Love Your Work

As regular listeners know, I recently self-published for the first time. I traditionally-published my first book, Design for Hackers, and I had a good experience. I liked having the extra support for getting my book laid out and printed, and onto shelves around the world, and as a first-time author, I really needed the vote of confidence and accountability of a publishing contract. But this time around, with my new book The Heart to Start, I had a lot to learn. Fortunately, it turned out that I had already built many of the skills I needed to self-publish. I'm glad that I never stopped learning. Whether you dream of publishing a book, or of doing something else, today's article will help inspire you to keep learning. Buy The Heart to Start on Amazon You have something to offer the world. Break through fear, self-doubt, and distractions to finally make it real. Buy The Heart to Start. Donate on Patreon Love Your Work currently costs $260 a month to produce, and supporters are covering half of that! Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at kadavy.net/donate. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/never-stop-learning/

Jordan Harbinger (@jordanharbinger) started out as a lawyer, but made a big change. You heard about another lawyer who made a career change, Jodi Ettenberg, back on episode 23. Jodi became a food and travel writer. Jordan Harbinger did something different. He quit his job as a lawyer to become a podcaster. A very successful one at that. If you listen to podcasts, you've probably already heard The Art of Charm. (Jordan now hosts The Jordan Harbinger Show). Jordan examines relationship-building and networking to be more effective in business, and in life. The Art of Charm received a brief mention here on Love Your Work when Hollywood set designer JP Connelly shared his favorite podcasts on episode 91. In this episode, Jordan shares: Law is a prestigious profession with a rich history. Did Jordan hesitate to start podcasting instead? Jordan has interviewed folks such as Shaquille O'Neil, Larry King, and Robert Cialdini. How does he connect with influencers, and how can you do the same? When it comes to building a platform such as a podcast, what really makes a difference in growing the show? Buy The Heart to Start on Amazon You have something to offer the world. Break through fear, self-doubt, and distractions to finally make it real. Buy The Heart to Start. Donate on Patreon Love Your Work currently costs $260 a month to produce, and supporters are covering half of that! Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at kadavy.net/donate. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/jordan-harbinger-podcast-interview/

Something that has been on the top of my mind the past few years is how creators can make an honest living from their work. You heard me talk with Hooked author Nir Eyal back on episode 21 about how technology is fragmenting attention, for example. These economics incentivize creators to be outlandish or even dishonest. But, the blockchain and cryptocurrencies may change all of that. I've been earning money for my writing lately on the STEEM blockchain, on a social network called Steemit. You heard me talk to STEEM's CEO, Ned Scott back on episode 71. I recently cashed in over $1,000 in STEEM cryptocurrency. Today I'll be giving a basic introduction to making money on Steemit. You'll learn: Where does the money come from? I cash in the STEEM Tokens I earn, but why are they worth anything? What are the various forms of STEEM, and what are they for? I'll talk about STEEM, STEEM Power, and STEEM Dollars. Once you earn STEEM, how can you convert it to USD? I'll give you the gist in this episode, but for step-by-step instructions, visit the original post for my beginner's guide to STEEM Buy The Heart to Start on Amazon You have something to offer the world. Break through fear, self-doubt, and distractions to finally make it real. Buy The Heart to Start. Donate on Patreon Love Your Work currently costs $260 a month to produce, and supporters are covering almost half of that! Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at kadavy.net/donate. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/steem-beginners-podcast/

Join Audible and listen to The Heart to Start free at http://kadavy.net/audible Hey there, just wanted to let you know that the audiobook version of The Heart to Start is now available on Audible!   I know many of you have been anticipating this, as audio is such a convenient medium – it probably explains why many of you discovered my work through my podcast.   If you sign up over here as a first-time Audible customer, you will get a 30-day trial, in which you can pick The Heart to Start as your trial book.   By the way, signing up through my link helps support my work. I'll earn a $5 bounty if you sign up for the free trial, and if you choose HTS as your first book AND become a customer of Audible for at least 61 days, I'll earn another $50 bounty. Here's the link again.

Todd Henry (@toddhenry) has written a ton of books. My personal favorite is called Die Empty, and it's all about finding the urgency to pursue your creative destiny. His newest book is called Herding Tigers, and it's all about leading creative people so they can do their best work. He also has a great podcast called The Accidental Creative. In fact, he interviewed me on the show, and you can listen to it over here. In this episode, we'll talk about: The different kinds of work: What is making, mapping, and meshing? What's your style when it comes to executing your ideas? If you're weak on one kind of work, and strong on another, what's the result? And how do great creative leaders create an environment where their people can be creative and effective? The killer tip from this is that "great leaders have great rituals." Buy The Heart to Start on Amazon You have something to offer the world. Break through fear, self-doubt, and distractions to finally make it real. Buy The Heart to Start.     Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/toddy-henry-podcast/

We're in only the second week of 2018. There's optimism in the air, and you have a fresh well of energy and motivation for making change in your life. Have you thought about starting something? Maybe you want to start writing, or you want to start a company. How can you make 2018 the year you finally get started? I'll share three easy ways in today's article. Buy The Heart to Start on Amazon You have something to offer the world. Break through fear, self-doubt, and distractions to finally make it real. Buy The Heart to Start. Donate on Patreon Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at kadavy.net/donate. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/2018-get-started/

BJ Fogg (@bjfogg) is a behavioral scientist at Stanford University. He specializes in "Behavior Design," which aims to influence people for the better through insights about human behavior. In this podcast episode, BJ breaks down how to build good habits. Why do we fail to build good habits? Most resolutions to build good habits fail for two reasons: We think too vaguely. We think things like "I want to eat healthier" or "I want to lose weight." If you want to make something a reality you have to break it down into actions. Specificity makes behavior easier to change. Our motivation changes. You might start off trying to build good habits and feel very motivated, but your motivation will wane. You may have felt very motivated by something – such as the New Year – but that will pass. Or, life gets in the way, and that causes your priorities to change. What are some of the hardest good habits to build? What is a good habit? Well, that's up to you. But some of the most common good habits that people want to build are writing, and meditation. Yet they're the hardest. It's up to you what you consider to be a good habit. If you need help deciding on one popular habit: Should you make your bed? I've got you covered with that episode. Since I wrote a book about building writing habits with the aim of writing a book, I'll use that as an example to apply BJ's concepts in this post. The "swarm of bees" approach to build good habits We fail to build good habits because we think to vaguely. For example, we might say we want to write a book. You can't just sit down and write a book, especially if you're a beginning writer. An even more vague goal you might hear from people is that they want to "eat healthy." Neither of these are habits. These are outcomes. They are the results of taking actions, but they aren't actions themselves. So, it becomes mentally impossible to use them to "build good habits," if you aren't intentional about it. Fogg uses a concept, in his tiny habits training program, he calls the "swarm of bees." You start with your vague outcome. Fogg calls it an "aspiration." Write it down on a piece of paper. Then, write down a bunch of behaviors you could do that would help lead to that aspiration. It looks like this slide from Fogg's TEDx talk. [caption id="attachment_4474" align="aligncenter" width="750"] The "swarm of bees" is an outcome surrounded by behaviors that could lead to that outcome.[/caption] In this slide, the aspiration is "health outcomes," which could be something like losing weight. Let's think of the swarm of bees as something like writing a book. Outcome: Write a book Behaviors Sit at computer. Put fingers on keyboard. Type. Read about how to write a book. Read about how to publish a book. Do market research. and so on... Not all behaviors are habits: Three categories of behaviors As you come up with behaviors to match your aspiration, you'll find each behavior falls into one of three categories: One-time behaviors: Things you do just once, such as buy a book or schedule an appointment. Behaviors over a period of time: Things you do over a period of time, such as mow the lawn regularly over the summer. Habits: Things you do habitually with no time restriction. Brushing your teeth, meditating, or writing. Pick behaviors that are a good match for you, to build good habits Now you have an outcome you want to reach, and you have a list of behaviors that will bring you closer to that outcome. Next, you need to pick a behavior that you can build into a good habit. But you don't want to pick just any behavior. If you want to build good habits, the behavior has to be a good match. Fogg recommends choosing a behavior with the following three characteristics: The behavior has an impact: A good behavior will take you toward your aspiration. Since you already did the swarm of bees exercise, this will be a given. The behavior is something you can do: The good match for you is a behavior that you're capable of doing. If you’re a beginning writer trying to write a book, trying to build a habit of writing 5,000 words a day might be too much. The behavior is something you want to do: If you don't want to do the behavior, you can't build it into a good habit. How many days does it take to build a good habit? It depends! Despite what you might hear about how long it takes to build a good habit, there is no set number of times or days. (Commonly you hear the myth of “21 days” to build a good habit.) It really depends upon the habit you’re building. Some habits are instant: The moment you touched a smart phone, using it became a habit. When Fogg got a new rocking chair, sitting in it instantly became a habit, because it was so much better than his other chair. Other habits can take more time to take root. Good habits are like the roots of a plant More accurately, both good habits and bad habits are like the roots of a plant. Any plant needs to take root in order to survive. You want to pull the weeds (the bad habits) before their roots get too strong, and you want to nurture the good plants (the good habits) so they can take root and thrive for a long time. If you have a good habit going, but your life gets disrupted, you should take extra care to help that habit take root in your new circumstances. Think of it how you would think of moving a plant from one pot to another – it would need extra care. Good habits change your personal identity When you've built a good habit, meaning it's firmly rooted, it changes your personal identity. You start to tell yourself, "I'm the kind of person who...." Now that I've personally established a habit of writing, I'm more confident in my identity as a writer. "I'm the kind of person who writes." I write every morning during my pre-established writing habit, but now I can write anytime. Good habits have a "ripple effect." They lead to more good habits. Fogg has helped thousands of people build good habits through his tiny habits program. He collects data on the effects building good habits on these people. Fogg has found that, within five days after starting to build one good habit, eighty percent of people start building other habits. They apparently say to themselves, "I'm the kind of person who builds good habits." Consistency matters more than scale in building good habits When you're trying to build good habits, consistency matters more than scale. For example, if you have a habit of writing 100 words a day, and you're able to do it every day, that's better than if you try to build a habit of writing 1,000 words a day, but you're only able to do it occasionally. Why? Because if you keep writing 100 words a day, the habit has a chance to take root. It goes from being a behavior you do for a short period of time, to being a habit that you stick with. You really know something is a habit if it is easier to do the habit than it is to not do the habit. Think about habits like brushing your teeth or bathing. You don't feel right if you don't do them. They're strongly-rooted habits. It's a part of your identity. "[You're] the kind of person who brushes their teeth." Back to the writing habit: If you try to write 1,000 words a day, it's hard to remain consistent early on. It's easy to make excuses such as that you're too busy. You can't be consistent, so the habit can't take root. Tiny habits are the seeds of good habits Consistency is more important than scale. A small behavior done consistently has a better chance of taking root and changing your identity than a large behavior done inconsistently. This is why Fogg recommends tiny habits. Tiny habits are the seeds of good habits. I've been talking in this post about how much better it would be to build a 100-word writing habit than to try to build a 1,000-word writing habit. Those 100 words would be the seed that takes root. Your identity changes. You're the kind of person who writes every day. The next thing you know, you're writing much more. Feel good about your habit, don't feel bad about your habit For a habit to take root, you have to be consistent with it. You'll have a better chance of being consistent with your habit if you feel good about that habit. So find ways to feel good about your habit, and avoid ways that make you feel bad about your habit. Here's a few ways to keep you feeling good about your habit, and avoid feeling bad about your habit. Keep your good habit a tiny habit If you want to feel good about your habit, it helps to succeed at your habit. Fogg strongly recommends that you keep your habit tiny forever. It's counterintuitive. After all, if you want to write a book, how are you going to do it by writing just 100 words a day? The key is to allow yourself to do your habit beyond your target. So, if you have a habit of writing 100 words a day, go ahead and write 250 words, or 1,000 words. But keep your target at 100. I will say that I make a contradictory recommendation in my post, how to write a book. There's value as a writer to getting really good at writing pieces of a certain length. There's also value in building the habit of publishing. It would be incredibly complicated to study these factors, along with the factor of word count, to make a scientific recommendation on what works best. So, Fogg still staunchly stands by keeping your habit tiny. He's a scientist, and that's what he knows works. Congratulate yourself for performing your good habit Every time you do your habit, celebrate in some way. You could have a reward for yourself, but you can also merely tell yourself that you did a good job. This will keep you feeling good about your habit, and prevent you from feeling bad about your habit. In the writing example, let's say you have a tough day of writing. But, you wrote 100 words. Don't feel bad. Instead, congratulate yourself for performing your good habit for the day. Again, if you go past 100 words, that's great, but really congratulate yourself for merely writing 100 words. Lower your standards to feel good about your habit Ambitious people tend to have high standards. Not only do they want to write 1,000 words a day, they expect those words to be great. This just adds another opportunity to feel like you've failed at your habit. Worse yet, you may keep yourself from starting your habit in the first place. This is why, in my book The Heart to Start, I say you should give yourself "permission to suck." If you're writing badly every day, you have a much better chance of becoming good at writing if you instead decide not to write at all, just because you don't think you're a good writer. You'd find yourself in a Catch-22 situation: You can't get good at writing because you won't practice it. You won't practice writing because you don't feel that you're good at it. Don't count habit "streaks" Fogg recommends against counting "streaks," for your habits. Habit streaks create another opportunity for you to feel bad about your habit, which can lead to you not performing the behavior, which can prevent the habit from taking root. Imagine, for example, that you have a good habit of writing 100 words a day, and you’ve counted a streak of twenty days. Then, you miss your habit for some reason – maybe you were sick or you had house guests. Now, not only do you feel bad about missing your streak, you also have the sensation of starting your streak all over again. It’s as if you’re committing to 10,000 words, rather than 100. It would then be easy to abandon your good habit altogether. In summary... Find behaviors that fit your aspiration. From those behaviors, find a good habit match. Build tiny habits. Feel good about your habits. Don't feel bad about your habits. Buy The Heart to Start on Amazon You have something to offer the world. Break through fear, self-doubt, and distractions to finally make it real. Buy The Heart to Start. Join Love Your Work Elite Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at lywelite.com. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Show Notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/build-good-habits/

Many of you have checked out my new book The Heart to Start. I got tired of hearing the advice "just get started," and I wanted to break it down for people. It shows you how to bust through all of the mental distortions and distractions that stand in the way of you getting started. Today, I'm going to share another sample chapter. This is from Chapter 10 of The Heart to Start, and I'm going to tell you about when I got stuck trying to start writing my first book, Design for Hackers. Our friend Noah Kagan, who you've heard on this show, ended up showing me how I was standing in my own way. You can buy The Heart to Start on Amazon. There's now a paperback version, so if you picked it up on Kindle and want a physical copy, now you can do that. Also, I really truly appreciate all of the reviews that have been pouring in on Amazon. If you've read The Heart to Start, please click on a star rating on Amazon. It would be a HUGE help. Join Love Your Work Elite Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at lywelite.com. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Sponsors: http://brandfolder.com/loveyourwork Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/linear-work-distortion-podcast/

David W. Galenson is an economics professor at The University of Chicago. He's also a visiting professor at other schools, such as MIT. David is an unusual economist in that he studies the economics of art. Have you ever noticed how some young geniuses have rapid success? Have you wondered when your work will finally get noticed? It turns out, there are two totally different approaches to making your art, and the approach that you take can drastically affect when you'll find success. I recently picked up David's book, Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity, and I found it so fascinating, I had to have him on the show. David's theory is that there are two totally different approaches to making one's art: You might be a conceptual innovator, in that you take a concept and run with it. Or, you might be an experimental innovator – you might be tweaking for a lifetime, trying to figure something out. You may have heard about Galenson's work on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, Revisionist History. There's an episode that uses Galenson's theory to explain why Leonard Cohen's song, Hallelujah took so long to become popular. In this talk, you'll learn: What makes someone a conceptual innovator? What about an experimental innovator? Who are some well known innovators in each category? You'll hear about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Bob Dylan, Picasso, Alfred Hitchcock, and many more. Can you change your innovation style? Or are you just better off embracing your style? Join Love Your Work Elite Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at lywelite.com. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Sponsors: http://skillshare.com/loveyourwork http://readwise.io/heart http://brandfolder.com/loveyourwork Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/david-galenson/

Today, I'm very happy to announce that I have a new book out. Have you ever heard the advice "just get started?" Have you ever been left wondering "yeah, but how?" This was me when I was first starting on my own. I knew that the best way to make progress toward my dreams was to just get started. But that seemed easier said than done. It seemed each time I tried to start, I'd run into a fear, or a self-doubt, or I'd find a way to procrastinate. My new book is called "The Heart to Start: Win the Inner War & Let Your Art Shine". It's available right now on Amazon at kadavy.net/heart. Please, please go get this book. It's the result of a lifetime of learning, and many months of work. It's short and to the point, and I really think it will help you reach your potential. Thank you to all of the early readers of the book. Many people provided feedback and edits, and I could not have made the book what it is without you. After you check out the book, I'd deeply appreciate an Amazon review. Especially those of you who have already read it. I've probably already asked you for a review, but I want to remind you – please, please write a review on Amazon. When you have a book on Amazon, reviews are everything. You've gotta have reviews, because they help boost the book in Amazon's discovery engine. So when someone is looking at a related book, they see The Heart to Start. So please buy the book, and please leave an honest review. Again, you can find it at kadavy.net/heart. And I'll have a sample chapter for you on today's show. Mockup credit Join Love Your Work Elite Support the show, get early access to episodes, as well as bonus masterclasses and office hours with me. Sign up at lywelite.com. Feedback? Questions? Comments? I love to hear anything and everything from you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Tweet at me @kadavy, or email me david@kadavy.net.     Sponsors http://brandfolder.com/loveyourwork Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/heart-to-start-mockup/