The Golden Book of Advice

Show notes and referenced links: https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1553456558264164356

Old talk version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzK4IxHv3W0

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Chad Stewart: I think we should set up the whole thing first in case, people might be coming off the street and they don't necessarily know exactly about the chapter of the book. I definitely think you should talk a little bit about that first. 

[00:00:10] swyx: I do opinion introduce it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:00:13] That'd be great. Do you wanna give it a shot? I wanna see what what your take on it is. Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. I'll give it a shot. So, 

[00:00:20] Chad Stewart: So pretty much the idea. Well, so first of all the, currently the chapter actually is at the end of the book. And a lot of you get a lot of, the, you get a lot of other information before you get to this chapter.

[00:00:32] And the kind of idea is that, all that other information is important. It's great. But if you don't necessarily know how to implement. Then, yeah, it's not particularly useful. And so my understanding, you of took the idea of hairs, things that that you could use to start implementing some of these things.

[00:00:53] And then one of the things that actually really enjoyed really liked I read over the chapter again, just to to refresh myself, was the idea of not everything to use all the time. You have tactics which you use whenever they come up, then you have strategy. Which you use, like you use a little bit more often.

[00:01:13] I don't remember what the third one is, but it is like levels of when you use them principles. Yes. Principles. Thank you. When you use them often. So the chapter resonated with me mostly because of a lot of the things that you were talking about is like habits and like laying the foundation for success.

[00:01:30] Part we talked about it in the Mito last week in terms of keeping yourself physically healthy, but just also, it's just generally your habits, both your physical habits, like learning, expanding your knowledge, networking, interacting with people it's just having that foundation laid out so that, leveraging the other topics of the book was is what you call.

[00:01:53] It was easier. I know we had that, this kind of discussion about about maybe putting it earlier in the book, but that's the reason why I decided, Hey, maybe this would be the first thing to talk about because this is something that, we talk up in the industry, but not really, yeah. So just wanted to talk about 

[00:02:11] swyx: anyways. Yeah. That's a great recap. Yeah, that's fantastic recap. Okay. Job done. Thank you everyone. Yeah. Wow. And you didn't even I didn't even tell you I was gonna ask you anyway. I just love hearing about it from other point of view.

[00:02:23] But yeah, you can see how it's weird to put it at the front of the buzz. I have to go through and set up all the context first, which is like 39 chapters of random shit. And then but, and then I come in at the end with a really strong chapter. Right. But I think my reflection is like, Imagine you would hand it the golden book of advice.

[00:02:42] Like maybe my book is like not the golden book of advice, but maybe someone else's book in book of advice. Can you convert that advice into results and the chances are, is it's no, because it's not really, you're not really lacking for advice. You're really lacking for systems to implement that effectively in your career, in your life.

[00:03:03] Right? To actually put things in action and follow through on them. It's not ideas, it's execution, it's not motivation, it's discipline. And so like it's really boring blocking and tackling stuff. But then I felt like if I did not talk then everything I, everything else I talk about is a complete waste because like this that's the real sustainable advantage.

[00:03:24] I think for sure, I was very influenced by atomic habits. Like you can have all the fancy trading strategies that you want, but ultimately, your net worth is a trailing indicator of your financial habits. Did you save enough? and, did you did you did you put did you pay down the interest rate on the things that you're supposed to pay down first before chasing the investment in other categories?

[00:03:48] And I definitely feel like, when people give high level career advice, they tend to overstep in terms of the high stakes, the very dramatic, the very flashy, the very sexy, or very smart sounding ideas. And there's just the boring, like eat of vegetables, versions of the ideas. Isn't talked about enough when actually it is the predominant.

[00:04:08] Thing to get right. So, yeah. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. I cut you off. Oh, no, I see you also join on your personal, so, I'm talking to two CHADS. Oh 

[00:04:15] Chad Stewart: yeah. One that's a duck and one that's an actual person. Yeah. No, so I would, I, so I do agree with you. But, and I guess it's I try not to say too much about the, on, on like you're delivering the chapter as opposed to the chapter's contents itself.

[00:04:30] But like I do agree that, like the thing that everybody's interested in, like you said, the gold as you put it is definitely. The, what you call it the flashy advice, the, this is how you negotiate your salary. These are the technologies that you choose, as opposed to the eat, your vegetables as you call it version is, get up every day and code, get up every day and read tech, tech news, or get up every day and network, specifically the phrase network, where network is just this bland, instruction that you're, that 

[00:05:02] swyx: everybody gives, know, which network what you supposed to do when people say I'm gonna get up to date end network.

[00:05:06] What is that? I 

[00:05:08] Chad Stewart: have no clue. I just, I say it all the time. And then I sit down and okay, what am I supposed to do? Ha 

[00:05:15] swyx: oh, but so my version of that right. Is to learn in public. Right? And I know, this, so, like it's weird to come to, to reach out, to let's, here's an unenlightened version of networking, which is.

[00:05:26] You're just, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna look for some industry mentor and you're gonna cold email them and say, please, can you be my mentor? Which is an unspecified job of indeterminate length for no money. So good luck. But if you learn the public you're putting your interests out there, you're you progress out there and people can help you with specific dimensions and you can build your network that way by building up assets of value that you exchange for something else.

[00:05:50] And I think that's a really positive some way to network and I highly encourage people 

[00:05:54] Chad Stewart: to do that. Yeah, no, I definitely agree. I definitely agree. And I guess like that's like the going back to the operating system of you is like the more kind of boring part, because that is something that you have to do all the time, it's the grind, right?

[00:06:11] Like everybody is trying to tell you to grind, but they don't necessarily tell you. You know why it's important and they don't tell you that it gets boring. Well, I gue...