Podcast appearances and mentions of neil soni

Alex McShane is a writer, speaker, and talented operator in the Bitcoin industry.His range of experiences includes serving as the Director of Programming at the Bitcoin Conference, Unconference Director for Nostr, General Partner at Lightning Ventures, editor of The Bitcoin Standard, The Fiat Standard, and Principles of Economics by Saifedean Ammous. He's also a talented martial artist with a specialty in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ).In this episode we cover…

Neil Soni is a dynamic entrepreneur who has built and grown businesses for startups, large companies, and even himself. He is also the author of The Startup Gold Mine, a practical guide that helps founders to sell to and work with corporates. Alongside this, he co-hosts the podcast, Made You Think, which is available across all podcast platforms.00:00:00 - Reframing the Purpose of Podcasts00:02:06 - Highlighting Solutions and Outside the System Innovations00:04:19 - The Benefits of Digital Leverage and Leveraging the Talents of Independent Workers00:06:23 - Options for Company Research: Consulting Firms and On-Demand Services00:08:31 - Corporate Startups and Sorting the Startup Landscape00:10:39 - Process Scaling and Agency as a Two-Sided Marketplace00:12:45 - Motivations for Changing Industry Inefficiency00:14:58 - Changing the Way Large Companies Approach Innovation00:17:15 - Competing Against McKinsey and VCG in Broken Healthcare and Food Systems00:19:29 - Rites of Passage in the Startup World00:21:29 - The Importance of Soft Social Skills in Entrepreneurship00:23:25 - The Value of a Coaching Program and Learning from a Community00:25:20 - Entrepreneurship as a self-development tool00:27:18 - Finding Problems by Offering Free Help to Businesses00:29:07 - Iterative Cycle in Problem-Solving and Building Trust with Customers00:31:05 - The Success and Challenges of Cold Emailing for Business Growth00:33:16 - The Power of Cold Email and the Future of Podcasting with Fount00:35:27 - Understanding Podcasting 2.0 and Fountain vs Patreon00:37:45 - The benefits of Fountain for direct financial support and audience connection00:39:58 - The Value of Podcasting 2.0 for Bitcoin Circular Economy00:42:19 - Creating a Creator economy00:44:29 - The Power of Memes in Spreading Ideas and Reaching People00:46:23 - The Serendipity of Intros and the Importance of Helping Others00:48:31 - The Importance of Paying It Forward and Double Opt-Ins in Intros00:50:33 - The Importance of Building Relationships for Success00:52:39 - Staying Top of Mind with Free Research Reports00:54:40 - Using different channels and sticking with a project to attract customers00:56:42 - The benefits of podcasting for pitching potential prospects00:58:30 - Learning from others and the power of leverage through podcasts01:00:32 - The Most Practical Books for Entrepreneurs01:02:41 - Connecting Life-Changing Information through a Web of Connections01:04:59 - Social media and reaching out to Neil SoniIn this episode of The Louis and Kyle Show, Neil discusses a range of topics that provide insights into his entrepreneurial journey and his perspectives on various aspects of business and technology. We kick off by reframing the purpose of podcasts and highlighting solutions and innovations that exist outside the traditional systems. Neil then delves into the benefits of digital leverage and the potential of leveraging the talents of independent workers.We wrap up the episode with Neil sharing his thoughts on creating a creator economy, the power of memes in spreading ideas, and the importance of building relationships for success. He underlines the serendipity of intros, the power of paying it forward, and why double opt-ins in intros are essential. Connect with Neil:→ Website: neilsoni.com→ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/neilsoni→ Twitter: twitter.com/TheRealNeilS→ Instagram: instagram.com/therealneilsCheck out Extovate:→ Website: extovate.com→ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/extovateCheck out The Startup Mine:→ Amazon: amazon.com/Startup-Gold-Mine-Innovation-CompaniesResources Mentioned in The Episode:→ Estée Lauder: esteelauder.com→ Coursicle: coursicle.com→ Remind: remind.com→ Alex Hormozi: instagram.com/hormozi→ Fountain App: fountain.fm→ Citadel Dispatch: youtube.com/@CitadelDispatch→ Adam Curry: twitter.com/adamcurry→ Nostr: nostr.com→ Bitcoin Magazine: twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine→ 2-hour cocktail party: amazon.com/2-Hour-Cocktail-Party-Relationships-Gatherings→ The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant: navalmanack.com→ Antifragile: amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-IncertoHelp The Louis and Kyle Show:→ Leave a review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1504333834→ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb6qBiV1HAYcep87nKJmGhAFollow The Show on Social Media:→ Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisKyleShow→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louiskyleshow/→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/65567567/Connect with Louis and Kyle:→ Read Louis' Newsletter: https://louisshulman.substack.com/→ Louis' Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisShulman→ Kyle's Twitter: https://twitter.com/_kylebishop→ Louis LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisshulman/→ Kyle's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-bishop-7b790050/

Nat Eliason is the founder of Growth Machine, a successful SEO and content marketing agency. Nat also teaches the popular Roam course, Effortless Output.Nat earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Carnegie Mellon University, and has worked for companies such as Zapier, and Sumo Group. Nat co-hosts the Made You Think podcast with Neil Soni.Nat also writes a weekly newsletter called Monday Medley. Each Monday Medley has ten articles, videos, discussions, pieces of research, or other interesting finds from around the Internet, spanning a broad range of topics.In this episode Nat discusses the evolution of his newsletter. He shares his strategies on developing online courses. He also explains how to find product-market fit before launching a course or product.Highlights of the conversation include: How Nat made $300,000 from his online course What separates a mediocre newsletter from a great newsletter The differences between running a newsletter and teaching a course How Nat balances work, family, and leisure Links & Resources Shane Parrish Farnham Street Sunday Brain Food newsletter Tim Ferriss Five Bullet Friday Azeem Azhar Exponential View airr Building a Second Brain Tiago Forte Wes Bos Derek Sivers Nat Eliason's Links Effortless Output with Roam Nat's Twitter Nat's website The Monday Medley Made You Think podcast Episode TranscriptNat: [00:00:00]Build up little channels. There's a lot to be said for having one thing that drives 10 grand a month. But if you've got 20 little things that drive $500 a month, that's cool too. In some ways it's a little more resilient because if one fails, you've only lost 5% of your revenue versus if the $10,000 a month thing fails, you've lost all of your revenue.Nathan: [00:00:26]In this episode, I talked to Nat Eliason. We talk about a bunch of different things ranging from his newsletter, the course that he's running, you know, earning a crazy amount of money from the course, his thoughts on paid newsletters versus courses. Really just how he approaches life. It's kind of a meandering episode as we go through those details.I love the way that he's not trying to grow and optimize everything. And then also the way that he's taking internet money and bringing it into like tangible, real world life experiences, connection with friends, things like that. So it's a great episode. I hope you enjoy it. And, actually before we dive in, I'd love for two things.One, if you're listening to the podcast and you just clicked through from random clips or things like that, and you haven't subscribed, go ahead and subscribe in iTunes, Spotify, and, you know, wherever you listen to podcasts, really appreciate that. And then the other thing is, I realized I've never actually asked for reviews and it turns out reviews help, you know, with rankings and more people to discover the show.So I would love it if you would go on iTunes in particular. Is iTunes a thing? Apple podcasts, I guess you go on Apple podcasts in particular and subscribe and then write a review or just a rating. That'll help more people discover the show. So thanks for doing that. And let's dive into the interview.Alright, Nat, thanks for joining me.Nat: [00:01:40]Yeah. Thanks for having me, excited to be here.Nathan: [00:01:41]Why don't you just kick things off by talking a little bit about the newsletter that you have, and I'm actually curious, you know, how long ago you started.Nat: [00:01:51]Yes. So my name is Nat. Hi, in the world of newsletters, I started my newsletter, which is called the Monday Medley or often just the Medley in may of 2015, no 2016.Nathan: [00:02:08]Either way it's been awhile.Nat: [00:02:10]Yeah, it must be only 2016, cause I'm coming up on five years next week. I think it's next Monday is the five-year anniversary.So, I've been sending it out every single Monday for five years straight, which is kind of absurd. I actually, I have no idea how I haven't messed one up in that time, but here we are.Nathan: [00:02:34]At 200, what was that, 260 weeks?Nat: [00:02:37]Yeah, it would be what, 260? Yeah, three times five. So it's a lot of newsletters.Nathan: [00:02:42]That is. So what made you start the newsletter? Were there particular people you were following? And you're like, “Oh, I want to be like them.” Or was it solving a business problem for you?Nat: [00:02:52]Yeah. So I was originally following sort of the standard advice of emailing every time an article came out. And that was working fine. And this was for my personal site NatEliason.com. and I was emailing for every article, but it's like too many emails. Cause I was writing like a couple of posts a week back then, and I didn't like having to like write a specific email for each article. And it felt like there wasn't that much like extra value with being on the newsletter besides getting updates on posts, which people can do if they were just like on Feedly and subscribe to the RSS feed or whatever.So, I saw Shane Parrish start his, brain food kind of newsletter for Farnam Street. And, Tim Ferris had launched his like Five Bullet Friday, around that time too. So the Medley started as very similar to those two where it was like, you know, here's like something interesting. I read this week. Here's like a video I enjoyed just kind of like a little, link dump.And it was kind of that way for two or three years probably. And then it transitioned into kind of a different vibe where I got a lot of inspiration from Azeem Azhar and his Exponential View newsletter, which is like really, really good. And I just loved how, like, he wasn't really just sharing stuff that he found interesting.He was kind of like going in depth on each thing. And what I liked about his was I felt like a lot of the link dumpy newsletters were, they didn't feel very like high effort or very high value. And it was just like, okay, like, here's kind of like a dump of things, but you can kind of get that from Twitter or elsewhere, plus like everyone was doing it right.It wasn't that special anymore. So I was trying to think of how I can make it higher value. Azeem's was such a great model because he was like going into detail on each thing. So I shifted in that direction first, where it was like, okay, here's, you know, five, six, seven things from this week that are interesting.They're kind of like in categories. And here's like my thoughts on them, or like a bit of, a bit of summary on them, if you don't want to like go read them. So it made it a lot more detailed. and then in the last like three months, it kind of shifted again to being somewhere in between like a standalone, like news letter or like, like periodical kind of like what you would expect from a sub stack and that, like link roundups.So now when I do it, there might only be. Like two, three or four articles, pieces, whatever I'm referencing as like the jumping off points. But then I might write like 500, 3000 words about them and kind of like more of my thoughts on them, more how they tie into like broader themes of the newsletter reference things that I've shared in the past, trying to make it more of like a, like a journey through each week, instead of just like a, like a dump of information.So it's evolved a lot over the last five years. and I think it's, I think he's evolution has been good and made it like better. Yeah.Nathan: [00:06:10]And so doing it for five years, interesting to me in that, like that's a long time to show up consistently every week. has each iteration made it more fun? What are the, like, what are the things that have made it so that it's been good to show up consistently and you've stuck with it for so long.Nat: [00:06:27]I think each iteration has come from me meeting to make it fun. So like it changes each time. I get bored of it is probably the best way to put it. Right. So like I got, I got kind of bored of doing just like, Oh, here's like five things I found this week. So I was like, all right, let's try to make this a little more interesting.And then I was like writing all of this stuff about each thing, but then it was all of this work to go out and try to like find a bunch of stuff to read and write about each week. And so that was starting to feel kind of like a slog where each Monday it was like, okay, now I need to go like read articles for two hours because I didn't read enough during the week and then need to write about it.And so I was like, well, what if, what if I tried to be like, More selective and just picked a few things that were really good. Cause that was the other problem was that the talking about a breadth of things was actually encouraging reading shorter, lower quality stuff. Right. Because let's say that I've got two hours to read material for the Medley, but I feel like I need to send six, seven, eight things.I'm going to read stuff that's shorter and probably less good, just so I can like fill my quota. Versus what I like about what I'm doing now is I have good incentive to read, you know, a 30 minute or 60 minute article because I could just riff on that for the entire newsletter and it could be really good.So that's made it a lot more enjoyable to me. And I think that, like one thing that I did from the outset that has helped it stay interesting is basically not branding it around anything or not theming it. and just being like. This is whatever random stuff I'm interested in this week. Right. So, you know, one week it's going to be, it could be about like health and other week.It could be about like crypto stuff and then a week it's about marketing. And then it's about like knowledge management. I just sort of like, I mean, that's why it's called the Medley rice. It's like, whatever stuff it feels like going out this week is going out. it's probably helped with the longevity a bit too, because I think that if you have like a, a very specific niche newsletter Write or anything, right.Like you can grow really quickly, but it's also a little more replaceable. People might like get bored of that topic and move on. when you have, when you brand new rap, just like trying to send consistently interesting stuff each week, I think it's got a little bit more longevity to it. So, this worked out.Nathan: [00:08:43]Yeah, I think the same thing people often in the early days of my blog would ask why it had it around like Nathan Berry instead of, the topic, you know, and part of it is, cause I was talking about, like how to design iPhone applications at the time. That's my, my entire site or 80% of my site was about that thing.And so it could have been called, you know, iOS design weekly or, you know, whatever else it turns out I lost interest in that topic. And I moved on to other things and because it was themed around my, you know, my name, all of that, then I could just move with me and I'm sure some people dropped off. You know, some people were like looking at, and I don't care about designing web applications or Marketing, or cell phone wishing your newsletters, any of this stuff.And so they drop off, but most people, you know, stuck with me and followed that. And so I think what you're doing of having it around your name and just like, this is what I'm interested in. If you don't like it, like there's an unsubscribe button. If you do like it, you know, telephone.Nat: [00:09:40]It definitely helps. I mean, I think it makes it harder in the early days, right. Because. People people almost need like an initial thing to hook on to you from Write. Right. And so for me, a lot of that was probably around like SEO and writing about like search engine optimization and content marketing, and doing all of that.And then kind of like letting it expand from there, just like what you were talking about, right. It's like you started with iPhone app development and that was like the initial thing, but it was still under your name. And then as you expand it to other topics, some people come with you. Some people like fall off.I mean, it's kind of fun talking about a variety of things because you, you get like very different people from all walks of life or from all areas of interest who, and, following your stuff. it also creates like these funny situations where you have like a strong opinion in one area. and you're like, you do a lot of stuff in another area.So people follow you for this thing. And then you like talk about this other thing and then suddenly you get like angry emails about it. so that's one downside.Nathan: [00:10:42]Do you have a specific example or two?Nat: [00:10:45]Yeah, I'm very against like fake foods or like, I think that fake foods are just like really terrible for us or bad for the environment, bad for everything. but I, and then I have like a lot of people who've come in through the like Roam Research, personal knowledge management, productivity space. So every now and then I'll have somebody who like comes in through the Roam stuff.And then I like say something incendiary about Oatley and my newsletter. And they're like, so those are always kind of funny, but, that, that does happen every time. Right?Nathan: [00:11:20]Yeah. I could totally see that, you know, but what did they say if you're not hated by someone you're not doing anything meaningful? I don't know what it is, but.Nat: [00:11:29]My heuristic is like, if, if a, if a newsletter edition doesn't get like 0.1% of people responding, like. Disliking it or being annoyed about something, then you probably haven't said anything like that. Interesting in it. Right? Like if you're, it's something like, yeah. If you're making everybody happy, you're like not, I'm totally butchering it, butNathan: [00:11:56]Generally what we're getting at. So the takeaways we're bad at sharing quotes. I'm curious, what are some of the like, fun experience that experiences that have come from the newsletter of like either, you know, serendipity or like people you've met or opportunities that came up because of it. And we'll get into courses and revenue side of the second, butNat: [00:12:15]There's a ton, like I've made a decent number of real life friends from my newsletter. Right. and it's, it's hard to suss out whether it's like the newsletter or Twitter. I think that they like go hand in hand very closely, but I believe at least half of my real life friends are now like came in some way from being an active internet person.Right. And so that's super cool. have a lot of like, people send me really interesting stuff now each week, whenever I send out the newsletter, which is fun, and also. Kind of like daunting because I'll, I'll send it out and then I might get a dozen replies or whatever of people saying like, Oh, this is cool.You should check this out too. Or like, somebody will point out something that I got wrong and then, you know, like go down that rabbit hole and explore it. So it's great because I actually learned a lot from the newsletter now, too, from what people sent back to me and that's really fun. And it kind of like, lets me go down rabbit holes.There's other cool stuff. Like, my favorite is when I share an article in the newsletter and I'm like talking about, you know, this is really great. It was interesting, you know, here's what made me think about, and then like the author is on the newsletter and he replies, Oh, wow, thanks for sharing. And then like, boom, where like instant internet friends.Right? Like that's happened a number of times and that's always a really, really fun experience. I'm trying to think what else, like there's obviously the business side of it. And I think just like, I. Seeing the newsletter, like help people, especially early stage companies or people who are just like starting to get the word out about stuff.And I mean, there was like, there's this podcast app that I really loved called air air. And, I found out about it relatively early and got in touch with the founder. And we just like jammed for a bit and talked about like podcasting and note taking and stuff. And then I shared it in my newsletter and he texted me the next day.He was like, yo, that was our highest download day ever, like so far. And I was like, that's super cool. Right? Like, that feels really good because it's like, I found this thing. I liked it. I shared it. And it like made some small, meaningful impact in their business. Like that part. I really, really enjoy.Nathan: [00:14:21]Yeah, it's amazing to have that attention to be able to direct to things I friends are doing or just that you think is cool. Like so often, you know, like the most value you could give to a cool project is like, Oh, let me click retweet. You know, which doesn't really do much, but to be able to come across something and be like, Oh, this is amazing.More people should know about it. And, you know, be able to send tens of thousands of people. That direction is,Nat: [00:14:44]super cool. Yeah.Nathan: [00:14:46]this is a bit unrelated, but you're talking about, you know, making friends from the newsletter and all that. Something interesting that I think you posted on Twitter is, or maybe putting the newsletter is really a focus on like, as the world opens up in a post pandemic thing of, like you're saying, I actually just want to like make friends locally, like I've.I spent all this time, you know, like we could all get on the plane again. We could go to conferences and, and like expand our internet circles. And you're like, look, there's plenty of people here in Austin here in the area around, like what drove some of that thinking of like investing in local community and just making friends around you.Nat: [00:15:23]Yeah. I mean, I think that it was a combination of things, you know, one pre COVID. We were probably traveling like minimum once a month, like often, twice a month. So, you know, going somewhere every other week or every three weeks, something like that. And that was just a very normal for two years or more, I guess it was just like, Oh yeah, this is just like what we do, right?Like, you've got the ability to travel. Like you shouldn't travel and you should like go these other places and like, see things like Instagram and whatever. And then, you know, COVID hit and, you know, I don't know what it was like in Boise, but in Austin, especially in our community, we sort of like gave up on a lot of the.Like social guidelines very quickly where it was like, we had a very healthy, very young community. We were just hanging out with each other. We weren't like seeing at risk people. And we were just like, you know what, we're just going to roll these dice and not like spend a unpredictable amount of time, completely isolated from each other.Right. Cause it's like, there's a lot of risks with that too. Right. Like it's incredibly unhealthy way to live. So we just like started doing dinners with friends, doing cookouts, going for walks, doing like random activities, like almost every single day of the week. And so like we would be going to someone's house for dinner.They'd be coming over for dinner. We'd be doing cookouts on the weekend. And so Write, it was just like. Nonstop social, like group stuff that was at people's houses and in their yards and not like at a noisy bar, and didn't involve like having to get on a plane or like going anywhere. And pretty much all of us were like, Holy shit, this is so much, it was just like, this is, this is like the best way to live.This is awesome. we all got really good at cooking. Like a few of us bought like ranch houses outside Austin with acreage, or we could go like, hang out. I mean, it was just like completely new lifestyle. It was so much better. And so as you know, stuff is opening back up, we're all kind of like, we don't want to travel.Why would we go? And like, why would we do get on the plane and go somewhere? when we can just like, enjoy life here, like, why would we go to bars when we can like, have, you know, dinner or like drinks and party and stuff at friend's houses? Or like, why would we go to. Any restaurant, except like the very few that can legitimately make better food than we can get at home.But it's just like completely changed our relationship with like socializing and time. And I think there's like this, this tough question of, you know, like who do you want to build a deeper relationship with? And I think, you know, and every time you choose to spend time with someone or with some place you're choosing not to spend time with someone else or with someplace.And so every weekend that you get on a plane and go to somewhere else in your you're like deepening a relationship with something or someone that's like not actually where you live. Right. And so there's this element of like, you know, I, I do have friends in other cities and States and I do feel close to them, but at the end of the day, like I need to prioritize the people who are actually going to like be in this environment and who, you know, are probably going to be in Austin for the foreseeable future.Cause it's like, I think that it. It really highlighted how much stronger, like in-person friendships and stuff can be and why it's better to just focus on those than to try to like travel all over the country. Like having relationships with a bunch of cities and people in a bunch of places. And it's like, it's kind of like a awkward or tough thing to say or talk about.But I think that people would just be a lot happier if they like didn't travel, spend more time in their home.Nathan: [00:19:09]Yeah. And it's just all about being, being deliberate in that way and choosing the things that, you know, you're going to focus on. Cause you can't, you can't focus on everything.Nat: [00:19:18]Yeah, exactly.Nathan: [00:19:19]Okay. I want to start courses and then I want to talk like. W w w we'll go to, back to ranch houses since, you know, courses help enable ranch houses.So the, it seems to me from the outside of the main way you monetize your newsletter is through, courses like you have the, of course, on Roam called effortless output. that is, is that the primary revenue driver or are there other things as well?Nat: [00:19:45]Yeah, that's the primary revenue driver now. So, you know, there, there is other, there there's a bunch of other stuff, like there's, a bunch of like relatively high paying affiliate deals on the site. There's a, I sell my book Notes as like a little like info-product, I've got an iPhone app. Like there there've been other things, but at this point, yeah, the course revenue just like divorce, all the rest of that.So that's that kind of like in the last year, just like blew up as the main monetization channel for the site and it actually got another one coming out now focused on like SEO for solopreneurs.Nathan: [00:20:25]Bringing it full circle to what started the Content. And initiallyI want to ask him about the Day affiliates are there, like I don't hear about affiliates, you know, and, that as a channel, as often for monetization of newsletters, are there some of those that, you know, you can talk about and share, share numbers on.Nat: [00:20:44]Yeah. I mean, there's an honestly, I guess it doesn't really come mostly from the newsletter, mostly comes from the site and from SEO. So if we're talking about newsletter monetization, then yeah. That's predominantly courses. but there there's a couple of programs in particular that, I mean, actually it's really like one that's predominant, which is web flow.Right? So when Field probably is like 80% of the affiliate revenue, and I just like discovered web flow in 2017 and like really fell in love with it and started like promoting it hard. And they've just got like an awesome affiliate program. And my like my philosophy on affiliates is like, I'm never going to.Sign up for an affiliate program or promote something that I don't already like love and use, but it's something that I love and use has an affiliate program than like, yeah, I'm going to sign up for it.Nathan: [00:21:38]How much revenue is web, affiliate program driving for you? Like on a monthly basis?Nat: [00:21:43]It's like a bit over a thousand dollars a month. So it's like not insane, but it's also like, that's nothing to shake a stick at, right?Nathan: [00:21:51]Yeah, exactly. It's funny. The time, like the things where, like, I have a couple of like, well, optimized blog posts on this or something like that. And it's like, and that is driving, you know, it's like half a house payment.Nat: [00:22:03]Yeah. That's the thing, right? It's like a, it's fun to frame that stuff in terms of other things like, my buddy and I used to talk about random little. Affiliate passive income stuff is AAA money. All right. It's like you you've paid for all of your Chipotle A's for the month off of your like random you to me, affiliate revenue or whatever.Right. It's like, and if you, if you work on stuff long enough, you know, and you, you build up little channels, right? Like it can get to a sizeable amount of money. I mean, there's a lot to be said for having one thing that drives say 10 grand a month. But if you've got 20 little things that you've tried 500 a month, like that's cool too.And in some ways it's a little more resilient because if, if one fails, you've only lost 5% of your revenue versus if the $10,000 a month thing fails, you've lost all of your revenue.Nathan: [00:22:50]What was the reason behind diving into the Roam course, creating a launching that. And then I'm also curious how you price it. If you went with a cohort model or if it's just always open, like how do you approach that?Nat: [00:23:02]Yes. So it link came about very. I guess serendipitously or randomly, depending on how you want to frame it. I mean, I, from having the newsletter and talking about personal health management stuff and being on Twitter, talking about PKM, I was just like very in that world. And probably like, if there's a, if there's a head of that world, it's definitely Tiago and his chorus building a second brain.And I went through that back in 2017 and you know, I'd been like very vocally supporting his course and everything that he was working on. but I never liked Evernote. And I always had like a lot of struggles with Evernote as the tool for kind of like doing all of that. So when, Adam Kiesling tweeted about Roam in like November of 2019, I was like, Oh, this is kind of cool.Like, let's go check this out and play with it. And, you know, like immediately fell in love with it. And I already had like my newsletter, right. I already had the Medley. And so I, I shared it in the Medley and I shared it on Twitter and then other people were like, Oh wow, this is pretty cool. And I think just because I'd been sharing stuff, I was interested in and share in like building an audience of other people, interested in personal knowledge management, people took to it very quickly.But it was, and still is kind of confusing and opaque tool. So I had a lot of people asking, like, how do I actually use this thing? Like you say, it's cool, but it's not clear at all why this is so cool. So. I was like, all right, well, you know, I'll write an article about it wrote the article, the article, like hit front page of hacker news and like went mini viral on Twitter and got like, you know, some tens of thousands of views in the first 24 hours.And I was like, Oh wow, okay. There's like a lot of interest in this. And then I had four or five friends text me saying like, Hey, you know, if you did a course on Roam, like I would take it. Cause like, you seem very excited about it, but I still have like, no idea what to do here. So, that was really the push where I was like, all right.If, if my, like, if my friends who are like, Smarter than me are like asking me for a course on this. Like, that's probably a good sign. I should do one. but I'm also like, I I'm, I'm somewhere in between like intelligent, lean startup person and like exceptionally lazy, because I was like, I don't want to do any work on this if no one's going to pay for it.So, I just like put out a tweet and said, you know, Hey, some people ask for a Roam course, I'm going to do one. Here's like the initial table of contents. just PayPal me $50 if you want early access. And I got like 50 ish PayPals in the first, like 24 hours, which was like, ridiculous, because it was literally like a yeah, from a tweet and like a picture of the table of contents.Right. So, that was like strong validation was like, Oh shit. Okay. I should actually do this. And also now I have to do this because people have Tape don't want to just like, do a bunch of refunds. And so, yeah, I spent the next month, like recording everything, getting it out. and then, you know, you asked about pricing or something kind of funny happened then too, which was as I was like finishing up the course.So I, I said PayPal me 50 to get early access. the next day I put up an actual landing page and started charging 75. And then by the end of the weekend, I upped it to a hundred and I said, okay, it's going to be a hundred while I finished recording all of the content and everything. But then when I release it, the price is going to go up.So that was recording everything and putting it out. and then as I was getting close to finishing it, the, the Roam teams, people who worked on Roam took the course and they liked it so much that they basically subsidized it as they're onboarding. So they, and this was really funny cause they didn't even tell me they were going to do this.I just woke up one day and they had put out this tweet that said like, Hey. we liked that score so much that if you take it, we'll give you a hundred dollars in Roam credits. When we turn on payments, which was like incredible, because that basically made the course free, right. I was charging a hundred dollars for it.They were going to give you a hundred dollars in credit, but it basically pays for itself. and so after they did that, I said, okay, well, I'm not going to increase the price as long as they're offering that, because it makes it such a no-brainer to buy. So I just left it at a hundred dollars. And I mean, it was, it was crazy.I mean, by, by the time I got, by the time September rolled around, it was wanting to do the second version of it. It had done like two or $300,000 in sales. On a, a hundred dollars a student, which is like a lot of money for, an online course. and especially one that like, you know, in all honesty, I expected to make 10 grand off of, you know, some friends and other nerdy people on Twitter.I definitely did not expect it to have like that kind of reaction. so that was just like, kind of wild and continues to be a sort of wild, thing to have created.Nathan: [00:28:01]When you did the second version, what did you change about it? and how did it change the pricing?Nat: [00:28:06]So the first version, you know, the, the great thing about building in public and doing like the whole lean startup MVP, whatever is that it lets you like validate as you go. And not like build stuff that people don't want and don't need the downside is that when you don't have a plan stuff, kind of just like gets hacked together.It's sort of like, you know, building like an MVP with like actual code or whatever and you have this like cowboy code spaghetti code, like mess of stuff that needs to go back and you need to go back and clean up later. So version one was very like disorganized and very, like just tutorial, right?It was like, here's how to do this and here's how to do this. And here's how to do this. There wasn't that much of a like user story through it or like a flow that would, like help somebody like understand the why of the tool. It was just like the, what the, how to do this, this, this. so for V2, it was like, all right, we're going to do some quick, basic tutorial stuff. And then we're gonna go through an actual, like a journey of using this app. So we're going to like pick a topic that we want to learn more about, and then we're going to do a bunch of research on it.And we're going to organize our research in our database. They're going to take that Research or we're going to like distill it into like our lessons and our takeaways from doing all the research. Then we're going to create an actual, like project to manage shipping the deliverable that we want from doing this research.And then we're going to actually create something new from all that research, whether that's like an article or a script, or, like, you know, some sort of other creative work or whatever. And that seems to resonate with people a lot more. Cause then it was like, Oh, I see why I would use this now versus just like, here's how to use it.So for that one, Increase the price to two 50 and then also had a cohort-based version for 500 where you got the whole self paced. And then we met once a week for five weeks to go over implementing each of the five sections of the course. and. The cohort went fine. I just didn't enjoy doing it very much.And it didn't feel necessary for the type of course. So it was like, I think that if you're learning, if you're learning how to do something or how to use something, you don't need a cohort based model. I think we need a cohort based model four is like when you're adopting a new identity or doing something that requires feedback and like a continuous integration.So like David's Write of Passage course is like the ultimate cohort-based model because you can't do like a self-paced course on writing. Cause you need like social pressure to actually ship stuff. You need feedback on the writing, you need coaching. Like there's a lot that you need to do that well. whereas like how to use Roam, you can absolutely do self-paced So I haven't done another like five week cohort, but what I have been experimenting with, which I kind of like, is this a one afternoon intensive?So I did one of these last month. I'll probably do another one, like next month or something where I called it and building Roam in a day where it was a four hour, like intensive where each hour we did one of the units with like a 10, 15 minute break. And that actually went super well and people really liked it.And it gave me an excuse to update some of the course content. So I might try doing that every quarter or something.Nathan: [00:31:26]You know, it's interesting as you talk about that, I'm reminded of, James Claire for a long time, when he was building his newsletter, he, he was purely focused on growing the newsletter. You know, he, atomic habits wasn't out yet. so he was publishing twice a week, you know, and then promoting republishing that content.And we always talked about like, Oh, how are you going to monetize it? And he's like, ah, I just want to focus on growing total readers. But he did obviously need to make money. And so once a quarter, we would do a live habits workshop. And I think the first couple of times he did it, you know, like maybe the first one made 25 grand or something, you know, but then it got to the point where once a quarter he was doing these workshops and they were making like 250 grand each time just as that grew.And then for the entire rest of the 90 days, he could just focus on growing the audience. And so it was like once a quarter, he would take this little break, go make a bunch of money and then go focus on growth. And it's interesting. Cause I could see, yeah, you doing a similar thing. Like it just reminds me of with the intensives of like, Oh, if I do this every couple of months, you get kind of this fun interaction with all the students.It's another reason to like PR to promote, it's kind of a mini launch of like, or a reminder of like all of them that's Roam Content. So I like it.Nat: [00:32:47]Yeah. And what I did the last time was I charged a hundred dollars and then you just got like all the recordings and the tutorial. And what I then did is I saved all those recordings into a new course. And so now, effortless output has like a hundred dollar option and a $200 option. So the $200 option is the one that was two 50.And that's like the full self-paced course, but you can also just pay a hundred dollars for the recordings from Roam in a Day, plus the tutorial material. So it's like a condensed, like less in-depth version of the course. And that's actually been working out really, really well. And what I'm thinking I'll do for the next Roam in a day is basically say that, like, if you've taken either course, if you've bought outercourse, then you get to watch and join for free.So anybody who's taken either one can watch it join for free, but if you pay like. 25 or 50 or whatever. I haven't decided you can actually join live and like ask questions and engage. Because like, with, I think it was something like 4,500 students that have gone through it. Now, like if I try to, if I invite all of them to a zoom that could turn into a master really quickly.So having like two tiers where there's like an engagement tier and a like watch tier, I feel like is kind of a, a good way to do it.Nathan: [00:34:05]Yeah. And it encourages people or like gives people something where they're like, Oh, I've paid for the course maybe before Roman a Day existed. And so I can, you know, come check it out for free and people will appreciate that. what are you changing next time around as, you know, as you work on this, SEO course.Nat: [00:34:23]Yeah. So one thing that I've changed my mind on recently is kind of like pricing psychology with courses. So I think that. I think that you, you can make a lot of money and you can do very well pricing it very high. and I think, especially for cohort-based courses, you have solutions, you should charge a lot, but for self-paced stuff, I'm actually, I've gotten more of the mind that it's better to try to create like a disproportionately incredible course for the price so that there's no reason.For anyone to recommend any other course. So, there are a lot of SEO courses out there and a lot of them are like kind of expensive, and a lot of the inexpensive ones aren't like that. Great. Right. so my, my goal is I'm probably, I'm probably gonna do like a two tier structure, just like I have with the Roam course where there's going to be like a hundred dollars version at $200 version.And for the $200 version, like, I just want it to be like the absolute disgustingly best SEO course out there, where there would just be like no reason for anyone to recommend, like anything else, especially considering the price point. Because I think that once you like, get into that position of like, No, this is just the, of course you take, then that's where, like you really start to get sort of like the incredible long-term like tail benefits from it.Cause I think that like you, what you might lose in short-term revenue, you gain in long-term Mindshare. And it was this interesting thing where like, when the Roam course was only a hundred dollars, there were like so many people taking it. And so many people talking about it on Twitter that it felt like it was everywhere, right?At least in that like very small niche community. But when I increased the price of two 50, like fewer people were taking it, it wasn't getting talked about as much. It felt like. It was LA it had less of the mind share. Right. And so I think there's, there is actually a lot of power in like at least starting very inexpensive building, a huge fan base of people who like, love what you've built and then either never increasing it and maintaining that mind share, or like increasing it later once you've kind of like established a baseline of a lot of people who really like what you're doing.So that that's sort of what I've leaned more towards now.Nathan: [00:36:44]That's fascinating because just as like I got into selling digital products and courses back in 2012, and you know, the common price points were $29, $49, you know, like I had a version of mine that I charged two 49 for, and a lot of that was relatively expensive at the time. Whereas, you know, since then, yeah.Like a $2,000 course is not at all uncommon, you know, and then you, you get some that are cohort based, you know, there might be 3,500 or more in there they're positioning against like a semester of college, you know, or, or something like that. which I think is great. And, and it's enabled a lot of things and you can have, you know, a hundred students and make a crazy amount of money, which is fantastic.But I have wondered if it's going to go the other way as people try to find the sweet spot. So I like what you're saying about the a hundred dollar, you know, a hundred to two 50 price point and really, I guess all that, what are you optimizing for? And at this point you're not optimizing for the absolute most dollars per email subscriber or something like that.You're optimizing for Mindshare and that's a great call app.Nat: [00:37:54]Yeah. And I think that there's also this element too, of like knowing, knowing what you're good at and knowing what you do and do not want to do. And for me, for one, I hate cohort based courses. I can't stand them. like I have nothing against people doing them. It's an incredible model. And a lot of people love it and they should do it.I'm like, I just personally, like I'm crazy add, I can't like say engaged with something for like weeks and weeks at a time. Usually like, I want to download all the information in two days and then run with it. I can't wait. Write, like I was, I was like the most annoying student when I was in second frame of Tiago.Cause I was like, dude, can you just give me the lectures? Like, can I just watch them now please? Like, I don't want to wait until next week. Like, I'm surprised he put up with me because it's a pain in the ass about it. but for me it's like, okay, I know I'm going to do self paced. Right? Like I'm not going to do cohort.And then if I'm going to do self pace, like what in self pace do I not want to have to deal with? And the number one thing is like support, right? I want to, I don't want to have to be like always responding to emails. And I think that if you're like pricing at 500 or a thousand or something for self-paced course, people reasonably assume that you're going to give them some amount of your time.Whereas if you're in the like hundred to two 50 range, I don't think people have that same level of expectation. And honestly, somebody I like look up to a lot in this regard is West boss. because he's got these. Phenomenal programming courses like 25 hours of JavaScript training for a hundred dollars.Like the, the Delta between the value he's providing and the value he's capturing is like insane, but he makes millions of dollars off of his courses. Like the numbers on his site are like honest about how many people have gone through them. Like he's printing money on those. And everybody recommends him because his courses are incredible and very reasonably priced.Like it's a, it's a very, I think underrated model, if you're doing self-paced to just like, create this disgustingly huge difference between what people are paying and what they're getting and let that just like, do all of your marketing for you. Like when I, when I put up the presale for the SEO for solar preneurs on Twitter, a couple of days ago, I got a number of people who were applying, being like, Holy shit, only $97, like that's instant.Yes. Right. And I was like, cool. Okay. That's like the thing that I'm going for here.Nathan: [00:40:18]When it comes to monetizing newsletters, there's a bunch of different paths, you know, like, courses, eBooks, all of that has been really common. People have done sponsorships. I feel like a bunch of them are having, different forms of Renaissance, but paid newsletters are really popular right now with some stack and, and ghost and ConvertKit and everything else.I'm curious, you sort of like dip in both worlds a little bit where you're most, it seems like from the outside, most of your revenue is coming from courses, but then you're also putting content in not your own pain newsletter. Right. But you're putting it in the, every bundle. what's it, what's the reasoning behind that?Nat: [00:40:57]I mean, I, every bundle, I think is just like a cool right Like I love what Dan and Nathan are doing Uh I think that it's so I I had wanted to do some sort of paid writing thing And I try to membership for my site That was a mistake Uh didn't go well for me considered it, for the same reason that I don't like a lot of core stuff.Like I'm, I'm very good at like focusing intensely for a period, shipping something and moving on to the next thing. I'm not good at maintenance. Like I can't sustain stuff very well. and when people are like joining a membership that sort of expecting a certain level of maintenance or like engagement or stuff, and like, I.Yeah, those are the things that I hate most are like doing the same thing week after week. Right. Whether that's even if it's like hosting a different workshop, like if I have a recurring event on my calendar, that's, work-related, it's just like the bane of my week. and so I just, I couldn't enjoy doing the membership, even though there were cool people in there and it was making good money.Right. It's like, I, it was, it was doing like a bit over five K a month when I launched it. And after a month, when it started the second month I like canceled it and refunded everyone. Cause I was just like, I'm sorry guys. Like, I just, I'm not enjoying doing this. Like glad I tried it, but it wasn't the right thing for me.So like that didn't work. I considered doing a paid newsletter, but then I was worried about the same problem, which is basically like, okay, if people sign up for this for 10 a month, then I have to ship something like every week so that they feel like they are getting their money's worth. and I've, I know myself well enough at this point to know that the minute I introduce that, like incentive structure, I'm going to hate doing it.So, what I liked about every was since this is a collective you're, if I don't send something for a few weeks, there's still a lot of other, really good stuff in the bundle people are getting access to. So I don't have to feel like I need to ship on a set schedule in order to like give people their money's worth, because I'm just like a part of a, a broader collective.And so I like that a lot. And I liked it there. Like, it's, it's a very wide variety of topics and they're very like, hands-off with sort of like, just for the most part, letting me write about whatever I want to write about. And I'm also like, I'm definitely the odd one in the bundle and that my newsletter has like no cohesive topic that makes any sense.But that's also like, if anybody knows my writing, they know that that's just like who I am. and so it kinda like fit, like it's good that they were willing to let me do that too. Right. So. It's just like, I think it's a cool experiment and I think that they're going to like grow and it's going to be cool to like, be in that community and it's fun.And it's like, it's a good, it's a good link exercise for writing too. Cause I don't really have anybody edit the stuff that goes on my blog or that goes in my newsletter, but like, they're very good about like editing and feedback and stuff. So it's making me a better writer too. which I appreciate.Nathan: [00:43:57]Yeah, I love the structure that they've put around it. when Nathan was on the show, we talked a lot about the. Like writing process and editorial and, and how to have that group of people where you can riff on ideas with, cause we all do it, you know, but we do it with a random friend who's over for a barbecue and we're like, Hey, we're like testing out, you know, material for another blog post.And, and so to have people who are like Hey there's something here but this draft that you wrote isn't it you know and actually like and say, Hey, if you put a couple more hours into this, it could actually be something that's, that's really good instead of like passable.Nat: [00:44:36]Definitely. Yeah. And they've got like weekly chats for like workshopping article ideas and people, you know, give each other feedback on stuff they're working on. and it's interesting too, because it's like, it's, it's actually a very like politically diverse community. but everyone's very like respectful.And so we can like, it's, it's cool because I think that a lot of publications are, you know, like we're seeing this with New York times and whatever, like they, they become very politically homogenous. Whereas like so far there's like a pretty big diversity of like etiologies, whatever, and the people writing for every, and we're all like, we can, we can disagree very respectfully, like within the discord and like have really interesting conversations about stuff.And so I'm like, I'm hoping that that can like keep up, and it makes the newsletter more interesting too, because I feel like we can write about stuff that, you know, Different people have very different opinions onNathan: [00:45:31]Yeah, how's the money side of it, of at work. Is it driving, any kind of meaningful revenue for you?Nat: [00:45:37]Yeah, it's serving some, I mean, the way it works right now, and actually, Evan Armstrong who writes for napkin math, just put out an article on this, on every blog title is something like, am I, am I getting screwed by every, it was like, it was a clever title where he basically, he broke down the math of how like writers for the bundle get paid and whether or not it makes sense.And so it's like basically you get 50% of all revenue from, people who like sign up and reference you as the reason they signed up. So the bundle costs $20 a month. And everybody who signs up either through my publication or who say that, like I sent them, I'm getting $10 of that revenue. So I think I'm making a bit over two grand a month from it right now.And I think that like, if I, I am, but I'm also like, not that great about writing as consistently as everyone else. so if I like do a better job of that, and honestly, I think that if I decide on a topic to focus that newsletter on a little more deliberately, that's going to help with it too. Cause it is hard to know if it's worth subscribing to something when you've no idea what you're getting.So I'm playing around with a couple of topics to try to like narrow in on over there and then leave my like other Medley of ideas for the newsletter and personal site.Nathan: [00:46:51]What's interesting to me about that is it's like half a, your own paid membership or, you know, paid newsletter and half affiliate at that point. Right. Cause going through your have um you know like there's several posts that you click into and it's like here's the start of it And then go read the rest of it on every um and so that's like you know it's just like go read the rest of it on my paid newsletter But even if you know a few years from now I imagine if you like were ready even less consistently for every you'd still have what's effectively affiliate links driving traffic over and Hey, that recurring subscription.That's interesting.So let's talk about some of the things you're doing offline.One of my favorite things is taking, I think Ryan holiday and I were talking about this at one point of taking like internet money and turning it into tangible, real life things. what are, what are some of your favorite, you know, real world uses of, of internet money?Nat: [00:47:47]There's like, and this goes back to the COVID realizations about like better living. I mean, just spending time outside and away from screens. It's like, I, I, and I think this is a fairly common sentiment at this point. It's like time behind screens is to pay for more time away from screens at this point.So. Like with, you know, during COVID, my wife and I bought like a really nice, like five bedroom house, about 45 minutes outside Austin. on six acres, like in this sort of dense wooded area with this like huge like wraparound porch and just like a perfect house for like getaway parties and cookouts and stuff like that, and built a big fire pit.And we've got like three different grilling apparatuses out there and just like the ideal spot for everyone to like go and enjoy being out in nature. And I think that's been like one of the biggest, like good investments in like quality of life that we've made. I think that like too much gets lost in the, in the financial optimization discussion.Right. Where. You know, you'd probably hear somebody say like, Oh, well, you know, it's actually a really bad like investment to buy a vacation house because you could invest that money in like index funds. And then you could just like rent an Airbnb whenever you want to go do that. And it's like, yeah. But like, then you've got to like find the Airbnb every time and it's like, not exactly how you want it and you don't have all like the grill stuff you want and you don't like, there's just so many downsides to that model that kind of like get lost by just over optimizing for return on capital.So, we're, we're like very pro you know, investing in like ways to enjoy life with friends, outdoors, and been like a lot of little things like that. I mean, also during COVID we like. Did a big renovation on our backyard in terms of like building out a big deck and everything. I got a sauna for back there, which I'm using like almost every day now.And it's awesome. I moved my whole desk outside of it, which is like another awesome quality of life improvement. And it's raining today, which is why I'm like recording this in my kitchen. but like that, I mean, that's such, it's been great. and I think that like, it's really easy to forget how much better it feels being out in nature and having that clean air and that like healthy environment and everything.Until you like get back out there and remind yourself, because it's like, it's something about being in the city and like being in work mode, you forget how much better you feel when you're out there. And then you go back out there and you're there for even 20 minutes until like, Whoa like this is, this is how I should feel all the time.Like, this is better. So how do I get more of this? And how do I remember to go get more of this? Cause it's, it's again, it's really easy to forget when you're in that like downtown work mode.Nathan: [00:50:42]Yeah, I'm, I'm optimizing for many of the same things of like, you know, this evening after work, I'm going to go plant a two acre field with pasture grass, because I've got the, the seed spreader, you know, hooked up that I borrowed from a friend hooked up to my tractor and, you know, we've got like, I don't know, 50 pounds of seed and, you know, that's what we're gonna do this evening.And it's exactly that of like taking a phone call or something. And like, I can go, go for a walk and like, not even leave my own property, you know, as I'm like wandering around talking on the phone or, or anything else. And so it's really fun. And then like, you're talking about as well, having the space to invite friends over, you know, and, and like have the spare bedrooms of like, Hey, come visit.There's there's plenty of room for everybody.Nat: [00:51:29]I mean, it like socialization and like spending time with people is completely different when it's, Hey, come have dinner and hang out for like six hours or the night. And, you know, like really spend a chunk of time together versus what we normally do, which is like, Hey, let's go meet for an hour and a half dinner and then like run off to our next commitment.I think that you can actually get a lot closer, a lot deeper with people and like a single, you know, six hour long hang, then you can get in, you know, months of occasional dinners and whatnot. it's like, it's a, it's a very different way of spending time with people. And I think just like so much more enjoyable.Nathan: [00:52:11]Yep. It's good. we have now I guess, between the two properties that we bought and side-by-side, I think we have like eight. Spare bedrooms from like various houses you know, we can rent out on Airbnb. And so one of my goals is to just have, have more people come visit and stay. And we have a lot of work to do on this property as far as like, you know, there's crazy amounts of bare dirt, everywhere, lots of trees to plants and all that.But that's, that's part of the fun.Nat: [00:52:38]That's awesome. Yeah. And it's like, it's fun doing the work too. It's very satisfying. It's a different kind of satisfying from like working online.Nathan: [00:52:46]Still at the same creative mindset, it just is applied differently when you're, you know, outlining a Roam course versus building a fire pit.Nat: [00:52:54]Yep.Nathan: [00:52:56]Let's see, on the other side, I'm curious about things. Well, so from following you online, you have this interesting balance between like lots of things that are optimized, Write being the rum, Roam Research guy, you know, you're, you've got all the systems dialed in, you know, I remember you talking about.You, I, I think you and your wife talking about perfect pitch, you know, and you're like, Oh yeah, I have an article somewhere. You know, like, let me go dig it up. You know, I've researched this and like how to develop, how kids can develop perfect pitcher, you know, any of these things, right? You have extensive research and, and things that are heavily optimized.And then you also have like this whole other side of your life where it's purposeful under optimization, you know, where, you're either saying like you're getting out of your agency and stepping back from that, you know, you don't strike me as the person. Who's trying to make the most amount of money in every area of life, or so I'm curious, how do you think about that?What are the things where you're like, this is what I'm going to have dialed in, and this is the area where maybe you're even actively preventing yourself from, optimizing some of those things. Yes.Nat: [00:54:02]Yeah. I think a lot of it comes back to, for lack of a better term, just like being kind of stubborn and like selectively lazy in the sense that I think that, I think that when I was a kid, you know, my parents would always say like, well, you're going to have to do stuff that you don't want to do. And I think there was part of me that was like, I'm going to show you.Right. Like I bet I can figure out a way to like, not do most of that stuff. and I think like realizing that the point of accumulating capital was to like, Design your life in the way that you want it. And not just to like accrue more capital, it was like a very helpful realization in maybe in college or something.I guess I had a lot of friends or peers who were going into these like wall street careers, where they were working 60, 70, 80 hour weeks and making great money, but just like being miserable. And, you know, I started down that track and then realized like, yeah, I don't think this is for me. I'd rather like, you know, control my time more and get to do what I want.And I think that's just always been like a very helpful driving force for me, where it's like, I'm not going to optimize for like dollars in the bank. I'm going to optimize for, you know, free time on the schedule and like the ability to do whatever I want to do, work on what I want to work on. Right. It's like I'm spending probably six hours a day right now, just like programming and learning more coding and development and learning about crypto and stuff.Because like, that's what I'm really curious about right now. And I think that I like. I can do really, really good work and I can make really, really good stuff when I'm very interested in it and very like compelled to do it. But the minute someone like tells me to do something or the minute I feel like I have to do something, my like quality of output and everything just like goes through the floor.And I'm like, like, I'm the worst possible person that you could hire. and I think that like accepting that about myself and trying to like work with that, being my personality instead of like fighting it and trying to. You know, operate in the normal ways was like very, very helpful for like, you know, both work success, but also like psychological health Riley.I think that for basically all of high school and early parts of college, I thought that there was like something wrong with me. And I was like messed up because I didn't care about grades and I couldn't focus on schoolwork and, you know, like I thought this was dumb and didn't like it, and you know, it was just like always this source of tension in my life.And once I kind of said like, like, fuck it. I'm just going to figure something else out. It, like, everything just went a lot better. So, you know, like even even dumb stuff now, right? Like it's like, yes, I should. You know, obviously I have the time to like do my laundry and clean my house, but like, I don't want to.And, and so we like hired a nanny who comes and helps us out, like once a week and, you know, like, Takes care of all, all of that stuff. And it's just like being very okay with, not with optimizing, for like living in a way that's like in line with how my brain works versus trying to like maximize, you know, finances or like, you know, do what you're supposed to do or whatever.I think it's just like, been very, very helpful. So I try to just like focus my time on the very few things that I'm legitimately good at and can actually focus on versus like trying to do everything right.Nathan: [00:57:37]Yeah, that makes sense. A question that comes to mind for me is, is balancing. Like not wanting to have commitments or be told what to do or that sort of thing, which I can very much relate to with like, pre-selling a course, you know, some people have this problem where they, I think Derek Sivers talks about like, not telling people you're going to do something before you do it, because you've gotten part of the dopamine hit saying like, I'm going to do the same because like, wow, that's amazing.That's so cool that you're going to do that, you know?And, but then you haven't, you know, you haven't done it yet. and so, especially when you're, pre-selling something right, you now have this obligation. Is that not a problem that you run into? Are you able to like, just power through and, and meet the obligation or does it trigger some of those feelings?Nat: [00:58:22]No, that's a, that's a really good question. and I think that the reason it works is that it's an obligation I want. Right. It's like, I, cause it's funny, like at the same time that I'm really bad at doing things I'm told to do. I'm also really bad at like, Shipping stuff. If there isn't some reason to ship it, if that makes sense.So like, I respond very well to peer pressure or like having other people who are committed to the same things as me. So I find like, you know, workout buddies, like that works very well or committing with somebody to, you know, doing something for a month, whether that's, you know, not drinking or like whatever, like that all works very well.And I think that's because those are commitments that like I want and things that I want to do, but I might not have enough like willpower or focus to do on my own. So, you know, with the course stuff, like I've been talking about doing an SEO course since January, and it was on my like list of things to do this year.And I like had even I'd put out a tweet of, like two months ago saying like, Hey, I'm gonna do this sign up for the email list to like, know when it comes out. But like, none of those were enough to actually like get me to sit down and do it, whereas like. Something about collecting money is a very, very effective, like stick, I guess, for actually like making the initial progress.I think that like part of it is it's something that I want to do, but it's very easy to procrastinate on because it's like, Oh, I can always do it later. I can do it later. I can do it later. But once I've like put a line in the sand, had some people commit to it, then I can like make a lot of progress really quickly.But you're you're right. That's kind of like a funny, like, comparison or like example, or I don't know what the exact term would be, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like this weird dichotomy I can't do. I can't think of things that other people tell me to do, but I can do things that I tell other people to tell me to do.Nathan: [01:00:26]I think we're all or everyone who has creative output and is working in that way is, is looking for like, how can I like through crafting my environment, my friends, you know, understanding my own motivations and all that. How can I like harness this mind and body into doing the things that I want?Like did I say I want to do, but are actually hard, you know? And so it sounds like you've found a lot of those of like, for you, that is a tool that works, you know, you build up this momentum of like, okay, I want to do this now. I need a reason to do it now instead of, you know, later this year or next year or never.Nat: [01:01:06]months. Yeah, exactly.Nathan: [01:01:08]Yeah. That's good. as, as we wrap up, I'm, I'm curious a bit more your relationship to goals, and maybe I'll go with a different question. our friend clay Aber has a question that he likes of, if we were to meet

Neil Soni is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business. Neil spent years with startups, focusing on the sales and marketing side, trying to sell into large organizations. He then moved to Estee Lauder, where he specialized in external innovation. After seeing both sides, Neil wanted to create a resource to help startups understand the corporate side and corporations to understand the startup side. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with Neil about how to succeed through corporate/startup collaboration. Previously, Neil led the growth team at MomTrusted.com, a social marketplace for early education with over 3 million users. Prior to MomTrusted, Neil founded CollegeZen, a social platform for high school students, peer mentors, and colleges. This effort caught the attention of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which named CollegeZen one of the worldwide winners of the College Knowledge Challenge. Neil was named a Finalist for Entrepreneur Magazine's College Entrepreneur of the Year award for his work at CollegeZen. Neil works with a variety of groups in the innovation ecosystem, including startups, venture funds, accelerators, and large brands. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's Chemical Engineering program.     Music Used: A Journey Through The Universe - Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/a-j-t-t-u Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/YQCeqy0mleg

A word on Apple and holding off on updates. CHP clocked the driver of a Camaro traveling 142 MPH. A California ski resort is changing its name in an effort to be less offensive. Postmaster General DeJoy does not fair well in the hot seat. Tue 8/25: Hour 2 Photo by Neil Soni (https://unsplash.com/@neilsoniphotography?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/s/photos/iphone?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

Neil Soni has built, grown, and created new ventures – both within the world’s largest brands and as an independent entrepreneur. Neil is currently the Founder & CEO of Unlimited Brewing Company, the world’s first platform for customizing and personalizing beer. He also runs a growth and innovation consulting practice, which helps startups and Fortune 500 companies partner and invest in cross-industry technology and commercial opportunities. Neil is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business.In this episode, you will learn:-how unexpected email breaks led to new ventures-how taking notes after a new job ending up starting an unexpected book launch-how companies are increasingly wanting to work with freelancers-the importance of also creating products, in addition to your freelance workAs always, this episode with time-stamp notes is available on my website

In this episode, Beauty Business School host & Poshly.com founder Doreen Bloch speaks with Neil Soni, author of The Startup Gold Mine. Neil speaks about his background in the cosmetics industry, his entrepreneurial journey and his advice for startup founders, especially related to M&A activities. "This is the best time ever to be a beauty entrepreneur..." - Neil Soni

Taylor Ryan, CMO of Valuer.ai, talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, about Startup-Corporate Matchmaking. Valuer.ai matches startups with corporates, accelerators, and investors based on AI and crowdsourcing. Key points - Valuer.ai - HQ in Denmark. Taylor Ryan, from the US, is a six time co-founder, writer, growth hacker, and startup junkie. - Corporate/Startup matchmaking new to Europe. - Customized searches on Valuer.AI combines Crowdsource and data collection to find the right startups both locally and internationally.  - Uses qualitative data of founders to determine if startups are investible.  - Finding different skill sets of founders - data, block chain and finance are skills corporates are looking for.  - Internal corporate innovators can use to find new ideas.  - Need more education on looking to startups as long-term solutions for problems within corporations. - Trends in startup world - Different European hubs have different flavor. - Drift in European Tech to go after 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - Corporate Social Responsibility. For More Information For more information or to connect with Taylor, check out Valuer.ai  For similar podcasts, check out: Ep. 131 - Sean Moffitt of WikiBrands & Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace Ep. 142 - Neil Soni, Author of The Startup Gold Mine and Estee Lauder Innovator Ep. 152 - Acceleprise’s Olivia O’Sullivan on Investing in Corporate/Startup Collaboration Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play. FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Taylor Ryan, CMO of Valuer.ai, talks with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation founder, about Startup-Corporate Matchmaking. Valuer.ai matches startups with corporates, accelerators, and investors based on AI and crowdsourcing. Key points - Valuer.ai - HQ in Denmark. Taylor Ryan, from the US, is a six time co-founder, writer, growth hacker, and startup junkie. - Corporate/Startup matchmaking new to Europe. - Customized searches on Valuer.AI combines Crowdsource and data collection to find the right startups both locally and internationally.  - Uses qualitative data of founders to determine if startups are investible.  - Finding different skill sets of founders - data, block chain and finance are skills corporates are looking for.  - Internal corporate innovators can use to find new ideas.  - Need more education on looking to startups as long-term solutions for problems within corporations. - Trends in startup world - Different European hubs have different flavor. - Drift in European Tech to go after 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - Corporate Social Responsibility. For More Information For more information or to connect with Taylor, check out Valuer.ai  For similar podcasts, check out: Ep. 131 - Sean Moffitt of WikiBrands & Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace Ep. 142 - Neil Soni, Author of The Startup Gold Mine and Estee Lauder Innovator Ep. 152 - Acceleprise’s Olivia O’Sullivan on Investing in Corporate/Startup Collaboration Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play. FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Neil Soni is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business. Neil spent years with startups, focusing on the sales and marketing side, trying to sell into large organizations. He then moved to Estee Lauder, where he specialized in external innovation. After seeing both sides, Neil wanted to create a resource to help startups understand the corporate side and corporations to understand the startup side. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with Neil about how to succeed through corporate/startup collaboration. Pitfalls of Corporate and Startup collaboration - Different timeframes - Size of deals    Incentive structures for partnerships - How comfortable is the corporate team in innovating? If comfortable, they’ll have a higher tolerance for misses. Look at the entire portfolio. - Companies that allow intrapreneurship, give employees new outlets to thrive.  Should you expose corporates to startups? - Inside large companies (10,000+) it’s an echo chamber. They only see direct competitors. - Need someone looking outside at competition. Expose the corporate team to new ways of startup thinking.  - Startups also get exposure to see how their tech can apply to different domains. In The Startup Gold Mine Book - Understand what is going on behind the scenes. What is your corporate counterpart doing?  - How is your colleague rewarded or punished? Are they paid for the home run? Are they new to the company?  - Corporations have been very interested in the book to shed light on the startup side.  - Reduce the language barrier between corporates and startups.  To connect with Neil go to neilsoni.com or on Twitter at @therealneils. You can also get his book, The Startup Gold Mine on Amazon.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:   - Ep. 98 – Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth - Ep. 96 – Chris Shipley at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit 2017 - Ep. 63 – Dave Knox with The Brandery and Ep. 64 – Dave Knox part 2 - Ep. 45 – Michael Docherty, Author of The Lone Wolf Innovator Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Neil Soni is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business. Neil spent years with startups, focusing on the sales and marketing side, trying to sell into large organizations. He then moved to Estee Lauder, where he specialized in external innovation. After seeing both sides, Neil wanted to create a resource to help startups understand the corporate side and corporations to understand the startup side. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with Neil about how to succeed through corporate/startup collaboration. Pitfalls of Corporate and Startup collaboration - Different timeframes - Size of deals    Incentive structures for partnerships - How comfortable is the corporate team in innovating? If comfortable, they’ll have a higher tolerance for misses. Look at the entire portfolio. - Companies that allow intrapreneurship, give employees new outlets to thrive.  Should you expose corporates to startups? - Inside large companies (10,000+) it’s an echo chamber. They only see direct competitors. - Need someone looking outside at competition. Expose the corporate team to new ways of startup thinking.  - Startups also get exposure to see how their tech can apply to different domains. In The Startup Gold Mine Book - Understand what is going on behind the scenes. What is your corporate counterpart doing?  - How is your colleague rewarded or punished? Are they paid for the home run? Are they new to the company?  - Corporations have been very interested in the book to shed light on the startup side.  - Reduce the language barrier between corporates and startups.  To connect with Neil go to neilsoni.com or on Twitter at @therealneils. You can also get his book, The Startup Gold Mine on Amazon.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:   - Ep. 98 – Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth - Ep. 96 – Chris Shipley at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit 2017 - Ep. 63 – Dave Knox with The Brandery and Ep. 64 – Dave Knox part 2 - Ep. 45 – Michael Docherty, Author of The Lone Wolf Innovator Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

The premiere episode of Agile Giants. Host Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits down with author and entrepreneur Neil Soni.     Author of the book "The Startup Goldmine," Neil and Sean discuss the hidden innovation agendas of large companies to grow your business and how Neil's insights apply to both startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.    Show Links:   Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/   The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Gold-Mine-Innovation-Companies-ebook/dp/B07C622VRY    Learn more about Neil http://www.neilsoni.com/    Learn more about Sean https://www.seanammirati.com/ 

In this episode, I am chatting with Neil Soni about how he took a pain point that he found in the beer industry and brought to market an innovative solution. We are going to go into how he discovered this opportunity, how he validated the solution, and how he is growing this startup in the highly regulated space of alcohol distribution. You can learn more about Neil's by visiting his personal site at neilsoni.com Other Links: Unlimited Brewing: www.unlimitedbrewing.com His book, The Startup Goldmine: https://amzn.to/2DrBQcA Some other things discussed in this episode: www.airtable.com #Four ways you can support this podcast: Take a screenshot of this podcast and send it to a friend who may like it I am doing a drawing for a free hard copy of The Side Hustle Journal for every 5 iTunes reviews. So if you want a chance to win, leave a rating and review on iTunes or Apple podcasts and send me an email at hello@gritandhustle.co. Detailed instructions on how to do this are at www.gritandhustle.co/review Take your side hustle to the next level by implementing a sales funnel to turn your passive website visitors into paying customer with ClickFunnels, the #1 sales funnel software in the world. You can get a free trial by going to www.gritandhustle.co/profit If you are interested in podcasting, which is the fastest growing content medium in the world, head over to www.gritandhustle.co/podcastingmadeeasy to enroll in my course now. If you have an awesome side hustle that you would like to share with the world, I'd love to have you on my podcast. You can schedule a podcast interview by going to calendly.com/gritandhustleco/guest

Subscribe on Itunes   News Digest The News Digest is a roundup of the latest talking points in the events industry designed to keep you up to date and get you involved in the discussion. Leading the debate, we have:   Charlotte Gentry formerly Wilson, Founder and CEO of Pure Events Edward Poland, Co-Founder of Hire Space Guest: Julian Saipe, Director of Zafferano   OLIO LAUNCHES FOOD SHARING APP How can the event industry tackle its food waste problem?   DESTINATION MARKETING Should there be greater collaboration between destinations?   AGENCIES NEED TO START CHARGING FOR THEIR SERVICES Will we see them charge for venue finding?   Let us know your thoughts and join the discussion on Twitter with the hashtag #EventLAB.     Inspired Experiences   We spoke to three people involved in creating exciting experiences that we reckon will thrill guests. If you’re an event planner or planning an event soon there’s certainly some inspiration to be found here.   Unlimited Brewing Unlimited Brewing specialised in creating bespoke beverages. Their services are popular with restaurants and events looking to take a new approach to engage their guests. We spoke to Neil Soni about how you can use personalisation and bespoke elements to better tell your brand's story at an event.   clueQuest clueQuest is a company that runs escape rooms - fully immersive puzzle experiences designed to be solved by a team. The first escape room opened in Tokyo around seven years ago and today there are around 3,000 operating globally. We spoke to Alexis King about escape rooms as team building activities and what events can learn about audience engagement.   Draughts London Alongside immersive experiences like escape rooms, cities are seeing a rise in activity based venues with trendy spots like Flight Club, Bounce and Puttshack offer games like Darts, Ping pong and Mini-golf to create a more experiential way to socialise over places offering more traditional hospitality. Alongside these activities, board games are seeing a massive surge in popularity and dedicated board game cafes are opening up across the country. We spoke to Draughts, a board game Cafe in Hackney to find out whether the unique social experience of playing a board game is something that could be incorporated into events.   Mentioned in the Episode City Harvest   Plan Z Heroes   Olio   Puttshack   Bounce   Flight Club   Anomalous Visuals   Conference News   James Heappey   Follow EventLAB For the latest EventLAB news and information on upcoming live events check out eventlab.online.   Pre-Register for EventLAB 2018 Tickets   You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram.   If you have a question or topic you'd like us to discuss, you're opening a new venue or you're an events professional interested in appearing on the show, you can get in touch with us via email: Eventlab@hirespace.com   Music: « Little Idea » from Bensound.com

“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

“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

 “Order and chaos are the yang and yin of the famous Taoist symbol: two serpents, head to tail. Order is the white, masculine serpent; Chaos, its black, feminine counterpart. The black dot in the white—and the white in the black—indicate the possibility of transformation: just when things seem secure, the unknown can loom, unexpectedly and large. Conversely, just when everything seems lost, new order can emerge from catastrophe and chaos. For the Taoists, meaning is to be found on the border between the ever-entwined pair. To walk that border is to stay on the path of life, the divine Way. And that’s much better than happiness.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and I discuss​ 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. In his book, Peterson –a professor at the University of Toronto, and a practicing psychologist who has spent his life studying mythology psychology, religion and philosophy– writes about discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. "Winning at everything might only mean that you’re not doing anything new or difficult." We cover a wide range of topics, including: Free speech and the nature of truth Why post-modernists are right… to an extent How to be a winning lobster Positive feedback loops and your own heaven and hell Why danger is important Appreciating the moment but planning for chaos And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a book whose concepts will similarly change your outlook, as well as our episode on The Power of Myth, to further learn the power of mythology can be relevant to our everyday lives.   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: Peterson’s Patreon page [5:21] C-16 Amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Bill [5:40] Interview with Peterson on Joe Rogan's podcast [06:23] Pareto distribution [13:21] Virtue Signalling [17:05] Positive Reinforcement Loop [30:20] Mushroom Coffee [31:28] Perfect Keto [31:28] Ship of Theseus [34:40] Slaying the Dragon Within Us [38:35] Self Authoring [49:57] Growth Machine [54:21] Greatness All Around Us by Neil Soni [55:18] Space X’s Falcon Heavy [1:01:47] Positive reinforcement training [1:13:55] Voldemort Effect [1:19:11] Crony Beliefs Podcast by Kevin Simler [1:20:37] BlackRock [1:22:34] Columbine Killers [1:25:05] Puja [1:34:32] The Marshmallow Experiment [1:36:16] Cain and Abel [1:38:42] Entropy [1:48:47] Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber [1:58:20] The Office - TV Series [2:00:51] Dominance Hierarchy [2:05:16] Jumanji (2018) [2:07:39] Jordan Peterson on the Jocko Podcast [2:32:03] Psychological Significance of Biblical Stories [2:32:13]   Books mentioned: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene [03:20] (Nat’s Notes) Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson [04:23] Emergency by Neil Strauss [13:59] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott [16:12] Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter [16:57] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester [1:00:20] Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson [1:02:58] The Inner Game of Tennis [1:07:21] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Letters from a Stoic by Lucius Annaeus Seneca [1:07:44] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio [1:08:14] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Work Clean by Dan Charnas [1:09:44] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:10:55] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Finite and Infinite Games by James C. Carse [2:03:10] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Emoji Dick by Fred Benenson [2:28:53] Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [2:29:43]   People mentioned: Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, @jordanbpeterson Charles Darwin [09:30] (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea episode) Jacques Derrida [10:22] Charles Murray [19:26] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [26:39] (Antifragile episode) Sam Harris [38:20] Dave Rubin [38:20] Winston Churchill [1:00:20] Elon Musk [1:01:47] (on this podcast) Jeff Bezos [1:01:47] Naval Ravikant [1:02:19] Steve Jobs [1:02:42] Lucius Annaeus Seneca [1:07:44] Carl Jung [1:09:13] Dan Charnas [1:09:48] Kevin Simler [1:21:25] Laurence Tosi, AirBnB’s ex-CFO [1:24:00] Karl Marx [1:40:20] Ray Dalio [1:43:39] (on this podcast) Robert Greene [1:43:47] (on this podcast) Daniel Tosh [2:01:53] Louis CK [2:01:53] Chris Rock [2:01:53] Alfred Adler [2:08:35] Sigmund Freud [2:08:35]   Show Topics 01:00 - The title of the book is misleading, and surprising if you know Peterson’s other work. But don’t judge a book by it’s cover, this is a very detailed and valuable work.   03:39 - Peterson is a practicing psychotherapist and also a lecturer. He’s has spent most of his life studying religion and mythology. 05:26 - Peterson’s notoriety because of his opposition to a bill in Canada that essentially makes calling somebody by the wrong gender pronoun a hate crime. He was opposed on the grounds of free speech and argues that you can’t compel anyone to use any specific word. 07:11 - Peterson fights against the post-modernist idea that nothing is true, everything is subjective. He believes that postmodernism has taken the idea of subjectivity and pushed it too far.   09:00 - Math is something we’ve discovered, not a human invention. Fundamental nature of numbers is unchanging. Argument linking math and logic to patriarchy and power.   11:14 - What is the goal of the postmodernists? If you continually tear down the hierarchy then at some point the oppressors become the oppressed.   12:41 - Communist China is what you get if you tear down an authority that is there due to the natural order. There will always be a Pareto distribution. If you try to perfectly level the playing field you end up with a controlling regime.   17:05 - Peterson is harsh against virtue signalling. Is the goal of most postmodernists just to 'look moral'?   18:11 - Science should not be ideology driven. It's still science. Nobody wants to talk about sex and race in terms of science. Charles Murray example where he researched IQ differences across different races. He proved there were differences and he's been treated as a bigot because of this.   22:50 - Peterson does a great job at maintaining what the science says about us as humans. What that means in what we should do in our day to day.   25:12 - The rules of the book come off as simple but there's a lot of rich material underneath them. The titles of the rules are there to remind you of the big idea, as easy to remember snippets.   27:03 - Rule 1: Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back. How lobsters are similar to humans. How to look like a winner. Positive reinforcement loop. Head off depression.   31:28 - Sponsor. Hack your physio-psychological behavior by waking up at the same time every day and have breakfast. Get some mushroom coffee and keto from the MYT support page. Support the podcast and you'll become a winning lobster.   34:40 - Lobsters brain reaction when losing. All the cells in your body recycle every seven years. The ship of Theseus: if every cell in your body is different in seven years are you still the same person?   38:00 - Breaking out of the negative loop. Slaying the dragon within us. Problems get bigger until you acknowledge them.   40:16 - The subjective truth is still truth. Rules don't become useless because there is an exception to them. As Peterson says, the truth is fluid.   43:23 - Noah; predicting floods doesn't count, building arks does. If you get your house in order now, when total chaos comes, you'll be ready.   44:03 - Rule 2: Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible for Helping. Internal tyrant - we are too harsh on ourselves. The result is that we inevitably rebel. Our two selves end up hating each other.   45:48 - Prescriptions for medicine for pets gets filled much more frequently than medicine for humans. People better at taking care of their pets than they are of themselves.   47:57 - Think about what is good for you rather than what would make you happy. What might my life look like if I were caring for myself properly?   50:35 - Rule 3: Make Friends with People Who Want the Best for You. One bad apple spoils the bunch example.   51:30 - If you have friends who are obese or who smoke there is a higher chance you will become obese or start to smoke! Normalising effect, it's not bad it's just what everyone else is doing. You become the five people you spend the most time with. Be selective!   55:02 - If your friends do good, you do good. If you live in a place where there are a lot of people you don't want to be like, read more books, like Andrew Carnegie and Jay-Z.   1:00:29- Rule 4: Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday, Not Who Someone Else is Today. Comparing to others is a fallacy, you always lose. No matter how far along you are you'll still have someone to be jealous of.   1:02:19 - Naval Ravikant: Being jealous of someone is really silly because you can't pick and choose parts of someone else's life. Steve Jobs was miserable, he never enjoyed his money.   1:03:50 - Sponsor. Take a shot of Kettle and Fire Bonebroth.   1:04:21 - Feeling good when you find something bad of someone who you are jealous. If you always win or always lose, it's no fun, but a video game at just the right difficulty is perfect. Similarly, comparing yourself to who you were yesterday is the perfect opponent.   1:07:44 - Seneca: Don't compare yourself to what others have, compare yourself to who you were before. Grand Theft Life! Control the machine, don't operate it.   1:09:19 - Most people don't find God because they don't search low enough. There's an ideal to reach for in everyday life.   1:09:48 - Daily practice is a version of God in the everyday and mundane. Gratefulness journal. Figure out what things make you feel better. Your emotional response. Dopamine and serotonin.   1:13:42 - Rule 5: Do Not Let Your Children Do Anything that Makes You Dislike Them.   1:13:55 - Positive reinforcement training. Attention as a currency of reward - effective reinforcement in humans. If you ignore people, they'll quickly understand that they shouldn't repeat whatever it was that made you ignore them. Beware of conversational one-upmanship.   1:16:43 - If someone does something you don't like, just tell them.   1:19:28 - People tie ideas to their identity and get offended. Some can't hold two competing ideas in their head at once. If you get emotional about an idea, that's generally a bad sign.   1:20:37 - Crony Beliefs. If you react to information with disgust or outrage that’s a sign that there's some belief you hold which is not based on logic and reasoning. In-group acceptance, virtue signalling, desire to be accepted.   1:24:18 - Trojan Horse strategy. A lot of hyper-feminist young men do it as a way to get in with women. Weasely.   1:25:05 - Rule 6: Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World. Columbine killers said the world is so bad, it shouldn't exist, they want to burn it all down and take everyone with them. All of us, on some level, have these impulses when things don't go right.   1:27:04 - Make your bed, create order and not chaos. Take ten minutes and get back to inbox zero. Part of your brain is latently working on it, so work on it yourself. Set aside times for worrying and forget it the rest of the time.   1:30:13 - Extreme ownership, don't worry about what anybody else did wrong or what other people could be doing, focus on what you can do. Don't rail against society. You have to recognise the monster within you in order to really be a good person.   1:32:14 - Floods are going to come, it's your fault for being unprepared. Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean you shouldn't have a plan in place.   1:34:08 - Rule 7: Pursue What is Meaningful (Not What is Expedient). The role of sacrifice in ancient societies.   1:35:09 - Preparing for the future. Giving up greater comfort now for something further down the line. Ceremonies as reminders.   1:36:14 - Kids who were able to hold off eating a marshmallow as they would get two later did better in future life. Delayed gratification. Sacrificing impulses leads to richer life.   1:38:42 - Cain and Abel. Sometimes sacrifices are rejected and we don’t know why. There’s wisdom in fairy tales. “Religion is the opiate of the masses”. Do what’s meaningful and not expedient.   1:42:14 - Rule 8: Tell the Truth, or at least Don’t Lie. Lean towards truth instead of trying to tell a story. Acknowledge the problem. Problems are often improved by simply talking.   1:43:39 - Dalio: An honest interpretation of the world is necessary. Robert Greene: Interpret the world honestly. We run from scary truths but knowing the truth is almost always better. If there’s a problem you’re not acknowledging, your brain interprets it as the sum of all the possible problems. Dragons or squirrels.   1:45:14- You can’t just tell the truth to other people, you also have to tell it to yourself. Entropy: things tend towards chaos. Things will go wrong if you don’t do anything about them. One state of order, infinite states of chaos. Do the dishes.   1:51:33 - Rule 9: Assume that the Person You Are Listening to Might Know Something You Don't. 3 categories of conversations: exchanging information; one-upmanship; mutual meditation. Figuring out what the map looks like.   1:54:36 - Most people can be interesting if prompted the right way and if you’re actually listening. Try saying something controversial. If you don’t talk about it, that encourages people not to talk about it. The tyranny of the minority. Be willing to offend people.   1:58:37 - Differences in interests between men and women. We have to be honest before we can talk about the implications of things. How we as conscious beings can recognize negative urges under the surface and still function in society.   2:00:46 - Part of the job of comedy is to be on the edge of order and chaos. They’ve found the line and they know how to walk it. They say what everyone is thinking! Playing with boundaries as Infinite players.   2:03:09 - Rule 10: Be Precise in Your Speech. Don’t mold your opinions to try to get approval from those around you. Be honest. Deal with that as it comes. Be open to being corrected.   2:04:28 - Rule 11: Do Not Bother Children when they are Skateboarding. Initially confusing. Danger has a value in teaching kids. Adult efforts to make children safer are often misguided. Let people fail.   2:06:15 - There will always be a dominance hierarchy. This danger and experimentation is how we find our place in it. How we expand in it. The hierarchy is a natural result of us testing ourselves. You can’t have equality and freedom. There are many different hierarchies.   2:06:54 - The pursuit of goals is what makes life meaningful. There is no reason to have goals if there’s nothing to win at. You can’t create meaning if you can’t strive for anything.   2:09:04 - Controversial topics that shouldn’t be. Use of personality as an excuse from taking care of yourself. Be healthy and make yourself more desirable. Removing danger is dangerous.   2:11:14 - We use our middle school years to figure out the rules of society. Two year-olds aren’t malicious, they’re just testing the limits.   2:12:28 - It’s important for men to be men. Women will find 85% of men below average in terms of attractiveness. To be attractive, be the best version of yourself you can be.   2:14:11- Life competence matters. There should be true rewards for success, and true consequences for failure. People need to be able to fail. Pain is useful.   2:15:36 - Peterson’s comments are tailor made to get taken out of context. Example of “women can find meaning in childbirth” and “the pay gap”.   2:17:29 - The game that we’re measuring when we measure income is just one game, and is not meaning for life. There are other places to find meaning. Women express alternative places they can derive meaning. Reverse societal pressure to say that some women are “too good” to want to raise a family.   2:21:36 - Sponsor. Perfect Keto pizza!.   2:22:08 - Women can win in men’s arenas. Men can’t win in what are typically considered women’s arenas. Men get flak for being in traditionally female roles (e.g. nurse, school teacher).   2:23:48 - Rule 12: Pet a Cat When You Encounter One on the Street. There are going to be a lot of horrible times in your life so when you get the opportunity to experience something good you should take it.   2:25:09 - Cats are the most perfect metaphor for nature, for being. They interact with humans but are not as fully domesticated as dogs are. If you pet a cat you’re getting an opportunity to appreciate being and nature. The dog will always run up to you and be happy to see you but that is not how reality is. Mutually assured non-destruction.   2:27:30 - Gratefulness. Appreciate a good cup of coffee or time with your family. Times are great right now but they won’t always be. Enjoy not being in chaos. Don’t be a turkey.   2:30:16 - Returning to chaos and order. We rise to the level of our training. Get into improving habits while the world is still in order.   2:32:13 - Don’t just sit at home watching YouTube, go and do something damnit! Is Peterson a heretic? He’s figured out how to monetize haters.   2:51:30 - Sponsors. Drink Mushroom Coffee from Four Sigmatic with cordyceps and chaga for evening working out. Go to Perfect Keto for your keto needs. Check Perfect Keto’s new liquid MCT oil good for pre-workout. Kettle on Fire’s Bone Broth is excellent to get back in your diet. Buy Jordan Peterson’s book and everything else using our Amazon link. Leave a review on iTunes. Subscribe to the email list for bonus materials and more tangents. Tell people. 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.”

“It’s never going to be easier to just learn and to make little money, than when you’re young and in the beginning.” In this episode of Nat Chat, I’m joined again by Neil Soni to do another one of our book deep dives, this time on Mastery by Robert Greene. Mastery is the best book that either of us have found at becoming a master of your craft, getting mentors, learning through experience, and reaching the top of your field. If you’re serious about self education and becoming known for your work, there are few better books that you could read to help get you there, and we covered many of the key lessons in this episode. This is also an exciting episode because it’s the launch of mine and Neil’s new podcast: “Made You Think,” which is dedicated to exploring books, articles, topics, and anything that set our minds on fire. The past episode on Antifragile was extremely popular, and this episode was a ton of fun recording, so we decided to run with it. Be sure to check out Made You Think to hear our episode on Letters from a Stoic, as well as listen to our Antifragile episode if you haven’t already. In this episode though, we covered: Finding your purpose and achieving skill mastery Reconnecting with your inner self Strategies for improving your life and progression Avoiding common mistakes that hinder growth Enduring pain to increase mental resilience Breaking through learning plateaus Remaining patient and trusting the process Improving your social intelligence to communicate better And much more. Enjoy! If you want more on Mastery, be sure to check out my notes on the book and pick up a copy yourself. And don’t forget to check out Made You Think for more podcast episodes like this one. If you enjoyed our discussion on finding a mentor, you’ll love my episode with Charlie Hoehn, where we talk about how to find your dream mentor. You’ll also like my episode with Justin Mares and my episode with Taylor Pearson, where we talk about apprenticeships, mentors, and more. If you’re a fan of long term learning and self-discipline, you’ll enjoy my episode with Scott Britton. Mentioned in the show: Made You Think podcast How to Become an Expert in Any Skill Tinder RTS games Fountains of Bellagio Procter and Gamble No Shampoo, No Conditioner article How To Get Up To Speed In Any Industry… Quickly article Candy Crush Deliberate Practice article Mattan Griffel Crucial Conversations Slideshow MomTrusted Morning Pages Cryptocurrency Teachable Neil’s brewing company Books mentioned: Mastery by Robert Greene (Nat’s Notes) Letters from a Stoic (Made You Think Episode) (Nat’s Notes) Antifragile (Nat’s Notes) (Nat Chat Episode) Excellent Sheep (Nat’s Notes) (Nat Chat Episode) Siddartha Deep Work (Nat’s Notes) Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind  (Nat’s Notes)               What Every Body is Saying The 48 Laws of Power (Nat’s Notes) Crucial Conversations The Art of Learning (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Robert Greene Neil Soni (Nat Chat Episode with Neil) Leonardo da Vinci Napoleon Bonaparte Charles Darwin Thomas Edison Martha Graham William Deresiewicz (Nat Chat Episode with William) Chaz Giles Justin Mares (Nat Chat Episode with Justin) Scott Adams Seneca Ernest Hemingway Michael Faraday Ignaz Semmelweis Peter Thiel Ankur Nagpal 2:03 - Start of the discussion. Nat discussing the layout of the book and how you can benefit from it. 7:58 - Anyone can become a master. Nat and Neil on the first steps to achieving mastery and on the first phase of the book, the apprenticeship phase. 12:10 - Focusing on your personal tendencies that hint at your purpose and thoughts on becoming more connected to yourself. 16:55 - Nat and Neil on Greene’s three steps for trying to reconnect with your calling and finding work that you truly enjoy. 19:14 - The large number of potential jobs that are there, but aren’t always easy to find. A few examples on this from Nat and Neil. 22:04 - Looking at your career as more of a journey with twists and turns, rather than a straight line. Also, some more ideas for finding the things that you’re really interested in. 27:27 - Speaking on learning everything that you can and then detailing the first steps of the apprenticeship phase. 33:12 - Discussing the importance of deliberate practice, deep work, and avoiding distractions to achieve optimal efficiency with your work. 36:47 - Greene’s strategies to help you complete the apprenticeship phase and for getting the most out of it. 40:22 - Trusting the process, not setting artificial metrics for yourself, and taking the harder options for more growth. 42:35 - Properly implementing feedback from your failures, the importance of trying different things, and broadening your skills. 45:25 - The necessity for having a mentor and learning from them.53:05 - Choosing the correct mentor, avoiding common mistakes with your mentor, and advice for properly learning from them. 59:20 - Developing social intelligence and improving your ability to navigate personal interactions. 1:06:01 - Strategies to acquire social intelligence and advice for better connecting to others. 1:10:20 - Advice and steps for thinking beyond those initial guidelines, sparking new creativity, and continuing your learning beyond the constraints of the skill. 1:19:58 - Strategies for avoiding emotional pitfalls, maintaining patience, and continually improving yourself. 1:26:18 - Giving yourself an environment to be creative and to actively explore contradictions in yourself and in the world at large. 1:28:35 - Fusing the intuitive with the rational and achieving mastery, seeing the world as it really is, and really trying to understand other’s perspectives. 1:35:17 - Wrap up and some final thoughts on the book. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast and remember to check out Made You Think at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

Made you think is a podcast from Nat Eliason and Neil Soni dedicated to exploring big ideas from old books, new technologies, great speeches, and anything else that will stretch your brain muscles. Here's what the show is all about.

“If something doesn’t fit or feel right, it is ultimately not what we want to do or want it to be. It’s okay to say ‘I’m going to do something else." In this episode of Nat Chat I’m joined by Chris Chaney. He currently runs Chaney holdings, which is a combination of sports marketing and financing for sports related companies and teams. It all started when he graduated from college. He’d dreamed of working in the NBA, but when he got there, didn’t feel like it was the right fit, and quickly left to start his own sports marketing agency. He’s continued pursuing his interests, working with all kinds of athletes from basketball players to competitive video games, and followed his interests out into seemingly unrelated fields like startup investing and dinner experiences, which we start the episode by discussing. If you feel like you have a hard time picking one thing and sticking to it, like I do, Chris is a perfect example of someone who has taken that extremely diverse set of interests and built it into a company and lifestyle that’s successful and exciting for him. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Sports marketing and niche sport industries Career diversity as a form of leverage Unique targeting methods companies use on you Improving your networking and outreach skills The future of technology and what it means for the jobs market And a ton more. Please enjoy, and reach out to Chris on Linkedin! Mentioned in the show: Medieval Times LA Live Madison Square Garden Theater Psychographics Princeton University Adidas Under Armour ESports League of Legends Counter Strike Hearthstone Dota 2 New York Mets DARPA SEO Books mentioned: Ready Player One (Movie trailer) The Rational Optimist People mentioned: Neil Soni (Nat Chat episode with Neil) David Stern Show Topics 1:11 - Introduction to Chris, him detailing his journey through various industries and some of the important takeaways he received. 6:01 - Chris’ unique dinner attraction industry, some background on it, and how he started the business. 11:37 - Chris discussing what psychographics is, going in-depth on various ad targeting techniques used on people, and how companies use your personal data. 16:44 - How Chris would introduce himself at a cocktail party, him talking about his venture into eSports, and discussing what e-sports are in detail. 24:21 - The financial aspects of eSports and what Chris is currently working on in the eSports industry. 25:23 - How long Chris has been in the sports market and some of the things he’s done in that. 28:37 - How Chris got involved in the sports world and him detailing some of the things he’s accomplished. 35:14 - Chris speaking on how he earned the money to fund his entrepreneurial projects and speaking on his job with the NBA. 39:11- Chris’ experience with sport tech startups and him being introduced to niche sports. 42:27 - How Chris found investors for his projects. 45:55 - Chris’ process for great networking and him speaking on becoming more versatile with working in many different types of industries. 50:06 - How Chris reaches out to others and his perspective on doing that in a professional manner. 56:15 - How Chris’ passion for entrepreneurial type projects developed and his thoughts on quitting the wrong job. 1:06:16 - What Chris would pursue outside of the sports industry. 1:10:03 - Which book Chris would recommend to others and Nat and Chris’ thoughts on the future of technology. 1:15:44 - Wrap up and where to find Chris online. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast

“Perhaps being deprived of poison makes us fragile and the road to robustification starts with a modicum of harm.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb This is a new, experimental format for Nat Chat. Normally, I’m interviewing someone who broke out of the traditional college and post graduate career mold, but for this episode, I wanted to do something different. Neil Soni, who came on for Episode 7, rejoined me to do an in-depth breakdown of the book “Antifragile” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It’s a book that has come up repeatedly as having a huge impact on people’s thinking and is one of both of our favorite books. For me, Antifragile completely changed how I thought about work and life, and I use the concepts from it daily. It highlighted why the education system is so broken, how recent grads can get caught by “silent risks,” why we need to stop being so soft on ourselves and others, and a lot more. Neil and I tried to cover many of the major themes of the book and how to apply them. You’ll learn a lot from our discussion, including: Why you should build up your tangential skills to become more versatile with your work. The importance of incorporating small, positive lifestyle changes to become more robust in negative situations. Letting yourself feel negative emotions and experiences for personal growth. Why you should let your plans be more of a guide, instead of a restriction from other choices. How you can get luckier through positive luck exposure. Techniques for turning procrastination into productivity towards other things Enjoy! And if you want more on Antifragile, be sure to check out my notes on the book and pick up a copy yourself. Also, if you enjoy this episode format, please let me know on Twitter. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show: You Can’t Say That Because You’re White No, Soylent isn’t Healthy. Here’s Why Bitcoin Welcome to Extremistan. Don’t Be A Turkey (Taylor Pearson) Benefits of Fasting Mom Trusted Estee Lauder How to Plan Your Ideal Day (Taylor Pearson) Optimizing for Optionality (Taylor Pearson) No Shampoo Article No Soap Article Study on Glove Bacteria Transfer Books mentioned: Antifragile (Nat’s Notes) Black Swan (Nat’s Notes) Traction (Nat’s Notes) People mentioned: Nassim Nicholas Taleb Neil Soni (Nat Chat episode with Neil) Barbara Streisand Milo Yiannopoulos Charlie Hoehn (Nat Chat episode with Charlie) Taylor Pearson (Nat Chat episode with Taylor) Justin Mares (Nat Chat episode with Justin) Gabriel Weinberg Show Topics 2:20 - Nat and Neil begin to explain the core concepts in Antifragile and discuss various examples of antifragility in today’s culture. 13:05 - Some thoughts on fragile and antifragile work environments. 15:38 - Various fragility contributing risks that you may be exposing yourself to and some lifestyle variables you can improve to promote personal antifragility. 20:40 - Nat and Neil speaking on recognizing potential vulnerabilities in your career. They are also discussing the importance of building up tangential skills to become more robust and versatile with your work. 23:08 -  How incorporating small stressors into your life can radically improve everything you do, and Nat touching some on a few of the health benefits from intermittent fasting. 35:24 - The importance of recognizing naive interventionism to allow you and others to experience possible, necessary life stressors to promote personal growth. 50:02 - Why you should try to let yourself feel your emotions naturally to learn and grow, instead of immediately turning towards artificial resolution. 54:57 - Benefiting from moments of procrastination and turning procrastination with one thing into productivity towards other things. 1:00:38 - Nat and Neil talking about Taleb’s barbell strategy; practicing extreme risk aversion or extreme risk loving in various situations, rather than taking consistent moderate risks. Also, going into detail on making wise investments with your wealth. 1:06:49 - Becoming more antifragile with your wealth and peer relationships by applying the barbell strategy to those areas. 1:09:43 - Letting your plans be more of a guide and not letting them restrict you from other opportunities. 1:16:40 - Spending more time experimenting with something and failing, rather than learning about it from a set of rules or someone else before experimenting. 1:21:15 - The importance of having a high optionality in various aspects of life to promote antifragility, especially with having time available for beneficial opportunities. 1:28:36 - Nat and Neil speaking on creating more optionality for yourself by removing the unnecessary and being aware of more naive interventions. 1:42:11 - Some closing thoughts from Nat and Neil on “Skin in the game”, which is making decisions based on if you have exposure to the downsides and upsides of those decisions. 1:45:47 - Wrap up and a quick overview of some healthy stressors you can incorporate into your own life. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast “Whenever there’s a problem, the first question shouldn’t be, ‘What do I add to fix it?’ but rather, ‘What can I remove to fix it?’”

Butterflies of Wisdom is a podcast where we want to share your story. We want to share your knowledge if you have a small business if you are an author or a Doctor, or whatever you are. With a disability or not, we want to share your story to inspire others. To learn more about Butterflies of Wisdom visit http://butterfliesofwisdom.weebly.com/ Be sure to FOLLOW this program https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wins-women-of-wisdom/id1060801905. To find out more about Challenge Aspen go to https://challengeaspen.org. To find out how Win walk and about Ekso go to http://www.bridgingbionics.org/, or email Amanda Boxtel atamanda@bridgingbionics.org.   On Butterflies of Wisdom today, Best-Selling Author, Win C welcomes Neil Soni. Neil has built, grown, and created new ventures – both within the world’s largest brands and as an independent entrepreneur. Neil currently runs a growth and innovation consulting practice, which helps startups and Fortune 500 companies partner and invest in cross-industry technology and commercial opportunities. He is also the founder of Unlimited Brewing Company, the world’s first platform brewery. Before starting his consulting practice and Unlimited Brewing Company, Neil led the growth team at MomTrusted.com, a social marketplace for early education with over 3 million users. Before MomTrusted, Neil founded CollegeZen, a social platform for high school students, peer mentors, and colleges. This effort caught the attention of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which named CollegeZen one of the worldwide winners of the College Knowledge Challenge. Neil was appointed as a Finalist for Entrepreneur Magazine’s College Entrepreneur of the Year award for his work at CollegeZen. Neil works with a variety of groups in the innovation ecosystem, including startups, venture funds, accelerators, and large brands. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s Chemical Engineering program. To learn more about Neil visithttp://neilsoni.com/. To find out more about Win Kelly Charles visit https://wincharles.wix.com/win-charles. To follow Win on Twitter go to @winkellycharles. To support Win on Instagram go to winkcharles. To assist win on Snapchat go to Wcharles422. To see Win's art go tohttps://fineartamerica.com/profiles/2-win-charles.html. "Books for Books," you buy Win's books so she can purchase books for school. "Getting through school is a 'win' for her fans and a 'win' for her."Please send feedback to Win by email her at winwwow@gmail.com, or go to http://survey.libsyn.com/winwisdom and http://survey.libsyn.com/thebutterfly. To be on the show, please fill out the intake at http://bit.ly/bow2017. Butterflies of Wisdom sponsored by Kittr a new social media tool that is bringing about new ways of posting on Twitter. It's fun, full of free content you can use, helps you schedule at the best times, is easy to use, and it will help you get more followers. Visit Kittr at gokittr.com. This is a 20% off code forwww.gracedbygrit.com. The code will be XOBUTTERFLIES. If you would like to support Butterflies of Wisdom go to https://www.patreon.com/wcharles. If you want to check out what Win’s friend, Dannidoll, is doing (a.k.a. Dannielle) go to https://www.facebook.com/dannidolltheragdollclown/?notif_t=page_invite_accepted¬if_id=1492366163404241. To learn more about Danielle visit http://www.dancanshred.com. To learn about the magic of Siri go to https://www.udemy.com/writing-a-book-using-siri/?utm_campaign=email&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email. If you want to donate Butterflies of Wisdom, please send a PayPal donation to aspenrosearts@gmail.com or aspenwin@gmail.com. Please donate to Challenge Aspen or the Bridging Bionics Foundation. Please send a check in the mail so 100% goes to Bridging Bionics Foundation.    In the Memo section have people write: In honor of Win Charles. Please donate to the charity of your choice thank you in advance, Win.   Send to:   Challenge Aspen PO Box 6639 Snowmass Village, CO 81615 Or give online at https://challengeaspen.org.   Bridging Bionics Foundation  PO Box 3767 Basalt, CO 81621   Thank you Win

“Trust the process, follow your curiosity, and don’t get to wrapped up in what other people are doing.” - Neil Soni In this episode of Nat Chat we have Neil Soni. Neil and I originally connected over Twitter a few years ago as members of a startup incubator alumni network. While Neil was an undergrad, he started a company called “College Zen” to help prospective students get matched up with current students to get a real feel for the school. That startup didn’t work out, but the people he met and the experience he got from it turned into his next few roles, including his most recent work, as an “innovation consultant” for Estee Lauder. I wanted to talk to Neil for a few reasons: He’s had an extremely varied career during and after college, from starting that first company, to leading growth at another, to doing this innovation consulting, and now starting a beer company of all things. He is one of the more well read people I know, and draws deeply from history, philosophy, and science in his discussions. These can lead to really wide ranging discussions on anything when we talk, and our catch ups tend to run about as long as this interview. And he’s also great at testing ideas while maintaining safe alternatives. He was able to try out a number of startup ideas while doing his consulting work, giving him the best of both worlds. A steady income he could rely on, but also the flexible hours he needed to test startup ideas. Now that one’s working, he’s able to leave with much more security than he would if he were jumping in blind. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Optimizing for learning versus wealth Testing startup and business ideas How Neil has landed such interesting work roles, and what an “innovation consultant” is Developing skills on your own, marketing or otherwise How Neil chooses what to read, and how he learns from the books he reads What Neil did and would have done differently with his college education Philosophy, psychology, books, podcasts, blogs… you name it Please enjoy, and reach out to Neil on Twitter! Find Neil Online: Twitter Instagram Neil’s website LinkedIn Mentioned in the show: Estee Lauder AlphaLab Mom Trusted No Wait Y Combinator University of Pennsylvania Carnegie Mellon University Unlimited Brewing Company Ideo Amway Neil’s article on commodity versus luxury Procter and Gamble Booz Allen Dangers of Ibuprofen and other NSAIDS Gen Next People Naval Ravikant Tim Ferriss John Keay Books Mentioned 33 Strategies of War 48 Laws of Power The Secret Count of Monte Cristo   Infinite Jest The Book of Five Rings Everything is Obvious The Image Complete Joy of Homebrewing Happy Accidents Meditations Letters from the Stoic Discourses Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Atlas Shrugged Fight Club (Neil’s recommendation for students) Antifragile Podcasts Mentioned Jocko Joe Rogan Hardcore History Sam Harris Tim Ferriss 2:12 - Intro to Neil, what he currently does in the cosmetic industry, and how he got his job. 11:53 - How Neil started his first company, College Zen. 23:36 - Neil moving on from his startup onto working with Mom Trusted and what he ended up doing afterwards. 26:10 - How Neil learned to test his company College Zen and his first experience with entrepreneurship. 30:48 - Neil speaking on himself currently starting up Unlimited Brewing Company and it’s mission. 34:33 - What Neil learned about companies while working for Estee Lauder. 44:03 - Neil on optimizing for learning and optimizing for wealth. 48:04 - Neil speaking on the importance of networking and providing some tips for reaching out to people. 56:41 - Neil on commodity versus luxury and why it’s important. Neil’s article on this here. 1:05:00 - Neil speaking on the habit of reading, thoughts on books, and some book recommendations. 1:19:59 - How Neil chooses which books to read and his perspective on learning things from books. 1:30:15 - Neil speaking about spending time on grades in school versus learning skills. 1:36:12 -  Neil speaking on “safe” volatile jobs versus spending time on learning valuable skills that translate well to numerous companies. 1:44:08 - Neil’s experience with his parents on making the choice to focus more on skills and projects rather than getting better grades. Also continuing to speak on learning valuable skills that you can be more versatile job-wise with. 1:51:23 - Neil’s experience with depression while being a student and as a post-grad. Also speaking on the importance of being open while connecting to people. 2:01:07 - Neil and Nat speaking on the power and value of stoicism. 2:10:20 - Neil’s learning experience with the use of crowdsourcing projects and having people invest in companies going bankrupt. 2:17:10 - What Neil would have done differently in college knowing what he currently knows and on how what you learn in college can translate loosely into real world field work. 2:31:19 - Which podcasts Neil thoroughly listens to and some of his favorites. 2:34:40 - Neil’s favorite failures and what he learned from them. 2:40:27 - Neil’s one book recommendation to incoming freshmen at Carnegie Mellon University. 2:48:12 - Neil’s last thoughts and some advice he wished he had as a student. 2:50:30 - Wrap up, where to find Neil online, and a last piece of wisdom on Neil. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast “In college, you’re paying other people to teach you, but in the real world you can get paid to be taught.” - Neil Soni

Brian recently sat down for a conversation with Chaz Giles and Neil Soni who are the global heads of external innovation at the Estée Lauder Companies. Both Chaz and Neil use their vast and varied startup experience to cut through the more cumbersome processes of corporate innovation to find meaningful and useful insight on products with an ever-present focus on the customer. They also discussed the ongoing changes in venture capital culture and what these changes mean for startups. Continue the conversation with Chaz and Neil on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chazgiles and https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilsoni or at http://intrapreneur.co/ For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy