Questioning Growth with Paul Jarvis

(upbeat music)

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (upbeat music)

Welcome to synchronicity. My guest this week features the return of Paul Jarvis. Paul is a very interesting, accomplished, thoughtful, and very cool digital marketer, company builder, consultant, designer. Just cool guy. I got tuned into Paul through my day job doing digital marketing specifically for a MailChimp course that he offered called Chimp Essentials. Must have been a few years ago, and immediately, I mean, it was incredibly useful and helped me with my job, but also recognized that there was some other hidden layer of Paul that was seeping through his email course, right? And lo and behold, a couple of years later, he's written a book called Company of One, which really has some relatively radical ideas on how to function as a business person, what we can be doing to kind of challenge some of the ideas that are built in seemingly into capitalism and how to make money.

Either as a freelancer, someone who's working at a corporation, someone who's working for another person, whatever it is, you can instill a lot of these kind of ideas, thinking and mindsets into what you're doing. And the reason I think this is really why I'm so interested in it, is I always have been acutely interested and aware of the ethical components of the business world. And I think as you go through life and realize that making money is a part of life and it's how we exchange value most overtly for goods and services and a lot of other things, it has a massive import on our life, right?

I mean, this is one of the reasons that cryptocurrency fascinates me from a long time ago is that it subverts kind of a modality of how money works, but recognizes that money is an omnipresent reality for everyone. So trying to figure out how do we go about ethically charging people for things or products or services or what is a fair system of value? What one after we find kind of our way of making money in the world, how much do we want to scale it? How much money do we want to be making from it? What ways do we want to be making the money are all really important questions that I think can get overlooked rather easily.

And one of those big questions, and it's the name of the episode in a big part of Paul's book, is questioning the mindset of growth or never ending growth. And intuitively, we kind of know that never ending growth isn't really possible in all areas of life. Yeah, you can grow mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you know, almost at infinitum, but there are resources in the world that aren't infinite, right? Certain resources that we're using up, whether it's fossil fuels or layers that protect us from the warming of the sun, all of these things. So trying to recognize that growth has its place, and especially in the business world, it has its place.

You want to be making money and supporting a lifestyle, but also recognizing what those upper bounds of growth are and identifying those and setting kind of goals related to that. So you're not just getting addicted to this idea of more and more. And this is important because the narrative that we get pitched, really I say Western culture, but everywhere in the world now is that more is better, that you should buy more stuff, you should make more money, you should get bigger things, you should get cooler, more expensive things. This is just something that's constantly being pitched to everyone.

And it can get pretty crazy in your mind when even if you're achieving some level of success, like when is enough is enough? Like, what's the point where you're like, all right, this is good, I'm good, I have enough. And we talk a lot about that in this episode. And I think it's important to really just acknowledge that we are all kind of doing this dance at any given point, right? Rather you're going to a job where someone else is paying you, you're making the determination that, all right, I'm exchanging my time this much time throughout the week to get these things done and I'll be compensated this much, that's a fair exchange.

So this isn't like a one size fits all. It's not like, you know what, the perfect amount of money to make is this and this is the perfect job to do. It really is dependent on kind of your own preferences and really realities of the situation, which is a big part of this, is being realistic about what's out there. Another thing we really get into is this idea of just doing your thing, right? And this doesn't mean that only do what you love all of the time and you're gonna be so happy and enthralled with what you're working on or doing in life all of the time, but it means that if it's connected to something that's really true to who you are, you're gonna have an easier time doing it and it's gonna work better.

And some aspect that came out of this conversation that I've really been tossing around in my mind is that, you know, I tend to recognize Paul as a good example when some people are doing good stuff in the world, it shines through what they're doing. But something I've recognized more and more and Paul put this pretty succinctly is that bullshit also shines through. So the people who are maybe kind of just crafting a persona or not really being who they actually are, but are being who they think you want them to be, that also shines through. And what's cool about these conversations, whether we're talking about making money or business or not, is this stuff is applicable to every aspect of life, relationships, just it's not just business.

It's not just making money. So yeah, that's a lot of what we got into you on this episode. I really didn't give much away. It's a pretty awesome conversation. Paul is a very cool guy. And one other thing I want to talk about, cannabis, weed, marijuana, ganja, MJ, New York, is going to be legalizing recreationally in 2019. So it says Cuomo, which Cuomo, I mean, total schmucko, but he seems to genuinely think he can be a presidential candidate, which is adorable. So who knows how lefty he's going to go? This is a huge thing, this is not like Massachusetts, sorry, Massachusetts, it's not like New Jersey, sorry, New Jersey, legalizing.

When New York legalizes and the city is legal and the surrounding areas are legal, this is going to have a massive impact on the cannabis culture, on the East Coast, and really the country. It's weird, my friends who are out in California, I'll be talking about weed. And they'll be like, yeah, you know, honestly, it's like, it's passé for us. This is how it is. We forget that it's not like this everywhere, but whenever you travel back and forth, you quickly realize, especially if you enjoy marijuana, that it's not equal at all. We're living in Draconian times over on this coast, and it's pretty fucking crazy.

So obviously a lot of, not obviously, but some people know that the Farmville Pass, which legalizes hemp and puts CBD in a kind of more pro-nebulous area, but we're gonna be getting recreational cannabis going on in the East Coast. And so I'm just throwing this out there because this is how I've met a lot of cool people. I have no firm business plan yet, but I know I wanna do something here in the Hudson Valley. This is all predicated on seeing how the fiscal and regulatory frameworks emerge in the early part of 2019 to see what's really feasible and doable here, but I'm doing something in the cannabis business, right?

I mean, this is something that I really believe in, not only 'cause I enjoy it, and it's helping me in my life, and I view it as a wonderful just ally, but I know that a lot of people are just gonna be flocking to the weed business because it's a green rush, right? They wanna make money, they wanna do all this stuff, and I don't, this really dovetails nicely into this episode, I don't want that to be what a business I would be starting with or getting involved with would do. I want to really have some high quality impact on communities and people and recognizing that what you bring into a business and what you put into a can of business really reverberates past just the exchange of money, and I know there's gonna be a lot of that.

I saw it with crypto too. Crypto was very much under the radar until 2017 of last year, and then all of a sudden, everyone is trying to make money from crypto, and the actual value of Bitcoin and things like that can get lost in that speculative, let's make money things. So when this green rush does happen, and it will happen, we're gonna be doing something cool. So if you have experience, if you're in a state where it's legal and you've been doing stuff, and you see some opportunities that you wanna do something cool and mindful and impactful with can of business, we're gonna be doing that, so that's pretty cool.

And I can talk about it even more freely now. You know if you're a listener of the podcast, I talk about weed all the time, very upfront about it. Now it's gonna be out in the open. So don't do. All right, that's it for this episode. Thank you to everyone who tunes in every week, rating and reviewing, on iTunes and other places. Appreciate it. Go pick up Paul's book, Company of One. It's out January 15th, so if you're listening to this in real time as it's released late 2018, you can pre-order it. 'Cause it'll be out January 15th, 2019. And go check out what Paul does if you're a marketer, if you're a small business person, if you're got an entrepreneurial spirit, just a really quality guy to tune into, who's made my life a lot better, relating to business things and just kind of good principles to live by.

That's it. How about we just get to the episode without further ado, here is Paul Jarvis. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thanks, man, for coming on.

No worries, thanks for having me.

We do the little pre-chat, so we're actually starting this and we've talked for a little bit, but now we're officially started. So your book, Company of One, is awesome. I confess that I just started reading it a little bit before we got on the air, but it's really fantastic. Could you just talk about the genesis of how this book came to be?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's how every single business book starts. I was out for a surf session with my South African accountant friend. I think that's how every book starts, yeah.

Universal, universal story. But no, I guess I've always kind of run my business in a slightly different, completely counterintuitive sort of way. And for the beginning part of it, I wasn't really conscious of what I was doing. I was just doing it because I'm drawn towards lessening stress and increasing enjoyment in my life being hedonistic, as most people are. But yeah, it was funny. So I was surfing with my buddy, Clee, and it was like August or September. And this is years and years and years ago. And he was like, and we're sitting out in the line of like waiting for waves kind of thing. And he was like, well, I've made just about enough for the year.

So I'm gonna go rock climbing and surfing for the rest of the year. And then he takes off on a wave and I'm sitting there like, what the fuck did you just say to me? Like, what just happened? I'm so confused. And then he paddle back around and then we started talking about it. And he was like, well, I know how much money I need to make. And if I make more than that, it's gonna take me more time and it's gonna increase my stress, it's gonna increase my responsibility. But it's not gonna increase anything good in my life. So what's the point? So he's like, why bother going past a certain point when I can just kind of like work too enough so I have enough to live a comfortable life.

I can travel, I can put money in the savings. And he's like, when I'm done that, I can take a break and recharge and like get back to the things I like doing in my life that I'm actually working for. Like when people work, they're not working just for work. They're working to have something else in their life outside of work. Like even if it's just putting a roof over their heads and food. And as I started to think about that, I was like, I've been kind of doing the same thing. So I'm not really thinking about it in that way, but still kind of like modeling my business in a way that kind of supported my life and kind of gave me the life that I actually wanted.

And I was like, there's something here, I think.

Well, it's not only is there something there, it's incredibly, you know, I don't wanna get too highfalutin, you know, when we're talking about your book, but it really is, it's an antidote to what a lot of people are experiencing right now. And you really, you tackle this really well. This isn't just someone for like the freelancing, entrepreneur person. It's bringing in this idea and kind of set of ideas into whatever situation you're in. And what shines through in all of this too is that the case studies from what I've read in the first, you know, 60, 70 pages, these aren't people where you're leading with, well, they're making $20 million a year.

They're making $50 million a year. Like they're making this much. And the reason they make this much is 'cause this is the balance that they found for what they need to kind of lead the lives they want. The one that I remember very clearly is the cartoonist who's able to like draw cartoons with his daughters and have a wonderful life, like doing what he wants to be doing. Like that, I think that's so easily overlooked when someone has kind of an entrepreneurial or just like a money-making mindset that maybe there are what you refer to as upper bounds. Like maybe we should set some limits in terms of what we want and what isn't really stated necessarily in that explicitly, but is implied is that if you're setting upper bounds, it means that you have some idea of what you actually need or what would be most effective for you, which you may not even be thinking of if growth is kind of your primary driver and everything.

Yeah, and I think that, so there's this, I studied that's not in the book, but I wish it wasn't in the book and should be in another book, I'm sure, is that there was a Gallup world poll that they looked at something like two million people across all of the countries, not just America. And they looked at like the optimal wellbeing and happiness in terms of like happiness and contentment to income, which I think is a really interesting study to look at. And they did find that like as you make more money, you're happier, like as you go from zero or like the poverty level and you build up wealth, you're happier because you're less stressed out.

It just at 100% makes sense. But what the study also found was that it was like a bell curve. So as you made more money from zero, you were happier. So as you grew your income, you got happier. But then it peaked. And after you made a certain amount of money, you were less happy and you were more stressed out and you were more prone to chasing things like material wealth or having unhealthy social comparisons. And it wasn't, like you said, it wasn't like once you make $20 million a year, they're upset. It was under a hundred grand. Like it was definitely a big number, but it was like a fairly attainable number, I think, for people where it's not like you don't have to make all of the money, you just have to make enough of the money.

And that's kind of the theme through the book is like how can we figure out enough? Because enough, I think, is a good way to determine these upper bounds that you're talking about. Because if we don't have upper bounds in business or in life or anything else, like if we stop thinking that our lives have to like change the world or have this massive impact, but if we stop thinking like that, I don't think we're squashing big dreams. I think we're just lifting this like tremendous burden off of ourselves and other people around us to be great. 'Cause I don't know how to be great. Fuck it hard, I don't know how to be great.

Well, it's a crazy goal, right? It's a crazy goal to set out as a thing. Like I want to change the world right now. Like, and I think if you look back at a lot of people who actually end up changing the world, they don't necessarily, they might have that vision as a long-term thing, but they iterate. They do something you talk about a lot. They put something out there, they see what's going on, and then they try to refine and improve the process so that actually something big can happen. And that's what's important about this is like, if you kind of squash, you know, I need to have $20 million, that's my ideal income, it doesn't mean you can't make $20 million.

It doesn't mean that you're excluded from doing that. It's just questioning the assumption that that is what you need. And that's really important because like, and you point out this idea that you pulled from Buddhist cosmology, which is this idea of the hungry ghost, right? This mindset that, you know, the hungry ghost is depicted as these beings with extremely huge bellies and incredibly tiny mouths and long necks so they can never be satiated. So they're just constantly searching. And if we look at kind of the business and corporate and cultural landscape, that is the narrative that is being pitched to all of us.

And it really doesn't seem like it's making people happy or more effective at what they wanna be doing, right?

Yeah, it just, I don't think like, if the goal is always more and it's unquestioned, then we'd never reach it. It's like running towards the horizon. You can keep going, but you're not really actually gonna reach that point at any point. And I think it's kind of the, it's interesting 'cause I think this is a bit of a, I'm glad that I wrote this book. 'Cause when, before I wrote it, I felt like I was alone in this idea. And then I started talking about it and writing about it and then I started to be inundated with other people who were like, I feel the same way. Like I feel the same way about my life.

Like I know, like the minimalist movement is very big on this sort of idea. Or even just like in the book, it does talk a lot about business stuff and I write a lot about business stuff. And people were like, well, I actually, like people thought like, oh, I was the only one who didn't wanna grow like a massive business. Like I just want it to be maybe myself and a few other people and make a good living and support my life. And I just think that this like counter narrative, like I think the world is being done at this service when there is only one narrative for success because I think success is deeply personal.

Like it doesn't even matter what kind of success we're talking about. It's a deeply personal thing. And I think if we're only shown like, this is the way you succeed or this is what a successful business looks like or worse, this is what a successful business person looks like and acts like and has these innate traits that, oh shit, if you don't have those traits, we'll sorry for you. And it's just like, what the hell, guys? There's so many different ways to do this. There's so many different, like, and if it's our business, like if we work for ourselves, then like we should be the master and commander of our destinies a little bit.

I think that's why I want like, that's why I wanna work for myself. If I didn't wanna control that, I would work for somebody else 'cause it's easier. It's just easier to work for another person than you don't have to do the business stuff. You just have to do the work.

Yeah, it's so true. And I mean, I think one of the other things that when you're kind of being pitched this narrative of these are the qualities you need to succeed as an entrepreneur or as just someone in business is that also can get us into this trap of like persona following or the cult of personality, right? Where we're looking at these people who theoretically never fail. They're never presenting their failures front and center. But I love that you use this story of resiliency for Danielle Laporte because like she was like, basically acts from a brand in a company that she really helped make popular with this.

And they hired this Wunderkid CEO as you put it and got ousted. And she didn't, you know, obviously that's a, and you didn't gloss over, you said, you know, she had to do a lot of yoga and a lot of tears. It's not like an easy thing to just immediately bounce back, but she did. And that is something that I think we don't put enough emphasis on, especially related to business, but really anything is that you're gonna get knocked down. Not everything you're gonna do is gonna be successful. But I like that you kind of have an antidote to that in itself that this idea of iterations or testing things or not investing a ton upfront.

And I got a lot of this from you really when I was doing a lot of consulting for people is that you don't have to put all your eggs in one basket. You don't have to line up your next year in advance and have all of your spends ready, like test the thing out and see if it works. I'm wondering like, is this must also be something with how the way you run your life, right? I mean, I'm particularly interested in and you've spoken about it a little bit before in your writing, but what was the impetus for you to kind of move specifically from the city of Vancouver to an island kind of on the outskirts of civilization?

What really kind of compelled that?

I think that the fact that I was just feeling and luckily my wife felt the same way at the time as one still does, we just felt like we were overstimulated and that busy had become our default state. And I think that reflection in any aspect of life is important because I think if we don't think about what we specifically want, then we're going to end up, like you said, like chasing somebody else's values or visions or goals for their lives. And I think it's hard to self reflect or be introspective when there's interruptions, when there's just like so much going on. Like we literally had blackout blinds on the master bedroom because there was like an animated billboard just outside our window.

And we had an air purifier not to clean the air but just to create white noise because it was so noisy. Like it's just like, like when you take a step back and look at it, it's like, what the fuck are we doing? Like, well, why are we living like this? And then we, there was no good answer. Like we didn't have a good, we were just like shrug emoji. Like I don't know why we're doing this. So we were like, let's just leave. Like what's the worst that'll happen? And I mean, again, like you were talking about, like it's iterative. And it's just like, I would never make a decision where it has to be right.

And if it's wrong, it's going to like ruin my life or ruin my business or make me bankrupt or something like that. So, but I am willing to experiment a whole lot with pretty much everything to see like what makes sense 'cause I don't think I'm smart enough to know what makes sense or what doesn't make sense for me unless I try it.

Yeah. - Like yes.

I need to, and this is why I dropped out of school because I suck at learning through somebody telling me how something works, but I'm really good at learning by doing something and seeing for myself how it works or how it doesn't. It's just like I used to get Lego sets when I was a kid. First thing I would do is throw out the instructions and then I would get to work on what can I build with this? I don't care what it said on the box.

Right. - Right.

Yeah, and so moving to the middle of nowhere was just like all of the stimulus is detrimental. What if we remove it? It's like just who knows what's going to happen, but let's try.

Well, it's cool because like, you know, in spiritual progress, when people start getting into there, whatever their, you know, philosophies or religions they're into, there's always this idea of kind of dropping it all and going to the cave in the Himalayas, right? And detaching from society. And I think you kind of found the equivalent for like business, which is something that just to be clear is not practical for most people, not what you did, but going to the Himalayas, like that isn't going to solve all of your problems. But as kind of a de-stimulating experience and coming back into the calm and being in nature, I mean, I'd made a similar move.

I'm not on the edge of civilization, but I moved from, you know, New York City to upstate New York in the Hudson Valley where it's farmland everywhere. And I can only attest to the fact that, man, you will have, you will be with your thoughts. You will be surrounded by space that will allow what's important to you to come up if you let it. And that can only have positive ramifications if you're really attuning to it. Doesn't mean it's going to be comfortable. Doesn't mean it's going to be great all the time, but it really can just kind of get you in tune with what is going to be most beneficial to you.

And again, like what I really love about your philosophy with all of this stuff is most beneficial when we're talking about business books, nine times out of 10, 9.9 times out of 10, is how are you going to make the most money? How are you going to make the most of what you can do? And that's always, whenever, even a good book, even a good business book with quality, how to get more customers, how to, whatever it is, you know, live a more less stressful business life. It usually is focused on that growth mentality, just how do you maximize what you can do? And for people who have even achieved those levels of just ridiculous success and just multimillion dollars, you'll find that a lot of times they're still not happy.

So what's awesome about this book and just kind of your approach in general is that you put that up at the front. You say this is like, go in with your goals of what you need to be happy or what you think you need to be happy. 'Cause like you said, you don't always know in advance. You have to find out sometimes what you thought was going to make you happy isn't going to make you happy. So it's a very practical and pragmatic approach that can actually give you real results rather than kind of like some quick fix. You know, this is how you make the most here are the tips. Join my group type thing.

And that's, it's just, yeah, it's appreciated.

Thank you. And it's, because there's no, like the book has no answers. Which is like the worst sales thing for a nonfiction book ever. Is there is no blueprints? There's no answers. I'm not going to tell you how to do this. What the book does do. And it's not like we were talking about before we started recording. It's like the weirdest philosophical business book because it's more I want to give people the tools to be able to figure these things out for themselves. 'Cause I think ultimately that's more powerful. I don't want to tell you how to succeed because that's going to be shaped by my vision of success and that you don't, you might not want that.

You might not like that. And so I want, I would rather give people even like going back and forth with my publisher about it at the end of every chapter. He was like, we'll give some directives for like to summarize what people should do. And I was like, I can't do that. I don't know how to do that. And two, I'm not comfortable doing that. I'm like, how about instead I just ask questions that will help people come to their decisions. And he was like, yeah, okay, that's fine. But like that's, I had to put, like it's weird because like in the business world there's just this push for the blueprint or the hack or the tactic.

And I've always like butted up against that and been like, those don't exist. How about people figure that out for themselves because I think that's ultimately like a lot more powerful.

Yeah, it will not only more powerful, but I mean, you can get to this kind of peak or summit of realization a lot of different ways. Like I used to do a ton of social media marketing and obviously what initially and still to this day most people care about is get me the numbers up. I want more likes, I want more followers, I want more of this, I want more subscribers. Even when I'm getting podcasts advertising, how many downloads do you have? They're not asking how much do your downloaders or listeners care about what you're talking about or willing to buy. They just want to know the raw metrics.

And you very quickly realize when you're playing the numbers game that numbers are typically only useful for vanity metrics unless you have something that can actively kind of measure. People are talking to you, people are buying your products, people are getting in touch and wanting to find out more. It's just, again, it's so de-emphasized as a thing that trying to figure out your own personal approach or what's going to help other people is just devalued. And you can see kind of where it's come from, just like the general, you know, lay of the land with advertising and just kind of how it's pulled so much from propaganda and burnays and all of this stuff.

But at the end of the day, like it's not helping, right? That that type of mentality doesn't help anyone. And one of the things that you really touch on in the book so far where I've gotten to, that I thought is incredibly poignant. And again, reflects who you are as a person more than anything is this idea of helping other people. And this is both not only with your customers or potential people who are tuning into what you're writing or putting out there, but teaching things to people. And using that as a modality for personal growth and learning and what people want. And I mean, I remember very early on, just like tuning into you that that shift and kind of just treating people as not some lump sum of numbers, but as individuals who may actually be coming to you because they've resonated for whatever reason and trying to figure out what they want.

Like that's a business. That's how you build and grow a service-based or product-based business because you're not pitching something. You're not trying to trick someone into buying something they don't want or don't need, which is a way of making money, but you're actually trying to help people. And that again, it speaks so that you couldn't just give people tips at the end of your chapters, that the question is a much more effective modality because it's true to who you are. And I think that again is really what tends to shine through with all of your writing and everything you put out there is that you're not deviating from who you are as a person, which in this day and age is really, you know, not how most things are presented to us.

Yeah, and thank you for that. I mean, I don't think I'm smart enough to be somebody. Like, I don't know how to turn on like Mr. Slick Salesperson. If I'm selling something, I'm just like, we're a little introverted nerd when I'm writing, you know, we're a little introverted nerd when I'm selling. But it's also like, from a pragmatic standpoint, it's easier to make money from people who are paying attention. Like, it's easier to retain a customer or a client than it is to acquire a new one because if they already have bought something from you and they're still happy after that purchase, the trust is there.

The sales cycle can shorten to, here's something new. Do you want it? They're not. And they're like, I trust this person or no, I don't. But like in the business world or in like tech startup, like rapid growth kind of thing, like acquisition is put so far above retention. And these businesses are just basically like churning and burning people who are paying attention. And they need to keep feeding this like growth engine because they're not focusing on the back end. And like, I would rather make money every year from the same group of people who I know, who I actually like, who are finding value from the work I do, than try to like increase my numbers every year.

And I have to just keep selling to new people because the old people, one, I don't give a shit about or two, they bought something and they're not happy with it anymore. It's like, I don't actually know how to run a business like that.

Right, right.

Like I would rather run a business where people keep coming back because they're happy because I've established relationships with them. Like I would rather keep making money off the same people all the time because I can get to know those people. I can get to know what they want. Do businesses serving other people?

Yes. - It's just serving other people for money. - Exactly.

And it's just, it makes so much sense to me, both from like kind of an ethical value standpoint, but also from like a pragmatic, this is the easiest way I know how to make money, is serving other people and doing it well and doing it in a way. Like I want people to be just as happy after they buy, then that minute before they buy, when everybody gets that little like rush of endorphins, like who am I buying something new? (both laughing) I don't want it to be like, whoa, whoa.

Yeah. - I just paid for this and this sucks. Like I would never want that to happen. And even like, even from like an ego standpoint, like I know some online creators who have like 20, 30% refund rates, and like that would hurt my ego so much that I don't know if I could continue. Like I get 1% refund request and I'm like, oh, how could I have done this better? (both laughing)

Oh, I love that. I mean, it's been a premise. I mean, I got into digital marketing, gosh, 10, 12, 15 years, too long at this point. And the axiom of my belief that I could actually do this, I didn't go to school, I went to a music school, I had no training in this, just only a brief cursory understanding of analytics from running a blog. But the reason I felt that I could do it is because I didn't see a distinction between online interactions and real-world interactions. And if you could carry that same philosophy that this is an actual person, that you wanna think of the person on the other side of this and what they would want, the golden rule of digital marketing, so to speak, you will be successful.

And if you can just hone in on what is actually going to be a positive experience for someone, I mean, this is why I think some people don't have a hard time making friends, as opposed to some people who just really don't know how to be good friends or make friends, it's that you're not doing anything, you're just being a nice person, you know, and that provides opportunity for you to deepen these relationships. And that's what I hear throughout all of your stuff, is that, yeah, you can grow businesses by broadening your horizons, by going as horizontal as possible, as wide as possible, constantly growing and getting new people, or you can just kind of deepen the depth of what's going on with your existing people, or only bringing in people who are interested in what you're doing, and if you think about your life, think about your best friends and your most meaningful relationships, that's what you're doing.

You're not constantly trying to bring in thousands of friends, despite what Facebook may be trying to tell you, that's not a real, those aren't real relationships, that's not really how you do it, so bringing that kind of approach to any type of business you're running, is just, to me, it just makes natural sense, and I've always found it difficult, personally, to kind of just switch on that, the same way as you was like, okay, I just gotta switch on salesman mode, I gotta just pitch this crap to people, I just need to get this business no matter what, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've been on a potential client call, or a lead call, and I end up telling the person like, no, you know, really, you shouldn't hire me for this, like, this isn't gonna work, because I could take your money, and you may be moderately satisfied, but ultimately, I don't see a path towards this being successful, so I can't take this job, I can refer you to someone who maybe will, but I can't do it, and, you know, I am astonished by people who can do that, but it is, it's important that you recognize that you can't, and that you don't, I mean, that's huge, man.

Yeah, and even with like online sales, like I do the same people who email me, and like, is this course right for me? Most of the time, most of the time, if somebody's asking if it's right for me, it probably isn't, so most of the time, I'm just like, it's not. Sorry. (laughs) It's just, I don't think you'll get a win here, and it just builds trust, and like, some of those people have come back and bought other things, which are a good fit, or they bought the same thing, because it's a good fit at a different part in their life or their business journey, and it just, yeah, it just makes sense. I mean, even in that chapter, where I talk a bunch about Danielle Upord, and she's like, my business is now, like, she was very focused on growth for a while.

Yes, yes, yes.

And now she's like, I was her creative director for that time, when she was like, when she hired somebody to be the CEO of her company, which was called, it was literally called Danielle Upord, and she got let go of a business called Danielle Upord, which just, it boggles my mind, which is also one of the smartest business people that I've ever met in my entire life, and she's like, I want to serve the people who are joined me for dinner. Like, I want to serve the people who are at the table. I want to serve the people who are already listening, who are already paying attention, 'cause that's like nine-tenths of the battle, is to find people who want to pay attention, who want to continue to pay attention, and if we're not serving those people, it's just so much harder.

It's just honestly so much more difficult, and if somebody buys something from me, I did nine times out of 10, I recognized their email address, or their name, because we've had conversations on my mailing list, or we've had Twitter dialogue, or something like that, or they bought something, because more than half the people that buy one thing from me, buy more than one thing from me. So it's like, I would rather have a small group of engaged people that I can get to know than just all of the people. And I mean, that speaks a lot to the point of the book too, which is like, what's enough? And it's not even just enough in terms of finances and being profitable, it's like, my mailing list is big enough now that it generates the bulk of my income, and it's enough income, but it's also small enough where I can send out an email, I can get a few hundred replies, and I can answer that, like I can read every email, I can answer all those people, I can have conversations with those people.

If I 10x my list at this point, it would be too much for me to deal with. And like, that's where one, I get the most enjoyment of interacting with my audience, but two, it's where I get all my good ideas for making things or updating things. Like it's so beneficial to me as a business owner to have a direct connection with my audience, that if it was 10 times bigger, a hundred times bigger, or 2,000x, like I couldn't do that. And that's what I like the most about my business, so why would I do that?

Well, I mean, that is hugely important to say, because sometimes you'll hear like a very big personality saying, you know, I appreciate all the emails I'm getting, and I appreciate it, but I just can't answer them. You know, I just can't do this. And of course, that's understandable when people are in engage with things, but knowing that there is a sweet spot, and knowing the importance of being able to stay in contact with the people who have raised their hands and either given you money or saying I'm interested in, like you said, that's where you get the ideas, that the second, my magic bullet for the past couple of years in terms of marketing has been surveys.

People who willingly answer questions, and you know, you give the open-ended question in one of the survey questions, and the people who write the paragraphs and genuinely give a shit, like those are your people. Those are the people who you wanna build your ideas around and build your products and services around, and it's just something that I think is missed so much, and kind of, I know this is kind of a broad question, but do you think this mentality, this idea of the company of one mentality, can kind of percolate up through the business landscape, because I mean, think how incredibly more efficient, beneficial corporations and businesses could be if they took this into their kind of business lexicon, if they made this a part of their ethos, because, I mean, tying it together to some of the great environmental problems we've seen, like this growth mentality is destroying the planet.

This growth mentality is destroying people. It's destroying so many things. I mean, do you think that this is a shift that culturally we are moving towards, or is this something that is gonna be kind of like an underground thing that will do what we can to kind of change the landscape as best as possible, but the easier, more kind of just throw money at the problem, throw growth at the problem type of situation is gonna kind of maintain and sustain what's going on.

Yeah, I mean, and throughout the book, I definitely give breadcrumbs for massive companies to shift because the shift is happening, and I mean, I'm paranoid, but hopeful. (laughing) I mean, probably the best way to put it, because I do think like large corporations are such a tiny blip on the start of human commerce to now. Like huge corporations only just started at the turn of last century.

Yes.

So it used to be multi-generational family businesses that were wholly collaborative endeavors where like one business would work with another business, like the glass makers would work with the veneers would work with like the people who harvested, the cork would work with the sellers of the want, like that's just how it worked for thousands and thousands of years, and I see that now kind of happening in the digital landscape where people are using technology to do kind of like the 2.0 version of that. And people are just getting more and more, like every new cycle is just another reporter talking about how shitty the big brother state of huge corporations are.

And people are, like you said, people are voting with their wallets, like there aren't infinite resources on the planet, like we can't continue to grow. And like if you look at rapid unchecked growth in nature, it's called cancer, and that's not a good thing. But in the business world, it's like, oh, rapid unchecked growth, it's signing up for this. And it's just like, it's cancer. It's literally what cancer is and what cancer does. And it just doesn't make sense. And I do think that people are waking up to this. People are voting with their wallets for, especially like I'm very involved in like the privacy and security side of things on the internet.

And people, like this wasn't a conversation people were having two years ago. It was just nerds like me who are like, I need like end-to-end encryption on my email based in a, like using a Swiss company. Like people are, like people are starting to use like VPNs or using or like moving away from Facebook or Google. And just and moving towards more environmental companies who care about like end-to-end solutions. Like how wildly profitable Patagonia is. I mean, they're not a perfect company, but they've basically said like we are willing to do whatever it takes to line our capitalist nature with our ethics.

And they do things like, oh, we're not, no, it's REI, REI isn't open on Black Friday. They're like go play outside. Patagonia is suing the president because that like the president stole our land campaign. And they care about making products that work end-to-end. And they're like, one of their campaigns was don't buy this coat. You have a coat. Maybe you could just keep using that coat. The worn wear stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, I see it too. And I see the shifts happening. And I again, anyone who studies or spends enough time on the internet and recognizes kind of what's going on in terms of security and OPSEC and just all this stuff is, it's disturbing, it's very disturbing.

And I think, you know, people who are actively tuned in saw this coming and now it's just now percolating to the surface of what's going on here. But it really is like, I today, you know, I have some very large Facebook pages that I've built up over the years, not with a tremendous amount of work, but I am very, very strongly. I went on my unfollowing binge two weeks ago. I unfollowed every single person in an entity that just was adding nothing to my feed. And since I've done that, I'm very much questioning just ditching it completely because the more stories that come out, the more things you read about just kind of how these companies, and I mean, let's be clear, most of these big corporations, online entities, are just harvesting your attention and then selling it to other people who can then sell you other stuff or potentially sell you stuff.

And that, if someone was doing that in real life, like if there was a guy who was like, yeah, tell me some about yourself and gave them all the information and then just like went to someone else and sold it and started getting all these like letters in the mail, signing up and stuff, you'd be like, fuck that guy. I'm not doing that shit, this is a terrible thing. I don't wanna be knowing this person anymore, but that really is what's happening. And I do think that this wave of kind of people recognizing that like you said, we don't have infinite resources. The beauty of this planet is, is we have a lot of resources and a lot of ways to make things sustainable and work on this planet, but it also requires us to take a hard look at like, what are we feeding with our dollars, with our interests, with our time?

Like, and if we don't look at those things, we can fall into some pretty shitty situations pretty quickly as we're seeing. And that's incredibly important to think about. I'm glad you brought up Patagonia. I have a friend who works there. And it's just, from what I hear, their culture is just like, they do give a shit, you know, they really, they do. And again, no company is perfect. And trying to balance, and this is another theme that I feel very strongly from what you put out there is, and this is a question that's dominated my kind of psyche as I've gone into the world and had to make money, trying to find this balance between making money and being an ethical person and recognizing that those, no matter what you might think, aren't mutually exclusive.

And if you're getting pitched a narrative that you cannot be ethical and have values and be authentic and make money, that's a limiting belief and it's not actually true, but it is difficult to kind of buck the trend of what else is going on there. I mean, I recognize for you, it's kind of like, you can't violate your personal ethos. But I'm sure you know people who have met people who have tried going to the dark side, so to speak, right? Trying to brand themselves or build something or sell something they don't truly believe in. I mean, what's kind of the opium you can give people to kind of recognize that that is something they don't have to do.

It's maybe something they go through, but the real benefits of kind of just doing what you believe in and maybe not in a foolhardy way, but pursuing something that is aligned with your personal ethics.

Yeah, and I mean, I think our intentions shine through to other people, whether we want them to or not.

Yeah.

That's kind of a biggie. But I also think that if you feel strongly about something, then there's probably going to be other people that do as well. Like there's going to be other people who will value a business that doesn't treat their customers like shit that maybe charges a premium, because like if you're not paying for the product, you are the product. Like that's how Facebook works. That's how Google works. Like they're advertising aggregators. Their business is personal data. Like regardless of what the product is, their product is personal data and is your personal data. And I think that the more that we hit, like it's scary dude to have a public line in the sand with what you stand for, because some people are going to be on the other side of that or they're going to call you out for things.

But it's also important because that line in the sand can add totally fucking mixing metaphors. But like that line in the sand can be like a lighthouse beacon to draw other, so it's the worst mixing.

But they're both near water.

Makes sense, yeah. - It makes sense. So but it can become like that beacon of light for other people that to be drawn in. And those are the people that like we were talking about, those are the people who are going to want to pay attention. Those are the people who are going to be worth it for you to pay attention to as well. Like those are the people who are showing up for dinner. Those are the people who are paying attention. And it just like, it just makes sense. And like I just keep seeing over and over again at companies that are doing that are succeeding. Like when Patagonia started one, because I spent so much time in like the environmental space, I know a lot of this stuff.

But like Patagonia started 1% for the planet years and years ago. And Bandai was in, was one of the first bands. I think Jack Johnson joined first and then it was us. So fuck Jack Johnson. (laughing)

I'm sure he's like the nicest person.

Yeah.

Like what, and like in looking at, so it's good to have to give 1% growth to charity. Like as a nice thing to do for the planet for other people. Like it's a, it's like the ethical thing to do. But in looking back at the data from 1% for the planet, there's been two economic crises in the West since it started. And I think it started in like the early 2000s, maybe late 90s, I can't remember. But the businesses that were part of that, the businesses that said we're capitalists, we exist in capitalist economy, but there's a line that we aren't going to cross. And there's ethics that we have and that we stand for that we're not willing to compromise.

Even during economic downturns, the businesses that are part of 1% for the planet, or even like B-corps now, were actually far more profitable, even in a recession. And they were, they were making money, even when other companies weren't making money, they were doing well. Because it just, it makes sense. Like it makes sense from like a holy pragmatic endeavor, but it also makes sense for the other reasons we talked about as well, where it's just like people are starting to care. Like people actually give a shit about like, who made their coat and where it came from, or like what things are in their electronic devices, or like the conditions at the factory that has to have like suicide fences around their top levels, because people keep trying to kill themselves because the work conditions are so bad.

And I mean people, like the more we know about this stuff, the more we're starting to make more informed decisions. And I mean, if everybody could read a couple Naomi Klein books, that would be great. But even just thinking about it from like a general idea, like this is starting to make new cycles, because it's important.

Yes, and I mean, I think that that shows kind of the neutral power on both sides of the internet, right? As information gets changed more freely and people have more access to it, these things do percolate up to the kind of the mainstream and more people's attention. And then we see the other side, which is it can be used as a cudgel to kind of shape people's opinions about certain things and reinforce maybe misleading opinions that don't actually make any sense. So again though, I do see this wave, this clear wave moving through, not even just the business sectors of people tuning more into the interconnectedness, right?

Not to get too spiritual and philosophical about it, but that there really is a living, breathing interconnectedness, not just conceptual reality of it, but a real pragmatic reality. And that should give us pause and also should say like, well, what can we do to be part of the solution here? What limited things can we do to make this a better place? And I think when we can tie that together directly to business and money making endeavors. I mean, I think this is incredibly important. For instance, I'm heavily involved in the cryptocurrency season since 2013, just 'cause I thought Bitcoin was a very, very cool thing.

And I've seen obviously with this wave last year and now the downturn, how if you can look at these kind of new technologies in a way that isn't just about making money, isn't just about the potential of having so much from so little and magical internet money, but actually looking at it as this is a modality of consciousness that really will affect the way the world works if people recognize that the current systems have not done a tremendous amount of good. And tying that together with like the business world is incredibly important. So again, I would put myself in that same kind of category of paranoid, but optimistic about this stuff because it's hard not to be paranoid when you look around and see, holy shit.

Like what the fuck is going on here? But then there is like, and I think because something you mentioned earlier, you know, when you started writing about this and the ideas that became this book, you started getting immediate feedback from people who were saying, I feel the same way. And that really is what kind of galvanizes these maybe underground ideas or kind of countercultural ideas growth isn't necessarily a challenging growth as a mindset. That does kind of coalesce into an actual ideological in a good way kind of movement, you know, that says like maybe we should be looking at this stuff differently.

And then whether or not, and I think this is important too, and you mention it in the book, whether or not you recognize that things are changing in the landscape because of automation or because of the way jobs are looked at or the way corporate structures are going and kind of the, you know, disposability of employees, this shit is going to impact you one way or the other. Even if you're not in any field making money or you're in college and you haven't really thought about a job yet, this stuff is going to have a big impact on you. So why wouldn't we look towards mindsets or ideas that can not only sustain us financially and kind of environmentally, but also fulfill us too, right?

Like have something that makes sense for our lives. And I think that's again, like what's so important about this, what you've written here is that that is built in. I mean, how many people have followed, you know, the 58 rules of power, however many rules there are and have done the whole thing, reached the top of their field, made all the money and are just fucking miserable. I mean, I've spoken to these people on this show. They were miserable. Then they have to go do ayahuasca somewhere to like level back into reality and recognize that money wasn't going to make them happy. So, I mean, I think in tandem with just like, recognize that yes, this is a business book, but it really is also a book for just kind of crafting something or attempting to craft and iterating some aspect or version of your life that is going to be fulfilling for you as well.

It's very important.

Thanks, yeah, and I think even just bringing it back to what we talked about in the beginning of resilience. Like I think even if you work at a company, like you're the only one who's ultimately going to give a shit whether or not you're gainfully employed. Like your business, the company could drop you if it no longer makes sense.

That's right.

And so I think in even looking at like research, there like resilience is actually a far more useful skill to cultivate because it's not innate, thank God. That like resilience is probably the most useful skill you can develop for your career, for your life. Like more important than education, training, or experience. And I mean it comes back, Dean Becker, the CEO, I think of adaptive, has spent like 20, 30 years studying resilience. And he found, there's three things. And the three things are probably the most important things is kind of what we've been talking about as well. It's like accepting reality because we're not in control of anything, like we control as an illusion.

The second thing is having that sense of purpose or having that sense of a greater good or a reason for doing and a reason for being. Because just like Patagonia, like we were talking about, like, so one having that becomes that beacon or that line in the sand, whatever metaphor you wanna use. But it also becomes the, how you weather storms to throw in a third metaphor. But it also works because it's also a water or an ocean.

Yeah, I was gonna say, it does, exactly, yeah.

So if things are going shitty, if you have that sense of purpose, that's going to help you be resilient, help you persevere. And then the third thing, which we're talking about a lot too, is like resilience requires this ability to adapt and to iterate because things change. We have to change as well. We can see like things are no longer working in the way that capitalism has worked or the way consumerism has worked. Like things are shifting. If we don't also shift, we're gonna get left behind.

Yeah, yeah.

Like it just makes sense to consider like how we can build up resilience. Because even if you're like paranoid, like you or I, or even if you're not the most confident person, like myself, like there's still ways to foster and to work at being more resilient in any aspect of your life.

Yeah, yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And I mean, again, like it is not an innate skill. Someone may seem to demonstrate that now they're a resilient type of person, but what shapes resiliency is failure and struggle. It's you can't have resiliency without it. So it's important to remember that, but things aren't going great. I mean, listen, I, gosh, two, two and a half years ago, my entire business, my entire consulting business got upended. The people I was working with just, you know, a guy, some in savory details came to light and it altered the kind of my professional landscape. And I don't want to say that I handled it with a plumb and I was just perfectly fine.

I mean, it was a rough period of time, but by just kind of staying the course as best I could and weathering the storm to use the metaphor, I'm in some incredible positions right now, not only business and financially, but just needing a new set of people who are more aligned with what I wanted to be doing and more aligned with my life goal. So it is important to just remember that, even if you're listening to this and you're in a rut or you got fired or shit isn't going well, that that is ultimately going to be a situation that helps define your resiliency, which like, it makes sense. That's going to be a bigger arbiter of success than anything else.

'Cause like you're going to encounter difficult shit all the time. But yeah, you could get fired from the business that is called your name and last name. So these things are possible. It's insane. Well, one last thing I wanted to talk about related to the book too is this idea that it's weaved through it, this idea of simplicity and not over making things overly complex and using kind of technological tools to maybe systemize things, but also not relying on complex systems or making more of this and interlocking pieces. And I'm curious, just, I know this just from using some of your products, I know this is something that you weaved into a lot of your courses and business and services, but can you just talk a little bit about the idea of simplicity and how it relates to being a company of one?

Sure, I mean, I think a lot of times people get easy and simple confused and I think they're varied. It's just like people get better and more confused because they're different things. And I think simplicity is easier when it's easier later but it's not easier in the beginning. So it takes work to make things simple, which seems kind of weird, but it does take work like in the beginning to make things simpler because it's easier to solve every problem by adding more to it. Like in a business, if you have too many support requests, maybe it's easiest to just keep hiring more support staff, but maybe what you wanna do is simplify your product offering.

Maybe what you wanna do is simplify onboarding, like when somebody buys something, how they get brought into the product or the service that you're doing. And maybe it's a matter of like using things like automation or using things like having a knowledge base or having teaching videos. So you don't have to hire more people. And in that case, simple, it does require that upfront work and it's easy moving forward. Like I don't feel like I'm smart enough to run a complicated business. (laughing) Because like I wanna be able to remember like the systems and the processes and the rules that I have in my business because it makes things easier to manage.

It makes it faster to make decisions. It makes it easier to solve problems or because I think like we're just, we're always confronted with so many decisions and it is mentally taxing to make decisions. There's just, I think the Atlantic published an article about how mentally taxing decision making ends. And I'm always like, how can I take as many decisions off my plate? Like what if I have simple rules? Like a good example of that is I don't do speaking kicks. So, and I get asked to do like speeches at conferences all the time. And so on one hand, it's easy for me to say, I don't actually do this and then it's not personal.

It's not like, I don't wanna do your conference, bro. I don't do any conferences. Like that's just not what I do. But then as well, it makes it easier in terms of decision making because it's like, I don't have to make the decision. I have a simple rule in place. Don't do speaking, doesn't serve my business, might serve other people. It's not a judgment, it's just a what's right for me. And it's like the more that I can simplify, the more that I can come up with like general rules that are easy to remember, general processes that are easy to implement. Like if I have to look at like a 30 page document for how to do anything in my business, I'm failing.

Like it's just not a good scene.

I love it, man. I love it. Well, I'm gonna end here with three quick questions and then one open-ended one. Thanks for coming on, man. I genuinely enjoy seeing you two.

No worries. - And following you. What's your favorite color?

Pink, hot pink.

What's your favorite number?

33 is the first one that popped into my hand.

Very interesting. What is your favorite animal?

Rats.

I know that, but I still had to ask. And last question, what's a practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening? Could be anything.

Sure, it's three questions. How much is enough? How will I know when I've reached it and what will change when I do?

I love it. I love that the practical tip is your questions, just like in your book, all you rock. Thanks for coming on, man.

No worries. Thanks so much for having me. Bye, buddy. Peace.

Cheers. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thanks for listening to that episode or mind to go pick up Paul's book, Company of One, How Staying Small. Gosh, I don't remember that. I don't have it in front of me. I should have it in front of me, but I don't. Company of One, go pick it up. January 15th, 2019, go tune in to what he's doing. Just a hell of a dude, really doing cool shit. Thank you to everyone who's supporting and listening to the show. I appreciate it. Got some just cool stuff that's going on and I love the feedback. So keep doing that. All right, that's it. And I will. Oh, whoosh, we wish Happy Holidays. Is that what we're saying?

Merry Christmas for those who celebrate. Happy Holidays, Santa Claus, reindeer, chocolate treats, all of those things. Jesus is a mushroom. I'll see you next time.

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