How to Effortlessly Build an 8-Figure Business in 2024 (feat. @aliabdaal)

1. 0:00 – 0:41

   Intro

   1. AAAli Abdaal0:00

      Am I working for my business or is my business working for me? I thought as a business owner you can do whatever you want. I'm like, damn

   2. CSCodie Sanchez0:04

      We were told, "Hey, don't worry about student loans. You'll make it up over time." And it was a [censored] fucking lie.

   3. AAAli Abdaal0:09

      They get a lot of fulfillment out of running their business, but it's not particularly enjoyable.

   4. CSCodie Sanchez0:12

      Go all in. One thing. Zero or nothing. And I've never agreed with that.

   5. AAAli Abdaal0:16

      Tim Ferriss says batching is good, so I was like, all right, batch all these videos. And I looked at my calendar, and it just filled me with dread.

   6. CSCodie Sanchez0:20

      Money is the new meaning. Absolutely not.

   7. AAAli Abdaal0:22

      I can, in fact, do whatever I want. [laughs] If you ever get a sense that what you're doing is draining your energy, that will negatively compound over the long term. The most purposeful thing I ever did in my life

   8. CSCodie Sanchez0:33

      I'm Codie Sanchez, and this is the Big Deal podcast. For those who don't just want to be rich, but be free, and are actually willing to do the

2. 0:41 – 13:13

   Debating the value of college education

   1. CSCodie Sanchez0:41

      things that it takes to get there. I run a portfolio of boring businesses that do nine figures and a media company called Contrarian Thinking. Okay, this week I am going deep into one thing, which is should you tell your boss to pound sand and quit the job you hate, or should you keep doing it and why? I think you're gonna like this episode. We got both sides of the equation hammering out their opinions on it. There's not just one right answer, but we're gonna give you the answer we think by the end of this podcast. Contrarian idea. Let's start with an idea you might hate. [upbeat music] What's our idea this week, Rachel?

   2. SPSpeaker1:19

      So you tweeted that college is overrated and overpriced. It costs $24,000 to graduate from Harvard, and it costs $0 to learn. Marketing on YouTube, finance reports and breakdowns on Twitter, stock analysis via newsletters, expert experience on podcasts. Let the sheep pay $250,000 while we earn. And I will say, I love college. I thought it was worth every penny. I did go on the GI Bill, so I didn't pay. However, I had a great time.

   3. CSCodie Sanchez1:46

      Every penny of zero pennies. [laughs]

   4. SPSpeaker1:48

      Every penny. Every penny of $0 was worth my time. It was great. So I'm, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. First off, when you, uh, are saying this, are you talking about, like, an MBA? Are you talking about undergrad? I did not get my MBA from Penn State. I just got my undergrad, uh, degree.

   5. CSCodie Sanchez2:04

      I'm talking about undergrad degrees. This is actually the numbers that it would cost for somebody to go to Harvard for a four-year undergrad degree. And, I mean, the triggering words, let the sheep pay 240K. Everybody says you go to school, why? For the network. They actually, like, are pretty convinced these days that people don't go to school for the education that you get anymore, um, that it's, like, sorta like a fancy version of, uh, finishing school, basically. And then you meet a bunch of other people, and hopefully, one of those people knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who gets you a job, and that job is higher paying than other people because your college was better than theirs. And so I think there's a couple things happening right now. One, I think jobs are just more valuable MBAs that pay you. And the real question you have to ask yourself is: Where could I get $240,000 worth of value or how could I learn $240,000 worth, uh, instead of having to pay for it? I personally made millions before I ever even went to, you know, go work for myself. This was all me working for somebody else for many, many years. And I think, actually, a lot of people don't get that right. And so we were thinking about it today, and, you know, I feel like we've sort of started to [censored] on the idea of having a job is a bad thing, and, you know, you, you can't be the owner of your future if you work for somebody else, and being a founder is some sort of founder porn that everybody needs to have. And, and I actually don't think that's the case. But let's maybe answer a few questions from people, 'cause I know we had some questions on should you go get your s- your MBA, should you go work for yourself, or should you go work for somebody else? Were there any that you thought we should answer?

   6. SPSpeaker3:43

      There was one, I believe it was over on your Instagram, and it was from somebody named Yan. And he said, "Hey, Codie. I'm a final year economics student with a pretty good knowledge on finance and accounting. What do you recommend to do? Focusing on internship programs to get a real job experience in finance like banking or studying for ACCA and CFA exams to make my future path better? Or maybe focusing on grades for a master degree? So what do you think, Codie? Also, I wanna be a billionaire. You gave me an inspiration on YouTube. Don't ignore my comment, please, Codie."

   7. CSCodie Sanchez4:15

      All right. I'll, I'll ignore the, uh, the demand on YouTube. I appreciate you guys following. If you don't follow us on YouTube, you should. Actually, that channel's sick. We put a bunch of time into those videos. All right. Um, first, let's look at college. So should you go get an MBA or really even go to college these days? I thought this graph was fascinating. Basically, this is called the relative value of higher education. And what you see here, fancy words, but the diminishing financial return of higher education. And what that means, you see a blue line that's kind of skyrocketing up since, when is this? '64. And a red line that's staying sort of static. The blue line has the costs for higher education going up to $95,000 or above, or if you're, you're at Harvard, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then the red line is the amount that people earn after getting their bachelor's degree, um, from a higher education institute. And that red line has stayed from, let's call it 40,000, 35,000 to about 45,000. So we've had astronomical growth in the cost of higher education and flatlining growth in the, uh, return of higher education. So if you take all of the emotional aspects out of it and the fact that it's super fun to party with your friends and do keg stands on the weekends, what you realize is that the numbers don't lie. The numbers tell you that over time, college has become less valuable if what you care about is making more money after school, which is what they say college will help you do. And so if you wanna go to college just to have fun, that's awesome. But realize that college doesn't seem to actually increase your earnings potential over time. In fact, if you look at the numbers, you see a bunch of trade school graduates earning more than graduates from undergrad, uh, colleges in general. And I can say this firsthand. We have plumbing companies and landscaping companies And boring blue collar service businesses where the guys make way more than the average marketing degree. And so, um, I think we were lied to as a generation. I think this generation feels it. We were told, "Hey, just get good grades. Get into a good college. Don't worry about student loans. You'll make it up over time. Then go get a good job, and you're gonna be okay." And it was a [beep] lie. And the truth of the matter is, is that we should have looked at the numbers, and the numbers say that we are making other people rich, namely institutions and their investors, and we are by no means better off as a generation from having the highest level of student debt of all time and the highest level of education of all time. And increasingly, higher education does not now always lead to higher income. So I- that's, let me tell you what I really think about it. That's what I really think about it. I do think we could have a whole segment on here if you guys want to give us some comments in the reviews. I read every single one of them. And tell us if you wanna see should I get an MBA versus should I not, should I go to college versus should I not. We could have two people fight with their ideas on that. Okay, now let's get to the next part. So, so basically rule number one, I don't think you should go to MBA. Unless you got a GI Bill, [laughs] like Rachel, or unless you were like me, uh, where my company paid for it, shout out State Street at the time, I wouldn't go do it. I did not have to pay for my really fancy degree, and that's the only reason I did it. Now, do you quit your job? So let's say you say, "Okay, I'm in undergrad. Do I say [beep] the part-time job, I, and I'm gonna quit it, and I'm gonna go and do something else?" Well, there's actually a really fascinating study here that we found the other day that basically tracks like 5,000 individuals who either stayed or left their job while doing a startup and said which ones succeed more, the people who stay at the company while they build their next thing or the people who leave the company and go build their next thing 100% of the time. Now, my gut originally might say, and many people say on Twitter, "Go all in. One thing. Zero or nothing. Sleep on the couch if you have to." And I've never agreed with that. I have always started my own thing while I've been at a corporate job. Not a startup. Startups are hard. We can get to that later. But the numbers tell us that you are more likely to succeed by 33% if you stay at your job and build your side thing than if you just go and build your side thing. Because that income is lifeblood, and the thing that'll kill you more than anything else is running out of cash. I guess my last point, 'cause he said that he wants to be a billionaire, right, was like there's, there's, what is it, like a .00006% chance of building a billion-dollar company. It's really small. And in tandem with that, if you look at, at historicals, it will take you anywhere from 40 to 50 months if you're part of that .00006%. Which means that if you have another founder, that's averaging over multiple years about a, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year until you build this huge company and you get an exit of a couple hundred million dollars, because you're gonna have to raise money on the side. Now, what's more likely than that is you actually have more like a 67% chance of absolutely losing everything, every single dollar, it not working whatsoever. That's just what the math says. And so if the only reason why you wanna build a billion-dollar company is for cash or you wanna go do a startup is for cash, I think you're nuts. Because, uh, most people fail, and that is not the easiest way to win, despite what you see all over the internet. In fact, you know, my dad has this line that I thought was so good, which is, um, "You're not really in the game if you haven't sat with your head in your hands in the dark in your living room unsure about what to do next." That's the game of entrepreneurship. It is a game of uncertainty, missed payroll, people suing you, people hating your product, employees leaving you, you having fraud committed against you, people stealing from you. It's a miserable sport that some masochists like myself just can't stop doing it. And so you have to make sure you actually wanna be in the game. There's huge benefits, a massive upside, but only after it has taken its piece of skin, and its piece of skin is really, really big. So make sure you actually want to do the thing. Because I think we were gonna talk, Rachel, about sort of one of my pet peeves for people who talk some talk they shouldn't, right?

   8. SPSpeaker10:24

      Somebody did send you a message, and it was kinda interesting. So they said, "We'd love to invite you to our exclusive workshop for founders on how to scale their startups to $1 billion-plus with remote talent and VAs from emerging countries." So there was a lot of interesting things that I know happened after this. Can you, can you break that down and explain it for us? [laughs]

   9. CSCodie Sanchez10:45

      Yeah, so w- I won't, I won't shout out the company too much 'cause, you know, doxing. But basically this company is saying, "Hey, here's how to grow a billion dollars using, uh, virtual assistants." No surprise. What do you think they do? Obviously, they sell virtual assisting services. Tiny little hiccup. I checked just for [beep] and giggles 'cause I thought, "Huh, has somebody actually built a billion-dollar company using remote work as like one of the key figures?" I looked at the company. Of course nobody's there, has actually done that. Then they highlight this other startup that is not nothing. It's worth 50 million bucks, but 50 million is categorically not a billion dollars. And what I realized is how many people talk about the thing that they haven't actually done, and it's a perfect example of why I think people say, "I wanna be a billionaire." When you understand mathematically the, the incredibly low likelihood that any of us, myself included, have of being a billionaire, you can actually understand the game that you're playing. And it's sort of in my opinion like setting yourself up for failure in the beginning when you say that the only thing that I wanna do is build a billion-dollar company. You need to ask yourself why is that reasonable, and what is it actually gonna take to do it. Most people [beep] up their lives and don't achieve what they want because they write big goals and they don't say what they're willing to sacrifice to get those goals. The difference between somebody who hits goals and somebody who doesn't hit goals is that they sacrifice to hit them, whereas most people manifest and mirror talk and project into the universe the nonsense that they want out of life, and the universe only really cares about what you're willing to give it in return with what it will give you back. So sacrifice is actually the entire name of the game. And I think, you know, we were talking about This idea about, like, should you work miserable jobs or not? And I believe actually that if you wanna make more money, you have to expect many years of doing the things you hate before you get to the years of doing the things that you love. Like, you know, I read this article that was like, 9 out of 10 people are willing to take less money for more meaning in work. And originally, I was like, "That's kind of a... That's good. Uh, that's great." And then I realized, ah, but does meaning just mean to them that they wanna do something that they like all the time? I think that's what that actually means to most people. It's not that they're willing to do something really hard to earn and make more and be compensated more for the time that they spend on a subject. It's that they, they're searching for this touchy-feely meaning thing when it really just means their ability to tolerate pain. And, um, and

3. 13:13 – 29:23

   Breaking down the typical jobs

   1. CSCodie Sanchez13:13

      HBR, I think, said that money is the new meaning. Absolutely not. I wish that was the case. I wish that most of our generation did the thing because they felt like that is what they should spend their life in pursuit of, but I don't think we're a generation of Mother Teresas. I think we're a generation that wants to take a little bit less pain because we came out of the 2008 financial crisis, um, we have social media in our ear nonstop, we feel more distracted and distraught than ever, and we don't wanna buckle down and do the short-term work that leads to the long-term gains. And that, I think, is a tragedy. You know, there's, um... I think it was an article that we were looking at that broke down a couple of different jobs. So the data says that, we can link this in the show notes, too, so you know what it is, that 62% of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week. 62%. 35 work more than 60 hours a week, and 10% work more than 80 hours a week. If you add in a typical one-hour commute and a 60-hour workweek translates into leaving the house at 7:00 AM and not getting home until 9:00 PM five days a week. Why do I say this? Because I think it's unreasonable for us to look at the stuff that we grew up on, like I really respect the man a lot, but 4-Hour Workweek, and think that we can make millions or tens of millions of dollars. That's not really very reasonable. Hard work leads to massive success. Massive success does not just come from being more effective and efficient. You have to pair the two, especially in the beginning when you don't know the difference between what you should be working on and what you are working on. They, they... Basically, this article then goes through and has a bunch of different case studies, right? Like a guy who works at a commercial bank. He works 120 hours a week, um, stays late at the office, but he's one of the top 6% of earners in America. And I remember that 'cause I did that same thing at Goldman Sachs, right? Like, worked nonstop. We worked for so long that one of, uh, my colleagues th- there at the firm, Eduardo, actually passed out one day in the middle of the street. Like, not, not what we wanna strive for anymore. And I don't think that degree is necessary, but I do think it leads you astray when people tell you that you don't have to work hard to achieve the things that you want. You absolutely will. The beautiful part is learning compounds, so that hard work that you do in the beginning will be miserable. You will be categorically miserable. It will be hard. You will wanna quit. Other people will tell you you should for multiple years, until at some point, you start hip- hitting a point where the, the work starts to flip, and all of the learning you took for those years compounds into you earning. But it takes those years of pain to have that eventual gain. Uh, the last thing I think we should do here... Okay, so here's my take. If you wanna make more money, work harder until you know how to work smarter, at which point you should then work harder and smarter until eventually you can just work smarter. But you can skip t- none of those steps. And I think you should expect some pain. But we have a friend of mine who's gonna come on here. His name is Ali Abdaal. He's a former doctor, super hardworking, right? YouTuber, entrepreneur, podcaster. He's had to work super hard to get where he is today, but he actually believes totally different than I do. He thinks that you do not have to work super hard to get what you want while being miserable, and he thinks that, in fact, you should enjoy your work throughout your life. And, and I've seen it firsthand. He's like a very happy dude, and I think he does enjoy what he does for a living. And so he's gonna give the contradicting opinion on what does it mean to work and have success, and do you have to be kinda miserable for a period to get it? He's gonna disagree with me, basically. And, like, note for the record, like, this is what you should do with ideas. The whole idea of Idea Fight is I come on here and I tell you all the reasons why I think hard work actually leads to outsized success, the numbers behind it. And then somebody like Ali comes on and says, "No, it doesn't. Here's the reason why, and here are the numbers behind it." And then you get to decide what's the truth between the two. That is lost in our society today, and that is what we are trying to bring back because Lord [beep] knows we don't need more one-sided arguments from people on the internet. It'd be kinda nice if we were okay being wrong some of the time. And here we go. So Ali, last time we saw each other, we were talking about struggle. And you were basically like, "I don't know. Do we have to struggle so hard?" And you had some interesting frameworks I wanted to dive in. What do you think? Do you think you have to struggle in business to be successful?

   2. AAAli Abdaal17:48

      Yeah, this is the thing that I've been, I've been reading a lot about [laughs] and trying, trying, trying to really understand this because one narrative is that the whole Elon Musk says that starting a business is like chewing glass, and it's like you've gotta work through this pain and this grind, and there's this period of, like, time where start... Like, a lot of entrepreneurs would say that they get a lot of fulfillment out of running their business, but it's not particularly enjoyable. There's a lot of stuff you have to do that you don't particularly feel like. But the other side of the coin is, you know, I used to have a normal day job. I used to work as a doctor. And I started my business as a way of getting freedom from that. I didn't wanna have someone telling me what to do. I wanted to do the things that I wanted to do and not the things I didn't wanna do And so for me, starting the business, the point of it was to buy my freedom from these obligations, and to buy my... In a, in a way, buy my freedom from the, from the grind. I'd say struggle is kind of different to grind. It was sort of being a doctor very much felt like a grind. I think struggle can be, can be a good thing if what comes out of it is, is positive. But I've been thinking a lot about how do we build businesses that also feel good rather than build businesses where we're sort of grinding really hard for the sake of some sort of big outcome. 'Cause generally, when you speak to people with a l- with a lot of money, they're like, "Oh, well, you know, [laughs] it stops buying happiness beyond a certain point." You know, if we look at regrets of the dying, they all say, you know, "I wish I hadn't worked so hard." And so a question I like to ask myself is, you know, am I working for my business or is my business working for me? And usually the more I'm struggling, the more I'm working for my business. And the less I'm struggling and the more chill I am with it, the more my business is working for me.

   3. CSCodie Sanchez19:18

      Interesting. Do... What do you think the difference in definition is between s- struggle and grind?

   4. AAAli Abdaal19:25

      I think struggle, [sighs] st- struggle is quite like value, value neutral. Like you can struggle while you're at the gym. You can struggle in, I don't know, to make a breakthrough in your relationship, but like it's a good thing. If you're doing an Ayahuasca trip, you're struggling, but it's for the sake of something valuable. Whereas grind has those connotations of meaninglessness around it, where the thing that you're struggling for is not in fact the thing you want to be struggling for. And so, you know, parents will often say that raising kids is a struggle, but they wouldn't say raising kids is a grind. But you would say that like going to a boring corporate job is a grind rather than a struggle. So I think it's about what the end goal is and how purposeful it feels and how meaningful it feels.

   5. CSCodie Sanchez20:04

      Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. It's almost like if you think about struggle, you talked about going to the gym, you can have struggle, which creates more muscle mass over time, as opposed to a grind. If you grind away on a piece of stone, it sort of wears away. So it could also be like physically the difference between the two, something that could build as opposed to something that could wear down.

   6. AAAli Abdaal20:23

      That's nice.

   7. CSCodie Sanchez20:24

      Interesting.

   8. AAAli Abdaal20:25

      That's a way of thinking about it.

   9. CSCodie Sanchez20:25

      I like that a lot. Okay. So you have felt really poignantly, I think, grind, which is med school in a lot of ways. You've also maybe felt grind that could be the content creation wheel that people don't talk about. How do you determine when you're in that phase, and how do you get out of it? 'Cause I think sometimes we get complacent and we stay in the grind.

   10. AAAli Abdaal20:49

       Yeah. So for me, there's a very clear alarm bell, and that's when I look at my calendar and I get that feeling of, "Ugh." That feeling is the absolute early warning s- or early warning sign that, you know, burnout is approaching or like it's starting to feel more like a grind and less like, you know, a struggle for, for some sort of positive outcome. And so for example, this week I was meant to be filming 15 videos for my YouTube channel because Tim Ferriss says batching is good. So I was like, all right, well, Tim, let's batch all these videos. And I looked at my calendar and it just filled me with dread. Um, whereas when I look at my calendar and see something like this, I'm like, yeah, that sounds fun. Or if I look at my calendar and see a block of time for writing or a block of time for filming that's unscheduled, I think, oh, that could, that, that could be fun. So I identify that sign of like, ugh, that, that, ugh feeling of what's on my calendar. And now there's, there's usually two things I can do at that point. One thing is to try and make the thing more enjoyable. That's like a big premise of my upcoming book, Feel Good Productivity. We're more productive and more creative and less stressed when we can find a way to enjoy the things that we're doing. So let's say I had to, for example, film these videos or go to work. At that point, I, I don't, I don't really have a choice. Like in my day job, I didn't have a choice whether I could go into work. I just had to. So at that point, I have to just try and find ways to make the process of doing it more enjoyable and energizing. But if I do have autonomy over what I'm doing, like I do now that I have a business, then I really sit down and ask myself, why am I actually doing this? Am I... Have I got that, ugh, feeling about filming these videos because it's gonna be struggle, it's gonna be hard work for the sake of something valuable? In which case, okay, I'll push through. But do I have that, ugh, feeling about filming these videos because the reason I'm doing it, the why behind it feels meaningless? And that is where I have to do a lot of journaling to be like, wait a minute, why am I doing this? What's the point? What's the goal? Is this aligned with my values? And all those sorts of questions which really help.

   11. CSCodie Sanchez22:38

       Yeah. It's, it's really important 'cause I think forever, our first conversation, I was like, the thing is you have to grind. Everybody struggles. I'm an investment banker. I did it for years. Like get over yourself, basically. And I do think that's a... it's a very American way of thinking and one that I subscribed to for a long time. And I do think there's a component of it that young people benefit from. It's almost like a softening of your edges if we go back to wearing down. It's like, you know, you have a lot of edges when you're young, and you, you, you kind of haven't been fully formed. You need to like create the, the David. Michelangelo creating the David out of the stone. And, uh, and so you need to be q- sort of ground down. But at some point when you know who you are, I think then you get stuck in mimetic desire, other people's wants and needs. Um, how do you recalibrate when you have those moments where your calendar looks awful or you hate what you're doing? A lot of times it means you have to make a big change. Like what do you do?

   12. AAAli Abdaal23:34

       Yeah. So for me personally, you know, I, I'm a business owner and so I... Like a big part of it is recognizing that I, I can in fact do whatever I want. [laughs] And there's a great quote I came across the other day, which is that your life begins when you realize you can do whatever you want. And so, you know, for example, w- when, when, when I see stuff on my calendar, I'll, I'll, I'll occasionally speak to a friend about this and I'll be like, "Yeah, you know, you know, the calendar's looking pretty busy. I feel pretty stressed." And they'd be a bit surprised, 'cause most of my friends are not business owners. They'd be like, "Wait a minute. You know, I thought as a business owner you can do whatever you want." And I'm like, damn, that's a good point. And I... it's almost like I have to remind myself or, or be reminded that actually the calendar is w- is within my control. And recently I had like a, a family health emergency, uh, where I had to, I had to leave the country for a while. And in that context, I just canceled everything on the calendar.

   13. CSCodie Sanchez24:19

       Mm.

   14. AAAli Abdaal24:19

       And everyone was, was c- was, was cool with it, obviously. And so I was in, I was in this new, in this new country, you know, dealing with this emergency with nothing on the calendar and I realized, wow, if a health emergency comes up or something serious, of course I can drop everything and just, and just do it Similarly, you know, my mom was involved with this emergency, and she's, she's still working as a doctor. Even she was able to drop everything because, you know, even in the workplace, if you have an emergency come up, you can just drop everything. That kinda made me realize, wait a minute, I've been working... I've, I've been thinking of my business as something I, I have to do, and if something is, is in the calendar, it has to be done. But actually, you know, [beep] happens in life. Your dog might get ill, a family member might get ill, you might have to do something, in which case business is way less important. So that's been a really good sense of perspective for me to realize that [laughs] actually everything on the calendar is negotiable, and fundamentally anyone can broadly do what they want even if they're not a business owner. You just have to deal with the trade-offs that come with it.

   15. CSCodie Sanchez25:15

       Yeah. You have a couple ideas that I love and I wanna play around with. So, you know, I was talking with a bunch of people the other day. Uh, I did this little, you know, psilocybin journey. We talked about it beforehand. And one of the, the guys who administers it basically was talking about leisure i- in historical context and today, and he was like, "If you made it back in the day, what did you do? You became like a woman of leisure or like a man of leisure, and you basically sat around all day, did whatever you want. You did no work, and that was like a sign of status." Fast-forward to today, let's call it 100 years later, uh, a sign of status is actually, "I'm so busy I don't have time. I have so many responsibilities." So within let's call it one or two generations, we've actually completely flipped how we even view what success looks like. And if you can completely view what success looks like in two lifetimes, that means it's all negotiable. And so hard for young Codie to understand, probably hard for young Ali to understand too, but now you have this framework I really liked, which is the feel-good business, and I like it for a couple reasons. One, you're not saying it's a lifestyle business. It could be a feel-good huge business, and it could also be a feel-good tiny business or job. Can you kind of explain what that is versus traditional types of businesses?

   16. AAAli Abdaal26:25

       Yeah. So usually in a traditional type b- Well, I guess, I guess there's sort of three types of businesses. There's traditional businesses, there's let's say a high-growth startup, and then there's, you know, shall we call it a feel-good business. Tr- a traditional business is, uh, uh... A traditional business would be something like, I don't know, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, you know, these big-ass companies, big corporations, loads and loads of employees. No one really aspires to [laughs] have, have that sort of business, at least from the people I speak to. Then we have the high-growth startup, which is g- which is generally venture capital funded. The aim is growth, and so you've gotta be aiming to 2X or 3X your business every year, and there's this drive for growth because you've got investors who are on the line, and you don't wanna let your team down, you don't wanna let your investors down, and it's quite, it's quite high-stress. Like most people running high-growth startups do not chill out. They don't have much time for leisure and contemplation. Uh, working 80 hours w- hour weeks is seen as totally normal in those worlds. But then on the other side of the coin, you have kind of what I call a feel-good business, which is sort of like a lifestyle business but, you know, with a few w- with a few tweaks. For me, a feel-good business is a business that exists to enrich your life more so than it does to enrich the life of kind of your investors. 'Cause in a feel-good business, generally it's bootstrapped, generally the founder is the 100% owner, and it's... A feel-good business is a tool for making money, having fun, and helping people. And fundamentally, I think those three, those three things are the reason why we do anything [laughs] . We wanna make money, we wanna have fun, and we wanna help people. It's just with a feel-good business we are trying to keep in mind the fact that our personal fulfillment is the main thing. So for example, you know, I've got these like Ten Commandments of the feel-good business. One of them is that we, we look forward to Mondays. If you get to a point where you're not looking forward to a Monday, where you've got the Sunday scaries, whatever, whatever you call it, that's a sign that, hang on, maybe we need a little bit of realignment. Um, one of the, one of the principles is that the thing that the business is doing is a thing that you find inherently enjoyable. So for example, I know a l- you know, a lot of people will say, "I don't care about what the business does, just that I have a business." So like I could be selling donuts or printing T-shirts or, like, selling B2B enterprise software, but if it's a business, that's the thing that, that p- people, people enjoy. But with a feel-good business, the thing you're doing actually matters. For me, I'm trying to build a feel-good business. I really enjoy making YouTube videos about educational topics. I love reading, writing, learning, and teaching. That's what I would do even if I didn't need to make money, even if I won the lottery. I've got a friend who's trying to build a feel-good, feel-good business around, uh, around music theory and music coaching 'cause he just loves playing the guitar, loves playing the piano, lo- wants to build an education business around that. So part of the feel-good business is, is the thing that the business is doing actually something you enjoy? And a question to figure that out is, if I won the lottery, would I continue doing this or would I say, "Screw it," [laughs] and, and try and do something else?

   17. CSCodie Sanchez29:07

       Interesting. Yeah. You know, I, I was talking to somebody the other day, and they were saying that, um, you can either find the joy in what you're doing, to your point, or you can find your joy, and so you kind of have, like, two options. Both can have a positive outcome

4. 29:23 – 34:44

   Is joy enough of a purpose in work?

   1. CSCodie Sanchez29:23

      with you having a joyful life, but, um, you have to kinda be really thoughtful about which way you're going. And so, um, I think that the feel-good in, uh, business is interesting because these days most of us think about what will work, not what we want to work.

   2. AAAli Abdaal29:38

      Yeah.

   3. CSCodie Sanchez29:39

      And so, you know, especially when you're starting out, you're just like, "I want a business, and I wanna be a CEO, and I wanna be a founder, and I want that title," and you're not actually thinking, you know, flash-forward five or 10 years, do I like the person that I see that is in my current state, uh, that I hope to be in? So that's really interesting. Another question I wanted to ask you is, you know, when you work, do you feel like you have to have purpose beyond joy in it? Like, is joy enough of a purpose in your work?

   4. AAAli Abdaal30:08

      It is for the short term but not for the long term. So I get, I g- I get a lot of joy out of watching... uh, out of playing video games, for example [laughs] , but it doesn't feel that, like, meaningful or purposeful, uh, or fulfilling even though it's joyful. Um, I get a lot of joy out of, I don't know, just, uh, playing, playing squash with, like, some friends or something like that, but again, it, it doesn't feel very purposeful 'cause I think purpose comes from working towards a goal that is sort of bigger than ourselves. Um, the most purposeful thing I ever did in my life was I directed the pantomime that we put on in my hospital many years ago. This was like getting all the medical students together, this big ensemble production of 100 people, and we're doing this parody of Cinderella with like medical stuff and changing song lyrics to make them medical and things like that. And that was so fulfilling. And it was weird because it was taking up so much time while we were all in medical school and super busy, but there were like... Uh, there... It was a group of us, we were working together for this bigger cause because it was like a production we were doing together, it was for charity, and I remember being so energized by that even though it was hard work. And [laughs] I have never done anything that's been more fulfilling than that. And I think this is why people enjoy like these sorts of acting productions and musicals and things because you're bringing people together and you're working towards a bigger goal. So when I feel joy in my work, it's when I'm with my team and it feels as if what we're doing is focused on service rather than focused on like the selfish components. I think early on in my business journey, after I read like The 4-Hour Workweek, I decided that the goal for me was financial independence. Now, as you know, once you hit financial independence, you're like, "Okay. Well, what do I do now?" You know, Tim Ferriss calls this like the, the black vo- the, the dark void of purpose when [laughs] w- w- when, when money is the target for so long, once you hit the target, you're like, it's, it's too easy for money to continue to be the target. But whenever I feel the most fulfilled and purposeful in my work, it's when I orient my thinking towards service. So before filming a video, there's, you know, there's three things I like to, like to think about, and I think this actually could apply to a lot of other businesses as well. I think, uh, [laughs] this is gonna sound a bit woo-woo, but mind, heart, and soul. So the heart of a video, for example, is what is... What's the actual point? What's, what's the... What's really the thing I'm trying to get across? What's the heart of this video? The mind behind the video is like, "Okay, how do I optimize title and thumbnail and structure, and how do I make it like, you know, good from a cognitive perspective?" And then soul is, how do I bring myself into this? How do I bring my own personality so that this message can resonate more authentically? And when I think about those things, it helps take my mind away from, "I have to film a video to hit a sponsor deadline because it's gonna make me money" and more towards, "I love the idea of filming this video because I think it can genuinely add value to someone's life."

   5. CSCodie Sanchez32:50

      Oh, that's lovely. Well, maybe that explains why so many of your videos, even though they're hyper tactical in a world where people wanna be educated, they want graphics flowing at them, they want explosions, you still have incredible views, uh, with videos that are very straightforward. They're simple. You know, you're not, you're not running around giving people money, uh, or cars. You're actually just talking to them about the small things in life that can turn into the big things. But it... you do feel that when you watch that video. You feel sort of the Ali come across-

   6. AAAli Abdaal33:19

      Mm

   7. CSCodie Sanchez33:19

      ... I think.

   8. AAAli Abdaal33:19

      I'm glad.

   9. CSCodie Sanchez33:20

      Yeah.

   10. AAAli Abdaal33:20

       Like one, one big thing I think about as well is, you know, with the whole MrBeastification of YouTube, peop- explosions and stuff happening on screen, a big part of what I think about is what is the... What's the YouTube channel and what's the business I actually want to have? Do I want a YouTube channel where in order to make a video I have to go on the street and interview people? Not really. Do I want a YouTube channel where every time I make a video it has to be this enormous Netflix production value thing with like a script and I'm just reading from a teleprompter? Not really. The YouTube channel I want to have is a YouTube channel where I can learn something, I can maybe read a book, and I can sit... I can sit down and hit record with a few notes written down and I can speak from the heart.

   11. CSCodie Sanchez33:57

       Mm.

   12. AAAli Abdaal33:57

       That's the YouTube channel I want. And so the temptation is always there to be like, "Oh, but this video could get more views if I made more explosions happen or if I really scripted it out" But I've tried those [laughs] and it, it's not felt good. It's not, it's not hit the... You know, you know that whole thing of the feel-good business, feel-good productivity. And one thing that Tim Ferriss said in a recent interview, which I really loved because he's been doing this for 15 years, he said that when it comes to this sort of creator world, if you ever get a sense that what you're dr- doing is draining your energy, that will negatively compound over the long term and will make you absolutely miserable. And I so vibed with that because that's like the whole message behind my book as well. Try and find ways to make whatever you're doing energizing and enjoyable. And for me, it's not that energizing to add explosions on, on screen. It's not that energizing to be a teleprompter reader. But it's so energizing

5. 34:44 – 37:36

   The balance between work and personal life

   1. AAAli Abdaal34:44

      to learn something, write down a few bullet points, and speak from the heart. And if that's the constraint that I create for my business and my YouTube channel, I can then optimize profit around that constraint. Whereas if what I was chasing was views, I might be like, I don't know, "I just bought a private island and today we're gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah"

   2. CSCodie Sanchez35:01

      [laughs]

   3. AAAli Abdaal35:02

      Or whatever-

   4. CSCodie Sanchez35:02

      Yeah

   5. AAAli Abdaal35:02

      ... you know, people try and do on YouTube for views. But the goal is not views, 'cause views, they by themselves are meaningless and don't pay the bills. The goal is also not revenue or profit. The goal is maximizing profit within the constraints of the life that I want. And I was speaking to James Clear about this, you know, the, the famous, the author of Atomic Habits, and he is somewhat... Like I, I love speaking to people who are very, very successful and also seem very happy-

   6. CSCodie Sanchez35:26

      Mm

   7. AAAli Abdaal35:26

      ... and sort of balanced family life and everything. And, you know, he's got kids and he's not... He, he doesn't do that much stuff. He... like his book is selling stupidly large amounts of copies. And I asked him, you know, W- what has he seen? Like who, who were the successful authors who were the happiest? And he said the secret is basically draw a box around the life... a- a- around the day-to-day life that you want, and within that box, sure, maximize profit. But if anything falls outside of that box, you have to say no to the thing. So he only does like one speaking gig a month even though he could do loads and make loads of money. He doesn't make an online course even though he probably could. He doesn't have an app even though he could. Because for him, the box around his life is, "I wanna be able to wake up when I want. I wanna be able to take my kids to school. I wanna have a few hours of writing. I wanna pick them up from school and hang out with the family in the evening." And I love that he's defined his constraints and he's maximizing profit within those constraints.

   8. CSCodie Sanchez36:16

      Yeah, it's interesting. You know, the other day, I like an exercise of writing out, uh, my perfect day, and what I realized, it's very small. It's tiny things. It's, you know, a walk with the dog, like a really good cup of coffee in the morning, at least one interesting conversation, uh, because I think a lot of times creators you can be really individualistic just in your little hole creating. Uh, but really not more than one conversation. [laughs] And so, um, I think that's a really good ex- exercise, sort of writing out what does your box even look like. In investing we have something called the deal box which tells you what kind of businesses you wanna buy, and I think it's probably the same thing for what kind of businesses you wanna build. If you don't know what you're looking for, then you'll just take whatever comes your way. And so it's really, it's really smart. Okay, I have, like, two more questions for you. Um, this sounds a little woo-woo maybe to people, follow your energy, follow your flow, but you're also a doctor, and you have a very scientific and straightforward mind, and you have a book full of not just, you know, your feelings on this, but also some data behind it. Like, what does the world say about this? Is it true that if you follow where your energy goes, you can actually be more productive?

   9. AAAli Abdaal37:22

      Mm.

   10. CSCodie Sanchez37:22

       What have you found in your studies?

   11. AAAli Abdaal37:23

       Yeah, so this was [laughs] a b- a huge part of the research component of, of the book, trying to figure out, like, you know, in intuitively I, I had this feeling that, you know, when I, when I feel good about my work, I'm kinda more productive

6. 37:36 – 1:00:54

   The power of positive emotions in productivity

   1. AAAli Abdaal37:36

      at it. But that kind of is... goes against the whole, like, discipline narrative. You gotta do sh- shit you, that you don't wanna do even when you don't feel like it. There's that quote from M- Muhammad Ali where he says, you know, "I suffered every day for 10 years, but, uh, y- it was worth it to live life as a champion," or something like that. And I always thought of that quote, and I was like, "I d- I don't wanna suffer for 10 years to live life as a champion." Maybe m- some people do, but I feel like, you know, in the modern world a lot of us realize that suffering for 10 years for the sake of some outcome on the other end, you'll sort of re- kinda regret the 10 years of suffering. And so I went on a huge rabbit hole of research around this, and there's this, um, there's this researcher, um, called Barbara Fredrickson who in, like, 2001 came up with this theory called the broaden-and-build theory. And basically this, like, the idea is that positive emotions, feeling good, ultimately drive productivity and creativity, and they reduce your stress. And the theory behind this is like if we think back to caveman times, when, like, uh, like imagine positive feelings and negative feelings. When you have negative emotions, that's like, "Oh [beep] , a tiger is about to eat me. I'm about to get ostracized from my group." Everything closes down. You become very, very focused on that threat, and you can't really think outside the box. You're just focused on like, "How the [beep] do I get away from this tiger?" That's what negative emotions do to us. They, like, spike our adrenaline and cortisol levels. They increase our heart rate. They increase our breath, our breathing rate. They have this... You know, it's like when people get angry in a, in a conversation with their partner. You feel that... You know, you, you start seeing red, and you feel that agitation. Now if we take a breath and we think positive emotions, what do positive emotions mean? Positive emotions mean you're safe. It means you're in a connected environment. It means, you know, you feel like you have a bit of control over what's happening in your life, and it means that you're not getting mauled by a tiger or about to get, you know, ostracized from your group. Now, when you experience positive emotions, the mind broadens, and you start being open to more possibilities. Your peripheral vision starts to become more, like, more, more, m- more, more focused. You start to then explore new areas to be like, "Huh, okay, I'm feeling chill right now. Let me go explore that cave over there. I'm feeling chill right now. Let me see if I can find some seeds in that new forest over there." And so you broaden your kind of the actions that you do, and the second part is build. You build cognitive resources. You build relationships with people. You build skills, and, and you learn things when you're feeling good. And we find that, you know, if you... You know, they've done so many studies where you bring people into a lab. You split them into two groups, and you ask them to do the same, like, task of creativity. Let's say, you know, some sort of creative task, and one group you just give a little chocolate bar before the task, and the other group you give nothing. Or one group you show them, like, a, a film, a mov- a, a sort of ten-second movie that evokes positive emotions, and the other group you show them nothing, or you show them, like, a sad scene. You find that the people who have been primed to feel good are more creative and more productive, and if... on the studies they've done where they measure their stress levels and, you know, heart rate and stuff, you find that they're a lot less stressed as well. So feeling good, following our energy, positive emotions, all of this stuff sounds a bit woo, but there's so much evidence showing that if we can feel good about our work it makes us more productive, it makes us more creative, and it makes us less stressed, and it also gives us more energy which we can then apply to the other important things in our life.

   2. CSCodie Sanchez40:42

      For writers and creatives, we often talk about priming, right? You know, you, you... I know before I write I like to go read some of the greats. Like, I'll read Charles Bukowski, and I'll read just a few of his lines because not only is there a positive feeling, but maybe some of that greatness rubs off on me, and it feels the same with, with productivity perhaps. You know, on our team calls one of my big pet peeves as a leader is if people start a meeting or end a meeting low energy. I think if you are in charge of the vibe setting of a meeting, you wanna bring them in, and you wanna come in and be like, "What are we doing today? I'm so excited you guys are here. You're spending my li- your life with us on our mission. What a treasure. Thank you." And then at the end, this is where I think a lot of leaders really mess up, is at the end they just go, "Okay, well, anything? Okay, see you guys later," as opposed to having something put aside specifically for the end that's a little bit of, like, a call to arms. Because people don't really remember the beginning, but they will remember the end, and if you wanna be the one to prime your team to do more, then you want that to move forward. I've noticed a couple things since being friends with you, that you integrate this into your life consistently. For instance, the mic check. Tell people what you do on a mic check.

   3. AAAli Abdaal41:50

      [laughs]

   4. CSCodie Sanchez41:50

      Does the internet know about this?

   5. AAAli Abdaal41:52

      Yeah, so when I'm doing a mic check I will either sing or I'll recite lyrics from a song. [laughs] So, uh, earlier today, you know, we were doing a mic check. I was like, "Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby." Um, or before I'm filming a video I'll either play some, like, energizing music in the background, or I'll grab the guitar which is often next to my filming setup, and I'll just, I don't know, sing Budapest by George Ezra or something like that, and my team will just be looking at me and being like, "Yep, there he goes again."

   6. CSCodie Sanchez42:18

      [laughs]

   7. AAAli Abdaal42:18

      But it's a good sign 'cause it means I'm about to film a video and priming myself into that state of energy. You know, d- people like Tony Robbins do this before they go on stage. They, like, have a little trampoline. They jump around a bit. And again, for people who are, you know, a bit cynical, like mostly I speak to Brits, and they're, they're all very cynical. It's like, "What is this [beep] ?" But actually, you know, the state that you're in has an enormous impact on how you show up in your work and how you show up for the people around you.

   8. CSCodie Sanchez42:41

      Yeah. The, um... Well, you think about it this way. You know, my husband was a Navy SEAL for many, many years, and, uh, they're huge on priming. And so before they go to war, um, there's a specific set of sort of things that they usually do, including usually really aggressive music that's sort of, like, played, you know, throughout. There's a lot of, like, camaraderie joking. A lot of them do a workout. ... before they go out, um, because you're sort of like feeling strong before you go out in, in sort of something that you wanna be strong in. And so even those who are hyper-cynical, if you can imagine that somebody who's going to war does it with the highest price, when you are doing it with your everyday, that seems to make sense. Okay, where I wanna end is, um, I had a tweet on the internet that people hated, which was [laughs] probably in a state where I was working too much, but it was like, "You don't need a hobby. You know, you need to love what you do." And I go back and forth on this. I can't decide how I feel. Do we need hobbies or should we like what we do more? Should we integrate the two? What do you think? You have some hobbies it sounds like.

   9. AAAli Abdaal43:47

      Yeah. I've, [laughs] I've also flip-flopped on this 'cause there have been periods of my life where I've been so in the business, and the business has been so fun, and it's growing, and it's exhilarating, and it gets to 8:00 PM and I still just wanna keep working because it's so enjoyable. And usually I find that, that when I, when I put too much of the gas on those sorts of moments, I start to... I don't give myself enough, enough of a time for break or rest or recharging. I'm in the process of reading a book called Rest. I can't remember the author, but he, he cites so many studies that show that especially if you're in anything creative, which all business is to some, some degree, actually having that time for rest, having that time to allow the default mode network in the brain to activate, which is what happens when you're doing nothing or when you're in the shower or when you're going for a walk, that's actually really important to help with creative thinking. And so I agree it's really important to love what you do, and it's so nice that as business owners and stuff we can, we can do that. But increasingly I'm finding that the, the, the value of having a hobby that does not make money. 'Cause the problem is, like you can al- it's so easy for us to monetize our hobbies. I was... At one point I was having art lessons and I was, I was thinking, "Ooh, I can post this on Instagram and if I can get good enough I can illustrate children's books and I can make money out of this thing." And then I was like, yeah, but I make money m- way more efficiently in other me- in other methods, so why don't I just let my art or my video games or reading fiction, fantasy fiction, be a thing just for me rather than for the sake of driving the capitalist machine? So yeah, I don't know, going for a walk, [laughs] going for a jog, spending time with friends, reading a book, playing video games. I love those as a way of in a way forcing myself to not just keep on working, because I know that over the long term it will actually benefit my business if I'm working, let's say, 40 hours a week rather than 80 hours a week.

   10. CSCodie Sanchez45:35

       So if you had to tell somebody one thing to take away from Feel Good Pro- take... from Feel Good Productivity or from Feel Good Business, what would it be? Like if they were like there's one thing they could go and do today.

   11. AAAli Abdaal45:47

       So the first chapter of the book Feel Good Productivity is about play, and there's a lot of stories of like famous Nobel Prize winning scientists and, you know, super successful entrepreneurs and athletes and stuff where they say that the way they approach their work, it's as if they're playing. Now, this is often easier said than done because especially if someone has a, a normal job where they don't particularly enjoy it, like how, how do you really approach it with a sense of play? But one phrase that I find super helpful to remember comes from the philosopher Alan Watts where he says, "Be sincere, don't be serious." Um, now imagine playing like a board game with someone. You know, it's, it, it's no fun playing with someone who takes it too seriously because they're like a stickler for the rules and they're just kind of driving the energy away, and like it's, it's kind of a bit grim. But you also don't wanna play a board game with someone who's completely uncaring. You don't want someone who's just like, "Oh, it's just... Oh, who cares? It's just a game." Like well, you know, [laughs] that, that's no fun either. You want someone who plays the board, the board game sincerely. They're sincerely trying to win, but at the same time they recognize it's a game. And I find that for me whenever I f- feel stressed with my work, when I feel anxious, when I feel overwhelmed or anything like that, it's usually because I've, I'm taking something too seriously. I'm thinking of my work as being terribly important. And I think there's a quote from Bertrand Russell the philosopher that says that, you know, the biggest kind of [laughs] one of the biggest, uh, foibles of human nature is that we think our work is terribly important where it's really not. Most of us are not saving lives on the daily. Um, and so what I would encourage people is to try and think, "How can I dial down the seriousness of my work to allow myself to experience that sense of play?" And there's a quote I love from the, the medical drama Grey's Anatomy. Um, and like so, you know, the, the, the neurosurgeon, uh, Derek Shepherd played by Patrick Dempsey, you know, he, he has a ritual at the start of every operation where he, you know, he greets the team, everyone introduces themselves, and then he puts some music on and he says, "It's a beautiful day to save lives. Let's have some fun." And I just love that. Obviously it's a TV show and obviously it's dramatized and stuff, but you know, having worked in operating theaters and stuff, like surgeons genuinely have music in the background. They genuinely joke around. So even when it's life and death you still get a lot of value from approaching it with a bit more lightness, a bit more sincerity, and kind of treating it like play.

   12. CSCodie Sanchez48:04

       Mm. I love that. The other day, um, I was reading some old texts from, um, from the Tao and, uh, and one of them that I've been ruminating on a lot lately is, "Your biggest mistake is you think you have time." And-

   13. AAAli Abdaal48:22

       Nice

   14. CSCodie Sanchez48:22

       ... I know it's one of those that you just, you're like, "Oh!" It gets you in the gut, but I think everything you're talking about relates specifically back to that. If we know one thing for certain, which is that death is inevitable and that we have less time than probably we value, um, perhaps it shouldn't all have to be such a struggle. Thanks for being here.

   15. AAAli Abdaal48:40

       Thank you so much.

   16. CSCodie Sanchez48:42

       Let's see. Do we have a comment section we wanted to go over, Rachel?

   17. SPSpeaker48:45

       We do have a comment section. So, um, somebody commented on one of your posts and I thought this one was... This is probably one of the funniest comments and I don't know why, so everybody has to let me know if they think this is a, is a good one. You're, you are not your job. Stop job shaming lady. And I don't know why, like I said, don't know why this is funny, but the stop job shaming I don't think I've heard of the term job shaming before. This is a new one, but it was from a, I believe a user called madonnane newman7244. So yeah, what are your thoughts on that first? And also, now I need to know, what does an actual day for you look like? Like, how, how many hours are you actually working?

   18. CSCodie Sanchez49:25

       All right, so first let's tackle job shaming. I don't even know what that is. I feel like this is, like, a new name, like quiet quitting. I'm shaming them-

   19. SPSpeaker49:32

       For-

   20. CSCodie Sanchez49:32

       ... for working or for liking their job or for not liking their jo- I mean, I don't fucking know

   21. SPSpeaker49:37

       Maybe for, like, embodying, like, being too into working.

   22. CSCodie Sanchez49:40

       Oh, right, that's a tragedy. [laughs]

   23. SPSpeaker49:42

       But, like-

   24. CSCodie Sanchez49:43

       Yeah, I think-

   25. SPSpeaker49:44

       ... you, she's not the one working like you are.

   26. CSCodie Sanchez49:46

       Yeah. But more-

   27. SPSpeaker49:46

       So why do you care if somebody else is working?

   28. CSCodie Sanchez49:48

       This is the welcome to the internet, you know? Um, I think, so listen, um, there does seem to be this trend on the internet just about everywhere where, I don't know whether it's insidious, it's calculated, but there is a manipulation of views from the general populace that to like what you do and to like it so much that you are into talking about it all the time, doing it all the time, has become hustle culture, and somehow hos- hustle culture is bad. Now, I think this would be true if you don't have this big, giant opt-out button called the lowest unemployment rate of all time in the US. There has never been more opportunity in our lifetimes to pick whatever [beep] level of the game you want. You want level one Mario Kart, bouncing around, winning everything? Go do it. If you want level 10, super hard, you might fail a lot, but you're gonna work a [beep] ton, go do it. My whole point is that I do not think you should shame anybody for being here on this planet producing and working and loving what they do because let me tell you what, you like your Tesla? You wouldn't have it if [beep] Elon wasn't a psychopath out there working super hard every day. And the same thing goes for most of the things that we take for granted. It's because some irrational human was so driven for the pursuit that they loved, that they labored on, that eventually led to things that you and I get to enjoy. So I'm here, a champion for those who love their labor all over the place, and if you don't love what you do, hey, do you. That makes it easier for me. I'm thrilled. Go [beep] off somewhere else with a Mai Tai and spend more money at my companies. No problem. But I think telling people that it's wrong to love what they do is crazy, especially in this environment where nobody's telling anybody anymore you have to work 60, 70, 80 hour weeks. I mean, m- my company is remote almost entirely, and I think I've run remote companies for 10 plus years now. You don't have to be in office, uh, from 7:00 to 9:00 if you don't wanna be. But if you wanna be, go get it, and don't feel bad about it, and if you wanna work on the weekends, do it. And that doesn't mean that you're gonna be on your deathbed wishing that you hadn't worked more. No, that only happens if you're an accountant and you hate accounting. That's how I feel about that.

   29. SPSpeaker51:58

       I also wanna know how much you're working, though.

   30. CSCodie Sanchez51:59

       Oh, yeah, shit.

Episode duration: 1:00:54