Speaker 1: To help me when I'm kind of really working through
Speaker 1: a tough first draft. Is I have a song that
Speaker 1: I play on a loop with headsets and it just
Speaker 1: goes round and around and around. It's the same song.
Speaker 1: And I've picked up that trick from a couple of
Speaker 1: people that you play this thing and it's it's there's
Speaker 1: something weird about it. It's very soothing. I know people
Speaker 1: who work in like cafes and they like that background noise.
Speaker 1: This is something similar.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: It's just the same song on a loop again and again,
Speaker 1: and just hearing it kind of makes me productive. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it makes me kind of like distraction fully
Speaker 1: away and I can really really focus. And so I
Speaker 1: would recommend to people give it a try. Find something
Speaker 1: that you think you wouldn't mind hearing a thousand times,
Speaker 1: and then it's just play it on a loop and
Speaker 1: it it's kind of like a trance, you know. It
Speaker 1: makes it kind of a work trance. I guess.
Speaker 3: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 3: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 3: much out of their day.
Speaker 4: I'm your host, doctor Amantha.
Speaker 3: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 3: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work date.
Speaker 3: Before we get into today's show, just a reminder if
Speaker 3: you have questions that you would like answered about work, productivity,
Speaker 3: the future of work who knows, I would love you
Speaker 3: to send them through to me. I am dedicating a
Speaker 3: few episodes to answering listener questions.
Speaker 4: I've gotten some really good ones already.
Speaker 3: Some of which I've addressed in some episodes of How
Speaker 3: I Work. So if you have a question you would
Speaker 3: like me to answer, like my view on like me
Speaker 3: to dig into research around, just send it through to
Speaker 3: Amantha at Inventium dot com dot au and my email
Speaker 3: address is always in the show notes as well. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's get onto today's show. My guest is Kevin Kelly.
Speaker 3: Very excited to announce that Kevin is a senior maverick
Speaker 3: at Wired magazine. He co founded Wired back in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three and served as its executive editor.
Speaker 4: For the first seven years.
Speaker 3: His most recent book is The Inevitable, which is a
Speaker 3: New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, and he
Speaker 3: co founded the Hackers Conference and also the Quantified Self
Speaker 3: movement of which I am quite the fan, and he
Speaker 3: also writes one of my favorite newsletters, Recommendo. He also
Speaker 3: hosts the Cool Tools podcast and also founded the very
Speaker 3: popular cool Tools website back in two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: in which a new tool is reviewed every single day.
Speaker 3: So I've been trying to get Kevin on the show
Speaker 3: for I want to say, well.
Speaker 4: Over a year, and I was finally able.
Speaker 3: To secure an hour with him, which I was so
Speaker 3: excited about. He's someone that I have admired from AFAR
Speaker 3: for many, many years. I think he's one of the
Speaker 3: best and most interesting thinkers on the planet, and I'm
Speaker 3: so excited to share this interview. I found it fascinating
Speaker 3: to get insight into how he works. And also before
Speaker 3: we hit record, he literally just before he set me
Speaker 3: the challenge to see if I could ask him questions
Speaker 3: that he's never been asked before.
Speaker 4: So no pressure given.
Speaker 3: Kevin has been interviewed by many, many people, probably has
Speaker 3: done thousands of interviews over the course of his long career,
Speaker 3: so I did manage to succeed in.
Speaker 4: That challenge, which I was very excited about.
Speaker 3: And on that note, let's head to Kevin to hear
Speaker 3: about how he works.
Speaker 4: Kevin, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: It's my delight to be here at Thank you for
Speaker 2: inviting me.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm very excited now.
Speaker 3: Something I have subscribed to and read literally every week
Speaker 3: is your newsletter. One of your newsletters Recommendo, and I reckon.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's not many newsletters that I read religiously,
Speaker 3: but there's always so many good recommendations for new tools
Speaker 3: and software and gadgets, and I would love to know
Speaker 3: what are your go to sources for finding all these
Speaker 3: new tools and strategies.
Speaker 1: I waste way too much time surfing the net in
Speaker 1: the web. That's that's the sad, sad truth there. For listeners.
Speaker 1: This is called Recommendo, and every week we send a
Speaker 1: one page message with six recommendations, two by me, two
Speaker 1: by Mark Tube Claudia. We publish cool tools and they're
Speaker 1: kind of like whatever we want to recommend, whether it's
Speaker 1: a cool tool or a cool place to visit or
Speaker 1: somebody to follow, something to watch, something to read. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of pretty broad in that sense. And sometimes
Speaker 1: there's tips, sometimes there's other kinds of suggestions, and so
Speaker 1: we try to amuse ourselves not repeating ourselves. And we've
Speaker 1: been going almost four years, and we're going to have
Speaker 1: an expanded book version of it coming out self published
Speaker 1: wise or on demand. I guess they call it publishing
Speaker 1: this Christmas time. So it's part of what I do.
Speaker 1: It's part of what I've always done. It's part of
Speaker 1: my habitual take on the world is I'm always sniffing
Speaker 1: around for cool stuff. And just as you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, a musician might be always doodling on their
Speaker 1: guitar and occasionally, you know, some chords or hook comes in,
Speaker 1: and that's just what they do.
Speaker 2: That's how they do.
Speaker 1: I am kind of always sniffing around for things, and
Speaker 1: that's how I do it.
Speaker 3: If I were a fly on the wall watching you
Speaker 3: sniff around, I feel like the way you must sniff
Speaker 3: around on the internet is different from a lot of
Speaker 3: other people because you you are people's go to source
Speaker 3: for so many things. So what are the things that
Speaker 3: you're doing differently when you are like sniffing around on
Speaker 3: the internet.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's a fair question. I haven't been asked that,
Speaker 2: you see so.
Speaker 1: Well, Actually, you know, I don't really spend that much
Speaker 1: time sitting in front of the computer compared to maybe
Speaker 1: some other people. But I would include in my sniffing
Speaker 1: around having conversations with people. So I do have a
Speaker 1: lot of conversations, and I would include even these kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations where the range is pretty wide. And I
Speaker 1: think maybe here's maybe one answer to your question is
Speaker 1: that my interests are pretty wide. So I am kind
Speaker 1: of always interested in learning things. And so I'm going
Speaker 1: down and going into areas where I know nothing, and
Speaker 1: that is very productive for finding things that you know,
Speaker 1: are interesting because they're just out of the normal circle
Speaker 1: and the normal mill stuff. And so that's one thing.
Speaker 1: And I like to have pretty broad conversations with people
Speaker 1: and talk to people that I have just met or
Speaker 1: meeting and so so so there's a conversational element that
Speaker 1: that I do spend a lot of my day with
Speaker 1: in conversations. And then there is another aspect, which is
Speaker 1: I am, and have been since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: a maker. I make stuff. I make all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: and again I like to broaden the kinds of things
Speaker 1: that have making, and that making forces me to try
Speaker 1: out things, to research things, to do stuff, and in
Speaker 1: that doing I learn. And so whether it's manual things
Speaker 1: or you know, building a business or starting something there's
Speaker 1: by by making things and making things happen and trying
Speaker 1: to spend a lot of my day in the making mode,
Speaker 1: the creation mode, that kind of surfaces philos of these things.
Speaker 3: I want to pick up on what you said around
Speaker 3: starting fresh with something and when you are starting fresh
Speaker 3: with a topic, where do you start? I mean, that's
Speaker 3: so overwhelming for so many people. So what does that
Speaker 3: look like for you, those first few steps that you're taking?
Speaker 1: So like right now, I recently added a three D printer.
Speaker 1: They've been around for a long time, but I never
Speaker 1: had one, never had the need for one. But I
Speaker 1: have several tool philosophies being a cool tool kind of person,
Speaker 1: and one of them is to not buy a tool
Speaker 1: until five minutes before I.
Speaker 2: Actually need it. Oh I like that because they're so.
Speaker 1: Available, so easy Amazon next day deliveries, Like there is
Speaker 1: simply no reason to have one before you are, i
Speaker 1: mean literally are going to sit down or stand and
Speaker 1: use it. And so I've known about d D printers for
Speaker 1: a long time, but I've never really absolutely had to
Speaker 1: have one, because you could always mail off and have
Speaker 1: shape ways or somebody make one for you or a friend.
Speaker 1: But I needed I moved to a place where I
Speaker 1: needed to do some of that, so I got one.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that while there's some maintenance in
Speaker 1: keeping the printer going that I didn't expect, most of
Speaker 1: the work was learning how to deal with and create
Speaker 1: three D files. Files in three D, three D you
Speaker 1: know objects. This is like a whole new world, and I, like,
Speaker 1: I entered it and realized, oh my gosh, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything.
Speaker 2: This is like totally new.
Speaker 1: I am total beginner, and so my method is to
Speaker 1: try something. So it's to kind of like to try
Speaker 1: to learn by doing a project rather than you know,
Speaker 1: just taking the course and then going as I like
Speaker 1: to kind of learn as I go along. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like on demand learning where I need it. I
Speaker 1: need to know this thing right now, so I'll go
Speaker 1: and then I well to do as I go, and
Speaker 1: I'll go to YouTube almost always to learn how to
Speaker 1: do it, and then do it until I get stuck,
Speaker 1: and then go back and learn how go back to
Speaker 1: YouTube and learn how to do the next thing. And
Speaker 1: then after I do that, I realized, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm missing some real fundamental knowledge. I need to take
Speaker 1: the one on one introductory course. And at that point
Speaker 1: I have enough questions that that course is really valuable.
Speaker 1: But when I start off, if I just start off
Speaker 1: taking the course of the training of the Linda course
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it doesn't I don't know, it doesn't stick.
Speaker 1: So I like to do kind of on demand learning
Speaker 1: even from the beginning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: And when you're on YouTube trying to find the I
Speaker 3: guess the most useful videos to watch, how are you
Speaker 3: doing that?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Are there people that you trust that you're going to
Speaker 3: Are there certain search terms that you're typing in that
Speaker 3: maybe other people wouldn't think to type in.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not that sophisticated. There are.
Speaker 1: There are a couple terms for things. Like one of
Speaker 1: the things I did learn is that you if you
Speaker 1: want to find good reviews, use, you know, use the
Speaker 1: word use vs versus something versus something else, and that
Speaker 1: will turn up things. And another kind of a search
Speaker 1: hack is to use the word solution. When you have
Speaker 1: a problem, add the word solution, so you just don't
Speaker 1: hear the problem.
Speaker 2: You hear, but the solutions are. But the truth.
Speaker 1: Is that I rely a lot on the recommendation engine
Speaker 1: of YouTube when I'm searching around, So those are usually
Speaker 1: the first ones I look at. I'll look at the
Speaker 1: automatically recommended ones as one way to kind of search
Speaker 1: through it. And you know, obviously the qualities call uneven.
Speaker 1: It really varies tremendously, and there is, by the way,
Speaker 1: anybody out there there is there is a huge need
Speaker 1: and market for kind of a Wikipedia version or I
Speaker 1: don't even know what to say, a user's guide, or
Speaker 1: if I have to see a whole worth catalog version
Speaker 1: of YouTube stuff, because it is troublesome and not very
Speaker 1: elegant looking for the best of the ones that you're
Speaker 1: searching for, but sometimes you know that they are so
Speaker 1: obscure that it's hard to imagine any human doing this.
Speaker 1: I think this may be a job for AI, helping
Speaker 1: us to find higher quality ones by actually looking not
Speaker 1: just at what people say, right, but actually looking at
Speaker 1: the video itself in a high level capacity. Nonetheless, it
Speaker 1: is it is a chore, and I've watched I share
Speaker 1: of really horrible tutorials, but it's worth going through that
Speaker 1: because even with that, the power and the speed and
Speaker 1: the depth of you two is just amazing that I
Speaker 1: think highly highly underappreciated the value and what it's doing
Speaker 1: in the way that it's accelerating learning and culture, and
Speaker 1: I'm wholly dependent on it. And you know, I go
Speaker 1: there for answers, and I go there for recreation, just
Speaker 1: to just to watch a master maker make something.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, yes, it's really interesting. I want to come back
Speaker 3: to what you said about your tool philosophy. I like
Speaker 3: that idea of not getting something until five minutes before
Speaker 3: you need it. What are some of your other tool philosophies.
Speaker 2: Another one is that I believe in earning great tools.
Speaker 1: That almost all the tools that I buy at the
Speaker 1: beginning are all cheap. And here we call we have
Speaker 1: harbor freates. Afraid it is kind of a Chinese and
Speaker 1: it's low end, not low end. It's very inexpensive. It's
Speaker 1: not I write cheap tools, power tools, often tools, and
Speaker 1: it has kind of a reputation as really being low end.
Speaker 1: But for some cases, a low end tool is all
Speaker 1: that you will ever need. And in other cases, what
Speaker 1: I like to do is I like to earn the
Speaker 1: more expensive, durable tool because by using the cheap tool,
Speaker 1: as I said, sometimes it's all I need, and if
Speaker 1: I'm an occasional user, it's plenty. Other times, if I
Speaker 1: decide that or find out myself. Using it more and more,
Speaker 1: I begin to understand what I want from it, what's missing,
Speaker 1: and what I'm willing to pay for, and the kind
Speaker 1: of features or the quality that I do desire through
Speaker 1: use through using it, and then I can and then
Speaker 1: I'm kind of educated and ready to buy something better,
Speaker 1: and that may not even be the best. That may
Speaker 1: do another step of using that one and finding that,
Speaker 1: oh I'm using a lot and I still need an
Speaker 1: even better one. And so rather than kind of you know,
Speaker 1: some people preach, you know, buy the very best tool
Speaker 1: that you can afford, I don't do that. I buy
Speaker 1: the cheapest possible tool to begin with, because oftentimes that
Speaker 1: is enough that I'll ever use. Sometimes even with heavy use,
Speaker 1: like a harbor freight thirty dollars grinder is almost indestructible.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like you're just there's probably all you
Speaker 1: ever really need unless you're a professional of some sort.
Speaker 1: So I like to move up and earn where I say,
Speaker 1: earn the expensive tools by becoming educated through the use
Speaker 1: of the cheaper tools.
Speaker 3: That's a really interesting philosophy. I'm going to have to
Speaker 3: think about that for myself because It's definitely not one that.
Speaker 4: I tend to apply.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'll try to go straight to the best,
Speaker 3: but I lack the idea of why you wouldn't do
Speaker 3: that that makes a lot of sense. Something I want
Speaker 3: to segue into is one of the most popular blog
Speaker 3: posts that you've written is sixty eight bits of Unsolicited Advice.
Speaker 3: And I must say, out of all the blog posts
Speaker 3: that I've read in my time using the internet, that
Speaker 3: is probably one that I've shared most frequently with a
Speaker 3: lot of people.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 4: I think it's just brilliant.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to link to it in the show
Speaker 3: notes because I think for listeners, if you haven't read it,
Speaker 3: just read it.
Speaker 4: And there are a.
Speaker 3: Few that I want to dig into because I'm curious
Speaker 3: around how you personally use them at the moment in
Speaker 3: your life. So one of the bits of advice is
Speaker 3: you say the purpose of a habit is to remove
Speaker 3: the action from self negotiation.
Speaker 4: You know, longer expand energy deciding whether to do it.
Speaker 4: You just do it.
Speaker 3: Good habits can range from telling the truth to flushing
Speaker 3: and I love that I use that a lot in
Speaker 3: my life, and I want to know for you, what
Speaker 3: habits have you formed that you think have served you best,
Speaker 3: like perhaps over.
Speaker 2: The last year or two, new habits or.
Speaker 4: Old habits as well, happy to go for old habits.
Speaker 1: On the intermitt what they call intermittent fasting bandwagoning. So
Speaker 1: I stopped eating breakfast, and you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: like thought about it for a long time, and then
Speaker 1: I kind of like say, Okay, I'm gonna make a commandment.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make it a habit. And so now
Speaker 1: it's just like not an option, it's just I just
Speaker 1: don't do it, and I don't have to think about it.
Speaker 2: I don't have to negotiate it.
Speaker 1: It's just like I don't I don't do breakfast anymore,
Speaker 1: and this no longer. And so it's easy in some
Speaker 1: ways to kind of do because I'm not negotiating, and
Speaker 1: there's no exceptions, there's no you know, it's just now
Speaker 1: it's just a habit.
Speaker 2: And uh have I had.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of some other habits this year
Speaker 1: that I picked up. I'm trying to make it a habit,
Speaker 1: but I haven't quite succeeded, which is I have this
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, I declared that I'm going
Speaker 1: to now go what I call video first. So it
Speaker 1: was a sort of an idea that anything that I produce,
Speaker 1: I would start with video first and then move to
Speaker 1: text or move to other media because I have been
Speaker 1: I've spent fifty years being a still image person, a
Speaker 1: text oriented person, and the culture is definitely moved away
Speaker 1: from text and books to YouTube. To go back to
Speaker 1: my point, and moving images on the screen, so we're
Speaker 1: no longer people of the book, were people of the screen,
Speaker 1: and I am trying to move myself there. And so
Speaker 1: like on my phone, I have a habit I would
Speaker 1: have a habit of taking still pictures, and now I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make the new habit of taking a video
Speaker 1: instead of a still picture because I need to retrain
Speaker 1: my brain from being a still camera to moving in time.
Speaker 1: And so I'm trying as much as possible to make
Speaker 1: that a habit of hit the video first, think in
Speaker 1: terms of video, reconceive it in terms of video, be
Speaker 1: the video rather than be.
Speaker 2: The still image.
Speaker 1: And so I haven't been fully successful and not thinking
Speaker 1: about that. I'm still still kind of working on that,
Speaker 1: but I think I can finish the year with making
Speaker 1: that out a habit.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 3: And what about work habits and new and old work habits,
Speaker 3: because I feel like a lot of people have had to,
Speaker 3: or you know, would be well served to have formed
Speaker 3: new work habits, given how the landscape in which we
Speaker 3: work has changed because of COVID.
Speaker 4: But what are some work habits that serve you well?
Speaker 1: My work habits are just terrible. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if I mean, I'm sort of embarrassed by how bad
Speaker 1: they are. But I probably do all the wrong things.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people, and I have a
Speaker 1: daughter who have very i don't know what you call it,
Speaker 1: strict to do lists, who plan the week out and
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I am unable to do that.
Speaker 1: I don't even have a to do list except for
Speaker 1: maybe kind of in the back of my head. And
Speaker 1: I believe in the power of interruption, so I let
Speaker 1: myself be interrupted, not necessarily by you know, distractions. But
Speaker 1: I have visitors. We have a large kind of social
Speaker 1: bubble family here, so i'd like I like to keep
Speaker 1: the day very varied and switch from sitting in front
Speaker 1: of their computer, could going down to my workshop and
Speaker 1: working for a while in the workshop, and then going
Speaker 1: out to do some photography and then I mean coming
Speaker 1: back in and I don't do much of that on
Speaker 1: a regular schedule, so I have kind of I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit kind of free form flowing, and you know,
Speaker 1: I do have things in the back of my head,
Speaker 1: so you know, I've got to finish that video for
Speaker 1: these people, or I have a presentation that I have
Speaker 1: to do, and it's kind of there. I do the
Speaker 1: hard work late at night. I'm kind of a night
Speaker 1: out that way. I have one little habit that may
Speaker 1: be worth talking about when I have some really hard
Speaker 1: writing to do. I'm not a born writer. I'm a
Speaker 1: born editor. That first draft is a killer for me.
Speaker 1: Is painful because for me, it's a kind of thinking
Speaker 1: and I write in order to find out what I think,
Speaker 1: because I don't know what I think until I write it.
Speaker 1: And then as the beginning to write it, I realize
Speaker 1: I don't have any idea what I'm talking about, and
Speaker 1: so that first draft is really really difficult. And to
Speaker 1: help me when I'm kind of really working through a
Speaker 1: tough first draft is I have a song that I
Speaker 1: play on a loop with headsets and it just goes
Speaker 1: round and around and around. It's the same song, and
Speaker 1: I've picked up that trick from a couple of people
Speaker 1: that you play this thing and it's it's there's something.
Speaker 2: Weird about it. It's very soothing.
Speaker 1: I know people who work in like cafes and they
Speaker 1: like that background noise.
Speaker 2: This is something similar. I guess.
Speaker 1: It's just the same song on a loop again and again,
Speaker 1: and just hearing it kind of makes me productive.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it makes.
Speaker 1: Me kind of like distraction fully away and I can
Speaker 1: really really focus. And so I would recommend to people
Speaker 1: give it a try. Find something that you think you
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind hearing a thousand times, and then it's just
Speaker 1: play it on a loop and it it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a trance, you know. It makes it kind of
Speaker 1: a work trance, I guess. So that works when I
Speaker 1: have some really hard writing where I am having to
Speaker 1: completely focus and think very very hard.
Speaker 4: Is there a specific song that you'll go to.
Speaker 2: Or for me? For me, there is one song.
Speaker 1: It's the same song and I've been using for years
Speaker 1: and it's a Bulgarians men's choir with a Gregorian chant.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what it's what they're saying. It's,
Speaker 1: you know, vocals, like a weird Bulgaria kind of meal
Speaker 1: was the word. It's like, it's like a deep, strange
Speaker 1: medieval chant, And for some reason, when I heard it,
Speaker 1: it made me kind of at ease, meditative, And so
Speaker 1: now I've played it so many times I can almost
Speaker 1: start writing as soon as I hear it.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's great.
Speaker 3: I had Matt Mullenwig on the show a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago now, and he does the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: I think it was actually just transitioning out of it
Speaker 3: and just doing whole albums rather than some I.
Speaker 1: Think Matt might be one, and maybe Jason coy Am
Speaker 1: I sure, but it's not uncommon.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 3: Another bit of advice in the blog is you say,
Speaker 3: perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that
Speaker 3: the more you give to others, the more you'll get understanding.
Speaker 4: This is the beginning of wisdom.
Speaker 3: And I imagine for you like, well, I can't even
Speaker 3: begin to imagine how many demands you must get on
Speaker 3: your time, with who you are and your profile and
Speaker 3: your networks.
Speaker 4: And so forth.
Speaker 3: And I want to know how do you decide who
Speaker 3: and when to give to and also when to say no, okay?
Speaker 1: Number two questions I've never been asked before as good one.
Speaker 1: It's a great question, and how do I decide? So
Speaker 1: I'm past him because I don't know, I'm having to
Speaker 1: think about that.
Speaker 2: How do I decide?
Speaker 1: So there is a very large component of wanting to
Speaker 1: learn something. This has something to do with the kind
Speaker 1: of conferences I will agree to go to. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: I of to learn something from this talk or interaction
Speaker 1: or interview, whatever it is. And so there's there's a
Speaker 1: component of that, like like when I was doing a.
Speaker 2: Book tour, I did a virtual book tour.
Speaker 1: I was one of the first to do a virtual
Speaker 1: book tour many many many years ago, where I had
Speaker 1: a whole month of doing these kind of conversations and
Speaker 1: I was choosing or I was letting, letting me be chosen,
Speaker 1: really obscure, weird, like there was an association for science camps.
Speaker 2: There was a church, there.
Speaker 1: Was a another kind of weird high school as some
Speaker 1: of the audiences, and for me, it was like just
Speaker 1: having the conversation with them was a reason to say yes,
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't normally have that ability or that opportunity.
Speaker 1: So there's, as I would say, one part of that
Speaker 1: answer is.
Speaker 2: Kind of self interest. What would I be getting out
Speaker 2: of that?
Speaker 1: Yes, The second one is more along the lines of
Speaker 1: and this is a little hard to quantify, will I
Speaker 1: really be useful? Am I really the right person to
Speaker 1: be helping? And that is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I often knows is my concluding that, well, I'm really
Speaker 1: honored that you asked and thank you, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm going to bring anything of value to this.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I maybe ab'll say something, but this
Speaker 1: is not really it's you know.
Speaker 2: There are better people. There are better people.
Speaker 1: Who can do this and give you more, and so
Speaker 1: you should be going to them. And so that's another way.
Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, can I really add anything?
Speaker 1: And then you know, there's kind of a trivial sense
Speaker 1: of like, know, do I have a relationship with this person?
Speaker 1: And for sure people that I have, you know, that
Speaker 1: are friends that's to me at just a different dynamic.
Speaker 1: And then there's strong friends, weak friends, new friends, associates,
Speaker 1: and so there's a kind of a little bit of like, well,
Speaker 1: what is what is my relationship already with this person?
Speaker 1: Because I feel that part of having a friendship is
Speaker 1: doing those kinds of things, having a conversation, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you know, being being engaged, being part of their movie,
Speaker 1: and so so that's another.
Speaker 2: I would say, even a significant factor in it. And then.
Speaker 1: A fourth factor in kind of making those calculations would
Speaker 1: be why they what's the request about really about? Is
Speaker 1: it a commercial enterprise? Is it a school classroom project?
Speaker 2: Is that? You know?
Speaker 1: What is that cool nature of it? And I am
Speaker 1: less and less inclined to do things that are just
Speaker 1: strictly business. So anyway, I'm not sure if I don't
Speaker 1: have a really good summary, but as I think about it,
Speaker 1: that's what I came up with.
Speaker 4: I like that. I like those four things.
Speaker 3: I think the second thing that you mentioned around you know,
Speaker 3: am I the like essentially the uniquely best placed person
Speaker 3: to do this thing?
Speaker 4: I find really interesting.
Speaker 3: I think I heard that once before from Adam Grant
Speaker 3: when I had him on the show, and he says
Speaker 3: something similar around his kind of giving philosophy, Yeah, which
Speaker 3: I think is it's such a useful thing to keep
Speaker 3: in mind. It Certainly, when when I first heard that,
Speaker 3: it definitely changed how I think about request coming through
Speaker 3: from my time, and I really like that. There are
Speaker 3: two other things that I want to dig into. In
Speaker 3: the sixty eight bits of under sort of advice, the
Speaker 3: next one is you say being able to listen well
Speaker 3: as a superpower when listening to someone you love, keep
Speaker 3: asking them is there more until there is no more?
Speaker 3: So I want to know for you, I imagine you must
Speaker 3: be a brilliant listener because you've learned so much, you
Speaker 3: contribute so much thinking to the world, and you know
Speaker 3: you are a lot of people's go to person for
Speaker 3: a lot of different topics that that be digging into.
Speaker 3: So what is it that you do that makes you
Speaker 3: a good listener or makes you listen differently to how
Speaker 3: other people are listening in the world.
Speaker 1: I think it's in part what I don't have. So
Speaker 1: I feel with a lot of conversations that I am
Speaker 1: I actually am not a super quick witted thinker. I
Speaker 1: don't have a quick witted response to things like usually
Speaker 1: the other people in the room that I'm with or
Speaker 1: you know, who are much snappier, quicker, brilliant thinkers than
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: And so I will listen because I don't because I
Speaker 2: don't have anything witty to say.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like I'm sitting there because I
Speaker 1: can't move it forward, and then I'm listening. And so
Speaker 1: it's also I think temperamental because if I recollect back
Speaker 1: to my time in classrooms, I didn't do something which
Speaker 1: was I never hardy ever did the homework. I was
Speaker 1: just terrible. I still have nightmares about that. But what
Speaker 1: I did do is I set up in the very
Speaker 1: front row of the class and I listened really hard,
Speaker 1: and I would ask questions, and I would listen and
Speaker 1: ask questions, and then that was the end of the class.
Speaker 1: I'd go home and I wouldn't even ever think about
Speaker 1: it until I was in the class the next day,
Speaker 1: and then I was up front listening and asking questions.
Speaker 1: And so that is sort of just what I do,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, for whatever reasons, again, it's probably
Speaker 1: the cover for.
Speaker 2: The fact that I'm not doing any of the.
Speaker 1: Homework and I am not really making student observations. I'm
Speaker 1: just listening and answering questions. And so I think listening
Speaker 1: and asking questions are a good pair, and you know,
Speaker 1: you can go pretty far without with just those two
Speaker 1: and not having to add anything brilliant to say, are these.
Speaker 3: Specific questions that you ask? I guess nowadays that are
Speaker 3: generally going to elicit something interesting or something deeper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, going back to this, to the whole idea
Speaker 1: of asking good questions, I have a whole chapter in
Speaker 1: I guess it's my last book about the shift from
Speaker 1: answers to questions. How you know machines if you I mean,
Speaker 1: basically it's reduced. If you want a really good answer,
Speaker 1: you'll ask a machine like good Google or a serie
Speaker 1: or an AI. If you want a good question, you
Speaker 1: want to hire a human. And hopefully we're going to
Speaker 1: be trained to ask good questions and we can talk
Speaker 1: about what makes a good question. But a lot of
Speaker 1: a good question is an honest question, meaning you don't
Speaker 1: know what the answer is, you don't know where it's
Speaker 1: going to go. But I found in my conversations with
Speaker 1: people that I really respect, who's who's thinking is lateral,
Speaker 1: is that there is there's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: I don't know, I would call it a hack or
Speaker 1: a trick or something, a strategy of asking a question
Speaker 1: where you I'm trying to articulate this, it's it's your
Speaker 1: your sort of You're you're asking it kind of from
Speaker 1: outside the usual assumptions or almost like a Martian or
Speaker 1: you know, you're asking it from a position where it
Speaker 1: could be considered a dumb question because you kind of
Speaker 1: have sidestepped what everybody knows. And that's always risky because
Speaker 1: it could sound dumb because everybody knows this, but you're
Speaker 1: kind of asking it anyway. And if you take the
Speaker 1: right step to the side of that, you can ask
Speaker 1: a question that it's interesting and not everybody knows, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound dumb. And so when I'm doing interviews
Speaker 1: or stuff and trying to have interesting conversation, I will
Speaker 1: try coming sideways as another kind of way to think
Speaker 1: about that, where you are bypassing some of the assumptions,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're questioning the assumptions. Both of those could work.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like Brian Youenicole's oblique strategies, where
Speaker 1: you're coming obliquely at an angle and it has something
Speaker 1: to do about surrendering or ignoring conventions in some ways,
Speaker 1: and again it risks being a stupid, silly question, but
Speaker 1: that's that's the price.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I really liked in the sixty
Speaker 3: eight bits of un Solicit Advice that really resonated with
Speaker 3: me is that you say being enthusiastic is worth twenty
Speaker 3: five IQ points. And I love that I'd been given
Speaker 3: the advice many years ago that you can't train attitude,
Speaker 3: which kind of reminds me of that. And I want
Speaker 3: to know how do you make decisions about who to
Speaker 3: collaborate with or who to recruit into projects that you're
Speaker 3: working on.
Speaker 1: I wish i'd collaborated even more than I do. I'm
Speaker 1: very content to be a loaner or solo. I really
Speaker 1: a loner. I'm surrounded by people, but being a solo
Speaker 1: act I am okay with. One of the first things
Speaker 1: I did when I left Wired and had the means
Speaker 1: to was, you know, rather than buy a new house
Speaker 1: or new cars, I said, I want a full time
Speaker 1: personal research assistant. And that has changed my life forever.
Speaker 1: Having somebody who is on hand to do research, do assistance,
Speaker 1: do scheduling, do the you know, the book keeping I
Speaker 1: don't want to do do do anything. That was like
Speaker 1: so collaborating with that person, having that person on a team,
Speaker 1: working together, and now I have more than one person
Speaker 1: helping just maybe I don't know, ten times fifty times
Speaker 1: as productive again, give me my really bad work habits.
Speaker 1: Just having someone help me be accountable to keep me
Speaker 1: busy in the right direction. Maybe that's actually that's probably
Speaker 1: part of the answer to my work habits is that
Speaker 1: I have an assistant, and therefore I have to be
Speaker 1: more responsible and the jobs that I get lined up
Speaker 1: and do, and so that kind of maybe forces me
Speaker 1: to a little bit more order and structure into it
Speaker 1: because I have an assistant. But still I'm kind of
Speaker 1: like more like a solo performer rather than a big band.
Speaker 1: Wired was a big band and it was really a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Wholw Earth was a big band. I
Speaker 1: kind of miss that kind of collaboration with a big band.
Speaker 1: I've done a couple other projects where there was more
Speaker 1: than one person involved in I miss that I should
Speaker 1: be doing more of it. But that's the question I
Speaker 1: keep asking myself. Okay, you know, now that I'm sixty
Speaker 1: eight and a half, what do I want to do
Speaker 1: when I grow up? And do I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: still work with a duet a small solo performers or
Speaker 1: do I want to have a band again? And there
Speaker 1: are plus and minuses on both of them, but I
Speaker 1: am feeling that I should collaborate more. And then to
Speaker 1: answer your question of how do I decide? Well, Number
Speaker 1: one for me is do I really enjoy spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time with these other person or persons because
Speaker 1: we're going to spend a lot of time with them,
Speaker 1: and so that you know, compatibility friendly thing is hugely important.
Speaker 1: And I just simply don't work with people that I
Speaker 1: don't like.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 1: No amount of talent is enough for me. Life is
Speaker 1: way too short. So I tend to want to work
Speaker 1: with people that want to be around with and hopefully
Speaker 1: they're smarter than me, and they're always more talented than me,
Speaker 1: and that makes it fun.
Speaker 3: What else did you think about, like when you're recruiting
Speaker 3: your personal research assistant or assistance.
Speaker 1: Well, I one of the things I did when I
Speaker 1: was evaluating them was I gave them and actually paid
Speaker 1: for real work that would be the type that they
Speaker 1: would be doing, so we could evaluate their work. And
Speaker 1: to something you said, which is we're hiring for attitude,
Speaker 1: not for skills. That was the motto at Wired, hire
Speaker 1: for attitude, training for skills, because like we were inventing
Speaker 1: the web, there's nobody at any experience and designing your
Speaker 1: programming the web because we were inventing it. It didn't exist,
Speaker 1: So the only thing we could really hire for was
Speaker 1: attitude skill, I mean attitude and character and things like that.
Speaker 1: And so that's sort of what I really look for.
Speaker 1: I'd like to go for a long walk with the
Speaker 1: candidates and you know, two things to work with him,
Speaker 1: to do work, have him do something with us for us,
Speaker 1: and that's work. And then two take a long walk
Speaker 1: with them and just you know, try to get a
Speaker 1: beat on their character. And that covers it.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about on that walk? What are
Speaker 3: some of the questions that you're asking.
Speaker 2: Well, anything except for work.
Speaker 1: With their hobbies are how they how they spend a
Speaker 1: free time, cosmological question, uestions, what's your favorite movie? Just
Speaker 1: anything except for the work.
Speaker 4: M Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3: That sounds that's an interesting thing that I feel like
Speaker 3: so few people do when they're recruiting new people into
Speaker 3: a team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: I guess the older I get, the more important. And
Speaker 1: this probably goes to one of the bits of advice
Speaker 1: about you attending funerals, the more important it is to
Speaker 1: me for the character. I'm using it loosely of people
Speaker 1: as we work, because in a certain sense, it's not
Speaker 1: that hard to make things. It's it's hard to make
Speaker 1: things really really great, and there I find that extra
Speaker 1: ten percent or extra one hundred percent, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It really does come down to character and enjoying the
Speaker 1: time that you're working with other people because you're going
Speaker 1: to be in overtime and having to work hard, and
Speaker 1: so it wants to be for with people that you
Speaker 1: respect and admire, and those kind of things are to
Speaker 1: me crucial. I think money, even lots of money, is
Speaker 1: way overrated, and making money is sort of actually not difficult,
Speaker 1: but making something that you're proud of and doing it
Speaker 1: better each time is difficult. And so the character, the
Speaker 1: experience that we have, the human relationships that we have,
Speaker 1: all we're doing it to me become more and more
Speaker 1: important than just the achievement of At the end. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, the old thing about the
Speaker 1: journey is more impressive, more important than the destiny, you know,
Speaker 1: like thinking back to Wired or whatever. We're very proud
Speaker 1: of those issues, but I have to tell you some
Speaker 1: of those issues I've completely forgotten even what we said,
Speaker 1: but I have not forgotten the people and the interactions
Speaker 1: that we had while we were doing it.
Speaker 3: I love that now in the final few minutes that
Speaker 3: we have, I want to get like a quick read
Speaker 3: on what are your favorite gadgets and tools and software
Speaker 3: that have brought you the most joy. And I also
Speaker 3: want to know from a health perspective, because you obviously
Speaker 3: coined the term quantified self. I think it was back
Speaker 3: in two thousand and seven with Gary Wolf and I'm
Speaker 3: a massive nerd when it comes to that. I think
Speaker 3: probably the nerdiest thing I've done is like prick my
Speaker 3: fingers every half an hour to test blood glue cooaster responses.
Speaker 3: There's a workaround because I couldn't get Day one. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you're familiar with Day one from Israel,
Speaker 3: who actually have algorithms that can calculate your blood glucose
Speaker 3: response to certain foods, but being in Australia, couldn't access that,
Speaker 3: so finger precking.
Speaker 4: But let's maybe start with health. What are the best tools.
Speaker 3: Or gadgets or software that you're currently using, I guess
Speaker 3: to improve your health or have a healthy life.
Speaker 1: You know, despite the fact that I've was one of
Speaker 1: the co founders of the quantifyself and I've had the
Speaker 1: habit of wearing the fitbit the early versions of it
Speaker 1: all the time, and have gone through a number of
Speaker 1: other of those. Right now, I am not using the
Speaker 1: technology to track. Part of my thing is that overall
Speaker 1: my health has been so good. I don't take any
Speaker 1: pills at all of any sort, not even vitamins. I
Speaker 1: just I'm just kind of ghosting. I guess I don't
Speaker 1: know what the word is, but I don't pay too
Speaker 1: much attention to my health, for better or worse. I
Speaker 1: walk and hike every day and still ride my bikes.
Speaker 2: But I just am.
Speaker 1: Bored by health, and I'm fortunate to be able to
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 3: Generally, Like, what are some gadgets or tools or software
Speaker 3: that maybe have brought you the most joy or even productivity,
Speaker 3: like in you know, in other parts of your life.
Speaker 1: So joy, yeah, joy is that that? That's a good
Speaker 1: That's a good way to phrase it, Like things that
Speaker 1: bring me joy. So I carry in my pocket right
Speaker 1: this moment, my shorts here. I have a ninety nine
Speaker 1: cent plastic box cutter. That is the one thing that
Speaker 1: I carry even more than my phone. And even though
Speaker 1: I have a desk job, I use this more than
Speaker 1: you would ever imagine. Of course, I'm down at the
Speaker 1: workshop and I'm doing all kinds of things. So it's
Speaker 1: a knife, but it's a plastic knife, and I prefer
Speaker 1: to anything else because it's very very light. It's made
Speaker 1: out of plastic, and it's a box cutter worth a
Speaker 1: snap so you sharpen up. I just snap and the
Speaker 1: tip off, and I have one for every pair of
Speaker 1: pants and they're just everywhere. And I use that more
Speaker 1: than anything else, and I get a thrill out out
Speaker 1: of using it, and it's it's and I don't care
Speaker 1: if I lose it because it's ninety nine cents and
Speaker 1: although but I don't often use it lose it.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: I'm looking around my desk right now for other things
Speaker 1: that are close at hand. I have a notebook. I'm
Speaker 1: a big notebook user and believer. That's pen ink on
Speaker 1: a nice stiff page. And I have a turn at
Speaker 1: diversion to the Moleskins. It's called a Millennialism art book.
Speaker 1: It's like half the price and brighter colored colors of
Speaker 1: a big Moleskin book. And I fill those up with drawings,
Speaker 1: sketches of stuff I'm working on. I'm when I write,
Speaker 1: I'm a visual.
Speaker 2: I like to.
Speaker 1: Sketch out graph kind of when I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2: Before I put into words.
Speaker 1: So I use that and that brings me joy. Let's see,
Speaker 1: we have a electric car that is not a Tesla.
Speaker 1: I love electric cars. It's this is a cheap has
Speaker 1: half the price of a Tesla at the time.
Speaker 2: It's a GM Bolt.
Speaker 1: It was the first American car we've ever bought, because
Speaker 1: we've been Japanese Toyota people forever. But I have to
Speaker 1: tell you it brings me joy. It's the best performance
Speaker 1: car that I've ever been in. It's really remarkable. There's
Speaker 1: so much power and torque, and we get it. It's
Speaker 1: because the batteries are in the bottom. It really hugs
Speaker 1: the road. It's just really really great. And my daughter
Speaker 1: has a has a Tesla, and you know, electric cars are.
Speaker 2: Just superior in every way.
Speaker 1: And I think the switch to electric cars is going
Speaker 1: to be fairly fast because they will soon become less
Speaker 1: expensive than a regular car and they're twice as good.
Speaker 1: And so that brings me joy. Get an electric car
Speaker 1: if you can.
Speaker 4: Oh, so, I'm loving all those recommendations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so other apps.
Speaker 1: Boy, I'm looking at my phone just so I have
Speaker 1: a little tiny app that brings me joy.
Speaker 2: I don't use it every day, but because I live.
Speaker 1: Almost within sight of the ocean, the Pacific Ocean, I
Speaker 1: have a tide app and the tide app tells me
Speaker 1: what's tied, is whether it's high tied or low tide,
Speaker 1: and when it's going to be low tide and when
Speaker 1: it's gonna be high tight. And man, that has changed
Speaker 1: my life because it's like, you know, there's tide charts,
Speaker 1: but they were like, you know, they're just so already used.
Speaker 1: But so anyway, whenever we're going out, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's a we can time it for low tight and
Speaker 1: how low with the high B. So you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: who would ever thought that, you know, the supercomputer that
Speaker 1: you would carry around in your pocket, that it would
Speaker 1: also be the tide chart as well as everything else.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of what's it called. That's called tide
Speaker 1: Track t R A C. It's I'm on an Apple
Speaker 1: I phone. There's probably an equivalent somewhere. I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure it's the best one, but it works for me.
Speaker 1: So other kind of uh cool apps, you know, I
Speaker 1: have to so, uh, there's another app here. It's called
Speaker 1: seek See Hey, this is quite amazing. It is something
Speaker 1: I've recommended and recommend it.
Speaker 2: But what it is is an.
Speaker 1: App that has the user camera and it identifies plants.
Speaker 1: It tells you what the species is. You hold it
Speaker 1: over and tells you this is what it is. It's
Speaker 1: remarkably good. It's going and you need to have connected
Speaker 1: service because going up to the cloud to do it.
Speaker 2: But I have to.
Speaker 1: Say, you know, I would say ninety percent, maybe ninety
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of time it'll give me a species
Speaker 1: for a tree or a plant or a grass or something.
Speaker 1: You identify it. That's really cool for me because that
Speaker 1: was forever My question is what is that? Okay, here
Speaker 1: it is, that's what it is. It has a name.
Speaker 1: I can read more about it. Maybe it's even edible.
Speaker 1: So that's been a huge thing, and that kind of
Speaker 1: thing won't get better over time, but even right now
Speaker 1: it's pretty good.
Speaker 4: That's awesome. That's also den with so out of time, Kevin.
Speaker 3: My final question, if people want to consume more of
Speaker 3: what you're putting out into the world, how can they
Speaker 3: do this?
Speaker 1: So we mentioned my newsletter Recommendo with one m and
Speaker 1: it's free. It goes out every Sunday morning. You can
Speaker 1: sign up at recommendo dot com. You can see back
Speaker 1: issues if you want. And I also we do a
Speaker 1: cool Tools podcast called Your Four Favorite Tools. We interview
Speaker 1: people and ask them about four of their favorite tools.
Speaker 1: We've been going on that for many years. Every week
Speaker 1: that's there. We have a website called cool Tools, which
Speaker 1: is one review or something equivalent of a new tool
Speaker 1: every day. Sometimes we're from the podcast. And I have
Speaker 1: a blog which is very intermittent called the Technium where
Speaker 1: the sixty eight Bits of Advice appeared. And my newest
Speaker 1: project is Vanishing Asia. We didn't get to talk about that,
Speaker 1: but I spent forty years photographing in Asia all the
Speaker 1: disappearing traditions and culture, and I put nine thousand of
Speaker 1: the best pictures into this one huge, humongous, oversized, thousand
Speaker 1: page book that is now being ready to be printed
Speaker 1: but probably won't be out because of the COVID until
Speaker 1: the end of twenty one. And in the meantime, I
Speaker 1: have an instagram called Vanishing Asia where I issue and
Speaker 1: caption one photograph a day from that series of a
Speaker 1: world that has almost disappeared, but it's kind of disappearing
Speaker 1: right now in Asia. Between Turkey and Japan, most of
Speaker 1: every of the countries, including in the midiest that I've
Speaker 1: been documenting these disappearing textures, festivals, costumes, architecture, and the
Speaker 1: scenes from Long Ago Amazing.
Speaker 4: I will link to all of that in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Kevin, it's been an absolute joy talking to you.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: It's been a real joy myself. I appreciated you asking
Speaker 1: questions I haven't been asked before. That's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. And I appreciate this moment.
Speaker 4: That is it for today's show.
Speaker 3: If you liked my chat with Kevin, why not share
Speaker 3: it with somebody else that you think would enjoy it,
Speaker 3: or maybe posted on social media, whatever you like. I'm very,
Speaker 3: very grateful for everyone that spreads the word about how
Speaker 3: I work. I feel like there are quite a lot
Speaker 3: of you out there doing that, so thank you so much.
Speaker 3: It's so deeply, deeply appreciated. And if you are in
Speaker 3: the mood to leave a review for how I work
Speaker 3: in Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this too,
Speaker 3: that'd be awesome.
Speaker 4: Thank you to the hundreds of people that have done that.
Speaker 3: It's so nice getting feedback on my work, so thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you. So that is it for today's show and
Speaker 3: I will see you next time.