The Art of Self-directed Learning [51:44] (Blake’s other books) People mentioned: John Taylor Gatto [8:04] William Deresiewicz [30:15] (Nat Chat episode) 1:50 - Intro to Blake, some background on what he does, and some information on his business Unschool Adventures, where he takes unschooled teenagers on international trips. Also, how he figures out which places to take his students and some details on what they learn. 5:50 - Why Blake chose to do these trips for a younger crowd and who these students are. 7:06 - How Blake got involved in the unschooling movement, some of his experiences growing up with it, and his education. 11:23 - What Blake did before he started getting into the unschool movement and his transformational travel experience to South America. Also, how he started his lifestyle business and its beginnings. 16:32 - What made Blake choose to get into unschooling compared to other alternative schooling methods and him discussing some of the homeschooling laws in Germany and in the US. 20:11 - Blake’s thoughts on social integration with unschooling and some in-depth information on the social aspect of unschooling. Also, how it can be really beneficial for sociability. 25:11 - Blake's thoughts on whether it requires a certain type of person for unschooling and on whether it could work for every kid. 28:41 - Wealthy students sometimes having it the worst with going to these top schools and the negative aspects of the social pressure that they face with those schools. Blake’s thoughts on changing the existing school systems or whether it’s okay for a certain type of person. Also, the lack of self-efficacy with these traditional compared to unschooled students. 33:00 - Whether or not Blake was always comfortable figuring things out on his own and some of the things that helped him out the most with self-directed learning. 34:29 - Blake's thoughts on other alternative schooling programs and his thoughts on the practical issue that families interested in unschooling face, which is that the parents working often or that there’s only one parent. Also, which alternative school models Blake recommends the most. 39:19 - Whether or not Blake has thought about starting a center modeled after these other effective self-directed learning centers. Also, some of his future plans within the unschooling space. 42:16 - Blake’s ideas for fixing the education problem at the parental level, some more thoughts on how Blake’s parents helped him out regarding education, how parents can help their children more in regards to education, and where he started when he began questioning the education system. 46:37 - Blake detailing the de-schooling process and talking about the transition phases between mentally demanding periods of life. 49:10 - Some last thoughts from Blake and some thoughts on the extreme social comparison that can be made between unschooled students and regular students. 51:44 - Wrap-up and where to find Blake online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast Unrestricted travel, in general, is such a great corollary for self-directed learning for having to figure out who you are and what you want to do, because no one’s going to hold your hand or make it easy for you or if they do, they’re going to charge you a bunch of money.

For some people, yes, computers are necessary and valuable, but for a lot of other people, they are simply accelerating and enabling this useless information consumption. In this episode, we cover how the Internet, social media, television, and technology is ruining our abilities to think, reason, entertain ourselves, and what to do about it. Amusing Ourselves to Death is one of both of our favorite books, and it was fun to see how much it related to the other topics we’ve been covering. We covered a wide range of topics, including: How various forms of information affect our perception The prevalence of fake news now People concerned about others more than themselves Technology negatively affecting our attention spans The psychological aspects of the media and commercials Minimizing technological distractions How technology has changed our conversations Enjoy! If you want more on Amusing Ourselves to Death, be sure to check out Nat’s notes on the book and to pick up a copy yourself! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to listen to our episode on The Sovereign Individual, to better prepare yourself for the cyber-economic future, and to our episode on In Praise of Idleness, to reduce the guilt to work so much and to improve your leisure time. Mentioned in the show: Orwell’s essays [2:37] USA Today [12:50] Buzzfeed [13:05] Business Insider [13:10] Lincoln and Douglas debates [17:09] Pulp Fiction [21:10] Nat’s article on most popular internet sites [28:20] Alexa [28:22] Nat’s 5-day water fast article [30:45] Nat’s article on Buzzfeed vs WSJ [33:46] Neil’s website [33:13] Fushimi-Inari-Taisha Shrine [40:59] The Daily Show [1:02:24] The Colbert Report [1:02:25] Jon Stewart interview fake news [1:05:05] Jon Stewart interview on Crossfire [1:05:37] Crossfire show [1:05:37] Free speech issue on campuses article [1:06:59] Trump’s policies [1:12:55] Trump’s speech in Virginia [1:13:35] The Google Memo [1:16:10] (Nat’s article on this) Made You Think episode on The Sovereign Individual [1:22:05] Estee Lauder [1:25:10] Sesame Street [1:27:50] Duolingo [1:29:18] Nat Chat podcast [1:31:12] Slack [1:36:18] Nat’s Facebook setup [1:41:06] Second Life [1:53:04] Books mentioned: Amusing Ourselves to Death [1:05] (Nat’s Notes) Brave New World [1:32] 1984 [1:18] Antifragile [9:13] (Antifragile’s Made You Think episode) (Nat’s Notes) It’s Charisma, Stupid [9:25] Thomas Paine's Common Sense [21:56] The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck [22:41] (Nat’s Notes) 50 Shades of Grey [23:15] Musashi [31:36] The 4-Hour Workweek [1:36:50] (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Neil Postman [1:07] George Orwell [1:18] Aldous Huxley [1:32] William Taft [7:20] Abraham Lincoln [7:25] Franklin D. Roosevelt [7:55] Donald Trump [8:30] Barack Obama [8:40] George Bush [8:41] Bill Clinton [8:43] Ronald Reagan [8:44] John F. Kennedy [8:47] Chris Christie [8:52] Paul Graham [9:24] Shakespeare [17:02] Stephen A. Douglas [17:09] Samuel L. Jackson [21:19] John Travolta [21:19] Thomas Paine [21:56] Mark Manson [22:39] James Patterson [26:54] Walden [37:41] Jim Kramer [51:55] Bernie Sanders [1:00:04] Plato [1:09:50] Socrates [1:09:50] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:10:12] Hillary Clinton [1:21:00] Scott Adams [1:21:07] Ted Cruz [1:21:07] Justin Mares [1:36:16] Tim Ferriss [1:36:56] 0:00 - Intro to the book’s discussion, an excerpt being read, and the book’s background. 4:14 - Discussion on how the form of the information portrayed affects how we perceive that information, and some of the informational form shifts that we’ve had so far. 6:57 - The visual components of information, and the power of appearance and charisma on success and popularity. 9:58 - Thoughts on the validity of written things versus other forms of information. 12:20 - Discussion on the media and the change of what now passes for quality knowledge. 17:17 - Talk on the lengthy Lincoln and Douglas debates in the 1800’s and how people were able to sit and maintain focus for upwards of seven hours. Also, discussion on how frequently television changes the screen on you. 21:48 - How much more of a book culture it was back in the day. Also, discussion on how reading and typing in full sentences improves speech. 24:49 - Before the internet, the ability to pay attention was much greater, but now there are constant distractions from the internet that diminish that. Also, talk on how many fewer people are reading longer and tougher books now. 31:59 - Discussion on information requiring much more context and evidence, and talk on the click-baity information out there. Talk on websites pushing information that maximizes ad revenue, instead of quality information. 35:28 - The impact that improved informational transfer speed has had on us, positively and negatively. 38:07 - Thoughts on how so many people are fixated on the lives of others, and the negative impact that social media and technology on us by disconnecting us from the present moment. Also, the social pressure of these things. 47:09 - How little the news affects our decisions and how little we actually do to change things that we don’t necessarily like. 52:05 - The large amount of cases where value is added to meaningless data, especially in the news. Also, the news constantly making small issues seem much larger and promoting fake scenarios.56:11 - Discussion on the “peek-a-boo” events that pop up quick, blow up, and then disappear, mostly for entertainment. 57:35 - How television has changed conversation, political changes, and the president using the media to get elected. 1:01:15 - People taking news sources seriously, even though the information is taken out of context and misconstrued. 1:06:40 - The issue with us magnifying small differences and making huge deals out of them and some examples of this. 1:11:33 - How frequent the story changes on the news or on social media “the infinite scroll”, and the media manipulating stories so often, making it extremely hard to trust them. 1:19:30 - Commercials being addressed to the psychological needs of the viewer and not the actual product being sold. Also, politicians using catchy sound bites to have people pay attention to them. 1:27:50 - Discussion on various methods of teaching and the huge number of flaws in these teaching methods. Also, how these widespread methods and technology negatively impact us and our attention span. 1:35:18 - How to have an effective schedule for minimizing these technological distractions and some thoughts on this. 1:41:44 - Discussion on us never needing to be bored again due to technology, and the possible negative impact this has on creativity. 1:44:58 - How much computers really help us, and how they accelerate the intake of useless information. Also, the possible future impacts that current technology will have on us and the workforce. 1:54:06 - Some things that will need to change in teaching systems to fix our shrinking attention spans. 1:57:34 - Wrap-up. Be sure to let us know your thoughts on the episode on Twitter! Simply being able to pay attention will be an extremely valuable skill that ninety percent of us won’t have. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

Get with the people who are a couple steps ahead of where you want to be, and learn from them. In this episode, I’m joined by Aaron Watson. Aaron and I were introduced via Zak Slayback, who came on for episode 25. Like Zak, Aaron is also passionate about the education, self-education, and self-improvement scene. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and went straight into an insurance sales job. Pretty soon into it, he realized that it wasn’t for him and left to start a podcast called “Going Deep with Aaron,” where he’s done over 250 episodes. If you’ve ever thought that your job just wasn’t for you and that you wanted to go do something else that’s more exciting and rewarding, Aaron is a perfect model of how you can do that. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Starting struggles with entrepreneurial endeavors Aaron’s lessons from over 250 podcast guests Finding the drive to work harder than your peers Advice for growing your content and growing a podcast Self-educating yourself outside of college Aaron’s pivotal book recommendations And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Aaron on Twitter! If you enjoyed our discussion on straying from the traditional path to pursue your passions and self-educating yourself, you’ll enjoy my episode with Zak Slayback, my episode with Connor Grooms, and my episode with Taylor Pearson. Find Aaron Online: Website Twitter YouTube Mentioned in the show: Aaron’s podcast, Going Deep [1:22] Aaron’s Going Deep conference event in Pittsburgh on January 27th [1:27] (event code “Nat Chat” for discount, automatically applied in the above link) Aaron’s podcast episodes on cryptocurrency and the blockchain [2:29] University of Pittsburgh’s ultimate frisbee team [5:34] Pittsburgh Thunderbirds [5:44] NPR [17:00] Econ Talk [20:42] George Mason [20:48] Libsyn [21:19] AUDL [22:25] TopScore [27:33] Weebly [28:38] Squarespace [28:38] Wix [28:38] Conversations with Tyler Cohen podcast [39:18] Invest Like the Best [39:20] Nathan Latka’s The Top Entrepreneurs [39:28] Aaron’s Newsletter [44:30] The Waiter’s Pad [44:43] Made You Think podcast [45:58] 412 Food Rescue [48:05] Books mentioned: Aaron’s book recommendation page (new books every month)      The Fish That Ate the Whale [39:49] The Power of Myth [40:54] (Nat’s Notes) (Made You Think episode) The Gospel According to Larry [42:25] Antifragile [42:45] (Antifragile Nat Chat episode) Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live [43:34] Uncensored History of ESPN [43:34] Uncensored History of the CAA [43:34] Casino Healthcare [45:38] The Internet of Money [47:03] Blockchain Revolution [47:04] People mentioned: Zak Slayback [0:07] (Zak’s Nat Chat episode) Nathan Latka [6:57] Barry Ritholtz [8:44] (Aaron’s podcast episode with him) Seth Godin [19:55] Russ Roberts [20:42] Taylor Pearson [29:18] (Taylor’s Nat Chat episode) Justin Mares [31:33]  (Justin’s Nat Chat episode) Samuel Zemurray [39:49] Joseph Campbell [40:54] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [42:45] James Andrew Miller [43:30] Mike Deriano [44:43] Patrick O’Shaugnessy [44:48] Dan Morris Monroe [45:38] Neil Soni [45:57] Leah Lizarondo [47:29] Ed Latimore [47:29] (Twitter) Dan Bull [47:29] Adam Haritan [47:29] 1:43 - Introduction to Aaron and how he chooses topics to talk about on his podcast. 3:26 - When Aaron started his podcast and how he found the drive to work harder than other people out there. Also, how this hard work has paid off for him. 6:49 - How Aaron balances his schedule between the sports, his podcast, and his branding job. 7:43 - Some of the biggest lessons Aaron’s learned from his podcast and from over 250 people. 11:20 - What Aaron was doing when he started his podcast and what his journey after graduation looked like. 14:22 - What Aaron was doing for money at the time that he was starting his podcast. 15:47 - How Aaron figured out how to effectively manage his podcast and interview people. 18:32 - Advice from Aaron on getting your content out there and how he managed to get his first few podcast guests. 22:25 - The power of circles of influence. Aaron’s example with professional ultimate frisbee leagues (AUDL) and speaking to entrepreneurs in that field. 24:36 - Aaron’s future plans for the podcast and where he plans to take it. Also, the usefulness of having an audience following for testing business ideas before you market them. 27:31 - How Aaron landed his job being the VP of sales for TopScore and what made him move on from that job. Also, how he landed a job with Nick Latka. 32:35 - Aaron’s journey through college and what he studied. Also, some of his entrepreneurial experiences with ultimate frisbee. 35:48 - How Aaron’s parents reacted to him leaving the insurance company to start his podcast. 38:04 - Aaron’s advice for others looking to get into entrepreneurial type work, and to get out of the consumption mindset and into the creation mindset. 42:09 - Some pivotal books that Aaron’s read and recommends to others. 44:29 - How Aarons decides which books to read and invest in. 46:19 - Some last thoughts from Aaron on learning Blockchain technology and some information regarding his event in Pittsburgh on January 29th. 50:11 - Wrap-up and where to find Aaron online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast You see somebody from the outside and they’re super impressive, super built-up, and then you get to know them and it’s like “Oh, okay, they just worked really hard at this and they’ve earned that prestige, but they’re not that different from any of us.”

“Different things are going to work for different people, but eating too much is bad for everyone.” In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Dan Witmer and Brandon Epstein, who together, are Zen Dude Fitness. Zen Dude Fitness is essentially a health, fitness, coaching, and lifestyle brand that’s specifically focused on jumping rope for fat loss and health. They have millions of views on YouTube, have done meetups all over the country, and have a really inspiring story. They both turned their mutual passion and interest of jumping rope, being healthy, and having fun into a really successful business where they’ve helped millions of people live healthier lifestyles. If you’re someone who wants to improve their health or just wanting tips to grow your business, these guys are excellent teachers and have a lot of great advice. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Becoming fit and healthy by jumping rope Debunking common diet and food myths Advice for getting the body that you want Common errors in the fitness industry Growing a business by self-education Getting more enjoyment from exercise And much more. Please enjoy, and check out Zen Dude Fitness on YouTube! If you enjoyed our discussion on improving your health and the bits on self-education, you should check out my episode with Connor Grooms and my episode with Zak Slayback, where in each of these we discuss more health topics, self-educating yourself, becoming successful, and more. Find Zen Dude Fitness Online: Website Youtube Instagram Twitter Dan Witmer Brandon Epstein Mentioned in the show: Zen Dude Podcast [16:28] Why Clean Eating is a Myth [23:31] Dietary Goal Calculator [25:23] The Zen Dude Jump Rope [43:05] Zen Dude Jump Rope courses [43:45] People mentioned: Armi Legge [23:30] Gary Vaynerchuk [38:20] 1:20 - Intro to the Zen Dudes and some information on what Zen Dude Fitness is all about. 3:15 - What running the business looks like for them on a daily basis, what they focus on, and how their popularity progressed over time. 5:41 - Why and how they made the decision to move to Colombia to help the company get off the ground. Also, some information on how they started the company and discussing their mission for the company. 10:31 - How Dan decided to make the move from a very lucrative job to pursuing his passion and working on Zen Dude Fitness with Brandon. 12:36 - What Brandon did before working on Zen Dude Fitness. 15:48 - The time when they both noticed that Zen Dude Fitness was doing really well and when it could be their full-time jobs. Also, how they incorporated jumping rope into the business. 18:36 - Both of them quitting weight training to solely jump rope for health, while still maintaining a very muscular physique. 20:48 - Some very common fitness errors that Dan and Brandon see a lot of people make. 23:06 - Their top recommendations for people wanting to get the body that they want and wanting to be healthy. Also, their thoughts on some very common dietary misconceptions out there and discussing some solid advice for your diet. 30:15 - Some outdated and false diet information that is still being regarded as true today, such as eating saturated fats, high salt intake, skipping breakfast, and eating lots of cholesterol as being bad for you. 34:37 - How they both find quality information and do their research. 36:30 - How they learned how to grow the YouTube channel and the Zen Dude business, without having a background in business development. Self-educating themselves on video editing and other skills. 39:08 - How they both survived at the start of the business when they had little to no income and discussing what some of their largest learning mistakes were. 42:39 - Some of the main sources of income they have from the business. Also, some really valuable advice on affiliates, building relationships with other companies and prioritizing gaining influence at the start of your business. 47:43 - The future of Zen Dude Fitness, what they may get into, and their goal for the company. 53:05 - Wrap-up and where to find the Zen Dudes online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast “It’s not something that they really actually want. They just think they want it because there’s this image that’s sold on the internet.”

“For a lot of jobs, it’s actually a lot easier to get hired, promoted, and to continue growing in that job without the degree than you think it is. You just need to be creative.” In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Zak Slayback. Zak dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania when he realized that college just wasn’t for him. Since then, he’s worked on business development, published his own book, become the head of publishing for an online publication called The Mission, and much more. He’s had experience going outside of the school system, learning on your own, developing that reputation and that skill set, and getting to work with some really respected people in his field. He’s a perfect example of how you can be successful without necessarily having a college education. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Flaws with receiving degrees and with the education system Getting great apprenticeships Zak’s top book recommendations Using self-education to your advantage Understanding opportunity cost and improving your success with it Important skills you need to develop for success Techniques for achieving your goals And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Zak on Twitter! If you enjoyed this episode and want more on getting apprenticeships, you’ll love my episode with Charlie Hoehn. You should also check out my episode with Ben Nelson, where we discuss major flaws in the education system and how we can improve our learning. Lastly, check out my episode with Connor Grooms, where we discuss self-education, accelerating our learning, and more. Find Zak Online: Website Twitter Medium Amazon Mentioned in the show: University of Pennsylvania [0:27] The Mission [0:43] Medium [0:43] The State Policy Network [1:47] The Big Five Personality Index [3:42] Joe Rogan Podcast [6:04] (episode mentioned) Quest Nutrition [6:04] Uber [7:05] Praxis [8:55] Grove City College [10:37] Python [15:03] Javascript [15:05] C-Suite [16:37] Thinktink [20:22] Christian Science Monitor [20:30] Duquesne University [20:40] University of Arizona [23:02] Moving From New York to Austin (What Salary Do You Actually Need?) [36:15] Georgetown University [37:10] Clarium Capital [38:30] Weebly [40:48] Audacity [41:14] Carnegie Mellon [45:10] Leverage Research [49:14] Paradigm Academy [49:15] Ambition Mapping [52:03] Article at [53:17] SEC [52:28] Let Me Google That For You [53:20] Get Ahead Book Site [59:10] Zak’s Podcast [59:55] Kindle [1:01:15] Books mentioned: The End of School [0:38] Deep Work [28:45] (Nat’s Notes) Excellent Sheep [34:05] (Nat Chat episode) (Nat’s Notes) How to Lie with Statistics [36:50] (Nat’s Notes) Recession Proof Graduate [41:28] The Fountainhead [54:40] Value-Focused Thinking [55:18] Unlimited Power [55:47] Awaken the Giant Within [55:58] (Nat’s Notes) Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics [57:14] Goethe’s Faust [57:22] People mentioned: Joe Rogan [6:04] Milton Freeman [7:48] Ron Paul [7:48] Bill Peduto [7:48] Cal Newport [28:45] William Deresiewicz [34:05] (Nat Chat episode) Peter Thiel [38:30] Bill Gates [39:54] Charlie Hoehn [41:28] (Nat Chat episode) Ramit Sethi [41:55] Tucker Max [41:55] Tim Ferriss [41:55] Seth Godin [41:55] Jordan Peterson [50:06] Tony Robbins [51:08] Ayn Rand [55:02] Aristotle [57:14] James Altucher [58:27] 1:38 - Intro to Zak and a few thoughts on the flaws of nonprofits. 4:23 - The main issues with nonprofit organizations and some solutions for these issues. 8:06 - How Zak got invited to various talks and some information on what he talks about. 8:55 - The goal for Praxis, what they do, and how they help people find jobs through apprenticeships. Also, some thoughts on college and why it’s ineffective at preparing students for jobs. 13:22 - How Zak convinces employers to hire people who don’t have a college education and shows them their skill sets. Also, some more info on Praxis. 17:49 - How Zak started working with Praxis and received his job there. Also, some thoughts and advice with personality traits. 22:39 - Some of the projects Zak worked on in college and what he was studying in college. 23:24 - How and when Zak decided to leave his university to work on other things. Also, some powerful advice for those who are pursuing a degree. 25:29 - How Zak’s parents took his decision to leave college. 27:34 - When Zak made the switch to do more writing. Also, some advice for those who want to be a better writer and then him detailing what his recent book is about. 29:30 - Zak’s job as the head of publishing for The Mission and a few of the things that he writes about there. 30:35 - Zak’s goal for the educational system and what he wants to see change. Some more advice for people in college or planning to go to college. 34:02 - The flawed statistics with salaries, people getting trapped into these rare high salary jobs, and people trying to make their college decision based on which one has the higher reported median income. 37:55 - Some great kinds of work that tend to work really well for kids going straight in and doing apprenticeships. 39:05 - An important skill that you need to develop for success and how to learn it. Learning about opportunity cost and apprenticeships. 46:08 - Some things that helped Zak learn more about himself and his interests. Also a bit on the self-authoring program. 49:55 - What the self-authoring program is, how it works, and how it can benefit your life. Also, how you can achieve your goals easier and what you can do if you’re struggling to reach your goals. 54:33 - Some of Zak’s favorite books that impacted and helped him the most. 57:45 - Getting a free book from Zak’s website each week and some information on his upcoming book “How to Get Ahead When You Have Nothing to Offer” and when it will be released. 59:13 - Wrap-up, some last thoughts in general, his podcasts, and where to find Zak online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast “I think that leaving a university is going to be a better decision for a lot more people than people think.”

“When money can be earned anywhere, you won’t obligated to live in or subjugate yourself to high taxation.” In this episode of Made You Think, we discussed “The Sovereign Individual,” a book published in 1996 predicting how the Internet would change our lives and work over the following decades. Some of it’s come true, some of it is yet to come, but no book has made either of us think so much about how technology might destroy what we think of as citizenship, work, travel, community, and life. We talked about: The increasing popularity of self-education over college How to prepare yourself for the future cyber-economy The future of job automation and subsequent unemployment The decreasing demand for people with degrees and job experience The four stages of cultural and societal advancement The future of cryptocurrency and online wealth The necessity for finding meaning in your life and work And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Sovereign Individual and to check out Nat’s notes on the book! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to also listen to our episode on Mastery by Robert Greene to learn how to become a master at your craft, and our episode on The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell on using the power of mythology to positively influence our lives. Mentioned in the show: 14,000-Year-Old British Columbian Village [5:54] Stonehenge [6:15] Internet lines being cut article [18:53] Bitcoin [19:14] (Nat’s article on Bitcoin) Upwork [29:01] MomTrusted [30:36] Loose Threads Death of the Supply Driven World [34:07] (Podcast) WellnessFX [35:21] Inflammation and Depression link [40:02] Nat Chat Podcast [50:27] Fake News article [52:49] Swift [56:40] Cryptocurrency and Blockchain [56:47] (Nat’s article on learning about cryptocurrency) Ron Paul - What if the government didn’t fund healthcare [1:02:57] NomadList [1:10:07] Wealthfront [1:21:20] Zapier [1:26:15] How to Legally Own Somebody [1:29:14] Medium [1:30:53] Estee Lauder [1:34:04] Indochino [1:38:57] Adidas [1:40:28] Under Armour [1:40:28] Estonia U-Visa [1:41:35] Game of Thrones [1:52:06] Community [1:52:07] Lost [1:52:08] Books mentioned: Antifragile (Made You Think episode) [0:33] (Nat’s Notes) The Sovereign Individual [0:37] (Nat’s Notes) Snowcrash [16:57] Ready Player One [17:21] Revolt of the Masses [1:08:57] The End of Jobs [1:25:52] People mentioned: James Dale Davidson [0:37] Lord William Rees-Mogg [0:37] Eduardo Saverin [15:17] Neal Stephenson [16:57] Al Capone [22:19] Connor Grooms [35:18] (Nat Chat episode) Malcolm Gladwell [57:15] José Ortega y Gasset [1:08:57] Arnold Schwarzenegger [1:13:58] Peter Thiel [1:16:33] Larry Page [1:19:19] Taylor Pearson [1:25:52] (Nat Chat episode) Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:29:09] (Antifragile Made You Think episode) GE [1:31:18] Elon Musk [1:56:34] Adil Majid [1:56:54] (Nat Chat episode) Justin Mares [1:58:20] (Nat Chat episode) Show Topics 0:00 - Intro to the podcast and discussion of The Sovereign Individual. Some history on the book and what it’s about. 2:52 - Some predictions for the future that the book made in 1996, detailing some of the four stages of civilization that the book describes, and some various cultural examples. 9:00 - Some bits on the informational age, the possible future of wealth, and financial independence. 12:40 - Digital nomading and taking advantage of work that’s based online for more money. 16:40 - The shift to the majority of things moving towards being online and us moving towards living just as much online as we do offline. 19:53 - Businesses moving online, money becoming harder to track, Bitcoin, and avoiding taxes. 22:44 - The potential backlash of a digital economy, from taxes being easier to avoid, and people losing their jobs due to companies automating those jobs in the future. 26:57 - With more companies becoming easier to find online, companies will have much more competition, and the consumer will have better pricing. 28:27 - The diversity of people you find when outsourcing work and the affordability aspect of outsourcing. 31:48 - The decline of the parallels with the church and the state, the ease of fact-checking people with degrees and learning nearly anything online, and the declining need for certain degrees. 34:39 - Finding the bulk of medical knowledge online, getting health consultations online, and some thoughts on healthcare and its future. 40:02 - The link between inflammation and depression, and some obvious health strategies that have been known for centuries that we now have the research to back up. 42:07 - Some flaws and some examples of the parallels with the church and the state, the perspective shift on income that comes with entrepreneurship, and the benefits of saving much more money than you spend. 50:20 - People beginning to realize they can self-educate themselves rather than going to college and more employers looking for skills rather than degrees. 52:45 - The rising issue with fake news and popular websites promoting false information. 55:15 - More discussion on employers realizing it’s not about the degree or the years spent working, it’s more about what someone has done. 57:31 - The life and death of the nation-state. Transitioning from the taxation based state to becoming more of a customer and paying for what you want. 1:05:19 - The unique aspects of America being exported a lot and making other places just as important, and the sustainability aspect of the large intellectual diversity in America. 1:08:52 - A community being formed more on a shared idea of a future, rather than a shared past or shared blood. Also, living in different countries and the future of various countries economies. 1:17:00 - Discussing the return of violence mentioned in the book. Governments, companies, and employees fighting any opposition. 1:20:00 - How some large companies are evading American taxes by routing income in different countries. 1:24:03 - Employee owned versus investor-owned companies and hiring contractors rather than employees. 1:34:19 - The book’s predictions on how the cyber-economy will be evolving, most of which we’ve already seen. Also, some thoughts on how the last shift to a fully based cyber-economy may happen. 1:36:40 - The future of cryptocurrency, some impediments with them, and some thoughts on the inflation of cryptocurrencies. 1:38:44 - Some other prediction’s the book made on what will happen when the economy shifts to being fully online and some thoughts on this from Nat and Neil. 1:43:04 - This risk of unemployment due to job automation and higher skill levels being required. Also, some of the issues with this happening and possible revolts. 1:52:45 - The need for finding work you that you truly enjoy doing and finding meaning for your life. 1:57:52 - Wrap-up, some last thoughts on the book and in general, and some last pieces of advice. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com “If you can teach yourself to solve problems, you have a bright career ahead. No matter where you live, you will find problems galore in need of solving. Those who would benefit from solutions of their problems, will pay you handsomely to solve them.”

“If your child needed to have brain surgery, you would not take them to the hospital that makes other people think highly of you. You would take them to the best hospital you could find. Well, education is brain surgery. It rewires your brain.” In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined by Ben Nelson, founder of Minerva and Minerva Schools at KGI. I’ve been excited to have Ben on the show from the beginning, since Minerva is one of the few education startups out there that’s truly changing and competing with the existing university system. They’ve taken a completely fresh look at how to run a university in the 21st century, and their results have been incredible, which we get into right as the episode starts. If I were in high school, Minerva would be more appealing than Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, or any prestigious university you typically think of. To find out why, you’ll have to hear Ben explain their process. We covered a wide range of topics, including: How we learn and how we can improve it Making educational choices based on value rather than prestige Major flaws in today’s universities What an optimal university system looks like The importance of learning real-world skills And much more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Ben on Quora! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about the college system, you’ll want to check out my episode with William Deresiewicz and my episode with Thomas Frank, where we talk about student learning, university flaws, advice for students, and more. You’ll also like my episode with Darwish Gani, where we talk about different university systems, finding your passion, networking, and more. Find Ben Online: Linkedin Minerva Quora Reddit Mentioned in the show: Minerva [2:05] KGI [2:05] CLA [5:33] Far-Transfer [12:47] Scientific Method [18:51] Renaissance Gardens of Italy [23:50] Victorian Gardens of England [23:50] Phillips Exeter [31:08] Choate [31:10] Walt Disney [35:58] Olin College of Engineering [52:52] Quest in Canada [52:54] Books mentioned: Building the Intentional University [1:29] The Elements of Critical Thinking [1:00:57] Thinking Fast and Slow [1:02:10] People mentioned: Diane Halpern [1:00:57] Eric Mazur [1:01:05] Daniel Willingham [1:01:10] Maimonides [1:02:35] Benjamin Franklin [1:02:40] Thomas Jefferson [1:02:45] 1:57 - Intro to Ben, some information on the Minerva schools of KGI, why it’s the most effective university in the country, and some issues that most learning systems have. 8:45 - How Minerva teaches students more efficiently compared to other universities. 12:45 - The issue with far-transfer and how Minerva corrects this issue by contextualizing and recontextualizing concepts for the student. 16:07 - How Minerva’s online communicational teaching aspect works and how Minerva teaches creative thinking. 20:09 - Important and key elements that Minerva leaves you with after graduation, that other universities do not. 21:30 - Minerva’s pragmatic and efficient teaching style and its highly effective, personalized style of courses. 27:21 - How large Minerva’s current classes are, some info on it having the lowest acceptance rate in the country, and why their admission system is strictly based only on merit. 33:46 - Minerva’s unique global campus aspect and the incredible value of teaching students some of the skills necessary to live in the real world. 39:23 - The problem with going to universities based on reputation, rather than what you can learn from them. 43:04 - The issues Minerva faces with students who want to get involved and with obstinate parents. 45:11 - Ben’s thoughts on primary and secondary education, some more issues with university classes, how Minerva finds professors who actually want to teach. 52:21 - When Ben first received the idea for Minerva and the problem with other types of newer institutions. 55:47 - Some of the major iterations and learnings Minerva accomplished had so far. 58:33 - Ben on the science of learning and some information on Building the Intentional University. 1:00:47 - Some other books Ben recommends, some of his favorite authors, and inspirations. 1:03:26 - Some last thoughts from Ben and some information on applying to Minerva. 1:05:26 - Where to find Ben online and wrap up.If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast “The fact of the matter is that almost no one believes that education matters because people believe that the credential matters.”

“Picking a path, even if it’s not the right path, will get you closer to finding the path that will work for you.” “The Power of Myth” is a series of interviews conducted over two years between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, originally meant for television, but eventually repackaged into this book covering Campbell’s lifetime of research on the power of mythology to influence our lives and thinking. It made both of us seriously think about the value of mythology, stories, religion, and how historic lessons can be carried across time. If you’re someone who normally prefers actionable information, and reading non-fiction, The Power of Myth makes a strong case for how timeless stories can teach us more than a bulleted list ever can. We cover a lot in the episode, including: How mythology can influence your work and pursuing your passions Using mythology and theology as a guide for your life Finding your path to bliss and maintaining that bliss Promoting growth by welcoming your challenges and enemies Balancing the necessary sacrifices in everything that you do Gaining inspiration from ancient mythology and theology And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Power of Myth!   If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to also listen to our launch episodes on Mastery by Robert Greene to learn how to become a master at your craft, and Letters from a Stoic by Seneca to learn ancient wisdom for a better life. Mentioned in the show: Skywalker Ranch [1:02] Sarah Lawrence College [1:31] Jordan Peterson’s Podcast (biblical series) [3:35] Maasai Tribe People [9:48] Tim Ferriss Podcast (dating heuristic episode)  [14:57] Masculine/Feminine Personality Traits [15:43]  (Three related articles: first, second, and third) Jocko Podcast [17:46] The Optionality Trap [28:29] Bonobos [29:41] Andy Dunn’s VC blog post [29:45] Zappos [35:05] Twilight Zone (episode mentioned) [35:38] Made You Think Mastery podcast episode [38:35] Nat Chat Podcast [39:48] DiscMan [41:14] Nat and Neil’s Nat Chat episode [43:46] Bitcoin [50:02] Nike [52:55] Adidas [52:56] Wall-E [57:19] Dota 2 [58:26] World of Warcraft [58:31] Starcraft [58:32] Hardcore History Podcast [1:06:10] Biblical Series Podcast on Cain and Abel [1:14:33] Made You Think Letter’s From a Stoic podcast episode [1:20:55] Made You Think Antifragile podcast episode [1:20:56] Books mentioned: The Power of Myth (Nat’s Notes) [0:44] Harry Potter [3:51] Sapiens (Nat’s Notes) [8:32] The Way of the Superior Man (Nat’s Notes) [16:17] The Odyssey [28:02] The Alchemist (Nat’s Notes) [28:34] The Secret [28:40] Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh’s book) [35:07] Play It Away [38:07] The Sovereign Individual (Nat’s Notes) [40:42] The Quran [49:14] American Indian Myths and Legends [1:07:58] The Selfish Gene [1:11:48] The Bhagavad Gita (Nat’s Notes) [1:16:34] The Way of Zen [1:17:05] Words That Work (Nat’s Notes) [1:17:58] The Joseph Campbell Companion [1:19:34] People mentioned: Joseph Campbell [0:55] Bill Moyers [0:55] George Lucas [1:36] J.K. Rowling [3:54] Yuval Noah Harari [8:35] Tim Ferriss [14:57] Jocko Willink [17:46] Plato [22:00] Andy Dunn [29:40] Tony Hsieh [35:03] Mark Cuban [38:06] Dan Carlin [1:06:10] Richard Dawkins [1:11:48] Carl Jung [1:12:02] Alan Watts [1:17:05] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:17:26] Frank Luntz [1:17:58] 0:00 - Introduction, some background information on The Power of Myth, and some popular modern-day mythological references. 4:26 - The ease of remembering myths and some thoughts on our memorization abilities hundreds of years ago. 6:20 - Mythology in the modern world and using mythology to steer you towards better and more authentic desires. 9:30 - Campbell’s philosophy with having to earn your adulthood and having a clear demarcation for adulthood. 13:30 - The more mythological aspect of love and lust that was more prominent in the past. Also, speaking on the dynamic of masculine and feminine energy. 19:05 - The significance of various symbols found in the world, speaking about theology versus mythology, and using both as personal guidelines for a better life. 26:58 - Campbell’s thoughts of self-actualization, following your bliss, and using that bliss to find the right path in life. 34:26 - Maintaining a creative outlet, having a meaning to live, and making sacrifices to maintain that bliss. 38:35 - Advice for finding your bliss, trying many different things, and taking different paths. 45:24 - Using mythological stories and their characters, challenges, and motivations to help you with your own journies. 48:17 - Balancing the sacrifice and payment for each thing you do and realizing you’ll most likely have to put in the same amount of work as everyone one that path before you. 52:02 - Loving your struggles and enemies, as they are the instruments for your destination. Looking for competitors and challenge to promote growth. 57:43 - The false sense of achievement and meaning you get from video games and the huge issue with this. 1:01:49 - The structure of the hero’s journey and viewing your life in that structure to make better decisions, similar to “What would this person do?”. 1:04:35 - Campbell’s mask of eternity idea, how the structure of mythology matches the structure of our daily lives, the morality aspect of myths, and how certain myths may have helped ancient tribes survive. 1:15:58 - Some last thoughts, gaining inspiration from religious myths and ancient texts, and tying words to strong feelings. 1:18:58 - Wrap up, some other last pieces of thoughts, and some info on the next podcast episode. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com “It’s game where, if you do find your bliss and you follow it, you can’t lose. Because you’re not going for the destination, you’re going for that journey.”