The Motivation to Grind

Hello and welcome to another episode of Not Over Thinking. Tamel, how are you doing today? I'm doing great man. I'm here, we're having my morning time with the baby girl. She's, she only got to sleep about, we were meant to start recording at 8am and normally by like 7am she's already asleep in here but she was like quite awake until that 740 so I was worried that she might not fall asleep but she did fall asleep in the end and so I know we can't stop you. Nice. How's it going? I'm good. I'm having a bit of a moment that I need some therapy with so I was hoping you can be my therapist for this. Great. What's up man? Basically. What's the point? Okay, in particular, what is the point on the hustling front? I feel like we need mags for this because we've been doing some annual planning and stuff and whenever we do annual planning or any kind of planning for the business. I'm always a bit like, what's the goal? What's the point? Like what's the point really meaning like what's the goal? You know, we'll do a few million in revenue and a couple million profit this year and like we did the same last year and the year before and the year before. So it's sort of like, should we have a revenue goal? Should we have some other kind of goal? Well, it's even the point. Yeah. I feel like in a way, I feel like I wake up in the morning and I don't have a reason to grind basically. I used to have a reason to grind back when I had a day job because the reason grind was the ability to escape the day job. Now that I'm coasting along in this comfortable thing of basically making the same, you know, taking a title which is a sort of video I would have made five years ago as well and just sort of talking to a camera and like doing the thing, we make a stupid amount of money from sponsors and we have a course and stuff. It's almost like too easy and it's like, I feel like I'm in this, I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut around. I just have no reason to grind. I don't want to do I need a reason to grind. I'm just going to show this chill out, but I kind of like, you know, there's a book I bought from a book shop recently by Chris Galloway called The Happiness of Pursuit. I think there's definitely something there around. There is profound happiness in pursuit, pursuing a goal that feels meaningful. Yeah. You're like, I don't really have a goal that feels meaningful right now. What do you want to do? Okay, nice. Yeah, that's a good discussion topic. Let me, I'm just finding a tweet that I read that I bookmarked which I thought was really profound and like really spot on. Okay, here we go. Okay, so this is a tweet from Emmett Shear who was the founder of Twitch TV and he was, he was for one weekend, he was the CEO of OpenAI. Oh, right. I got it. That sound was all outstanding or something like that. Okay. So, some other guy on Twitter posted about how, oh yeah, so some other guy on Twitter did it, did it tweet about how in grad school, I think he was doing a math degree or something. In grad school, he really felt like he maxed out his sort of cognitive ability. Like he really hit a ceiling of like, a smotness or his subject or whatever. That then became like the bottleneck for him to be able to proceed any further. He was like, okay, I've like, you know, I'm fully maxed out on this. I can't, you know, I'm not going to be better than this at math or something or whatever subject was, electronic engineering or something. And like it's because I'm just, you know, I just don't have the cognitive force power. And he was saying that other people like no one, no one like granted him this. Everyone else was saying like, oh no man, you just didn't want it enough or like, you know, you just didn't know the right way to study or something like this. Like no one believed him when he was like, look, I'm cognitively maxed out and that's why I'm, you know, that's why I can't sort of make any more progress on this thing. And then Emmett had a good reply, which I mean, I don't know if this is maybe, I don't know whether the supplies, the original guy or not. But I think this is so true and I see this in so many places and like definitely in my own life. Emmett said most people have never hit their cognitive ceiling nor have they hit their effort ceiling. So most people have never actually reached the true limits of their like, you know, call it mental potential or even the potential of their effort, you know, the first ceiling most people hit is clarity and consistency of intention. Okay. And I think that is so true. Like the, I mean, definitely in my own life. I never, I mean, yeah, I never feel like I don't feel like I have ever, I think that the biggest bottleneck is always clarity and consistency of intention. And it feels like, you know, that's your kind of at this place where like, you're not, you know, it's not like, oh man, I'm, you know, I'm just too dumb to grow the business anymore or like, you know, I, you know, I'm giving it 23, 24 hours a day and I kind of, you've, you've, it seems like you've lost the, the, well, maybe the consistency of intention of like, hey, I really care about getting up and getting up and doing this thing. And so I thought I thought that was a helpful thing just to like put some words to it. No, that is very good. I think there's, that's definitely true. And like the team of notices this as well, very, like, I'm very, like every quarter or else or so, I'll sort of either make a radical change or, well, it's not really radical, but like a big change or a small change in the direction of the business based on how I'm feeling or based on like what, what the most recent book I've read is and things like that. And one thing Garrett said on a latest team retreat, which was a team offsite technically, which was, because apparently for the, it's a team retreat, you can't claim it back with attacks expense, but if it's an offsite, it can't. It's a good thing this isn't being recorded. The last thing that Garrett said on a team offsite is that, you know, to be honest, we could make anything work as long as we stick to the plan for long enough to see it work. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's very true. We could make anything work as long as we stick to the plan for long enough. Yeah. But I think sort of plan is downstream of goal. And I often feel like the, I waver on what, what the goal even is. Yeah. Because sometimes I have periods of my life where like, like for example, at the start of this year, January, I was in living at home in St. Albans with nothing to do other than like go to the gym first thing in the morning, grind work, work all day, meaning it was a way in Pakistan for like some period of this time. There were like builders in the house. And so I was just like completely locked in and it was the winter and I was in St. Albans getting to London was a bit of a fath. And I was like, great. I feel like I have all this excess capacity. Let's grow the business of 10 million revenue or whatever. And I was like, that felt like I have not like a, you know, an arbitrary goal, but like a goal that I was pursuing nonetheless. Yeah. And then we did some stuff and we were like, okay, well, we're probably not going to hit this year, maybe we'll hit it next year or whatever, build the infrastructure and stuff. And then I'm kind of realizing that actually in order to get it to 10 million, I'm going to have to do a bunch of extra work and stuff. And I'm like, do I really want to be doing that extra work? And it's sort of like, when the goal and the plan and the effort required to hit the goal feel like misaligned. Yeah, yeah. And like, do I need to be doing this shit? Like what? It's kind of kind of arbitrary goal anyway. Yeah. And somewhat, somewhat, somewhat relatively, I recently joined a squash club here in Hong Kong. And I've kind of set myself a bit of an arbitrary goal to sort of a proximal goal to play for the club squash team, which would require me to really do my game. And that would require me to have squash lessons a few times a week and also do a shit ton of like leg days at the gym and lunges and glutes and hamstrings and flexibility and all the leg days stuff that I don't enjoy. But there's something about that. Or I feel like, you know what? Yeah, it's arbitrary. But it's kind of nice to have that clarity at least for now. I don't know who the consistency remains to be seen. But the clarity of intention of, I want to play for the club team. And then once I'm there, I'll worry about, do I want to play for like division one or division two or like, you know, working my way up the ladder. And even though it's arbitrary and meaningless, it still feels like a worthwhile thing to aim for. Knowing that it will require me to do hard things and knowing that like hard things that will require me to do are generally good for me anyway because like doing more like they will probably be good for my life. Yeah. But I don't feel like I have that as a relates to the business, like this clarity of intention. Yeah. Yeah, I mean definitely one thing I've noticed with you. And I was, I think after I watched your recent like, you know, big, your big annual life update video where you talk about like just everything in your life and what you're thinking. I feel like every year you kind of flip flop from like, oh man, you know what? Oh yeah, it seems like once a year you have an epiphany where you're like, you know what? Like I don't, I shouldn't be like beholden to the business. You know, I should be able to just do what I want. I need to like release the shackles that I've put myself in and not really, you know, not care about like doing all this stuff with my calendar. And you know, I'm in, you know, make the business work for me, not me work for the business of something. And so you have that epiphany and then also about once a year you have the epiphany of like, oh, you know what? I just met like Mr. So-and-so at whatever conference or something, every treat or something like that. And you know, he's doing his business is doing actually. XYZ, ABC. And you know what, I thought, wow, that'll be really cool if we could get the business to that thing, you know, thingy. And like, yeah, now I think, you know, we're going to grow the business man. And then you kind of, I'd say over the last like three years, you've kind of like flip flopped between, you know, between these two things where like, there'll be a period of like six to 12 months where you're in one mode and then there'll be a period of like six to 12 months where you're in the other mode. And then you'll kind of have the counter piphony not long afterwards. Is that, does that feel accurate? Yeah. I think you know, it sort of feels like the two things with the pendulum are, I have enough and I want more. Yeah. Or something like that. The analogy that came to mind the other day, I was chatting to Tintin and one of our team members about this around like, it's a bit of a grandiose analogy. So forgive the grandiose analogy. But you know, like, if you were like the emperor of Rome and you were like, you know what, I've got a good thing going here. You know, Rome is doing well. It's good vibes. We're sort of good culture, good philosophy. You know, we've got Socrates. With the Roman, it was a great thing. It was a great, whatever. We've got, we've got the right, you know, we're doing the plays. But you know what, we really cool. We're good to conquer that area over there. You know, let's extend ourselves and sort of expand the empire. And then maybe you conquer the thing over there and then you realize that actually, you know, they're kind of repelling a bit and you know, they're not paying good. Yeah, that was more headache than it was. I had a good thing going when I was just thinking about Rome and like attending the, you know, the whatever, the plays and the musicals and the parties. And so, you know what, let's just sort of continue. The idea to battles, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the closer you are, all of that jazz. And then like six months later, after chilling out and recovering energy from, you know, it's like, you know, last time we made the mistake when trying to conquer those people and that we didn't tax them enough. So we're going to try again. We're going to tax them all this time because we've learned from the mistakes. You sort of extended it and they're like, actually, you know, I had a good thing going with Rome and sort of this kind of flip flop between expansionism and contractionism around like. I want more versus I have enough. Yeah. And like, yeah, a bit of a, sometimes I flip flop quite significantly. Sometimes it's more like I can see the edges of the spectrum of flip floppy-ness. And I'm somewhere in the middle and I sort of make minor tweaks as things are going, feeling as if I'm always sort of balancing on this. Yeah. Edge. Um, yeah. But what's usually the, I mean, what's usually the thing that makes you do the flip flop? Is it like you meet someone who inspires you to kind of do what they're doing or you read a book or something? Um, I think it's actually less that it's more that. Okay. It's more that when it's okay. So the thing that takes me towards that I want more thing is usually a case of having excess kind of mental energy and thinking. Right. What shall I marshal this creative or mental or whatever energy towards? Shall I marshal it towards learning how to draw? Shall I marshal it towards reading philosophy? Shall I marshal it towards joining a rating, guild and World of Warcraft, the latest expansion? You know what? Actually, if I look at all the various things I could do honestly just trying to, trying to grow the business actually feels quite, you know, that's, that's the video game that I kind of want to play. Rather than playing an actual video game. It's like, you know, this is actually quite fun. It's like, you know, creative. You get to learn, learn new things, get to speak to cool people, you can grow the business. And then the points that you get for growing the business is like actual money, which can then be cashed in for stuff in the real world, not just like a sword or something in World of Warcraft. And so it becomes like a, it's almost like, I don't know what else to do with all this excess energy. So I may as well grow the business kind of energy. And that is often twinge with a sort of scarcity around like, well, if I just sort of chill out a bit, you know, there's no guarantee that the YouTube channel will keep growing. There's no guarantee the business will work. We'll keep on growing right now. The sign is shining. So should, should I also be making hay while the proverbial sign is shining. I was like, hmm, okay, growing the business makes more money, makes the back account more secure. And also it's kind of fun. So let's just do that. And that's where I go into the kind of expansionism territory. Okay. And then usually the thing that takes me back is recognizing that like on route to the expansionism territory, I have. You're some boring stuff. I have to do some boring stuff or I've created the conditions that sort of now have curtailed my free. I've cashed in some freedom for the sake of growing the business where the outcome of growing the business is to be able to have freedom. So it's like, wait a minute. Yeah. That's sort of circular kind of thing going on there. Yeah. But isn't the, well, with regards to the like, make hay while the sunshine thing isn't one of the good things about being like a YouTuber or whatever that you can just kind of like do whatever you're finding interesting right now in your life and just make videos about it. And people will, you know, people will consume the content. Like, you know, if you decide, okay, I don't, you know, I'm kind of done with the productivity stuff. You know, I made that hay while the sun was shining. Now I'm like, you know, interested in. I don't know, playing squash and reading philosophy or playing World of Warcraft or something. Like, it's not like you'd, it's not like the YouTube would die. It's just like you're doing a new thing and making different kinds of videos. Or is that, is that feel too risky? Yeah. So, you can't just like, there's videos that there's sort of this imagined event diagram. There's like a circle of videos that get lots of views. And then there is videos that I want to, I, the videos that I'm interested in, I'm interested in making. And there's not 100% overlap between those things. There's like maybe a 20% overlap between those things. Okay. And so, for example, this year in 2024, I kind of leaned more towards videos that I want to make. Whereas last year, I would lean more towards videos that will do well. Because last year, I had the goal of like, maximizing views so that we could get the book onto the New York Times list or whatever the thing was. And this year, we have got where our views for the year are down maybe 10%, 15% compared to what they were last year. Yeah. And we were doing a bunch of analysis on this, on the channel and all that stuff. And basically it came down to, oh, well, if we want to get more views, we should just make more videos that are more likely to get views. More videos that, that quote the audience wants or that, that are working on the algorithm these days, which is just the audience anyway. So it's like, it comes down to the epiphany I had in last year's life update video was, you know, where, as a seasoned sorry, it goes up to Frank Ocean at a party. And he says, hey, Frank Ocean, man, how do you do it, man? You like, release songs whenever you feel like it, you drop a new album, you never do any press, you never do any publicity. You're like living the dream, man, like, how'd you do it? And Frank Ocean's like, it's easy. You just got to be comfortable making less money. That's all. And as easy as this for I was like, whoa. And I think about that a lot because it's like the price of freedom, freedom in this case, making the content that I want to make or like going pro squash or like going pro world of walker off player. The price of that is actually the money. Yeah. Because it's very unlikely that the next thing that I will do will be as monetizable as the thing that I'm currently doing because the way you make money, you know, do more things works. And so that way are kind of. Yeah, the more money thing also comes into this, all of this sort of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it sounds like it's worth digging into the money thing. You know, if the business is making a couple of mill and profit every year, then presumably like, I mean, is it? You don't, it's not like you, it's not like you want to buy a yacht or something, right? Like that can fund whatever you possibly care about. Yes. Right. Yeah, except me buying a house in Hong Kong, but yeah. Yeah. So yeah, why do you, why does it feel like the money sacrifices worth it? Because if I was, if I was like, yeah, if I, if I felt like, okay, I'm comfortable financially, let's say I have like a day job or something and I have a good salary and come to a financially. And I had the option of taking like three months unpaid leave every year. I would probably take it, you know, I wouldn't be thinking, hmm, well, I'm for going some money, you know, to take this three months unpaid leave to like travel or sit around or just do some random thing. Um, and I think in, I think you would also do the same. Right. Like, of course, you take the three months unpaid leave if you were financially comfortable and there are people in these positions. I know people who do this kind of thing. So why does it, why does your current situation feel different to you? I think maybe the scarcity thing comes into it where you're like, oh man, like it would be so bad if like the money, the money machine just like stops rotating. Yeah. I think that is it. It's sort of like, yeah, I think, I think partly it's a, I feel like the economics of a YouTuber are similar to the economics of an athlete in that you have a few years to really, you have a few years in your prime, there are almost no YouTubers who like are consistent. Like, you know, there's a life cycle of a YouTuber. There's a writer, a writer, and then a sort of full, as it were. And I. Sorry about that break everyone. The baby's gone back to sleep now, so she's fine. Let's see how long that lasts. Okay, so we were talking about the life cycle of a YouTuber. How long have you been doing the usual thing now? Like six years or seven years? Seven years now. What. like, what. Why do you feel like the life cycle is short? It feels like Logan Paul's been doing it for a long time, and Mr. Beast and stuff. Or there's guys too much of our allies. I think there's too much of our allies. I think it's very rare. Like, you have to constantly be innovating to. Stay. Well, again, it depends what metric you use. Yeah, you do. I think in the ward of like personal development as well, there's like. Like, Mr. Beast and Logan Paul are working really, really, really hard to maintain their dominance, their ascendancy or whatever, whatever you want to call it. They're like really, really grinding at it. Each year, the platform becomes more saturated. Each year, the barrier to entry becomes lower and lower. There's also a bit of a life cycle around in the field of personal development, in that an audience may get into it at a certain stage of their life. And then fairly quickly, they'll hear all of the things that need to be heard in their space, and will then actually implement them or not, and will get turned off personal development. So there's like a natural churn to the interest of the audience. And as, you know, in the early days of my channel, I was pretty. I was almost purely documenting what I was doing. And it was very relatable because I was a student, and there's a ton of students. And then there was like, I've got a day job, and there's tons of people with a day job. And now, like, what I'm doing is trying to grow the business from 5 million to 10 million, which is immediately like 0.3% of the population of like the US, for example, who are just winners in category. And so, as my own evolution leads to a natural shrinking of the audience, and also the platform dynamics and stuff, do I could try and play the game of chasing the views like Mr. Beast and Logan Paul do, not in a like a derogatory way, but just like, I like actually optimizing for views as the number one thing. But that would essentially be, if you want optimized for views generally, you go broader market, you go more beginner, you skew younger, because the economics and dynamics of YouTube, the platform favor that sort of thing. So it's just like, again, comes down to the goal of like, is that what I want? If it is the game I'm playing, then I will, you know, I back myself to be able to play that game, but do I want to play that game? Yeah, which then feeds into the money thing around like, okay, well, what's the price of the price of freedom, or the price of being able to actually do what I want? What is James Clear up to with his life? James Clear is working on his next book. He writes his newsletter. He mostly is very, spends a lot of time with his kids, takes the kids to school, drops them off each day. I work from like, 10 to 3-ish, only does stuff that he feels like he wants to do. He does like one speaking gig a month and sort of caps it at that, and is just make it absolutely printing cash from his book. His advice on this, because I was talking about this a few, like a year ago or so a few months ago, was draw a box around the lifestyle that you want, and yeah, draw a box around the lifestyle that you want, and then within the work box, optimize for profit within that, and kind of do what it takes. But he was like, start lifestyle first, and then kind of optimize profit within the box. So, yeah. Let's go back to the money thing. Because obviously, you don't really need any more money. You could just chill on your current money for the rest of your life if you want to too. No. Like sure, you wouldn't be able to buy as big a house or something. There'd be some constraints, but you could very comfortably just rest and rest. Oh, sorry, I'm actually going to give the baby away now. Sorry. Okay, I'm back. Yeah, so on the money front, let's say you just decided to completely piece out, just shut down the business, whatever savings, whatever money the business has in the bank right now, et cetera, that's it. What would you be worried about? Would it be like, okay, this would limit the house I'd be able to buy. Would it be like, okay, then I'd probably have to start to be budgeting, practically speaking. What seems worrying to you if you decide it, okay, the amount of money I have today is the amount of money I would have, and I have to survive with this for the rest of my life. Okay, good question. What would be worrying about that is, I would need to downgrade the house that we're renting because that's probably on sustainable over the long term. I would have to start thinking about like kids' school fees and stuff. You know, we're leading towards homeschooling anyway and things, but like, you know, that sort of stuff. That is about it. I would stop flying business class if I'm going to places. Okay, yeah. I'll grade the MacBook every few years rather than every two years. I'll be sure of that kind of stuff. Okay, so I mean, you know, for example, having to like downsize the house and stuff like this, that seems like a significant thing you'd be giving up. Obviously in like the grand scheme of things, it's not that, but like, yeah, on the sort of personal level, yeah, I can see why that feels like, okay, you know, ideally I wouldn't have to do that. Okay, so then if you, you know, so the business makes like, let's say, two million a year in profit every year right now. And let's say you decided, okay, I'm going to like, just make the videos I want to make, do the podcasts I want to do, and if the audience likes it grades, if not like, I'm not too fast. Let's say you did that. And that means that the business now makes one one million a year in profit. Does that seem, does that seem like a reasonable assumption? Yeah, yeah, probably, I mean, I'm pretty sure for at least the next few years we can do a million a year in profit. Okay, cool. Yeah. And then if that's the case, then you you don't have to like, downsize your house. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it would just be a case of being comfortable going from two to one or yeah. So then what's the, what's the worry at that point? So like, let's say you go down that path, when you think about it, what is it like, oh man, I wouldn't be able to do that or like, you know, oh, I'd have to like figure this thing out. Do the mind get to. I think my mind goes back to the scarcity thing around like, yeah, it's like this weird thing of like, yeah, but what if it all comes crumbling down? What if what things come down? Well, yeah, that's a question. What am I? the baseline is like, you can you can have your comfortable life and in a slightly smaller apartment or something. Yeah. And then if you continue the business, then you can just keep doing all the stuff you're doing is the worry that like that millionaire in profit would just be unsustainable and it would slowly go down to zero or something. Yeah, well, sort of, I mean, but if I if I really think about it, if I free it in a world where I only only did the things I wanted to do, we would still very comfortably make a million profit. And the extra excess energy, I'm sure I would marshal towards things that are like able to do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, your voice power, whatever, whatever other projects you're doing, like probably that, you know, it's going to be something business related. Yeah. Or like writing more books and things like. Yeah, yeah, like, what yeah, I mean, if you really need, you know, if you were raised for cash, you could just do like, a few speaking gigs. Yeah. Yeah. If it came, it came down to. Yeah, I mean, if it was really, really strapped cash, cash, I could just get a job being in a house YouTuber at a startup from my friend or something. Like, yeah, there's there's lots of, there's lots of, lots of options. So it seems like the baseline really is at least a million year in profit for the business. whether you know, even if you're just kind of doing what you enjoy. And to me it seems unlikely that that would like go to zero because there's kind of ever green stuff in your business that will just kind of keep going on. Personally I think audiences do actually quite like it when like, I don't know, the creator just kind of does what they want and stuff. And like, yeah, it's probably a bit of a hit to the view count initially, but then like, you know, I think people do like that stuff and so you'll still make money from it and all that kind of thing. So it seems like the, you know, it seems like the baseline is this like million a year in profit regardless of what you're doing. And then if you're really just optimizing for the money, then, you know, maybe you can get that to, you know, to modify it or something. And if you're not, then I mean, there's uncertainty like it seems like a million is sort of the floor. But like, it could lead you to a point where you, you know, you're doing something that turns out to be massively lucrative in a very scalable way or something. It might not. It might be something in the middle, but like, it seems pretty, it seems low risk. Yeah. But all this comes down to the question, back to the question of like, what's, what's the goal? Yeah. So what would say the question of like, okay, let's say I'm happy with a, a meager million year in profit for the business to fund my life, you know, let's say I can, you know, I can undergo the, the spiritual development necessary to do my content. Okay, let's say you get there one day. So now the question is like, okay, now what do you do? Is that right? Yeah, or do you have like fair things that you would do? Do you think? Yeah, so whenever I think of it of this, like I often think of it in the sense of like, you know, let's say I had a hundred million in the bank and like, now I'm really like, there's no excuse for not for feeling, feeling the money's ghostly, etc, etc. And I had all the time in the world. I had all the time and money in the world. How would I choose to spend my time? Yeah. And the answer to that is always not that different from what I'm currently doing because that's always been, well, always, I say always, that's often been like the guiding North Star. How I spend my time, you know, I wake up and the first four hours, I was a four to five hours of my day, like learning something new and maybe making a video about it if I think it's interesting. Sorry, sorry. Sorry about that gang. Where were we? You're asking what we're doing in that world where like a million years is the base of the thing to that effect. Yeah, and I feel like you're really like this. I, you know, if you want the lottery, what would you do question? And you always say like, oh, yeah, I think I'd broadly still do what I'm currently doing. I like making videos, I like teaching, you know, I like writing, I'd probably like writing books about whatever I'm interested in. You know, that's what you always say. Yes. But is the thing. The thing with that is that it's a very like. It's an infinite game kind of thing. Like, yeah, this is, you know, I would just broadly keep on doing the thing that I'm currently doing. But that doesn't, it's not, it's not an inspiring or motivational goal for me. I sent like, it's not a thing that makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning, being like, oh, yeah, I get to do the work stuff. It's more like, I can do whatever I want. Cool. Like, I guess what's something I want to learn today? I am getting into AI agents and stuff and looking into that. Or like, you know what, let me read the actual original meditations by Marcus Reles rather than all the derivatives of it. Or you can know all that kind of stuff. I was like, oh, yeah, do I feel like filming a video today? I don't really have to. Yeah, maybe I'll do it. Maybe I won't. Okay, it kind of depends what I feel like. And it's sort of this sort of floating kind of existence, which is fine. And it's that. It's like fine, but I also feel like I want something to work to, I want something to pursue that's not simply the status quo because that is the status quo. I can in fact, you know, wake up, do whatever I want, make videos whenever I feel like it. Business would would be totally fine. Maybe we take a hit and profit, but like what else? But yeah, just that, yeah, there's something about the status quo nature of that goal that makes it feel not motivating. Yeah. So it sounds like you, it feels like you can get over the like scarcity mindset, like taking a hit on the profit mindset. It seems like you could get over that if you had some, yeah, some motivating vision that was really kind of, you know, a fire inside of you, right? Yeah, I mean, I think over time I have broadly gotten over the scarcity around money, I think, having had this a piphany for the last like few years and always sort of the, yeah, the more often I have this realization, the more people I speak to who have sort of also have that realization at various different levels of wealth. It's, yeah, it's, it's not about the money. And the absence of the fire inside you, it's like, well, I guess I could play video games or I could try and grow the business. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, one of them. Okay, nice. Okay, yeah, I think that's a good point of clarity that we've arrived at. Yeah, the fire thing. I definitely know what you mean, because there's been like in the early days of causal, the extent to which I had the fire inside of me with like quite different to the extent to which I've had the fire inside of me in the last sort of couple of years, for example. Yeah. So I guess like one question that I'm thinking about is, is the, like, is the fire even necessary? Or like my, like, objectively, when I had the fire on the object, like, yeah, when I had the fire inside of me, I had a less balanced life. I was going to work coming home, grinding on the YouTube channel, loving it for the most part, and waking up and sort of just doing the same thing over and over again, living off takeaways, almost never going to the gym, not in a relationship. I didn't have a kid on the way, etc, etc. But I had that fire of motivation inside of me that was sort of pursuing this building, this thing up from the ground up. Yeah. And that was nice. But the fire is better than anything else. It's, it's literally about anything else. When I was 14, I started playing World of Warcraft for the first time, the fire to get to level 12. Yeah, when you can't wait to log back in and like, you know, the news bell and get to level 19, a level 20. Yeah, I got that quest, that quest gave me 12 silver. And by the time you get to level 80, 12 silver is like, it's not even something you would even think about. But some similar in the early days of the channel, like going from 61 to 62 subscribers, it's like, whoa, it's working. Yeah, it's like such a addictive. And it's in a box of casings feeling. It's really like, yeah, it's magical. But I mean, you can have that and still like have a bit more of a balance life, right? You can have that and still go to the gym and play squash and like, I don't know, hang out with your kid or something. Yeah, I think that's like what's the thing that creates the fire? Yeah, but you need the fire basically. I mean, one thing. One thing that often provides the fire for people is having, having some kind of ideology that they want to push in the world. You know, like once, you know, once like people make a bunch of money, then they're like, okay, I think the world should be a certain way. Let me start like, you know, lobbying the government and, you know, becoming Trump's right hand man. And like, let me start doing all of this kind of stuff to like shape the world into my vision of the good kind of thing. But it doesn't seem like you're sort of, yeah, it doesn't seem like you sort of motivated by anything or really like that. Yeah, not for now. Yeah, I don't do, I'm not that interested in political or philosophical lobbying. Yeah. I may be, I may be interested in that at some point, but like right now at the state, in the season of life, it doesn't feel like it's a bit inspiring. Yeah. I wonder if, I wonder if the, so people who do things like marathons and like take Jim super seriously often say that the infinite goal is not enough to motivate you. It's important to have like finite games to play within the context of that. I'm up to the marathon that's happening three months from now to be like, okay, there is this thing that I can see the destination site and I'm working towards the thing. And I can forget about the thing, but now I have a reason to work towards a thing where it's a general thing around like, hey, I'm reading Outlive. And so when I'm 85, I'll be able to do squats with my grandchildren like that, you know, that is fundamentally why I would like to take care of my health. But that does not get me to do leg day, whereas man, I want to improve my ability to lunge so that I can actually win more squash games against the over 40s. That's a way more motivation. because it's like a right now rather than a, I'd like to do squats with my grandkids when I'm 85 type situation. So I wonder if it's in finding a shorter term. Like the way I think about goal setting and you know, is in terms of like quarterly quests, finding like a quarterly quest to actually watch what's like the next book or like the next whatever, yeah, the next launch, the next voice pal, whatever. And not thinking too hard about like, what's the grander goal here and like, what's the, the stage just like, hey, broadly playing the infinite game and I'm going to create these little quests for myself each quarter and work towards this. I don't know, I don't think that's sustainable because I think that's kind of what you've been doing over the last few years. And like at some point you're going to have the existential crisis again of like, well, I'm just setting these arbitrary quarterly quests. I think you do, you do need to like find some fire. You can't just, you know, I think it's completely unsustainable to just try and like manufacture some like fake structure. To push yourself. Yeah, because I do have the existential crisis about once a quarter. Yeah, in particular as a as a release like quarterly planning or as like, all right, cool, what would be doing next quarter? Well, yeah. Who cares? What does it matter? Yeah, so I don't think that's sustainable. What do you think you need to make a fire? What's your fire? For me, I would say, I mean, these days the thing that I'm sort of like really actively interested in and kind of in it fired up to like spend time on when I when I get to is just, well, I have my sort of ideological vision that I'd like to push into the world, which is roughly, yeah, just to roughly sketch it out, I feel like we're kind of we're past sort of peak secular materialism. And I think there's an openness to spirituality and religion in for people for whom there wasn't this openness, say in the last 10 to 30 years or something. And so my kind of ideological agenda that I'm sort of working on is I want Islam to be a live option on the table for people primarily in the west, because that's kind of the context I'm in as part of this kind of general openness to religion and spirituality that I think wasn't there in, let's say like this sort of 2010s to 2025 or like 2000 to 2025. So this is the thing that I'm kind of quite motivated by doing lots of reading around. I should I need to start doing more writing around it, but yeah, I'm trying to figure out like, okay, what's my output going to be towards this? But I feel pretty fired up about that. I feel like, okay, this is like, you know, this is something I feel like I can contribute to in I mean, a good position to contribute towards this and like this seems like a very meaningful thing to do. So that's kind of the thing I'm pretty fired up about. On the work front, I feel like just in a good position to be able to make a bunch of money over the next few years, if we can make causal succeed and kind of, you know, set the causal thing up really well to just kind of go on its own. And then maybe in a few years, I'll have some other businessy work idea to do. Okay. So it's not like, yeah, the fire is coming from this sort of side project of the religions, spirituality. Yeah, I definitely feel fired up about that. But I think, I mean, one thing that's important, I think, is I feel like you've got to have some kind of community, like, you know, if it was just like, yeah, I feel like for all of these things, they're kind of sustained and made better by like having a community of people around that also care about that thing. And to, in this book that I've been reading, after Virtue Byelist and MacIntyre, one of the things that he talks about is about how, when we, well, what one of the points that I thought was quite interesting is that he talks about the idea of a practice, a practice with a capital P, which is like kind of like a group project. It's like something you do with some other people. And the special thing about a practice is that there are goods that are internal to the practice. So, you know, when you play chess, the like, the game of like playing excellent chess is like internal to chess. You know, you can't get it while making YouTube videos. And then there are a bunch of external goods like, you know, if you play chess really well, people will like think you're a cool guy and you can make some money. And these are external goods, which you could get through other means. You could be a YouTuber and make money and people think you're a cool guy. But the thing about, one of the important things about a practice is that there are some internal goods to that practice that you can't really get anywhere else. And then there are sort of institutions that kind of promote that practice. But the trouble with institutions is that they're kind of necessarily, they necessarily have to care about external goods. So, whenever you have an institution that wants to like promote something, the institution is going to also have to care about making money, for example, and care about PR. So, the institution is going to have to care about all these other things. And so, institutions are a little bit dangerous and you kind of have to be kind of wary of that and keep a check on that. But it seems like right now, you're kind of purely pursuing these external goods. You know, it's like the stuff that you're getting from your business or like from doing the business stuff. You could get through other means. There's not like a unique itch that it's scratching. That's like non-fungible. It's like, okay, I could do this. I could make these kinds of videos and make money or I could make those kinds of videos and make money. And it's really hard to like get fired up because these things are all kind of fungible. It's like, okay, I can kind of grow revenue in this way or that way or something like that. Whereas if you have something truly internal to what you're doing that you can't get anywhere else that likes scratches the right itch. And if you have like a community around you that kind of enable support that, etc. Then that's usually pretty good. Yeah, the closest thing I think to an internal good that comes from this business is like the whole, the, or the itch that it scratches is the desire to teach. And like help people build life they love and all that jazz. And. But I guess I've never, I've never really had a community of people around me who also care about that. I think when I had the fire in the early days of the, or the first few years of the business, the fire was for the external good of like, hey, I can make money. The fire was not ready for the internal joint satisfaction of teaching. That was like a nice, a nice side effect, but it was like a money making endeavor first. Now that the money making endeavorness, now that the desire to make more money has like is no longer the fire. Yeah, I guess it's about finding finding a goal that I, finding a goal that I care enough about that where the, where the pursuit of that goal has intrinsic intrinsic value rather than just instrumental value. But it's less about the goal. I think I think framing it in terms of a goal is still very extra is kind of almost like inherently externalizing or instrumentalizing. You know, maybe one way to think about that's why, kind of why I mentioned this practice thing, where like, it's not really about achieving a goal. It's about engaging in a practice. And, and that sort of letting you participate in these internal goods that you can't get anywhere else. Now it seems, it seems like your brain is always trying to frame it in terms of like an optimization problem where it's like, okay, you have this goal. And then you like, you know, figure out the right actions to achieve that goal or whatever. And I think that is part of that is part of it. And I think at the mic, it's kind of what you were saying where like, you need that kind of general big picture, you know, motivating thing. And once you have that, then it's like, okay, practically speaking, what are, what's my output going to be? What am I trying to produce here, you know, whatever. And I think goals have their place there. But right now, yeah, I just don't know if you should be thinking about goals right now. I don't think you're there. I think you need to find the kind of broader magnetic vision for yourself. And then the goals are kind of, you know, they come after that. of like two days ago. and a sort of phrase that he sort of randomly threw out as well was magnetic goal. Like, what's the magnetic goal? The thing that feels like it's pulling you towards it, rather than there you are pushing into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just like, you know, my homework from the session was to figure out what that is. And I'm like, yeah, I actually don't know. I don't know what that magnetic vision is. You do a lot of journaling. What kind of stuff do you journal about? What kind of insights have you mind from that? A lot of journaling? Yeah. But like, a lot of it is, it's a more micro level of like, hey, this is what I should be doing on this particular project that I'm doing. No, it is more micro level. Like increasingly, or about what about one's a quarter, the journaling is trying to answer this question of like, what's the purpose? What's the goal? What's the vision? What's the vision? Yeah, yeah. And I try and get at it from different, different kind of angles. You know, though, what would I do if I had a hundred million in the bank? What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail? If I wasn't allowed to do what I'm currently doing, like, what are the things I might do, especially if I wasn't concerned about money or what other people think of me. At like all of these sorts of sorts of things. And I have never really managed to get beyond the thing of like, honestly, I've already enjoyed helping people better like they love and I would just do, I like self-help content and helping people in that kind of way and I prefer doing it in real life. So I like doing talks and seminars and stuff. I like writing books or at least coming up with the ideas for books. I like the video stuff to an extent. It's all the same sort of stuff. I like the idea of making software. We're already doing that. Yeah, it's just all kind of gets the same sort of thing. Yeah. And there's always part of me that's like, well, increase, like, and that's fine and sustains it for a long time. But then when it comes to things like annual planning for the business, where everyone in the team was like, bro, what's a goal? I'm like, oh, okay, now I really need to have enough clarity on this to stay consistent with this for, you know, in my mind to see anything work. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things about the kind of the fire is that it doesn't really feel like it's something you've like, when you really feel that fire, it doesn't really feel like something you're choosing. It feels like, well, I have to do this thing. Like either like no one else is going to do it. So I have to do this thing. Or like, this thing is just like so clear, you know, there's no thinking required here. This is just so obviously like the thing I have to do, you know. Yeah, one thing that anything can you imagine anything feeling like that, where you feel like, look, no one else in the world is like, you're going to do this thing. Like, this thing needs to be done. And the only guy in the world who can do this was something. I mean, maybe not in such a grandiose way, but like, you know, this thing needs to be done. And like, I'm in a great position to do this. And I kind of have to do this now. I can't imagine anything that would fit that category. So maybe that bar is is almost too high. There are things like, you know, what's what's the change I really want to see in the world? It's like, you know, an idea I've been toying with for absolutely ages because it's the thing that pretty much everyone in my audience wants is like a roadmap for how to quit your job and do what you love or, you know, that sort of like, what's the two point over version of the 4-hour work week? Adapted for 2025. To me, it's like, and I, yeah, that I keep on circling around and keep on answering people's questions around and stuff. And that feels like an interesting idea for a future book. Yeah, this stuff around that. But again, it's not like, I'm not the only person in the world, or anyone close to the only person in the world who can, who can speak to that. Sure, maybe that was that was kind of quite extreme, but like, yeah, it's like brought over watching vision. And I wonder if it is just a, because when I do this, when I do this sort of thinking beauty, answer, I really come up with this the whole like, helping people build a life they love through like self-help content broadly. Maybe it is just that, that is the vision and it's just about being comfortable that like, that is the vision and finding a way to, because like, when I do talks and stuff in real life, and people come up to me and say, oh my god, you changed my life, or all that, all that, all that kind of stuff. That's when I really feel the feel that particular vision. When, or like, yeah, I'm doing a talk and I'm coming up with a framework and drawing on a whiteboard, and people are like, whoa, and they're like, also asking questions about it afterwards. And so there's something that's the thing. And like, videos are a bit of a pale imitation of that thing, because it's like speaking to an inanimate object. And anyway, books as well, like, the creation of a book and then people like, and that becoming impact on people, it's quite like far removed. Whereas the sort of speaking to someone face to face and being able to help them out with whatever they're struggling with as it relates to quitting their job or whatever the thing might be, that feels very like aligned. And so maybe it's about doing more of that. Well, yeah, it sounds like the people side is quite important. For you. Yeah, I think the connection, the people, that sort of thing. Done? I mean, right now, how, what's your kind of human interaction around all of this stuff? I guess as your team, and then you're not really, it's basically just your team. Like, you're working with your team on like, growing the business kind of thing. Yeah, team and then mentors, coaches, like business partners, that sort of thing. Easy as well as sort of on a similar sort of mission, the sort of self-help personal development content he arms. So we shared Shishina talk about that a lot. And like, when other creators are entrepreneurs, we were hanging out with Simon Squibb this morning, and he's coming over on Tuesday to record some stuff together and things like, he also does like content and how to stop businesses. So when people in a similar sphere are passing through town, we'll inevitably hang out, and that's always fun. Like, I'll bloom with you a couple of weeks ago without sick. You know, that's the little interaction. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that kind of stuff makes a big difference, man. Yeah, I think it's hard to even, if you, like, I mean, maybe this, you know, helping people build a life they want thing. Maybe that is the fire, but it's just like, so depressing doing that on a laptop all day. Yeah. Yeah. That's more than good to you. Yeah. I guess even when, because even when living in London and having the team in the office a lot and having friends coming to co-work and things, there was still always a big part of me that was like, what's the point of all of this? Like, what's it all in service of other than sort of making numbers and banking out, or making follow accounts go up or whatever thing might be? Yeah. Maybe any other eyewasker trip. It's been about a year since the last one. Really? What were the insights from the last one? The end time, like I was asking a fairly similar question. I was having a bit of a crisis of meaning around the work stuff. Yeah. Like, everything else in life, I was like, great, that's fine, but like in particular on the work thing, this thing that I allegedly do for eight hours a day, like, whoa, whoa, what's the point? The insight there was basically that like, a sort of playful thing around, you can basically do whatever you want. Like, you know, everything, everything is dripping with meaning, everything is meaningful, just because that's the way the universe is unfolding. And so, like, don't take it too seriously, just sort of chill, you know, chill the fuck out and do the things and it'll work out. I just enjoy the journey. That thing. And so it sounds like you need more than that. Maybe, or maybe not, maybe, maybe I'm searching for something. Yeah, maybe it's just a, I'm trying to say something about this about this morning. And like, in a world where his video, because he's like 50 and started loads of business. and friends with all these entrepreneurs. When someone has too many options, it's very hard to stay motivated. Because the brain is always like, "Well, we could do this or this or this." We'll start that with that. In a way, there is value in just removing choice and being just, you know what? It's actually deciding to just pursue one particular direction and then you're sticking with it. Knowing that, hey, there's all these other options but like. There's definitely value in that, but it can't be manufactured. And actually, I have a bunch of like startup friends who are like founders. And it's quite a common situation to be where you don't quite have enough clarity and consistency of intention. And then you feel the firm about like, "Oh man, maybe I should be doing some AI thing like, you know, I keep hearing about this stuff." And like. There's no way to just like, you can't just manufacture the intention. You can't just say like, "No, I'm just going to tell myself that I've just got to stick to it for two years or whatever." You know? There's gotta be something more real underneath. I think it's too hard to manufacture it. So what's the thing, man? What do my thing be? Wait, so when you were in London, it sounded like, you know, you did have community around you to like, when you were like doing your work stuff. So you had like your team and then, you know, various like, there'd always be someone passing through town and you could hang out with them and stuff. But even then, you were like feeling a bit empty about it. Yes. Once I achieved the freedom that I was aspiring for back in the day when I was building the channel, I didn't have any community around me but other people doing the same thing. Yeah, yeah. I was just, I had enough of a fire to be able to sort of. Yeah, of like a financial freedom thing. Yeah. And then when I got to the financial freedom thing and realised that like, actually, I mean, you don't need that much money to be able to buy an iPhone every other year and get the latest Mac Pro when there's enough of a leap. It's like, "I don't really spend money on anything else." You know, there's only so many new limited shirts one can buy before one runs out of new limited shirts to buy. At that point, it really started to feel like, "Oh, shit, this. " There's a chapter in the four-hour work week at the end of it and it's like, "Okay, at the point where you achieve your four-hour work week, you will realise that there is this black hole inside that needs to be filled." And his thing is like, after a lot of social searching, I realised that there are two things that fill the black hole and that is growth and a contribution. So if you're, you need to be growing in some way and contributing in some way. Yeah. I think right now I feel, I do feel the contribution. Maybe it's the growth that I don't feel. I feel like I've kind of. Yeah. I admit it. There's no real area in which I'm actively growing and like, yeah, I'm learning music theory and stuff and trying to get better with the guitar. But it doesn't hit the same because it's not like growing in the work camp for some reason. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. I think it is that. I think it's that void of meaning post-financial freedom. Yeah. Which, lots of my founder friends who've sold companies have also had of like. Okay. I've got the bag now. Yeah. And I didn't have an on-out period or whatever. I finished my on-out period and I'm really strong. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's go on holiday. Let's cure. You know, pay off the mortgage on the parent's house and then like. Oh, shit. What do I do now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Just feeling void, man. Yeah, I mean. Some people say kids feel that void. But I've also heard that like kids add meaning to life but. But don't feel the void of like meaningful work, which in which like always need to be filled with like something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would say for me. Obviously, I'm still pretty new to the kid thing. I maybe I already said this on the podcast but it does not feel like, oh well, you know. Obviously this kid is my whole life and I don't need anything else in my life anymore. It's definitely not that. You know. Maybe it's closer to that for Lucia. Hmm. But even then, probably at some point, I'll be like, okay. I kind of want some, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it's more like. oh, she's so cute. Yeah. Our friend Paul Millen has a good book out. Oh, yeah. Have you read it? I haven't read it yet. Yeah. I'm like 75% through. It's good. It's good. Isn't this book all about like your current predicament? Yeah, literally. And he literally, in chapter 12, it's titled "Leaving Money on the Table" and he cites the video I made last year where I had the epiphany that you'd leave money for. For the pursuit of the book. What's his solution to like how someone can unplug from the matrix and, you know, pursue these internal goods? Yeah, I mean. So he's got a list to collect back in the book that sort of summarized the book, which is very handy. Like, item 9 and 9 on the list is "Solve the puzzle of good work." The puzzle of good work is always in flux and requires constant tinkering, reflection, and patience. Once you identify the core activities of your good work, the journey is just beginning. Look for ways to experiment with how and when you work. Think beyond the workday or workweek towards work months, work years, and even work decades. Become aware of supporting activities that may fuel your curiosity, passion, and creativity. But remember not to mistake them for your good work itself. While string this puzzle also requires discipline. Try to create good enough work that can help fund your journey without draining your energy. And if it helps you keep your journey alive, don't avoid bad work completely. Solving the puzzles about always trying to find your way back to your good work. No matter how long you've been disconnected. Yeah. I mean, he basically says that, yeah, this is a. Find the stuff that brings you alive and then like figure out a way to pursue it most of the time. And figure out the supporting activities that help you facilitate that for a living. And I think for me, whenever I've done. Like, it comes down to learning stuff and building stuff and teaching stuff. And like just doing that. But again, I think, yeah, I feel like I'm missing that sort of longer term goal, which would create this fire. And I just genuinely cannot think of any compelling long term goals or missions or whatever beyond what I've already got. I can think of lots of like short term projects of like, yeah, let's get voice pal to whatever MRR or let's launch on you mastermind. Let's write the next book. I mean, it's that longer term thing. I mean, a lot of regular videos here. If anyone's at this point in the episode, like, do you have that longer term thing? Sort of that way in a way like life vision or work vision that is lighting the fire sustainably. A lot of rich people turn to philanthropy. I think once you get enough money, you're like, okay, I have the yacht or whatever. There's a lot of problems out there that I can help fix now. Let's try and do that. Yeah, a couple of a few years ago, I was circling around this question and had a couple of like, you know, Wilma Cascull on the pod and Ben Todd and so I played 80,000 hours and stuff who I was, was, was, and this was like three years ago. Yeah, three years ago, trying to answer this exact question of like, well, what is all of this in service of? A big part of it was like, you know, in the whole like effective altruism thing. Like, you know, there is the spreadsheet part of it, but there's also the, what is a problem in the world? What is a problem area that you intrinsically care about? And Felicia, that problem area might be something like animal crew, or like the suffering, the suffering of humans or some people is the suffering of non-human animals. Some people, it's like AI or instant risk or any of this sort of stuff. I was always like, I don't really know what one problem, what specific problem area I really care about to be able to like, like, oh, this is the thing that I really want to, I really want to go down. Who knows? Anyway, should we, should we call it a day there? We can, I can continue to quite long session. Yeah, I don't think I've, I don't think I've been a much help in the therapy session. Fuck, we're good. The point is not to find the answers, but simply to discuss the questions or something like that. If anyone had the answer, then do please leave a comment down below. I'd be very, I'd be very, be very keen to hear it. Nice. All right, thanks everyone for listening. And we'll see you next time. Bye.