The Art of Manliness - #149： Taking Action in an Uncertain and Hack-Focused World With Kyle Eschenroeder

00:00:00.000 all right mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so if

00:00:18.260 you've been reading the site for a while you've probably seen some content written by a guy named

00:00:22.060 kyle eschenroeder he's a business owner owns a company called startup bros where he and his

00:00:26.660 partner train individuals how to start their own online business but besides being an entrepreneur

00:00:31.940 kyle reads deeply and he thinks deeply about a lot of important topics on how to live the good

00:00:38.940 life the two pieces of content that he's written for the art of manliness that have resonated with

00:00:42.800 a lot of readers was the first one is about the myths of taking action it's about the excuses we

00:00:48.180 give or tell ourselves that prevent us from taking action we know we need to take and the other one

00:00:52.680 was on how to thrive in uncertainty it's taking on this idea that in modern life we've deluded

00:00:59.480 ourselves into thinking that we have more control over a lot our lives than we think we do we have

00:01:04.380 this um there's an app for that mentality right with a click of a button you can solve any problem

00:01:08.940 the reality is there are some things in life that we just have no control over and the trick is is

00:01:14.480 figuring out how to create a life that not only can survive that uncertainty but can thrive in it

00:01:20.500 and that's what that article talks about and i brought kyle on to the podcast i want to discuss

00:01:25.180 these topics in detail and get uh really deep into it so that's what we're going to do today

00:01:29.720 really great conversation i think you're gonna like it so without further ado kyle eshenroeder

00:01:33.760 on thriving in uncertainty

00:01:35.640 kyle eshenroeder welcome to the show thanks for having me brett i'm uh looking forward to it

00:01:48.520 so you've contributed some articles on our site that uh have really impacted a lot of people we

00:01:53.720 get emails about them all the time um but before and we're going to talk about some of the themes

00:01:57.920 you've written about in these articles i'd like to really have this discussion with you but before

00:02:01.720 we do let's talk about your background because it's really interesting and pretty unconventional

00:02:05.840 can you tell us how you became this uh philosopher entrepreneur guy that you are oh man i uh i've always

00:02:12.960 read deeply i think um i i started day trading under a mentor in high school um and in order to do that

00:02:22.040 you you've it's very emotionally trying uh so getting into uh meditation and philosophy is kind of uh

00:02:31.000 a natural progression for anybody who who does that um i went to i went to college and uh

00:02:38.960 uh continued to trade and uh started to dabble in startups i got involved with uh groveshark.com early

00:02:47.240 on um and and really was excited by the potential in value creation that you can uh the that uh a

00:02:58.320 startup can have um and so it it seemed to me one of the best ideas you know these ideas that i was

00:03:05.840 studying um as an extension of trading um you could really have a bigger effect in the real world

00:03:13.160 through uh startups so that's that's where the uh kind of entrepreneurial part came in um and really

00:03:22.080 you know early on it was more self-development uh uh focused stuff and uh you know self-help stuff

00:03:29.780 um and i think you know if you read enough of that you start to uh question question their premises

00:03:36.980 um and realize that they haven't really you know and i say they broadly but uh uh you need to look at

00:03:46.960 you know maybe why you're doing something or what's at the core of this um what need is this fulfilling

00:03:51.740 um and that is kind of where you you get down into uh more i guess intense philosophies

00:03:58.720 so is that what got you into researching and studying studying and writing about philosophy

00:04:02.900 just trying to find some balance to the uncertainty that you find in startup culture and day trading is

00:04:08.260 that what it was yeah i think uh i think it's a great uh balancer but also a driver you know um

00:04:14.720 if you're just going to be an entrepreneur and that's the only thing you're focused on you're still

00:04:20.740 you'll still create value um but you you don't have as solid of a foundation or perspective

00:04:27.600 on what you're building um the society that you're building it in uh and how you can kind of

00:04:34.240 do the most good all right so you can read these personal development books right a lot of people

00:04:38.960 do i do they're they're often very practical and there's always the bullet point list of things you

00:04:43.920 can do right now to apply to your own life or to your own business um but how does studying things

00:04:50.640 like the uncertainty principle or nietzsche or sinica how has that made you a better businessman

00:04:57.360 in your day-to-day i'm talking practical brass tax level so i think um i think these things give you

00:05:06.240 a great um grounding in dealing with people um and in dealing with struggle gaining perspective so

00:05:15.880 uh so so so you know honestly honestly brett you know there's there's a lot of uh entrepreneurs

00:05:24.680 who don't read a lot who don't have a strong foundation in nietzsche um who are much uh much

00:05:30.040 better uh entrepreneurs than than me you know i i think of um i think of steve jobs i think of john

00:05:37.080 rockefeller um these guys are famous for for reading very little i mean carnegie barely read um and and so

00:05:45.240 um i think the the difference that the it depends on what you're doing so in the businesses um that

00:05:53.640 i've been involved in i deal with people a lot um and for me it's very important to have an

00:06:00.600 understanding of where i'm headed so um you know uh every day i can i can you know communicate to

00:06:08.760 people more directly kind of the vision um and how we sit as a company um in in the community in our

00:06:16.600 society today the good that we're doing um maybe more fully than somebody who hasn't read as widely

00:06:23.000 but um i i do hesitate to say that you know as far as uh an entrepreneur creating um uh roi i don't

00:06:33.640 know i don't know that it has a direct impact yeah let's talk about that because i i love how you as a

00:06:38.600 a businessman you're you're thinking of the bigger picture oftentimes there's this cult of the

00:06:43.960 startup and internet businesses where it's just about making enough money for yourself so you can

00:06:49.640 live the dream travel be location independent right oh yeah my question is how do you get past

00:06:56.280 that where you there's this filter bubble bubble where everyone's just talking about okay here's

00:07:00.440 what it here's what's about me here's what i can do for me how do you see startup cultures

00:07:05.560 and businesses taking on a bigger approach and actually having an effect on the community around

00:07:10.920 them that's that's really interesting um that's a that's a really interesting question i think um

00:07:17.160 it it may be a natural cycle um and and i'm that's kind of what i'm hoping on is that this kind of

00:07:25.640 obsession with location independent entrepreneur um is almost wearing itself out exhausting itself

00:07:32.440 because there's so many people who have accomplished that now who are you know they're empty they don't

00:07:38.520 they realize that this is not the best way they realize it's not as easy as you know four hours a

00:07:44.120 week it takes full-time commitment um that you you take on massive responsibilities um and and also

00:07:51.320 you know once once you hit a certain um level you you realize that their only way that you can be

00:07:58.120 fulfilled is by helping other people truly um not not in a um the kind of empty way that that many of

00:08:08.680 these businesses uh go about it um and honestly brett i mean if you look you look around at the the

00:08:15.320 businesses that sustain themselves very few of those kind of you know get a business up and running so i

00:08:21.880 can create passive income and then forget about it and go you know live uh live my life in i don't

00:08:27.560 know hawaii or whatever um they they i've i've watched a lot of them this whole kind of um group of

00:08:34.120 people just put you know you throw stuff up and uh and fizzle out immediately the only people that have

00:08:41.640 staying power to be true entrepreneurs are um ones that do want to create something um that's bigger than

00:08:50.360 just them um and yeah as much as we want to talk about it as much as entrepreneurship can be broken

00:08:57.080 down into steps or you know made made you know systematized um it it's always hard business is

00:09:05.080 is one of the most abstract things you can do it's extremely difficult to to create something lasting um

00:09:11.640 and and uh yeah unless unless people have that kind of drive um to do something bigger than themselves

00:09:17.400 it's not going to last and so um i guess my my answer to you is it i think it's taking care of

00:09:23.480 itself nice sort of like natural selection yes yeah exactly exactly that brought up an interesting

00:09:29.320 point one of the things i find about people who are into entrepreneurship and startups they love

00:09:35.080 starting things and they get really excited about starting new projects and i have some acquaintance

00:09:40.280 who call themselves serial entrepreneurs you know they're all because they're always starting

00:09:43.560 something new and it's always exciting to start something new but if you're that type of person

00:09:47.320 who loves to start things how do you make the transition to okay i started something it's gaining

00:09:52.760 momentum it's got some teeth how do you transition to managing and maintaining that business for the

00:09:58.760 long haul yeah and so that's um that's where you have kind of two options and this happens at

00:10:04.280 at every level from people starting you know um blogs to people starting multi you know

00:10:10.280 companies that end up being valued at billions of dollars um there there there there comes a point

00:10:15.800 when you decide to become a manager or to leave the business um so this you know once you develop a

00:10:24.840 business this has happened with uh startup bros um the company that i started with uh my friend will

00:10:31.160 um it has gotten to the point after a couple years that it's taken on a life of itself its own we're no

00:10:36.520 longer a startup um we're now managers we're now managing growth we're now feeding this um separate

00:10:44.600 thing that has its own life now um and and there's less freedom in it uh there there's you know there

00:10:52.840 it's um it's a completely different mode um and so you have to either decide whether you want to switch

00:10:59.480 modes whether you want to become um a manager and and deal with the grind or if you want to go

00:11:06.440 look for you know the next startup opportunity um and like i like i said you know a lot of startups

00:11:13.000 in silicon valley investors pressure these um these startup uh ceos um at a certain point to to uh

00:11:22.520 you know either they they need to leave or get trained in you know serious uh management um and and uh

00:11:30.440 it's not a transition everybody can or wants to make yeah maybe this is just me i feel like with this

00:11:35.400 whole startup culture where startups are really sexy it's fun you get the the nerf guns at lunch

00:11:40.600 and you get food catering i feel like management part right gets de-emphasized people who their

00:11:48.120 talent is telling people how to do things efficiently and getting things done and maintaining the the

00:11:53.000 momentum that a startup person has started they're sort of like the the unsexy dork at the dance who

00:11:57.960 hides in the corner but those people have incredible value yes yeah and i think um you're pointing out

00:12:04.600 something that i i like to call the sexy tax um that you pay if you want to do if you want to do the

00:12:11.480 thing that's being celebrated by culture you have to deal with um uh generally decreased returns um and

00:12:20.120 increased competition um and so you know there's there's you know a startup culture it only celebrates

00:12:27.880 like a very few young billionaires or uh you know or then on the other side it celebrates these like

00:12:35.160 teenagers that are all starting businesses um and and i've actually i've been involved in these startup

00:12:41.320 shows um and and there's you know we actually get approached by these television studios these

00:12:48.920 production houses that are trying to launch startup um real you know the real world what are they called

00:12:56.360 uh you know the real world of startups basically um and and everyone fails because the uh the

00:13:05.480 highlights are like you said it's the very beginning it's the initial exciting ideas um and then it's

00:13:11.640 like the ipo or um when you sell the facebook or google um but everything in between is is just agony

00:13:19.080 it's just sitting at a computer typing programming desperately trying to sell your services

00:13:24.040 um it's boring and it's uh like you said it's just it's not exciting um and so so when people kind of

00:13:31.400 have this hollywood idea of what it is to be a startup entrepreneur they um they act on these kind of

00:13:38.440 abstract ideas that they have of what uh an entrepreneur should be instead of actually focusing on

00:13:46.120 what does my business need from me today how do i build this thing into something real how do i provide

00:13:51.960 value um and those are kind of the boring questions that that nobody's going to make a a show um on but

00:13:59.640 those are the things that actually grow businesses yeah i i've encountered this paradox or this problem

00:14:05.640 in my own life so in my backyard i have some land so i decided to build a trail through it it was really

00:14:10.600 really fun blazing the trail i have this awesome machete that i was cutting through all the weeds

00:14:16.360 the thistles and the thorns and it was great to see my progress then winter came and i didn't go out

00:14:22.360 there then i came back in the middle of the spring and it was all overgrown and i was like crap i've got

00:14:29.160 to maintain this thing now and maintaining it is not not fun at all right and that's what you have to

00:14:35.400 do for decades it takes what a year to to build the thing and that's exciting you get to see progress

00:14:40.280 and then the rest is just fighting off decay entropy yeah yeah yeah and this just isn't something that

00:14:45.880 applies to business but also applies to someone uh with their personal development you know it's

00:14:51.000 always fun to start a new goal oh yeah i'm going to go to the gym i'm going to start journal writing

00:14:56.200 i'm going to be awesome then you get into the grind and you've got to keep doing it and right and that's

00:15:02.280 where the payoff the payoffs only come after after that grind after that uh getting through that super

00:15:09.080 boring plateau where you get to the next uh you know peak or whatever yeah let's talk about one

00:15:14.600 of the articles you wrote for us last year uh today we still get emails and letters about it it was

00:15:20.440 10 overlooked truths about taking action and a lot of people talk about taking action on the web

00:15:27.320 deeds not words carpe diem take action blah blah blah they write that on their facebook profile yeah

00:15:34.040 yeah exactly but people still have a hard time taking action on their intentions their goals their

00:15:38.760 dreams i mean why is that why is it so hard i mean you feel really motivated at the beginning

00:15:44.280 of the day but taking that motivation actually turning it into action is is really hard for folks

00:15:49.640 yeah and that's i mean that is that's the tough question that um that i i can't really answer and

00:15:56.200 i don't think um anybody really can or maybe even should so i mean there's there's an infinite

00:16:03.400 amount of of good reasons probably you know not to good rationalizations um one of the most

00:16:10.120 interesting ones i came across recently came from uh mark manson and he said uh he calls it the manson

00:16:16.440 principle that we don't do things um that threaten our personal identity even if they even if it would

00:16:23.720 you know make us better um and so we just we kind of have this uh homeostasis um choose a term from

00:16:31.320 ludwig sundstrom that uh that sticks us where we're at there's this there's an infinite amount

00:16:36.680 of forces hitting us from different directions um and so i think my suggestion um and and kind of

00:16:45.080 what the article is attempting to do um is to trick us out of you know pointing out these reasons

00:16:53.320 um and and and and tricking ourselves um and tricking ourselves to take action anyway so um you know

00:17:01.640 i i i you you um you know freudian or what are they psycho psychoanalysts have had a um a pretty

00:17:09.480 terrible success rate um and fixing people because they're so obsessed with you know finding these these

00:17:15.400 hidden causes um and and and a lot of times it might be more helpful just to uh you know forget

00:17:23.240 about them not worry about them um and so that's where i i kind of think we should try to trick

00:17:28.600 ourselves into taking action um even though it feels like there might be reasons not to so what

00:17:34.600 are some myths that people have about action yes yeah and i think i think um one of the most

00:17:40.680 interesting ones to notice um is that people believe um things like motivation passion purpose courage

00:17:49.640 um you know reasons justifications or even planning always must precede action um when in fact all these

00:17:58.520 things more naturally um follow uh action and and once you can kind of it's a difficult it's very very

00:18:07.080 difficult to believe because we're so wired to um believe the opposite but once we can wrap our heads

00:18:13.240 around that um and once we prove that to ourselves it becomes extremely easy to um take these those

00:18:20.760 actions that we know we should yeah yeah you see that again and again on the internet everyone is

00:18:25.000 always talking about you've got to follow your passion find your passion you know people even put

00:18:29.240 up the memes on their facebook profile or tumblr or you know they got their top totem animal where it

00:18:35.320 says i'm i'm the gym beast i'm going to be awesome then they don't do anything they don't go to the gym

00:18:41.480 right right yeah and i i uh i know if you've not noticed this it tends to be the most out of shape

00:18:50.440 people who know the most about fitness who know the most about exactly what exercises to do to get x

00:18:57.160 results um they they tend to have this extreme book knowledge um but then just forgot that that kind of

00:19:04.360 vital that vital part that means you know go to the gym right go to the gym and get started yeah so you

00:19:11.000 see this not just in business but uh with their personal development people have these goals

00:19:15.400 and they feel like if i want to lose weight i've got to get motivated and once i get motivated and i

00:19:19.960 feel like it then maybe it's going to be a breeze but that's not how it works right and and you know

00:19:25.000 i need to get motivated uh and i need the perfect plan you know once i have have just this this perfect

00:19:31.240 plan um and the perfect outfit um and the perfect gym partner or whatever then i'll do it but uh but

00:19:39.000 it it never happens you know and um and any of those people who get if they have a friend that's

00:19:44.920 good enough to drag them to the gym for you know a week consistently those people are motivated they

00:19:50.920 now all the all those abstract barriers to entry have been deleted and they uh they understand that

00:19:57.800 it just means going to the gym and sweating yeah stephen king is a great example of just doing it

00:20:02.920 i mean you don't have to be motivated you you don't have to have the perfect everything he just wrote

00:20:07.400 when he wrote carrie uh he was living in a really small house and he would just write on the kitchen

00:20:12.280 table in the corner while his wife was banging pots and pans in the kitchen and it didn't matter 0.67

00:20:17.240 he wrote the book and a lot of people think well if i'm going to start a business or write this blog

00:20:21.480 post i need to do my ritual and here's my little thing that i got to have and it's got to be perfectly

00:20:26.440 set up and i have to have my headphones and my background music and my binaural beats and then

00:20:30.920 the motivation and the inspiration will just come

00:20:35.800 yeah yeah that is yeah and it's it's just so ridiculous um and you know i think one of the

00:20:42.120 things that that tricks us into this is like this this endless uh supply of clickbait that says this

00:20:49.880 will maximize your productivity and this will maximize your productivity and if you you know if

00:20:54.520 you're going to be a writer you need your walls painted this color um and and really when you

00:20:59.560 look at anybody like i have this book called daily rituals it's like a couple hundred people that are

00:21:05.000 you know these artists and and just high achievers and in many different creative areas uh and every one

00:21:11.880 of them have different rituals and they were all developed over time as people found out their own

00:21:18.760 personal needs um and and so you know you know every every writer who is uh it will will tell you that

00:21:27.720 you don't sit down and just know exactly what you're going to say you sit down and you try really hard to

00:21:34.200 say something it usually comes out terribly then you have to go back and edit it you know it's it's uh

00:21:39.880 it's very messy it's very messy um so yeah you know they they people we're so hungry for answers

00:21:48.600 people feed us answers and then we're you know uh then we we paralyze ourselves when we can't

00:21:55.080 kind of uh you know set up this perfect instance um when and when in reality it's equivalent of going

00:22:01.800 to the gym and sweating just sitting down writing garbage until something golden comes out right so

00:22:06.760 there's also this big emphasis on goals and i'm a big fan of setting goals for myself but how can

00:22:11.560 goals get in the way of taking action yeah and so i i do you know before we get into that i want to uh

00:22:19.320 i want to say that goals work really well for a lot of people i know a lot of people who have

00:22:24.040 a lot of success with goals um for me they haven't done uh they they didn't work as well um and i think

00:22:31.640 they a lot of people get stuck with goals um because they rely on a kind of fantasy future

00:22:40.040 um and and deny the present moment um so so you know every day you go to the gym and you're um still

00:22:50.840 chubby you're failing you know um because your goal is to be ripped or to be you know x pounds so every

00:22:59.320 day that you go it's it's not motivating to know that you're behind schedule um and then when you do

00:23:05.960 hit that goal when you do get ripped let's say um you have to immediately set a new goal that you're

00:23:13.080 then failing at and start to achieve that one so say maybe it's bulking you know um and in the gym

00:23:19.640 so so it's always just kind of you're set up for disappointment and failure um and so a uh a fix for

00:23:27.880 this was uh actually suggested by the author of dilbert the dilbert comics douglas adams or not

00:23:34.680 douglas adams i'm sorry scott adams um but yeah he he suggests setting up a system so if you want to

00:23:43.080 if you're you know you have this general aim to get ripped instead of saying i'm going to have four

00:23:48.120 percent body fat by the end of two months you say i'm going to go to the gym for one hour every day

00:23:56.280 um you know four days a week so you set up a system and every time you implement that system you're

00:24:01.400 succeeding um and so you you spend the whole time that you're on the right track winning um and like

00:24:09.080 we're talking about action before that then shocks you into um appreciating the actions being taken

00:24:16.520 instead of just the results obsessing on this kind of um abstract outcomes of uh of uh

00:24:24.200 uh actions taken now so process oriented as opposed to results oriented right right right now one thing

00:24:32.280 you mentioned planning is that planning can get in the way of taking action but doesn't shouldn't it

00:24:37.080 play some role in your business or in your personal life and what role does planning and deep reflection

00:24:42.360 fit into this ideal of action right and uh yeah but i'm yeah i'm glad you brought this up because

00:24:47.480 that's one thing that um the article really didn't deal with um and that it's it's it's

00:24:53.640 difficult to uh to talk about uh when you want to balance two ideas sure so so um the goal of the

00:25:02.520 article was you know there's 10 overlooked truths about taking action um and so the reason i wanted to

00:25:09.800 really dig into helping uh helping us understand what action is so that we can put it into a

00:25:17.400 more healthy context um and then a lot of people kind of mistook that as i should always be taking

00:25:24.600 action thinking is terrible planning ahead terrible um when obviously that's that's just not the case

00:25:31.720 so um my my suggestion is to um you know it there's no there's no one size fits all so so you know if

00:25:42.920 you're planning out a you know a trip to mars if you're elon musk team planning out a trip to mars you

00:25:50.600 need every detail exactly right because there's going to be very little improvisation you can do

00:25:56.200 um from earth to to help that mission out you know what i mean um but uh on the other end is we're just

00:26:04.840 talking about the gym going to the gym you don't need any plan to get in a better shape than you are

00:26:11.560 today so so yes um you know reading a fitness book might be helpful um and and creating a plan might

00:26:20.280 help you um stay consistent but going today doing that thing now is going to um kind of invigorate

00:26:29.720 the plan that you do create um and give you better context for it um so the business version of this is

00:26:37.400 the lean startup methodology and this is especially true of software companies um not companies with

00:26:43.800 you know complex supply chains and and require huge investment up front but you basically like you create

00:26:50.840 an mvp which is a minimum viable product what is the smallest thing that we can create to test this

00:26:58.600 assumption that we're making about our business um and then so you you plan minimally and then you take

00:27:05.640 action um and then that allows you to um take advantage of both sides of the coin so you get all the

00:27:14.920 advantages of taking action like like watching new opportunities emerge watching um you know

00:27:22.520 unforeseen problems pop up um without as large of an initial investment um but at the same time you have

00:27:31.080 you have uh you have this minimal plan that is driving you in the right direction so it depends

00:27:37.240 on the context right yes yes and i would say you know and for all of us in our individual lives it's

00:27:43.000 always less than you think it's always um you know less you you need to less read less books than you think

00:27:49.640 you need to read less blogs and you think um when when you're risking very little you need very little

00:27:55.720 planning got you now one reason that a lot of people don't take action and you wrote about

00:27:59.800 this is uncertainty they're surrounded by uncertainty they don't want to make that investment in the

00:28:05.560 business because they don't know if it'll be a success or you know who knows how the economy will

00:28:10.280 change with our ever-changing modern world things are just speeding up because of technology things are

00:28:16.280 unstable and always changing so how should we manage our life and career in the face of such uncertainty

00:28:22.200 yeah i think um one thing that is extremely helpful to do um initially um and this just helps

00:28:29.160 you emotionally deal with uh uncertainty is to differentiate between um the uncertainty that

00:28:36.600 you feel versus the uncertainty that actually exists so you don't have to feel uncertain about a

00:28:42.680 situation just because that situation isn't a hundred percent likely to happen um so so once

00:28:49.640 you differentiate between those two things um it makes everything else a little bit easier um and

00:28:57.160 brett yeah i know i know you're a fan of stoicism um and the stoics recommend um one really

00:29:05.240 interesting tool for for dealing with uncertainty um and that is the triad of control so as you go

00:29:13.160 through life you can separate situations or events into three parts um they're either in your control

00:29:21.240 out of your control or partly in your control so something that's in your control is the effort

00:29:27.800 you put into something um something that's outside of your control um would be you know is your business

00:29:34.520 going to is the company you work for going to stay in business um and then a mix would be like um you

00:29:41.720 getting the job or getting into that school or um having success with this business because you can put in

00:29:48.120 everything um and that kind of tips the odds in your favor but um but it may it may not absolutely

00:29:56.520 get you there so once you've separated things out like that you can then um totally focus on um and and

00:30:05.880 do your best to tie your emotions to things that are in your control so um and that goes back to the

00:30:13.240 systems um if you tie your emotional life to completing your system successfully that day

00:30:21.800 then you are uh you're more likely to have the uh the grit that uh that that's needed to uh get

00:30:29.400 through possible failures and and stuff like that so besides the emotional resilience i think that's

00:30:35.320 really important in the face of uncertainty but how do you what do you do about it on an operational

00:30:39.720 level or tactical level i guess what what can you do to manage the uncertainty so you're not on the

00:30:45.560 bad end of it you know so you can adapt absolutely yeah and so um you you wrote a great post on this

00:30:52.760 too um based on taleb the beyond sissy resilience i believe um and and there's there's two big ways

00:31:00.760 um that you can expose yourself to the upside that is you don't know what's going to happen but you're

00:31:07.080 setting yourself up to take advantage of something crazy happening because you know that that in the

00:31:13.480 future there are going to be um kind of wild shifts especially now um that's increasing with

00:31:20.440 the increasing rate of technology like you mentioned so um the first way to do that is to increase your

00:31:26.920 optionality um so so that means give yourself more options to select from so when the time comes you can

00:31:35.560 make the best most advantageous choice um examples of this would be uh having savings in the bank um

00:31:43.720 so you know if a business opportunity comes or investment opportunity comes you maybe you can jump on

00:31:48.280 that um uh going to parties that you might not want to go to um just because you are then exposed to

00:31:57.000 interesting people who might be able to affect your life in a positive way um learning new skills that

00:32:03.080 could be useful in the future um and then also just uh i hate i really don't like talking about

00:32:10.680 perspectives but but shifting your perspective to um be open to the uh opportunities that come up um

00:32:20.040 that increases your optionalities like crazy because if you're just focused on you know what what you

00:32:26.360 believe to be um worthwhile today you're going to be blind to you know um what might be the next big

00:32:33.800 thing or or this wave that you're sitting on that you don't even realize it so um just shifting your

00:32:38.840 perspective to noticing um new options um and then another way that that we can take advantage of this

00:32:47.240 uncertainty instead of kind of uh having it bear down on us is making small bets or or making small

00:32:55.320 experiments um so an example of this is like the mvp that we we talked about this is how startups

00:33:02.440 take advantage of this uncertainty um investors know for in general they don't know what startup

00:33:10.280 is going to be the next facebook the next google um and so they have to um invest in many different

00:33:16.440 businesses um and they like to see a business that that does believe that they know what's right

00:33:22.040 what uh what the future looks like but then they also want to be able to see that a business can

00:33:27.960 pivot so if if their business model is disproven they should be able to create something new create

00:33:34.920 something um that based on what they learned from their failure will then uh uh help them win so um and

00:33:44.440 then you know in our in our everyday life kind of you know in you know if you're looking for a

00:33:49.160 girlfriend making small bets is is talking to multiple girls at the same time um you know for 0.97

00:33:56.360 for our blog at startup bros um when we decide what what kind of program that we want to put together

00:34:02.600 next the training program um we use blog posts to gauge the demand for that type of project so we make

00:34:10.600 small bets to know what we should double down on right going back to optionality i think a lot of

00:34:15.960 people particularly young people misinterpret this as keeping your options open and what ends up

00:34:21.000 happening is that they don't make a decision they have all these different choices and they don't

00:34:25.880 actually take one because there's they still want the options available for them at some time when

00:34:31.480 something doesn't doesn't pan out they want to maximize their choice yeah so how do you balance how do

00:34:38.360 you maintain optionality while still getting going in life and making decisions and making progress

00:34:44.440 oh that's a that's a good question um i i think that it's um that it's appreciating that the world is

00:34:54.040 not totally uncertain um and so it's not like the goal of life isn't optionality it's not just about

00:35:02.360 having options open um because the things that you decide on that's where there's depth so optionality

00:35:08.040 is kind of your your width um but but there's it's important to have uh depth so so that's i i think that

00:35:17.080 that that kind of model might be helpful um or or yeah that's that's how that's how i think about it um but it

00:35:27.080 is it's it's it's it's difficult to um to measure i think um necessity um forces people into that depth

00:35:36.200 you know it so you see you know you talk about young people um it's young people that aren't forced into

00:35:42.680 um having to create something now um and uh they they they're kind of honestly they're trying to um

00:35:52.200 um hack their way to this this this place of um of like you said not deciding of of not committing

00:36:03.080 um and so yeah optionality is not commitment um i don't know if that's helpful but that's a that's

00:36:08.120 the best i got got you all right so speaking of hacking the most recent article you wrote for us was

00:36:13.640 called stop hacking your life and it went after the whole hacking culture and we're not talking about

00:36:18.520 computer hacking we're talking about life hacks and i feel like that's one of those things that's

00:36:23.320 eating itself and it's slowly going away to a certain extent but you make the case that there

00:36:27.960 are two approaches to life hacking uh what are they and how can one of them be detrimental to our

00:36:33.640 development yeah i think um i think you're absolutely right about it it eating itself up um but

00:36:40.760 so i think there's there's two there's two kind of relationships or postures that we have towards

00:36:46.520 hacking um so you're either hacking you know in order to achieve uh an aim or to to to get a certain

00:36:55.880 outcome um and so that means you're you know when you go to look up the best way to to uh to tie a

00:37:02.840 tie you do that when you need to tie a tie um you have an awesome video on that by the way thank you

00:37:08.840 sir yeah and so it it focuses you on things that you're going to use now they're specific to your

00:37:15.320 situation you're optimizing for a specific outcome um and then the kind of unhealthy posture is hacking

00:37:22.600 for hacking's sake which is kind of this perverse meta hacking um and and it's where hacking becomes

00:37:30.120 the primary instead of the result that the hacking was supposed to get you um so so you know an example

00:37:38.040 of this is you know um scrolling through life hacker just collecting articles on things that you

00:37:46.360 probably don't do you don't need to do but they're like they just blast you with this click bait of

00:37:51.880 here's the answer to this question that you didn't know you had until just now here's like a hundred ways

00:37:56.840 that you'll never use to uh to live a happier better life um it ends up just like you said frustrating the

00:38:04.280 the user um and then they realize that the uh their life actually doesn't get better because they're

00:38:11.240 not um the the goal is optimization itself and when you optimize for um i like to look at it as a

00:38:19.320 multiplier um so so when you optimize for something it's it multiplies on that number but when you optimize

00:38:27.880 for um no reason or for life in general which is impossible you're optimizing for zero um and and

00:38:35.480 that is uh totally frustrating and ineffective yeah have you read any uh gk chesterton oof i've i've

00:38:43.160 read one uh one piece and it was i believe it was one of your uh manvotionals manvotionals yeah yeah

00:38:52.840 so he's this fierce critic of nietzsche his critiques are fascinating they're really well written he's a

00:38:57.800 great writer super funny and in one of his chapters in his book orthodoxy he's a he's a christian writer

00:39:03.960 uh in orthodoxy goes all over the place but in this one part he talks about when cultures or

00:39:09.400 organizations start focusing on efficiencies it means they run out of big ideas that's yeah that's a

00:39:16.280 that's really interesting yeah i think that's what happens particularly with business they just focus

00:39:21.160 on optimizing we've got to optimize our website so we can get more subscribers we're going to increase

00:39:25.640 our opt-in rate by 0.4 percent right i'm like what's your big idea i mean what else are you doing

00:39:31.800 i mean at that point you don't really have one they're just trying to squeeze out as much as they

00:39:35.960 can from this thing and they've they've already done and there's nothing wrong i mean there's nothing

00:39:40.680 wrong with that i guess but at the end the same time it distracts you from the bigger picture

00:39:45.400 um of trying to create something better and bigger than you had before yeah and i think um

00:39:50.920 one one kind of illustration of what you just mentioned is uh demand media which was basically

00:39:57.480 it's just like media company created by i believe the founders of myspace and it was all based on

00:40:04.120 creating content uh uh based on big data so they just you know would would measure you know what is

00:40:11.480 trending at all today yada yada and then they create just very quickly very crappily create some piece of

00:40:19.080 content that uh maps on to something that uh some big data system suggested and uh and it and it just

00:40:28.040 is terrible nobody wants to read it because there's no soul there's uh there's nothing there um so yeah

00:40:33.640 i i i believe in that wholeheartedly um that's a that's a tough balance because you know there there's

00:40:39.640 information that you do want to use like you do want to make sure that you maximize conversions

00:40:44.520 um but only to the point that you're not giving up um what's truly valuable and uh yeah and brett i

00:40:53.160 gotta i gotta say you uh one reason i love art of mailiness so much is because uh you more than

00:40:59.960 maybe anybody else in this i don't know quote unquote industry has uh uh refused these kind of

00:41:07.480 perverse incentives and uh kept kept data in its place well i appreciate that and honestly the

00:41:14.760 reason i don't really pay much attention to it because it bores me to tears right yeah hacking

00:41:19.320 your life how can it hurt you in the long run if that's all that you're focusing on and optimizing

00:41:23.560 your life i mean it brings you short-term benefits for sure but in the long run are there detrimental

00:41:28.120 effects yeah and they're they're very uh insidious i would say because like you said because you get

00:41:34.360 benefits up front and it feels like oh my god i'm optimizing my life which means i'm optimizing

00:41:39.640 literally everything i do so this is this could never be a a waste of time um when when it's it's

00:41:48.920 not only just a waste of time um it's it's it puts you in a bad posture towards life um and so in the

00:41:58.360 article i'll go through very quickly but there's um kind of there's there's six ways that it it kind

00:42:05.880 of perverts your um perspective um and that is one that it assumes that effort is failure because um

00:42:15.000 hacking is always trying to find the easiest way out um so it its aim is at whatever means less less uh

00:42:24.360 effort um and then it it forces you into bad decisions because it overvalues hype and undervalues

00:42:33.160 the old and effective um so so anybody who uh who pays attention to fitness i don't know i honestly

00:42:41.960 don't know how people still read new books that come out about nutrition because it seems like every

00:42:48.120 six months there they negate what they said the time before um and 99 of us know very specific

00:42:56.840 things that we could do to make ourselves more healthy you know be it going and exercising or

00:43:01.960 eating some more greens or eating less ice cream or like stop smoking it doesn't matter how much organic

00:43:07.640 stuff you eat if you're still smoking cigarettes so um uh charlie munger warren buffett's partner in

00:43:14.360 investing has this idea he says take a simple idea and take it seriously um and i think that would get

00:43:20.840 us past a lot of hype um another thing it puts us in the posture of aimless optimization so like i said

00:43:28.280 you know when you optimize for zero you uh still left with zero um the hacking posture it makes us

00:43:35.560 constantly worried that we're using too much time so we have this anxiety about literally like if

00:43:42.280 something takes an hour we feel like it should have taken 20 minutes or something like if we knew

00:43:46.760 just the right way to do it um we could have done it faster or we you know so and that's what stops

00:43:52.120 people from starting businesses is they they keep deluding themselves because people keep promising

00:43:58.120 them ways that you know a painless way a turnkey system to start a business um if there was truly a

00:44:03.800 turnkey system then that didn't require any personal effort um that company would just be a manufacturer of

00:44:11.720 that type of company um it also makes you dependent on perfect circumstances you mentioned stephen king

00:44:19.480 if you're you know if you're trying to hack your life find the uh you know optimal uh environment to

00:44:25.080 write in you'll never start writing um and then finally it favors irrational rationality um and actually

00:44:35.000 you know you came off of this uh you you just wrote a great piece on nietzsche and uh you you mentioned

00:44:40.840 this in that piece and i thought that was super interesting that he feared when he said god is

00:44:45.800 dead um he he he his true fear was that our sense of meaning was going to be destroyed because um of this

00:44:56.600 new obsession with science taking kind of god's place in a way um and and it absolutely has you know

00:45:04.360 you know there's uh you know depression is uh more prevalent than ever because it's just you know we

00:45:10.040 we think that everything falls into rationality we think that everything is explained by the material

00:45:15.400 world um when it absolutely can't be we need something um so the the antidote to this is to you know

00:45:23.480 dose yourself with uh rational irrationality um and and joseph campbell who's famous for the hero's journey

00:45:32.920 um he he even said that you know um uh i'm sorry uh rational irrationality is essentially the key to

00:45:43.560 becoming the modern hero the modern hero is someone who can create meaning by caring for something um

00:45:52.200 more than it rationally or reasonably should be cared about um so i know i blew through those but those are

00:45:59.240 those are all ways that uh this kind of hacking posture can uh can really mess us up that's awesome

00:46:07.080 awesome stuff so there seems to be an underlying theme in all your writing and thinking what do you think

00:46:13.160 it is oh man and so you you mentioned this you made me do some uh soul searching um yeah and and

00:46:21.320 honestly i'm probably the least qualified person to uh answer this question but um my my best idea is

00:46:31.080 um i'm i'm kind of trying to continue the project of uh of self-trust or shocking ourselves into uh

00:46:40.120 self-trust self-trust i like that now you mentioned one of my favorite guys charlie munger he's really big

00:46:46.840 on this idea of developing mental models in order to thrive and take action and i love his idea because

00:46:52.200 mental models models are just different ways of looking at the world a mental model is a legal

00:46:56.760 mental it can be a legal mental model an economics mental model biology can be a mental model and you

00:47:02.120 can take these different things and approach them to any problem in life and find insights right

00:47:06.840 yeah absolutely are there topics or areas of studies or disciplines that you think folks should

00:47:11.560 focus on in order to build these mental models to help them be more effective managers thrivers

00:47:16.840 in the uncertain yeah that's um you you mentioned a couple of them i mean i think you know the big

00:47:22.040 standards that that uh munger mentions are you know physics biology psychology um engineering and 0.89

00:47:29.640 history you know bill gates and mark zuckerberg will tell you that um programming is the essential

00:47:36.840 model um and and you know i like i like to use philosophy a lot as well as you know biology

00:47:43.720 um and economics specifically um but but i think you know the my my recommendation to people is to

00:47:51.800 respect your interests so you know if that if that underlying theme is is self-trust then i say

00:47:58.120 you know trust your interests to provide you with some of these powerful models um at least to start you

00:48:05.080 know so so you see athletes and either even like big sports fans that use sports metaphors to get them

00:48:11.880 through life um to to make management decisions um like big gamers that i know they they gamify

00:48:19.560 everything in their life and they make it so much easier and enjoyable just by uh kind of um imagining

00:48:27.160 it as some kind of rpg or something um but then you know even even fiction books or or movies that that

00:48:34.920 people relate to i think i think these stories provide really really great foundational mental

00:48:41.000 models um and just you know how how to be in the world um so yeah that's that's my uh advice is is is

00:48:49.480 is self-trust last question i'm always impressed whenever you submit articles to us because you're

00:48:56.440 always quoting and sourcing thinkers like sinica nietzsche munger i mean all sorts of people

00:49:01.880 uh it's all over the place and so obviously you're you're well read how do you read so much and how

00:49:08.280 do you how do you keep track of what you've read so i read a lot of books because i think everybody

00:49:15.720 reads a lot but i just prioritize books over um social media feeds um clickbait and then like bad tv i i

00:49:24.520 refuse to watch tv show unless it's like you know true detective or game of thrones basically um and and

00:49:31.240 that opens up an amazing amount of time like everybody reads so many books a year worth of

00:49:36.920 uh words just in really bad clickbait um and i only read what i'm interested in so it makes it very easy

00:49:44.840 trusting those interests and following them um makes it so so it uh it's fun to pick up the book and it's

00:49:51.240 not something i have to you know use willpower to do um and then i think you asked about tracking sorry

00:49:58.280 yeah how do you keep track of all that stuff dude yeah um i i really don't um i highlight all the

00:50:07.160 books or or you know uh have a type of highlighting system um and then books that i really really care

00:50:13.240 about i uh i put into evernote i type up all my notes um but that that's very few so so generally when

00:50:21.080 i'm writing um i just kind of remember the gist of some passage and in a book and i have to go find

00:50:28.360 the book and open pages um it's just sift through to try to find it and so it's huge huge waste of

00:50:34.280 time yeah that's how we do it around here too oh really that makes me feel a little bit better

00:50:38.200 because there's some people with such big systems yeah yeah yeah i'm completely inefficient but

00:50:43.160 whatever i think that's okay yeah the ones that the important ones pop up right it allows it to

00:50:48.680 stew with all the other stuff in your brain yes yeah i think i think that makes it even more uh

00:50:54.760 organic and so you get the the best quotes at the best time well kyle this has been a fascinating

00:50:59.880 discussion where can people learn more about your work sure um startupbros.com and um if especially

00:51:06.600 if they're interested in everything that we've been talking today probably just googling art of

00:51:11.080 manliness kyle uh we'll get them the the three articles that we really dug into today fantastic well

00:51:17.720 kyle eschenroder thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure thanks for it like i say

00:51:21.800 with kyle eschenroder he's the co-founder and co-owner of the company startup bros where they

00:51:25.480 train individuals how to start their own online business for more information about his work you

00:51:29.640 can find that at startupbros.com well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:51:37.560 for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:51:40.760 art of manliness.com and if you enjoy this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on

00:51:44.600 itunes tell your friends about us uh thank you for all your support and until next time this is

00:51:48.600 brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:52:14.600 bed

00:52:28.580 if you want to begin to see

00:52:32.860 what's up

00:52:34.600 so

The Art of Manliness - October 22, 2015

#149： Taking Action in an Uncertain and Hack-Focused World With Kyle Eschenroeder

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