June 2025
Books, articles, podcasts, and thoughts throughout the month
Books read:
📕 $100M Leads by Alex Hormozi
📖 Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan
📖 He Who Drowned the World by Shelly Parker-Chan, narrated by Natalie Naudus
Posts published:
June 22
📰 How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair? - David Brooks
It’s only later that I read that when you give a depressed person advice on how to get better, there’s a good chance all you are doing is telling the person that you just don’t get it.
I tried to remind Pete of all the wonderful blessings he enjoyed, what psychologists call “positive reframing.” I’ve since read that this might make sufferers feel even worse about themselves for not being able to enjoy all the things that are palpably enjoyable.
I learned, very gradually, that a friend’s job in these circumstances is not to cheer the person up. It’s to acknowledge the reality of the situation; it’s to hear, respect and love the person; it’s to show that you haven’t given up on him or her, that you haven’t walked away.
Jen had some wise words when I asked her what she learned being around him during those years. “I was very aware this was not the real Pete,” she said. “I tried not to take his periods of negativity and withdrawal personally.”
📰 The Last Moat, We Drove Across the Country, a Rich Guy Jet Story | #247 - Cam Houser
Not All Knowledge Is Created Equal Griffin’s success points to a crucial framework for the AI era: not all knowledge is created equal.
Domain Knowledge Domain knowledge is the published facts, formulas, and regulations anyone can look up. This is rapidly becoming AI's territory. If it's been published, digitized, or taught in school, AI can probably access it better and faster than humans. This type of knowledge will get hoovered up into LLM training data with ease and increasing frequency. The two below, however, will not.
Institutional Knowledge This is the unwritten organization-specific know-how: which risk limits actually matter, whose approval really counts, and which metrics truly drive decisions. This is the "how things really work around here" layer that gives established players their home-field advantage.
Tacit Knowledge Tacit knowledge comprises the intuitions and muscle memory born from experience: a trader's feel for when market sentiment shifts, a chef's adjustment to cooking temperature based on smell, a negotiator's ability to read body language. These skills are nearly impossible to articulate, let alone code into an algorithm.
📰 This One Mindset Shapes Your Entire Life by Sahil Bloom
Ask these questions to reclaim your Internal Locus:
• What part of this situation is within my control?
• What's one tiny action I can take right now?
• If my best friend were facing this, what advice would I give them?
• How would my ideal self show up in this moment?
• How can I create space to separate myself from this situation?
📰 Colin & Samir’s Cannes Lions Takeaways 🏖️
attention is a commodity, but connection is a premium. A creator who can fill a room is worth more than one who can game the algorithm.
June 21
📰 I Stopped Writing Code. My Productivity Exploded. via Every
Then Reid Hoffman's advice echoed in my head: "Run more agents." So with this project, I decided to lean into it completely: pure AI agents, no fallback coding, no writing functions when things got tough.
I opened Claude Code with a simple question: "If you had 10,000 files, how would you find which ones are duplicates?"
From there, it started listing approaches it could take: hash-based detection, command-line tools, specialized software. But I stopped it. "Don't write any code yet. Let's think through this problem together." This instruction helped. Instead of jumping straight to code, we talked through the problem first.
Working in Claude Code’s terminal window—with no fonts or UI and just text—felt weird at first, but that simplicity forced focus. Through 15 minutes of back-and-forth, we refined the approach:
Stage 1: Size grouping Group all files by exact size. If a 2.3MB file is the only one of that size, it has no duplicates and requires no further checking.
Stage 2: The peek test For those files sharing sizes, read just the first 16KB. Files that differ in their opening can't be identical. Why read gigabytes when 16KB tells you enough?
Stage 3: Fingerprinting For the files that passed both filters, we used hashing. Think of hashing like digital fingerprinting. It reads your entire file and generates a unique code. The same file always produces the same code, but if you change even one bit, the fingerprint completely changes.
Using this three-stage approach, we went from 50 million operations down to about 10,000 operations—a 99.98 percent reduction in work. When I ran it on my own desktop, I found those 158,000 duplicate files. It was the best code I’d ever “written.”
The best metaphor I've heard came from an Indian director: A director doesn't have to be on set for the show to technically go on. The actors act, cameras roll, the show continues. But without the director, there's no emotion. That's us now: Claude writes code. Codex manages branches. But someone needs to know why it matters. Someone needs to feel the user's frustration with clutter, or joy at recovering 50GB of memory.
June 19
📰 The Ownership Gap. by
Successful people have an almost obsessive sense of ownership. In my experience, they'll even take responsibility for problems that aren't actually their fault.
This doesn't mean they're pushovers or accept abusive behavior. It means they refuse to waste their precious mental energy on blame because blame doesn't move them forward.
🎧 Buying and Selling 2025 Creator Economy Trends - The Colin and Samir Show
You're selling the absence of a conventional host perspective. The appeal of a show like Theo Vaughn's is seeing how the host interacts with guests like Timothee Chalamet, and how the guest responds to the host's unique character.
Transcript: Colin You're, what you're selling is the, um, the lack of host perspective, because what matters about Theo Vaughn is I will listen to, like, I was so excited to see Timothee Chalamet on Theo Vaughn because I want to hear how Theo Vaughn talks to Timothee Chalamet. Samir And how Timothee Chalamet reacts to the character that is Theo Vaughn.
In 2025, creators should figure out how to make videos 20+ minutes long. This is largely due to connected TV viewership. Longer watch times also build deeper connections with the audience.
Transcript: Colin I'm also selling videos under 20 minutes on YouTube. I think if you are a creator going into 2025, you need to solve how your videos are 20 plus minutes, largely because of connected TV viewership. And I think also just the fact, the sheer fact that like longer watch times build deeper connections. Samir Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the trend will continue to get longer.
June 18
📰 Lessons in Creativity From Kevin Hart, Beast Games and Adam Grant - The Colin and Samir Show
Samir organized a live pitch meeting with 3 others where everyone brought YouTube titles and thumbnails. It was fun and competitive. Samir was surprised he had some of the worst ideas, despite hosting. If you have a small creative team, try this.
Transcript: Samir For a meeting that i put on with three other people and i had everyone bring three different youtube titles and thumbnails to the table separately. And it was so fun. It was just like a live pitch meeting. And some of the ideas were really good. I almost felt competitive. I was like, I'm probably going to have the best ideas. I'm the one hosting this meeting. I came up with this idea. And I was pleasantly surprised that I had some of the worst ideas at the meeting. I would recommend that if you have a small team of creatives to try this out, it's really enjoyable.
Think about how you'd rebuild everything from scratch if it all disappeared today. This can reveal losing efforts you're no longer truly invested in.
Transcript: Colin As like insane of a prompt as that is to everyone, I think it goes in line with the escalation of commitment to a losing action. I think if you think in the direction of if everything was taken away today and everything like burned down and you had no choice, like it was all gone, how would you rebuild it? And that might illuminate what you have committed to that is a losing action that you actually don't believe in anymore.
Ask yourself: Am I currently escalating my commitment to a losing action? This'll help you avoid throwing good money after bad.
Transcript: Colin Am I currently escalating my commitment to a losing action?
Think of your podcast as a series of seasons. Determine the number of episodes, desired look, and definition of success for each season. Review at the end of each season to evaluate whether it was successful and enjoyable.
Transcript: Samir I would like us to do that after this run of podcasts ends. Yeah. Is think about what is a season of our show? Sure. How many episodes is that? What do we want it to look like? And what would success be for that season? So we can look back at the end of it and be like, oh, did we like that? Was it successful? Yeah. Colin Instead of what feels like this very constant, continual stream of episodes.
🎧 These Are All the Ways Ryan Holiday Feels Poorer Than He Is
Anxiety is an expensive habit. It costs you misery, frustration, sleep, family time, vacation moments, and opportunities due to fear and worry.
Transcript: Ryan Holiday How anxiety is a very expensive habit, that it's cost me a lot. It's cost me misery and frustration and a lot of sleep. It's cost me to miss out on things that were important to me. Family dinners where my mind wandered, minutes of vacation because I was preoccupied thinking about this or that happening, opportunities that I passed up because I was caught in Various fears, or again, nights that I laid awake in bed just worrying about what might happen. The thing about anxiety is it feeds on itself.
Work, family, and social life – you've gotta pick two. Doing great work and being there for family might mean missing out on social events. Prioritizing family and work leaves less time for friends, creating a "privileged impoverishment" where social connections suffer.
Transcript: Ryan Holiday My friend Austin Kleon has talked about this. We've done it a lot at Daily Dad, like says work, family, scene, pick two, like do great work. You can be there for your family, but like, you're probably going to miss out on a lot of parties. Or if you go to a lot of parties, you're going to neglect your family if you're still doing work, or, you know, if you're just hanging out at home and at parties, you're not at the office Doing the work. I happen to love my family. I love my work. And that doesn't leave as much time for friends or socializing as maybe I would like. And actually, Austin and I talked about that the last time we hung out. Like, why don't we do this more? But we know why. It's because it's lower on the priority list. That's a shame. And there's a privileged impoverishment in that, I think.
June 17
🎧 Cynthia Erivo: ‘I Was Working to Prove That I Was Worth Loving’ - On Purpose with Jay Shetty
People might not know exactly what they're searching for, be it happiness, validation, or love. What's underneath all of it is the need for agency, autonomy, and control. It's about living for yourself and owning your feelings, including deciding when to embrace or release them.
Transcript: Jay Shetty We were saying, I don't think humans even know what they want anymore. Like we think we want happiness, but do we really like, is that what we're looking for? Or do we want validation? Or do we want approval? Or do we want love? Like, what do we want? And I think as we're talking about right now, I'm thinking about it. What we really want is to feel agency and autonomy and control over our lives and not feel like we're living for someone else and not feel like we're trying to, because even if you're trying To prove someone wrong, you're still living for them. Right. That's right. And I think we want to feel like, no, I'm living for me. Yeah. Cynthia Erivo I love the idea that we're sort of trying to figure out what we want. Do we want happiness? But actually the idea that we're simply seeking agency over our lives allows us to own all of those things. So yes, we do want happiness, but maybe it's contentment. But also we want to have agency over the sadness that we have. So it's not because of someone else, but we can allow ourselves to feel something. And then we can decide when we actually want to damp down that feeling, let it go.
Hurt can paradoxically aid another person's growth. When you experience pain, you're compelled to grow and evolve as a result.
Transcript: Cynthia Erivo Sometimes hurting someone actually aids the growth of another person. When we experience hurt, we are forced to grow.
Cynthia Erivo learned to distinguish between being abandoned and someone simply leaving. Initially, every departure felt like abandonment, impacting her ability to express true feelings for fear of driving people away. She's learned that people leaving isn't always abandonment.
Transcript: Cynthia Erivo What I've had to do over time is start to trust people and to not tart everything with a brush of abandonment. If a person has to leave, a person has to leave. That's okay. They're not abandoning. They're simply leaving, you know? And that isn't to say that the experience of feeling abandoned isn't real, but it is also to say that that experience of abandonment isn't always what happens. And for a really long time, I couldn't tell the difference. And so every time a friend left or I broke up with a person or a relationship didn't quite work, it felt like a massive moment of abandonment. It felt like the floor was taken out from underneath me. And it's taken a long time to get to a point where I can trust that that's not the case. And so what that would do is stop me from saying how I really felt in a situation because I didn't want them to go away. Yeah, Wow. You know, like if I'm, if I'm not happy with something, then I wouldn't say, because I don't want them to have a reason to leave, you know, or if I didn't want something, then I wouldn't Say I didn't, I didn't want something because I was afraid that they would leave. Right.
Gotta be okay with people leaving; if they're meant to return, they will. Being afraid to let go keeps us stuck. We don't know what path others are on when they enter our lives; we may be just a stepping stone for them, and they for us. If we aren't comfy enough to use that stepping stone and move forward, we won't go anywhere.
Transcript: Cynthia Erivo I've had to learn to be okay with the idea that if someone leaves, they are meant to, and if they're meant to come back, they will. Right. But sometimes we're very afraid to chance it. We're very afraid to let a person go. We are afraid to let a person go and we need to be okay with letting people go because they have their own journey as well. We don't know what path people are walking on when they walk into our lives. We might just be a stepping stone in their path, just like stepping stones are in their life. And they might just be a stepping stone in our lives as we keep moving forward. If we're not confident or comfortable enough to let that be a stepping stone to move on to the next one, we won't go anywhere. We're stuck.
📰 5 Things That Work for Me by
Summer is a good time, actually, to get a lot of work done. It’s too hot after about 10AM to do much of anything else.
I think of each illustration as a “nest egg.” When you say “nest egg” many think of money saved and put away, but a literal “nest egg” is a real or fake egg that you put in a nest to encourage a bird or a hen to lay more eggs there. I learned this from Thoreau, who said that writing in his journals was like laying nest eggs: > Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid. Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited… Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it was possible to labor and to think. Thought begat thought.
I like to have a really big book going in the summer. Two summers ago I read *Don Quixote* and *Dune,* last summer I read *Middlemarch,* and this summer I’m reading *War and Peace*.
June 16
🎧 The Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Internet: Patreon CEO Jack Conte - Colin and Samir
Creativity and business can mix well because creativity, at its core, is problem-solving. However, the term 'creator' has oversimplified the combination of these two elements.
Transcript: Colin Strategy and creativity, they can mix because I think at the top level, like a lot of creativity is problem solving. But I think we've jammed them together into one word of like being a creator.
Don't optimize only for views. Choose content you genuinely enjoy. You might reach fewer people, but those who stick around will deeply appreciate your work, making it a better long-term strategy.
Transcript: Samir Taste is a long-term strategy. Creators ask us, should I be optimized or should I not? And I'm like, I don't know. I think you should go with what you like. And we don't always do this. I wish we did. And we're getting better at it over time. But I'm like, choose what you like and you may get less people, but you will filter the people that like what you're doing more. And that's a long-term strategy.
Consistency over time acts as a growth lever for creators. But do not assume it's a hard requirement because many beloved creators lack consistency and formats and are still successful.
Transcript: Jack Conte Neistat when I was like, consistency over time is a lever. Like it's a, it's a growth lever for a creator. And I want to be careful about saying that because there are also a bunch of creators that I deeply love who do not have a format and who are not consistent. And that is also possible.
Patreon pages that are succeeding aren't just asking for support. They're offering something concrete in return, like an extra episode each month. This business model has become very successful on the platform and marks a shift from Patreon's original fan-funding spirit.
Transcript: Jack Conte Like the pages that are like crushing on Patreon, they're not going out saying, please support us. They're going out saying, if you want our extra episode every month, you can get it. Like that like business model has kind of emerged as like a very successful business model on the platform. It is different than like where Patreon started, right? Like 10 years ago, it was more in the like fan funding, like spirit. Samir To support our journey. Jack Conte Exactly. Which is kind of where it started. But what we've seen is actually like, that's not where it's evolved to. (Time 0:49:56)
Jack Conte thinks titles don't matter as much anymore. He doesn't care what Natalie Lynn's next title and thumbnail is and will watch her video anyway. Samir mentioned Casey Neistat could upload a video with no title and a black screen. Colin references Emma Chamberlain's video called 'you totally caught me making soup' with a ridiculous title and thumbnail, but it has 4 million views. Ashley Alexander is an incredible creator.
Transcript: Jack Conte I don't care what Natalie Lynn's next title and thumbnail is. I'm watching the video. Yeah. It could be a black card. Samir We've said that about Casey before on this show. Yes. Casey could upload a video with no title and a black screen and it might actually be a pretty good thumbnail. We've also talked about that Chamberlain's video called you totally caught me making soup. Colin Yeah. Which is a ridiculous title and thumbnail, but it has 4 million views or, or, um, a creator, your mom, Ashley, Ashley Alexander, incredible creator.
Losing excitement is scary. Batch production boosts efficiency but hurts creative excitement because creators sitting on videos for months develop a different relationship with their content.
Transcript: Colin And I actually think losing that excitement is a scary thing. And it's happening with, um, we were talking to is Harris and she was talking about the danger of batch production. Was it is who said this or no, maybe so we've been talking, I forget. We've been talking to a lot of people about this, but I think we talked to is about it of like batch production is great in the context of efficiency, but in the context of creative excitement, It might not be great. When you're sitting on a video for two months, you have a different relationship with it.
Move beyond shorts to build a direct-to-community and business. Shorts alone make you more subject to platform whims, creating a volatile environment for long-term sustainability. Find your audience on shorts, then figure out how to build a long-form media format and a tighter community around that format. Find a repeatable long form thing that your audience enjoys every week, where people are listening and building loyalty to you and the format.
Transcript: Jack Conte On shorts uh i i think step two again if i'm thinking about how to do it as a creator in 2025 you have to move beyond shorts um now you don't have to but there are dangers if you don't. It becomes harder to build a direct-to community and a direct-to business. There are creators who have figured this out. And because when you're at the ultimate top layer of the internet, you are more subject to the whims of the platform's direction of traffic. It's a more volatile environment to build a long-term sustainable business versus finding a format like you guys have found, where you've got this repeatable long form thing that Your audience enjoys every week. And you have these, you know, you have like these long conversations and people are listening to them and building loyalty to you and building loyalty to the format. I think there's a key step if I'm doing it as a creator is like, find my audience on shorts and then figure out after that, how do I build a long form media format and a tighter community around That format?
Find an autotelic behavior, something you'd do even if nobody's watching. Van Gogh painted for 11 years in his parents' basement without recognition because he loved it. YouTubers who love telling stories would continue whether their ad revenue is up or down. Don't sacrifice that passion, as it's crucial for a long-term creative career.
Transcript: Jack Conte There's a wonderful creator named Adam Westbrook. He made a video essay. It's one of my favorite pieces of media on YouTube. It's like 15 minutes long. It's about van gogh who lived in his parents basement for 11 years lived in his parents basement making paintings every day while his teeth were falling out his parent like nobody saw His paintings except for his brother was the only person who saw his paintings and his brother didn't even like his paintings very much. And Van Gogh did this for like 11 years, didn't sell a single painting and no one saw them but him. And he did it because he loved painting. He just liked doing it. He liked exploring color and texture and framing and composition and it lit him up. And so he kept going. It's like the YouTubers, you can tell, they just love telling stories and making videos and they would do it if their ad revenue is up and they do it if their ad revenue is down. And the creator in this video, Adam Westbrook, calls this an autotelic behavior. That's the word for it. An autotelic behavior is a behavior that you do for the sheer joy of the behavior itself versus some expected reward from having done the behavior. And I think as a creator, it's so important to find something that is autotelic for you. Something you're going to do in your parents' basement for 11 years, whether people like it or see it or not. And if you can find that and it works with an audience, oh my gosh, you're in an amazing place. It's hard to find that. But like, if I had one piece of advice to emerging creators right now, it's like, don't sacrifice that part of it. That part of it is so important to a long-term creative career.
To build a creator business in 2025, understand media market fit using shorts to find fit for a medium or long format. Once you've found that fit, then build out a longer format. Short form content is too volatile and unpredictable to sustain a business alone. Then, build a tight community around that long form content.
Transcript: Colin We are on number three of how you would build a creator business in 2025. So, so let's just recap media market fit shorts, the longs. That's as far as that's as far as we've gone. Jack Conte Leverage short form traffic to find fit on a medium or long. So we were two in three is once you find fit on shorts, build that long form format and find fit on a longer form format because the short form ecosystem is too volatile and unpredictable. That's three. Four is build a tight community around that long form format.
Fans often crave a deeper connection and more engagement from creators. A small percentage, around 10%, represent the core fans who are deeply invested, follow across platforms, attend shows, and purchase merchandise. These are the ones who desire a more profound relationship.
Transcript: Jack Conte There's like fans want that from you, right? Like fans are, they want, a lot of fans want more from you. 10% would be like the upper bound might be your core fans, core fans who like love everything you do. They follow you across all socials. They, you know, they, um, they go to all the shows. They have the merch, they have the t-shirt. Colin They like, they, they want more from you.
People aren't usually willing to pay for something they previously got for free. However, they're often willing to pay for additional content that is similar to what they already enjoy.
Transcript: Jack Conte Fans don't want to pay for something that was previously free do you want more stuff like this yes exactly our rules like they're down to pay for something in addition yeah but not the Thing that was already free
Start by working with people on specific projects as short-term contractors. If you enjoy working with certain individuals and consistently give them more work, consider transitioning them to full-time roles.
Transcript: Jack Conte Learned. I found it easier to like work with people on a specific project. Yes. Like project-based short-term contractor relationship to start. To start. And then you're like, if you like work with 20 people like that, two or three of those people, you're going to be like, oh, I love working with that person. And I'm giving them more work every month and you sort of naturally gravitate. And then you're like, okay, well, this is kind of a repeatable thing. And then you can start thinking about, okay, what does it look like if this person works full time?
June 15
🎧 The Story of Scott’s Career - Prof G Markets
The lesson there is that nobody is really qualified to do anything they ever do. And that's what it means to be an entrepreneur. And we worked our ass off. We did a great job for them.
You just want to put yourself in a position to be lucky. And how do you do that? You endure.
🎧 The Newsom-Trump Beef Heats Up - Pivot Pod
There's an expression I use with people, I use it when I was a manager, and I'm not a manager anymore, but that people that confuse activity with productivity, right? Like, people that are manic and move around a lot, they look like they're doing things. It's sort of like, look busy, Jesus is coming kind of thing.
📰 Here's How I Made $249k in 2022 by
I launched my podcast in 2017, renamed it three times, and did more than 100 episodes before getting my first sponsorship income in 2022
When I launched I did have ~5k subscribers but only had pre-sold ~150 books
My general pricing approach, especially for corporate stuff, is “price high or free” but I usually start lower and raise prices as I become more confident about the offer.
Pricing high also means less work. Many indie types feel like they should take any work that comes their way. But for me, I’ve realized turning down money for more time can not only be good for the soul, but it can also be good for the wallet if I can be patient enough.
📰 My Five-Year Journey Creating, Launching, Failing & Succeeding With Online Courses by
I created these courses after I had some validation that people were struggling with these things and that I had some sense that my way of thinking about these issues was helpful for people.
Creating content with the intention of teaching others enables you to learn something in a much deeper way than simply “knowing” how to do something.
Godin’s general advice to focus on finding the people who want your help and to do it with generosity.
Here’s a secret you should know: *I only built about 20% of the content before “launching”*
Digital products need some form of distribution. For me, SEO worked really well because this was an in-demand topic via google but other strategies like e-mail marketing, audience building on platforms like Twitter, and partnerships all seem to be viable strategies.
Just because “cohort-based courses” are all the buzz right now does not mean other models won’t work well for your course. I’ve been fascinated by the cohort-based course movement but I think there is room for a number of models to work with online courses.
Not every course has to be a monetary success. The biggest benefits for me in creating reinvent have been going much deeper in a number of topics I plan to keep writing about for many years in the future. In many ways creating this course helped me improve my thinking and writing and helped me build the courage to pursue writing a book in 2021.
This directs people to a small exercise where they can share their motivation and offer a “gift” that feels right. I nudge people to offer something because in previous iterations where I offered it for free no one finished the course!
June 14
📰 From Quora to Consulting Niche - A Casual 7-Year Journey | #169 by
I renamed the course Think Like a Strategy Consultant, got rid of the ninjas, wrote a bunch of stuff based on the Quora posts I had written, applied Nat Eliason's SEO mini-course, and then let it run. Almost immediately, random people from the web started buying the course. This was wild and it was the first time I had made any substantial money without having to trade my time. I shifted all my attention to the course for the next year. I ran two live cohorts, upgraded the materials, and eventually developed the right structure for it that seemed to resonate with the audience I was targeting (a self-paced version, or a hands-on coaching version where I work with them 1-on-1).
the more clear and direct I’ve been in communicating my services, and price, the more people have reached out to me.
As soon as I added pricing to my site, I immediately noticed a dramatic increase in inbound requests. This is something I wish I knew earlier and I think more freelancers should consider. There are likely a lot of people that don’t reach out for help because they either don’t want to go through the pricing dance or simply just want to know what something costs.
June 13
🎧 Does Anybody Want to Be an Influencer Anymore? -
andHaving time freedom means ya don't feel pressured to pay for convenience. You can take your time to cook, walk, do laundry, and watch your kids. They didn't do daycare for the first two years, worked less, and swapped child care duties.
Transcript: Paul If you have a lot of time freedom you can you like don't have the pressure to like pay for convenience you can like take your time you can like cook your own food you can like walk places i Don't know do your own laundry like watch your own kids it sort of just works out yeah watching your own kid is a big thing we didn't we didn't do daycare for the first two years yeah and we We just worked less and swapped back and forth
Adults often fear unemployment because they don't know how to spend their time. Perhaps the task of life is figuring out how to spend your time well. There's a tension between funneling kids through systems and adults being terrified of unemployment, which highlights the importance of learning how to spend time meaningfully.
Transcript: Then i talk to adults all the time that like their biggest fear is like oh if i quit my job i don't know what i would do no it's like these two tensions of yeah wow we we're so worried about funneling These kids through these system and then everyone around us is like all these adults that are like terrified of being unemployed or without a job because they don't know what they'll Do like they don't know how to spend their time and so what if the task of life is just like figuring out how to spend your time well
Paul teaches a course called 'Think Like a Strategy Consultant' which he iterates on slowly, working on it one to two days a month for six years. The self-paced course teaches how to turn information into world-class ideas in consulting or knowledge work, generating steady income.
Transcript: So I teach a course called Think Like a Strategy Consultant. I actually love teaching these skills and I'm very good at it. And so over the years, I created and iterated this self-paced course. I could have made more by going down the live cohort, but I never did. And I just sell the self-paced course about how do you turn information into world-class ideas in the context of working at a consulting firm or in knowledge work at big companies and So that course has just been something i've tweaked slowly i've probably worked like one to two days a month on it for six years and it just generates a steady income
Paul prefers online intellectual engagement so he can spend more time with family.
Transcript: I want to spend more time with my family and so i rather get some of the intellectual engagement online
Pursue creating valuable content because you invested yourself in the process, not because of how it's perceived. The time it takes shouldn't be a concern.
Transcript: Khe Hy Like I want to I want bangers not because they're perceived as bangers, but because I gave so much of myself in the craft of doing so. And if that takes four months or if that takes, I could do it in two weeks. I have no idea. Right.
Paul talks about how he outlasted everyone in the course business. People might've thought he was the least ambitious at the start, but he's still going strong and could end up making more money than those who quit.
Transcript: Khe Hy The interesting thing about the course business is like everyone quit i outlasted everyone yeah so but if you looked at the beginning you would have said like oh paul is the least ambitious Yeah i mean you raise like you raise an interesting point too yeah i might still be going in five years and might actually end up generating more money than most of the people that quit.
While there's a lot of talk about long-term thinking, not many people actually do it. It isn't just about thinking long-term, but whether your actions align with that long-term perspective.
Transcript: Khe Hy There's all these memes about long-term thinking and all that, but very few people are really long-term thinkers. And it's not even long-term thinking. It's like, are your actions consistent with long-term thinking?
Play a medium-term stubborn game. Be stubborn about things you won't do.
Transcript: Paul: What i'm actually doing is playing a medium term stubborn game and so i'm incredibly stubborn about things i won't do
When you don't know what to write, just write the weirdest thing possible. Leave traces of humanity in your writing, even if it means including typos or using a word incorrectly. This approach might help you stand out amidst the AI flood and satisfy the craving for creative content.
Transcript: I think what's going to happen, we're're gonna get flooded with this as we're just going to crave more weird creative like the hunger for the creative stuff is going to go up that's how When i approach writing now and i'm like i don't know how to write what to write i'm like just write the weirdest weirdest thing possible if anything and i i feel like i wonder how this will Evolve but i feel like i'm not even subconsciously i'm consciously saying like can you leave traces like uh breadcrumbs of humanity in your writing like and it could go as so far as like Typos you know or like slightly using a word i always have using a word incorrectly
June 11
📰 Mozi Minute: Membership Offer Stack
Notice how the biggest discount is on day one - not delayed to the second purchase. Most businesses get this backwards and wonder why conversion tanks.
June 9
📰 The Single Most Overlooked Skill on YouTube by Creator Startup
Great stories skip the setup. They drop you right into the action — and let you catch up.
If your audience doesn’t know where the story is going, they don’t know why to stick around.
When you hold something back - a detail, a motive, a reveal - you give your audience the chance to *solve* the story with you.
June 8
🎥 Why Everything Is Making You Feel Bored by Johnny Harris
Boredom isn't simple, it's not trivial, it's not benign. It's actually a painful emotion that quietly haunts our sense of meaning and purpose. It's more like pain or disgust. We've been going deep on this.
Attention and meaning are vital for how humans navigate their lives, how they make decisions on where to go with the constraints of their everyday experience.
We need purpose and meaning to fuel our actions. And this has been one way that humans have been pushed to create and change their natural situation, not just for more resources like all animals do, but also in search of meaning where these self-aware apes who are able to tell stories of meaning and purpose to each other, and we ourselves are kind of characters in our own story. It's a major reason why humans have been able to cooperate in large numbers with each other, looking towards stories like corporations or religions, or countries. All of these are meaningful stories that bind us together to cooperate and change our situation. So a lot of experts now think that boredom is this emotional cue that is pushing us to do something different with our lives, to deliver on that need for meaning. But boredom today is pretty different. In fact, in the old days, most people didn't have time to get bored. - It's typical for traditional societies that you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about what to care about because it's already defined for you.
Get me back to being bored in that dark car before the trolling being mean to my kids and partner began. Here we go. We're stuck here. Instead of revving your car up with that demonic fuel that we just saw, you can do the much harder thing. You can get out of the car and push it. You can push it down a road that you know contains some meaningful experience. Here I am pushing mine towards, going on a walk in nature. It's actually a lot of effort. I do not want to do this by definition because I am bored. I am manually pushing it, but as I push, my mind is kind of in this big picture place. Remember the default mode network? I'm thinking about the past and the future about the meaning of my life. I'm feeling things and reading my thoughts in a way that I usually don't get to. And look what happens when I get close. (engine whirs) (engine purrs) This worked. My car fires back up, and yes, it took some effort, but my purpose tank is filling up. My attention and my ability to keep it is flickering back on. I'm going back to things that bring me purpose without having to harm anyone. And in fact, the benefit of all of this is I'm now more in touch with my sense of meaning and purpose because I've had to sit with it. I've had to struggle through not feeling it and contemplate what meaning is for me. What do I actually want to do with my life? So I get back in the car and I'm rethinking my route on this map, what turns I want to take. And to stretch this analogy even further, I'm stronger. I'm stronger because I got out and pushed my car, so like my muscles are stronger. Next time I get bored, I have the mental muscles to push through. And this is why some studies, not all, demonstrate a statistically significant correlation between boredom and creativity. Being bored makes you more creative according to some of these studies, which gets to answering another question I've had for a long time, which is, why some cultures have entire concepts that embrace this idea of boredom?
June 7
🎧 Steven Pinker: Harvard Professor Explains the Rules of Writing |
Show your drafts to people outside your field. Steven Pinker shows his drafts to intellectually curious people with some degree of education, but not to peers in his field. He also leverages his editor and academics from different fields to get feedback. They are smart but not in his field, which provides a fresh perspective.
Transcript: Steven Pinker But at the end of the day, I show it to people. When my mother was alive, I would always show her a draft of my book, not for the reason that most academics cite, namely referring to my mother as the epitome of an unsophisticated, not Very well-read, not very bright person. My mother was extremely intelligent, extremely well-read, and very sophisticated, but she wasn't a cognitive psychologist. She wasn't a psycholinguist. She didn't know what I knew. And when I write, I don't write for just a random sample of the population. They don't buy my books. I write for people who are intellectually curious, who have some degree of education. However, not for peers in my field. And so my mother being an example, but also, of course, when you publish for a commercial publisher, you have an editor. And the editor is typically very smart, but again, not in your field. And I show it to people in different fields who are academics. But it's surprising how insular even academics are when it comes to other academics.
Don't just assume you know what your reader is thinking. Get a real person to read your work and see if it actually makes sense to them. This is the most important thing you can do.
Transcript: Steven Pinker The first one being find some way of getting into your reader's heads, but don't just depend on your ability to get their heads actually get a flesh and blood person to actually read it And see if it makes any sense to them. So that'd be number one.
Writing isn't just stringing words together; it's about conveying ideas that are visual, emotional, and sensory. Constantly allow your reader to form a mental image based on what you write. Avoid abstract terms like 'stimulus'; instead, use concrete examples like 'bunny rabbit'. Don't use jargon that people can't visualize.
Transcript: Steven Pinker Language is a means to an end of getting people to appreciate the ideas you're trying to convey, which are not just a string of verbiage. And those ideas very often are visual and motoric, that is bodily, emotional, auditory, but they're sensory. Or they're even conceptual, but they aren't just a bunch of vowels and consonants. And so constantly allowing your reader to be able to form a mental image based on what you're writing is the next key to good writing. That is, don't talk about a stimulus if you mean a bunny rabbit. Don't talk about a level or a perspective or a framework or a paradigm or a concept, all of which mean a lot to you in your day-to work, but no one can form an image of a paradigm in their mind's Eye.
Prose from earlier eras often feels more vivid due to the lack of academic jargon and abstractions that have accumulated over centuries. Writers relied on common imagery to connect with their audience, rather than abstract terms like aggression, opting for more evocative language, like 'the spirit of the hawk entered into our flesh.'
Transcript: Steven Pinker One of the reasons that often the prose of other eras strikes us as so much more vivid is... I was going to say lush. Lush, yes. Partly because they had the advantage of writing before there were several hundred years of academia and intellectuals inventing terms and abstractions. And they had to appeal to images that were part of people's common knowledge. So instead of saying something like aggression or antisocial behavior, they might say the spirit of the hawk needed into our flesh.
When reviewing your writing, read it aloud. If you can't say it smoothly, your reader likely won't be able to read it smoothly.
Transcript: Steven Pinker Often when you read a draft of your own prose, and if you can't articulate it smoothly, that probably your reader won't be mentally sounding it out smoothly either.
Steven Bartlett recalls his podcast's growth. For the first 3 years, no one listened. Then, growth occurred incredibly fast.
Transcript: Steven Bartlett If I think about how my podcast grew, for the first three years, no one's listening. And then it's incredibly fast.
Don't just focus on common skills. Life rewards rare and complementary skill stacks. Even if you're training for something specific like law, think about which rare skills will be valuable in that industry in the next 10 years (e.g., AI). Someone with a rare and complementary skill will be valued and paid much more than someone who's just slightly better at a common skill. Consider Cristiano Ronaldo: he isn't the best at any single skill, but his unique combination makes him the best player.
Transcript: Steven Bartlett On skills, this is quite an interesting one because the thing that ends up making an 18-year valuable in the economy and in the working market, and this is kind of paradoxical, isn't If they go and get common skills. Crazy thing about life is it doesn't necessarily reward you for common skills. It rewards you for having a rare and complementary skill stack. So when we think about an entrepreneur, we think they have the skill of entrepreneurship. No, they have 10 underlying skills, which made them successful at entrepreneurship. And actually in life, the people that become number one in an industry aren't necessarily the best at any individual underlying skill, but they have the right set of rare and complementary Skills. If you're training to be a lawyer at this moment, instead of tripling down on law, what I would highly advise you to do at that age is to think about the rare and complementary skill that This industry is going to value over the next 10 years. I would recommend that you go and do one semester or one course on large language models and artificial intelligence. Because the lawyer that has that isn't paid the same as the lawyer that's even 10% better at law. They are paid hundreds of percent more in terms of value if they have rare and complementary. The best football player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, that played at Manchester United, as you'll know, he's not the best at any individual skill. He's not the best runner, not the best penalty taker, not the best free. I'd go on and on and on. He's the best player in the world. The reason for that is he has the right set of rare and complementary skills that aren't often found in one person. So again, going back to this point of skills, I would tell April to think about the rare skill that's going to be complementary that her industry values and start compounding there.
June 6
📰 Scram! by
“I think that keeping a journal, diary or daily reminder is one of the best independent methods for self expression, knowledge and experience. A journal can be started at any time in your life and the longer it is maintained, the more valuable it becomes to you...” The daily journal of 80-year-old Raymond Herbert.
I also gobbled up David Shields’ *How We Got Here*, which attempts to trace the history of ideas — from Melville to Dostoevsky to Bloom to Zizek to Bannon — that brought us to this contemporary moment when “truthiness” rules the day. I read it as a kind of sequel to Shields’ *Reality Hunger*, in which he argued that we crave “reality” because we experience hardly any for ourselves. (The way Shields uses quotes to build his argument was a big influence on *Steal Like an Artist*.)
🎧 3 Creator Economy Trends Shaping the Future - The Colin and Samir Show
Brands are becoming creators, and creators are becoming brands. There's an uptick in brand spending across the board.
Transcript: Samir The first trend that we're seeing is around brands. Now I say this like in two ways. I think brands are becoming creators and creators are becoming brands. So a couple of things were happening. Number one, we're seeing an uptick in brand spend across creators.
Unilever's new CEO wants to increase creator spend from 30% to 50% of their marketing budget. This trend of brands working directly with creators will become more common. However, it doesn't necessarily mean each individual creator will receive more money; it may just mean that more creators will get opportunities.
Transcript: Samir Unilever has a new CEO and he's young, he's in his 30s, and he wants to up their creator spend working directly with creators from 30% of their marketing budget to 50% of their total marketing Budget. I think that's going to be common amongst brands, but that doesn't mean that each individual creator will get more money. It just means more creators will get money.
Long-form content's challenging due to its cost and the difficulty creators face fitting it into their schedules. Few creators can drive real results with it. It's more about association and awareness than direct conversion, a metric brands like Unilever will likely use. Short-form ads offer brands more control because they can be repurposed as paid ads.
Transcript: Samir The challenge with long form content is it's expensive and it's hard to fit into a schedule with creators. And there's only a handful of creators who can drive real results in long-form content. And long-form content, I think, is much more about association and awareness than it is about direct conversion. And when you get brands like Unilever or start to get more brands entering in the space, they're going to peg it against conversion. So when they get to do a short-form ad with you, they also get to run it as a paid ad, most likely. So they actually have more control over that asset.
YouTube isn't just becoming like TV; it's actually replacing it. It has been the number one platform on connected devices for the last two years.
Transcript: Samir Our next trend, which is YouTube is not necessarily becoming TV, it's replacing it. So obviously the number one headline that's been a headline for the past two years is that YouTube is the number one platform on connected TVs.
Adopt Reid Hoffman's 'default dead' mentality. As a creator or entrepreneur, wake up every day knowing you must bring your idea to life again.
Transcript: Colin So. Reid Hoffman. Yeah. Your default dead. Samir Yeah. I love that. You wake up every day. As an entrepreneur or a creator, you wake up every day default dead. You have to bring your idea to life every day. Yeah. I love that. All right.
Samir is impressed by the influence of live streamers (Twitch, etc.) like Kai Cenat, IShowSpeed, and Ludwig. Consider how they're shaping the internet as we move forward.
Transcript: Samir I am increasingly more impressed with streaming, meaning Twitch streaming and like live streaming. The incredible amounts of influence that live streamers have on the internet, I find to be so interesting and something to just really sit back and study of like the amount that Kai Sinat Is influencing the internet or I show speed is influencing the internet or Ludwig's ability to influence the internet. I find to be really interesting and something to think about as we enter this next chapter.
🎧 TACO Trade, Elon's DOGE Farewell, and AI Video Gone Wild - Pivot Pod
Real value in higher-paying jobs lies in design, distribution, and product marketing. These aspects are key to adding value.
Transcript:
Scott Galloway
But the real value add in the higher paying jobs are in design, distribution, product marketing, all that good stuff back here.
June 2
🎧 How Johnny Harris Changed the News Forever - The Colin and Samir Show
Advertising's influence on news is kinda messed up. It limits coverage to high-viewership topics. News wasn't always supposed to be this way. Originally, there were rules against advertising during news broadcasts. This shift has fundamentally changed news.
Transcript: Samir It's bizarre that advertising is the business model for this. Colin Yeah. Samir It just is, right? Because then you just can't cover things that won't get high viewership. Yeah. It wasn't supposed to be. Johnny Harris It wasn supposed to be. When it was one hour, it was stipulated that there could not be advertising for that one hour. And the history is really fascinating and worth looking into. It completely has shifted news. Completely. And irrevocably.
Johnny and Iz prep for story day by standing around a huge table with a large piece of paper, markers, arguing, debating, and drawing thumbnails. This new process, implemented six months ago, has been revolutionary.
Transcript: Johnny Harris But what it looks like when we have a story day is the two of us. And we're mostly going to be on our feet. And we're going to have a huge piece of paper that is sprawled out across a huge table. That's cool. And we are going to have markers. Colin And we're going to be arguing and debating and drawing thumbnails all day drawing drawing out the thumbnail this is a new process that is implemented yeah like maybe six months ago and It has been revolutionary it's like gone from the stallion's gut to a to like which is a wonderful place but i also it's because i believe that i need your team to animate.
Creators can't just make esoteric content that interests them. If you're relying on ad revenue to pay 25 employees, content has to appeal to a bigger audience consistently to justify brand investment. Defending the broader appeal of a topic is useful, but can face resistance.
Transcript: Colin I'm going to make something and like a hundred thousand people are going to be interested in this or whatever. If you are creating and you have to reach two to 4 million people every time, which kind of, we have to, for like the business to work. We have, they have to be home runs every single time. Johnny Harris Not every time, but again, he tells himself certain things. Iz Harris Don't tell them anything different. They kind of do. Why don't you tell them anything different? Colin In order for the brands to come back and pay the rates that they do so that we can pay payroll, they have to be home runs every single time. You have 25 people on payroll. Yeah. The overhead is not cheap. Can't be volatile. So it can't be like, I'm doing a video on something. No, they can't. So since we got to the point where the home run has to be pretty consistent, it has been very useful to not have it just be like, I'm interested in this esoteric thing and I'm going to make It interesting with animation. Is he coming in and being like, but defend it. Why is this interesting? Has been a really good exercise for me to appeal to a much bigger audience. Which he was very resistant to. Johnny Harris Super resistant. Still kind of am.
To retain talent, pay them for their work and give them a share of the revenue they generate for the company.
Transcript: Johnny Harris The first solve was, how do we create a deal that gets talent to want to stay? Turns out, you pay them for the work that they're doing. You pay them some part, at least of what they are bringing into the company.
If you're trying to solve hiring or build a creative org, learn at least three critical things others have learned in the process.
Transcript: Samir A lot of creators who are trying to solve like hiring or building a creative organization would appreciate, you know, some knowledge of even like three things that you would say are Critical that you've learned in building a creative organization. Okay.
Bias towards action is beneficial in business. Make quick decisions and act fast. Don't waste time discussing problems; focus on solving them by taking the first step.
Transcript: Johnny Harris But for the most part in business, it serves us well. So bias towards action. You make decisions quick. You do things fast. You break things. Colin And you don't talk about it. You don't get the feel good of talking about a problem or presenting the reasons it can't happen. You get the feel good by solving the problem of what is the first step towards.
Be kind to others; it's also self-serving. It took Johnny Harris a while to learn this, especially in business contexts.
Transcript: Johnny Harris The other is to be kind. And I know that that sounds like, oh, how sweet, but it actually is a bit self-serving. Be kind to other people. It took me a while to learn that. I'm kind in my life, but when business starts to happen, it gets harder.
Be the nicest and coolest rocket ship in town. Treat people well, set high expectations, move fast, and show up with kindness, respect, and humanity. It's important when building relationships.
Transcript: Johnny Harris Always say that I want us to be the nicest and coolest rocket ship in town. It's like everyone wants to work with us because we treat them well. They leave us feeling good. But we have high expectations and we're moving fast, you know, and it's like come on the rocket ship, but you better hurry up. You better move at our pace. But at the end of the day, we're going to show up with kindness and respect and like humanity. It is important. It's important as you're building relationships in this industry.
To succeed, figure out what you're best at, be honest about it, and hire people to cover what you're not good at. It's key!
Transcript: Johnny Harris Finding out what what you do best and being really honest and then hiring for the things that you don't is essential.
Focus on getting it right over being right. This idea can be applied to many situations.
Transcript: Johnny Harris Caring more about getting it right than being right. And this could be applied to everything.
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