Pat Walls

June 23rd, 2020

Most people that are making money on the internet are not talking about it.

It may feel like there’s a small community of successful entrepreneurs, but there are actually thousands (if not millions) of people making money on the internet who you will never hear about.

Recently, I just heard of a dude who sold his Australian car blog for $60M+.

It’s not that they are trying to keep it a secret, it’s more that they probably don’t care much to tell their story and they just want to live their life.

I think online forums and Twitter are a great way to meet people and for inspiration - but the issue I see is many people treat them as a single source of truth for starting/running a business.

Reddit & Hacker News & YC & Twitter: these communities are amazing but they have turned entrepreneurship into a subculture. If you go on these sites, you’ll read about the “right way” and the “wrong way” of doing things.

When I see that, it's usually a sign I should turn around and go look in a whole new direction.

I always think about this video about investing in the stock market. The key takeaway:

"I retrained my mind to identify game-changing things in my own life that were having game-changing impacts on publicly traded companies. The trick here is to understand that when you see something in your own life that Wall Street hasn't picked up on yet - that's when you have an opportunity to make an information arbitrage investment. Now, the moment that Wall Street starts talking about that thing you earlier picked up on - that's when you exit the investment.

-

I think that online forums and communities can be very toxic to our minds.

The thing is, to be a great entrepreneur, you need to have a constantly open mind - you need to be able to go into any situation with no assumptions.

Starting a business is precisely about not caring about wanting to be right. Unfortunately, Twitter + online forums are all about wanting to be right.

What I’m trying to say is that to accelerate your success, you need to go out into the world, talk to people, ask questions, and be insanely curious.

Instead of letting information just come to you (podcasts, Twitter, etc), go out and find some new information on your own.

Go find that "simple hack" to 10x your business - I promise that it will be really simple, but I also promise you won't find it in any trendy blog post.

This simple act of getting out and figuring this shit out is what will set you apart from 99% of other people.

Over the past couple months, I’ve been doing this.

Instead of reading blog posts and Twitter, I’m just going out and figuring shit out on my own.

I’m talking to people, asking for feedback, and spending hours scouring actual successful websites and taking ideas from them and applying to my own business.

Doing this + working hard and moving quickly has seen some of the biggest growth at Starter Story.

How To Become Cool

June 22nd, 2020

In high school, I was not cool.

I came from a small town, with a graduating class of about 150 - the kind of high school where everyone knows everyone - the type of high school you’d see in a Hollywood movie.

However, I was not the type of uncool where I was secretly cool.

I was just the type that was uncool where I secretly wanted to be cool and popular.

I probably wouldn’t have admitted this at the time, but it’s so obvious now.

I can remember all of the popular kid’s names right now - Adam Stanton, Alex Salazar, Sam Cooper, Mitch Van Dyke, etc.

Those guys were so cool, and funny. I wanted to be them.

I probably had a bunch of opportunities to be cool in high school, but I ruined all of them, probably from trying too hard and caring what people thought about me.

After high school, I still wanted to be cool.

In college, you get to start over. And that’s what I did.

I went to a college thousands of miles away, and I worked hard to be cool.

I was more successful at this in college - and I actually became somewhat of a ‘cool kid’ - at least in the eyes of the previous popular kids I wanted to impress so bad in high school.

A couple of these guys from my high school visited me at college. We hung out and became a sort of friends. Nothing crazy, but all of a sudden we were chilling like some normal dudes. I think they thought I was cool.

Yet, in college, I suffered the same problem.

Once I leveled up my cool factor, there was now a cooler group of kids - and I wanted to be like them.

Just like in high school, I wondered what it would be like to be these cool kids.

So I did the same thing - I worked hard to get to their level.

Then I got there.

You can probably guess where this is going.

The cycle continued. After college, I discovered the next batch of cool kids. But this time it was about the cool job and the cool career.

...

I don’t think this mentality is all that healthy - but I also think that it’s a part of what drives many successful people and high achievers.

Becoming cool did not solve my problems - but it did get me closer to what I was really looking for.

When I chased the approval of others, I eventually got it - and it was always at that point where I realized it was never what I wanted in the first place.

This is my story - I did this enough times that I've trained my brain to care less about being cool.

These days, I live in my parents' basement, own just a suitcase of clothes, I'm not in a serious relationship, and run an online business from my laptop.

To 99% of the world, this is extremely uncool.

Sometimes people will tease me about this, but these days I just laugh it off. It doesn’t bother me as it would have five years ago. I secretly know I'm cool as fuck - but I don't need to show it.

Maybe this is just me again trying to be cool... but it feels different this time.

...

About a year ago, the #1 cool kid from my high school sent me a message telling me how he was inspired by my story.

We got to talking, and I told him how much I had admired this speech he did back in high school. Here was his response:

"Honestly my motivations for that speech came from my own struggles with fitting in and going along with norms and my experience of being judged by others for the smallest, dumbest, and meanest things."

It just goes to show you that all of this shit is just in our heads.

Deep Down

June 21st, 2020

In October 2018, I quit my last ‘real’ job.

That moment, that first day working for myself - that was one of those moments that I'll never forget.

The main thing I can remember is that everything was so clear.

I had that great feeling of purpose, of no anxiety, and being ultimately present.

Some people feel this moment early in life. Some later. Some people never feel this. (note - it's also not for everyone)

It took me nearly 10 years of working 'real' jobs and different careers to finally figure this out.

The road to get there took a lot of twists and turns - could I have figured it out faster? It's complicated.

But there's one thing I think that slowed me down: I didn't always listen to myself, deep down.

Because deep down, I had this crazy idea in my head the whole time. Deep down, I knew I could do it. Deep down, I knew the answer was right in front of me. Deep down, I knew I didn't need a big job, a nice apartment, or nice things. Deep down, I knew I could lose it all. Deep down, I knew this is what I always wanted.

If you don't listen to yourself deep down, you're living a lie. And if you lie to yourself consistently, over many years, you might become sort of miserable.

Life is about finding meaning. To find meaning, do what you find meaningful.

You just need to look deep down to find it.

Michael Jordan & Being Present

June 20th, 2020

After watching 10 hours of footage, interviews, and analysis on the greatness of Michael Jordan - there's one thing that I can't stop thinking about.

Michael Jordan's greatest achievement was his ability to always be present.

https://twitter.com/JGelnar7/status/1263109313846968322

“Michael’s gift was not that he could jump high, run fast or shoot a basketball. His gift was that he was completely present, and that was the separator.”

Watch that video and the accompanying interview commentary in the tweet above - even while the whole world was watching (and competing in the highest levels of sport) he was able to enjoy himself, be present, and stay focused.

That's what made him so great.

https://twitter.com/adelleplaton/status/1262203969197060097

Outrage Du Jour

June 19th, 2020

du jour - adjective - (of food in a restaurant) available and being served on this day.

Twitter is full of outrage and we should all log out for a while.

I'm not talking specifically about BLM, or Trump, or 'Call Her Daddy'.

I'm talking about the outrage du jour - every hour we are served up a new controversy on a silver platter.

This celebrity said that, Donald Trump said this, this cop did that, and this VC said this.

All it is is he-said-she-said.

And we are the suckers.

Politicians, media & tech companies are laughing all the way to the bank.

While we sit here and argue worthless semantics, the media and tech companies are heads down, figuring out how they can find more outrage du jour to feed our already fat bellies.

We are sitting around the table at the restaurant with crumbs on our shirts and food all over our face, being rude to the waiter, and leaving no tip.

We are sitting around the table chatting about the latest Donald Trump tweet - and believing we are sophisticated because it's about politics.

"Exquisite! The outrage du jour tastes especially good today, doesn't it Karen? Have a like! Hell, this is so good, have a retweet!"

This hits in every single industry. In education, sports, music, and even startups, for example:

https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1273871395479568386?s=20

^^ a tweet designed to spark outrage, about a completely mundane topic (email software)

I have two things to say about this:

Cancel culture will only continue to get way worse - this will cause political and economic meltdown over the next 10-20 years.
We must actively discipline ourselves to ignore this outrage every single day.

I don't have an answer on how to fix this, but the only way for me to deal with it is to ignore it and focus on productive things.

Read books, research papers, hang out with friends, play sports, run, write, speak, create, draw, build companies, build wealth, and meditate.

My point is that we cannot not solve this problem by uninstalling Instagram or putting our phones in the other room.

For me, staying off social media is really hard. It feels like I go through cycles of addiction to social media and news, and I have to consciously pull myself out of it.

And it's still not enough.

Consuming this outrage du jour makes us feel good, in the moment. How can we stop ourselves from hearing the juicy gossip or the tea?

We all succumb to this level sometimes, and that's OK, we are not perfect - but there's one thing I know for sure - unhealthy portions of outrage du jour over many years will make us unhappy, unsuccessful, and uninteresting people.

Because it's nothing more than a distraction.

Dad

June 18th, 2020

When I was in 4th grade, I played Little League.

Baseball was my favorite sport - but I was horrible at it.

I was unathletic, weak, and scared of the ball. When I went to the plate, I wouldn't even swing - I would just pray that I would get walked.

If I remember correctly, Little League has a thing called Mandatory Play - which prevents kids like me from getting benched all game.

Within these rules, I only got to bat once per game, rather than 4-5 times like other players. As far as defense, I was benched most innings, too.

My coach at the time was very competitive, so it was in his best interest to prevent me from playing as much as possible - and rightly so, I sucked.

But, how could I get better if I could never play?

This is where my dad comes in.

He started taking me to the batting cages after work/school, and we practiced a lot on my game.

He taught me how to actually hit the ball. We worked on fundamentals. He showed me how to not be scared of the ball.

After months, I actually started to get better!

But still, my coach wouldn't play me.

Even though I was getting better, I wasn't getting enough exposure in real games to improve.

But then, all of a sudden, towards the end of the season, I started getting more at-bats - the coach started putting me in.

I didn't know this until years later, but apparently my dad actually confronted the coach about it, and behind the scenes got in his face about it. He had to do this every game until the coach finally relented.

When I got more playing time, I started to gain confidence. I still wasn't getting hits, but I started making solid contact with the ball.

In the last game of the season, in my last at-bat, I got a huge hit into right field. My first hit of the season. Everyone was going crazy - the parents, my teammates, and especially the coach.

After this game, we went to the playoffs. In the playoffs, there was no mandatory play rules, and players could be benched for 100% of the game.

But the coach put me in the regular lineup - and benched other players!

He must have known something... During those playoffs, I batted .600, and that was against some of the best pitchers in Little League.

--

I think about this story a lot.

Most notably, because of the bravery of my dad - to be able to go up to the coach and force him to play me. I'm not sure if all dads would do that.

Maybe some dads would just complain about the coach not playing me, and how that was unfair.

But no, my dad decided to do something about it. He worked his ass off to get off work early, take me to the batting cages every day, to work with me to build the skills I needed, and then he did what he needed behind the scenes to get me in the game.

This not only was the right thing to do, but it showed me that you can get what you want through action, hard work, and proving yourself, the right way.

When I'm a dad, I hope to remember this story.

I hope to remember that these things will change a child's life.

That Guy

June 17th, 2020

When Lambda School had their little fiasco, part of me believed this happened because people didn't like the founder on a personal level.

Why? Because his Twitter timeline made his coding bootcamp seem like the second coming of Christ. This definitely got under some people's skin.

I have a hunch that the people who wrote those Lambda School hit-pieces really just had a bone to pick with the founder.

Back when this was going down, I was chatting with some other founders about this and wanted to prove my point (that he had it coming) - but they had a better point, which was something along the lines of:

"To change an industry you kind of have to be 'that guy'. As founders we know what it's like - how hard it is to run a company, and command an ambitious vision like this. To criticize him for this makes us just as bad as a gossip rag or a Twitter troll."

This hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was contributing to cancel culture, just because I didn't like the way this dude went about his business.

Why should I give a fuck about some dude I don't know? Letting them live rent-free in my head.. He has no idea who I am.

It's none of my business, and it's not worth my time to even think about.

Most of us have people we don't like - that person who bothers you at work, that politician who pisses you off, etc.

If you don't like someone - that means that you probably actually care about them, or you care about what they think of you.

If you didn't care about them, then you would be indifferent, and their actions and words wouldn't even cross your mind or trigger you.

So, likely, I actually care about Austen. He's building a great company. Maybe it's some jealousy on my end.

I think a lot of people were jealous of his success and how great of a marketer he is, which is actually what caused that whole fiasco.

But to build a great company - one that changes the world - there will be controversies and scandals.

To be a founder of a company that changes the world, you really have to be 'that guy'.

Haters 2

June 16th, 2020

I was chatting with an indie maker friend today about how we are scared to make changes to our products because of potential reactions of people on the Internet.

Paywall a free feature? Charge more money? Make a living?

Or even, just putting yourself out there - promoting yourself, using your real name, and selling yourself - when you do this there will be haters.

And the more successful you are, the more haters there will be, and the more hate you will get.

By no means do I have a lot of haters, but I have had some.

Here's a few that come to mind.

Someone mildly threatening me over email about how they could take away my sponsors

This guy couldn't handle my 24 hour startup - after this his crypto company made the news because it was hacked and $40k was stolen (karma's a bitch)

There's a lot more out there, but I'm too tired to find them and should go to bed.

It's funny how the haters stand out so much more than all of the people that have said nice things.

It's ironic, I'm writing a blog post about the haters. Hate is very powerful.

But the point of this post is to show that if you're doing anything, there will be haters.

And more importantly, if you're getting haters, it's a really good sign.

Ideal

June 15th, 2020

What's the ideal me?

I always strive to be a better person - and I'll always have an image in my head of the person I want to be.

A better friend. A better partner. Work out more. Work harder. Read more. Travel more. Etc.

I work at these things every day.

But do I REALLY know exactly what this ideal is?

I came across this video and have been thinking about this all day.

I will actually write this ideal down, so I can truly clarify it. I will look at it often, with emotion.

I'll also write down the things that I don't want to see myself do again - the bad habits, impulses, etc.

It doesn't have to be 100% clear right away, but I can start to get clarity on it through writing and manifesting it.

At the end of that video, there's a bit where he shows his own ideal (in video form) and it's really worth watching.

I'm going to write down my ideal right now.

Here it is:

███████████████████
██████████████████
███████████████
████████████████████
██████████████████
███████████████

It's not about career goals, or business goals, it's who I want to be as a person, at a very deep level.

First Book In 10 Years

June 14th, 2020

Right when the first protests and riots were happening (maybe 10 days ago), I found myself glued to the TV, glued to Instagram, and glued to Twitter.

Checking and refreshing for the latest news-bites and feelings of "what is happening in our world right now" but also, "I can't look away".

A few days passed and I kept doing the same thing - wanting more "news" and more drama.

But, nothing was really changing - just more of the same, regurgitated news and social media.

But I wanted more. I felt gross.

I decided it was time to take a break from social media.

I logged out of Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

I go on those sites and never feel fulfilled. I feel animosity and judgment towards the people in my feeds. I don't enjoy it, yet I keep going back.

I'm tired of watching TikToks, seeing Instagram posts with cringey taglines, or 140 characters of false wisdom.

I decided I want to read more. I want to be a "reader".

I want to read classic fiction from 1920, not quasi-intellectual motivational tweets from 2020.

I want to think more about the meaning of life from philosophers centuries ago, not from Joe Shmoe Motivational YouTuber.

--

I went to the bookstore the next day.

I picked up Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - a classic novel.

I read it in 3 days.

This was the first real physical book I finished in years. I've listened to lots of audiobooks, some Kindle reads, but this was the first physical book I read cover to cover in as long as I can remember (fucking sad, right!?).

I got "lost" in this book. It took me to a new world, a fantasy "dystopian" world that was so interesting to be in.

I forgot that books can do this.

No other medium can do this. TikTok definitely can't.

--

I'm vowing to read more.

It's not about reading the "classics" or the best self-help books.

Reading is about introspection, finding yourself, and it is a form of meditation. It doesn't matter what you read, just that you're reading something, consistently.

After finishing Brave New World I went back to the bookstore, but this time I spent almost an hour there, looking for a book.

I didn't go online for recommendations and I didn't care to look at Amazon reviews.

I just picked books off the shelf until I found one that looked cool. It's called "The Dog Stars".

Now I'm almost done with that one.

--

How much time did you spend on social media today? 30 minutes?

Imagine if you spent that time reading?

If you did read a book for 30 minutes a day for the rest of your life, you could read 1,000 books in your lifetime. Imagine that!

I know we are all busy, but 30 minutes is doable.

On the subway? In a cab? Eating breakfast? Driving to work? Let's fill the time with books, not checking our phones.

Books are amazing. More to come.

Guilherme Rizzo from CSS Scan

June 13th, 2020

Missed a day of writing, so I will be supporting Guilherme from Brazil.

I met him in Thailand and this guy is impressive. Super talented developer and maker.

Plus, this extension he just released is easily worth $10, such a cool idea and definitely useful if you do any web developlent.

I hope he keeps releasing useful developer tools. He can build a huge business off of this.

If you want to support him as well, check out his Chrome extension, it's easily worth the money.

All startups solve classic problems

June 12th, 2020

One thing that I always think about is how most startups eventually become "classic" companies solving "classic" problems.

For example, Netflix.

Netflix is really just a premium cable channel, like HBO.

While Netflix obviously revolutionized on-demand content, nowadays most "mainstream" people consume Netflix through their smart TV - which isn't really much different than how we've been watching TV for decades.

And the value in Netflix is more and more its content, the premium shows like "Stranger Things" - which is really the same thing that HBO has been doing for years.

There are more examples too:

Square is really just a bank.
Uber is just taxis with an app
Twitter, FB, YouTube, TikTok are all just (far more engaging) media companies. They are like cable in the 50's and 60's.
Airbnb is just a booking engine, like Expedia

Often, startups will start with some "revolutionary" idea, leverage technology, and then eventually adopt a really common business model over the life of the company.

This makes me think about a couple things:

The best business models have been around for decades, if not centuries (food, sex, status, fitness, travel, health, etc)
You just need to solve "classic problems" in a new way / better way to be a startup
A startups value is its ability to capture and take over existing markets eventually
In order to get "really big", all startup companies will have to eventually adjust their business models/audience to be more traditional and mainstream

Age

June 10th, 2020

I think a lot about age.

I'm 29.

Often, I'll see someone who has become rather successful at 24 years old (an example).

Or at least, more "successful" than me (in my eyes).

I wonder how it is they got to that level faster than I could?

Did they learn quicker? Did they start earlier? Are they smarter? Worked harder? Did they know what they wanted earlier in life? Did they have better mentors? Did they have some sort of advantage? Luck?

Ok, let's get the cliches out of the way: "comparison is the thief of joy", yada yadda...

Many people I know go through life (and jobs) with some level of expectation of success and improvement. We all graduate high school at the same time. We all graduate college at the same time. Then become doctors, lawyers based on the timetable that society has decided - or traditional workplaces promote us at a predictable rate (manager, director, etc).

But for entrepreneurs, artists, writers, politicians - most of those "expectations" go out the window.

Through this crazy thing called the internet, I know of 16-year-olds who are building profitable businesses, 19-year-old YouTubers with millions of followers, etc.

I think as we get older we start to notice age more.

I remember as a kid when I used to watch professional sports on TV and my dad would always comment: "What! This guy was born in 1980! I can't believe that!!".

I'm starting to become that guy. One of my favorite artists is Travis Scott. I looked up his age the other day, and what!? This guy is actually younger than me? It feels so strange to look up to someone for years who's been younger than me?

It's funny, though, because I've also experienced the opposite of this.

When I was 19, I worked at the Apple Store. I got promoted quickly and was able to go to this all-expenses-paid trip with other Apple Store employees across the country who also just got the same promotion.

I was the youngest person there, by at least two years, with many people in the training likely at least 24 years old.

Since everyone was strangers and living in a hotel with $100 per-diems - we quickly started to make friends.

When we went out to dinner, they found out I was 19, and everything changed.

The group I made friends with started forming a clique, and started ganging up on me. They emailed Apple corporate relations and got my rental car revoked - because of some fine print of the contract that I was too young to have a rental car.

They got my rental car revoked because they wanted it for themselves, and when they got the car, they threw my shit all over the parking lot.

It really hurt my feelings.

That training was three weeks long - and all I wanted was for it to be over.

I remember getting back from the training, and hanging out with my "real" friends - wow that was such a relief.

All the resentment and angst I had was gone in a second, remembering that we get to choose our friends - and I would never surround myself with people that judged me because of my age.

And it's funny - because one of my best friends at the time was 24. But he's a great dude, and my age or his age didn't matter for our friendship.

Age doesn't matter. Everyone has a journey.

I've been early to some things, and I've been late to others. I will assume the same in others.

patwalls.com

June 9th, 2020

After 10+ years of trying to get it, I'm now the proud owner of patwalls.com!

No more patwalls.co.

A few more changes:

I've migrated my old blog (patwalls.co) to this blog, with all my old blog posts, like this one.
This daily journal will become my main blog.
I will probably switch things up a bit to separate "daily" posts with more long-form posts.

Thanks for reading the blog, as always!

Six Months No Booze

June 8th, 2020

It's been about six months ago since I decided to quit drinking alcohol.

Since then, I've had 3 drinks:

A beer after my half-marathon
A beer after my marathon
A shot that my friend forcefully made me drink after my marathon

But other than that, I stopped drinking. I don't have a beer at dinner anymore, usually just a Diet Coke.

What sparked me to quit was this video.

It's awesome - that video seems to have motivated some others, too:

If anyone is out there reading this, here is why I did it:

I'm tired of using alcohol as a social crutch: Why do I need to get drunk to "go out", meet women, socialize, or otherwise have a good time?
Society has made us feel that we need to drink to celebrate, have a good time, have sex, etc.
Drinking gives me hangovers, which sometimes give me really, really bad anxiety (that's a post for another day)

I don't really have much to say about quitting drinking. Not drinking alcohol just feels normal now.

I will be honest, I didn't have that many temptations. We've been in a pandemic, and I haven't done much social things in the last few months.

Next month, I'm headed to New York City to live there for a couple months. NYC is a city that thrives on alcohol and nightlife.

Will I drink there? Probably.

But it's actually a goal of mine to "go out" and not drink, and be open with the fact that I don't drink, or just have it feel "normal".

Mostly, I just want to see if I can have fun without alcohol - meet people, talk to girls, go to parties, all without alcohol. I don't think I've ever done it before!

More to come on this.

Virtuoso

June 7th, 2020

A few days ago I wrote the post A Lot About A Little.

I had a friend write a response to it, which has seemed to also have done well on Hacker News.

Some more thoughts…

—

A few years ago, I took a personality test, and landed on Virtuoso.

It makes perfect sense - a virtuoso starts many things, likes to get their hands dirty, jumps from project to project, and are often mechanics and engineers.

Virtuosos are really uncommon - apparently only making up only 5% of the population.

Growing up, and compared to my colleagues and friends, I’ve always been different. My friends would often comment (and still do) how weird it is that I try so many things, or how comfortable I am spending time by myself.

It wasn't until after I took this personality test that a lot of things clicked for me.

I started to embrace my "differences" more - and turned to the internet and found communities of other “virtuosos”. I found a lot of people like me condensed into communities like Twitter, WIP, digital nomads, etc. (that's one beauty of the internet)

I take pride in being a virtuoso - it has given me identity and confidence about my unusual path that I’m taking.

In my post “A Lot About A Little” - I didn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t start and try new things - it’s just something that I (personally) want to be more mindful of.

Although I embrace my personality and will always be true to myself, there are a couple things we (virtuosos) need to weary of:

Starting new things as an escape
Being a "master of none"

Starting new things as an escape

Starting new things and learning new skills is the beauty of life.

But there is a caveat - starting new things is often an escape from something "old and boring" in our current lives.

It can be an escape from relationships. It can be an escape from commitment. It can be an escape from career. It can be an escape from family.

In other words, be careful that you’re not starting something because you’re running away from something else.

Six years ago, I broke up with my long-term girlfriend. Looking back, part of the reason I broke up with her is that I was so excited about starting some new things in my life. I justified the heartache of the breakup with the "rush" of starting anew.

It was the time where I was switching my career to coding. I was so excited about this new career and starting something new, that I put all of my identity and happiness into it.

Although learning how to code and changing my career was a great decision, looking back, this sacrifice I made in my personal and family life was immature and it makes me cringe.

But, of course:

If you don't look back on your past self and cringe, then you didn't grow as a person.

When starting new things, make sure you are doing them for the right reasons, and understand the inevitable sacrifice that comes with them.

Being a "master of none"

Starting new things feels good. We feel accomplished.

But it’s important to look at all of the things you have started. Do you really, honestly, know much about those things?

I would argue no. You haven’t spent enough time on them. You haven’t been in the trenches, working on it and thinking about it 80 hours per week for 10+ years.

If you think you know “a lot about a lot”, then you might be subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect - where you actually don’t know “a lot” about anything, but you don’t even know it!

A little about a lot

Here’s where I know “a little about a lot”:

Economics (majored in college)
Accounting (was a career for a couple years)
Coding (software engineer for 2 years)
Writing (I write daily)
Making music (was in a band in high school)
Running (ran 3 marathons)

My argument is not that these things haven’t made my life richer, or contributed to a greater overall result, but I actually know NOTHING about these things, and that's the beauty.

I actively spend a lot of time on some of these things, and I do love some of these things, like writing and running - and I won't stop learning new things too.

A lot about a little

Here’s where I'd like to know “a lot about a little”:

Starting and building businesses (Failed at 6+, done it for 5+ years)

Building businesses is where I’ve spent the most time on over the past 10 years.

When I first got into entrepreneurship (first 1-2 years), I thought I knew it all. I had confidence - I watched the YC videos, read the business books, and renowned blog posts.

Looking back, I was damn stupid and overconfident!

It was only until I got 3-5 years in (and 15,000+ hours later) where I’ve started to realize that I actually know nothing. The deeper I go, the more I realize this.

Most importantly, it’s humbling. If I never reached this point, then maybe I'd still think I knew a lot about running, or writing, etc. (overconfidence)

As far as entrepreneurship, I think I’m somewhere in the middle of the x-axis of the Dunning-Kruger graph.

Now that I have some self-awareness about what I don’t know, I realize how superficial my knowledge is about pretty much anything.

Nowadays, some people ask me for advice about starting a business. When I get on the phone with them and hear about their idea or their approach, I'm reminded of myself when I started my first business: blind with confidence, stubborn, and likely to make the same mistakes most entrepreneurs make on their first go-around.

It is the Dunning-Kruger effect in action - they haven’t worked enough at it to even know what they don’t know. It doesn’t matter the advice I give, or the blog posts that they read - the only way to realize you don’t know what you don’t know is to put in thousands of hours into something and finally have that feeling - that you don’t know what you don’t know.

Most people never experience this, hence why we see the endless Facebook and Reddit threads of people that spouting their ideas and who truly believe they know what they are talking about, usually about politics. Likely, these people didn’t spend years as a politician or historian.

They are also likely the victim of starting too many things, having their hand in too many cookie jars, and the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Hell, this blog post is the same issue! I don’t know much about human psychology, I just watched a couple YouTube videos on Dunning-Kruger ;)

But that’s OK, this is just a journal and I just my ideas for the day - 99% chance I’m wrong about all of this.

"I'm so great" - The Dunning-Kruger effect

My Block My Hood My City

June 6th, 2020

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Out-of-state looters have taken hammers and batons to our communities, breaking windows of small businesses and spraying graffiti, using this crisis as an opportunity to tear down black communities. Funds raised will go to support our ongoing operations and efforts to repair small businesses. Sign up to volunteer for updates on how to support this work.

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Mistake

June 5th, 2020

I made a big mistake over the past few days.

The details aren't important, but in essence, I made my business perform financially better, at a really big cost.

Money was coming in more than ever and it felt amazing.

But it was actually caused by a bug and it was my fault.

Once I fixed it, things seem like they've gone back to "normal" (aka less money).

Once I realized my mistake I felt like shit. I became depressed. The high I was riding for a few days now feels like cold, hard reality.

A day later, I still feel like shit.

Again and again, I associate my own happiness with the success of my businesses...

But writing helps.

It just goes to show - money is never as easy as it seems. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I won't let this get me down - the only thing I can do is keep working hard and pushing the business forward.

See it as a lesson:

be more careful and test things that you implement
when something seems too good to be true, look closer, and investigate

American Police

June 4th, 2020

I just was reminded of a personal story about how police are so different in America vs. other countries.

This story is going to sound like the ultimate white privilege - that's not my intention. It's just a story about how the police system in America is different.

--

When I was 19 years old, I went to Germany for Oktoberfest.

I have German friends that live there - and they showed me how to drink like a true German - our goal was to drink as many Maß's as possible and get super drunk.

After the festivities, we took the train back to my friend's town - most of us passed out on the train.

When we got back there was a half-mile walk back to my friend's place. When I got off the train and started walking, I saw a German cop.

Instinctually, I got scared that I would get caught for underage drinking. Realizing I'm actually in Germany, I realized I wasn't breaking the law.

My friends and I were laughing and stumbling around and were clearly drunk to anyone who was sober.

The cop yelled at us in German.

My friends laughed and called the cop over to us.

I had no idea what was going on.

The cop pulled out a breathalyzer. I freaked out.

My German friend yelled, "We're going to see who is the drunkest!"

The cop proceeded to breathalyze all of us.

We all laughed as the cop breathalyzed us and showed us the numbers.

Then, we just walked away and went home.

I'll always remember this story.

--

Flashback to when I was 16 years old, when I was busted for underage drinking.

I came from a small town with lots of cops, and no crime (aka cops get bored).

My friends and I were doing normal teenage things - sneaking out of our house and drinking beer.

We were drinking in some parking lot and the cops got called on us.

When the cops arrived, they handcuffed me on the back of the car.

They handcuffed all my friends too.

They made me blow into a breathalyzer, and I blew a .02 - which is the equivalent of drinking half of a beer.

Multiple more cops arrived on the scene.

They searched my car and tore the thing apart, looking for drugs or anything they could.

They booked me and my friends with multiple underage drinking charges.

Their goal was to intimidate us. Their goal was to do anything in their legal ability to get someone arrested.

It felt as though their assumption is you're committing a horrible crime and it's your job to convince them you're not. That's why we feel uncomfortable when we see a cop driving behind us.

Based on all the protests and black people speaking out, it sounds like you can multiply this feeling by 10x if you're black.

I was committing a crime, and I deserved my treatment, but if black people feel this way with every encounter with police in their life, then I can understand why they are so desperate for change.

This is just my story about American cops vs. German cops.

A Lot About A Little

June 3rd, 2020

Every single day I have to forcefully resist myself from starting new things.

For example, this weekend I thought I would become a music producer, downloaded Ableton, and starting following YouTube tutorials.

That lasted about 45 minutes.

My whole life has consisted of trying new things, whether it was my career, hobbies, new diets, hairstyles, etc.

But I'm getting better.

I think I know now, that if I keep trying new things every year, my life will be shallow. I will know a little about a lot.

I want to know a lot about a little.

Why? I think it would lead to more happiness, more stability, and more success in our lives.

But it's never that easy.

One issue I've always had with "a lot about a little" is that I'm scared to have an identity or a "thing" that I'll have to live with forever.

For example, when we think of Tiger Woods, we think "golfer" - that's his "thing".

What's my "thing"?

I like to think of myself as a multi-faceted individual - I have many interests, hobbies, and professions. But so does Tiger Woods!! We just think of him as a golfer though.

I wish we didn't have to be known for one "thing" - why can't we be known for all the things?

I think that is some sort of fallacy (Wikipedia?).

Because likely, everyone already sees me as one "thing" - I'm not sure what that "thing" is because it's not even in my control (what others think of me). Maybe it's "dude with bad posture in coffee shop" or "John's random friend"...

Back to the topic though - when do we accept that we can only be great at one thing?

I don't know if I've accepted it yet, or if I ever will. I don't think I have that kind of conviction.

And I doubt I'm the only one that feels this way. If everyone knew their one "thing" - this world would be a much different place.

As Rust Cohle says:

Life is barely long enough to get good at one thing. Just gotta be careful about what you get good at.