Love Your Work

May 5th, 1979. It was a jovial atmosphere. A new person was coming into the world. But as soon as the child was born, the room went quiet. The doctors predicted the baby wouldn't make it through the next 24 hours. Now, over 35 years later, as that baby, now an adult, would joke in his TEDx talk – all of those doctors are dead. And Sean Stephenson @theseantourage is the only doctor that remains. Sean Stephenson was born with brittle bone disorder. His growth was stunted, and he's suffered hundreds of bone fractures throughout his life. But his condition has armed Sean with superpowers. He discovered that he has the power to rid the world of insecurity. In fact, it's become his life's mission – what he was born to do. Sean Stephenson is a therapist, an author, and a motivational speaker. I first came across his work when a friend shared a video on Facebook. I was immediately struck by Sean's positivity, and I became an instant fan. As someone who has struggled with insecurities – like everyone does, whether they accept it or not – Sean was immediately disarming to me. He's is uniquely qualified to help people break through the stories they tell themselves. Not just because of his life experiences, but also because of his training. We'll get into how Sean discovered his superpower, and what he's learned about bringing growth into his life. Sean's Facebook Page  Sean's ebook "How to Stay Positive When Life Gets Sean's free "Principles on How to Live an Empowered Life"     Sponsorshttp://kadavy.net/premium Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/sean-stephenson-interview/

Routines can reduce cognitive friction and boost your productivity. But do you really want to do the same thing every day? You know I think productivity is all about mind management, not time management. Routines are useful for managing your mind. On this episode, I'll tell you how having a weekly routine can help you boost productivity and be more creative, without boring yourself to death. This article originally appeared on Medium. If you are listening to this before 5pm PST on Friday May 5th, 2017, pay close attention. Stop whatever you're doing, and go to gettingartdone.com.   I'm writing a new book. It's called Getting Art Done, and you can preview it for free if you act fast.   If you ever have trouble bringing your work into the world. This is the book for you. It will give you actionable steps to break down fear and self doubt, and make your art real.   Go to gettingartdone.com and sign up for email updates. That's gettingartdone.com. Do it now before the timer on the website runs out.   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/weekly-routine-podcast/  

Ned Scott (@certainassets, Steemit: @ned is trying to reinvent the way content gets made. He wants you to get paid in the process. Ned is the co-founder of a cryptocurrency called STEEM, and he's CEO of a website that runs on STEEM, called Steemit. Basically all of the actions that you would normally take on a site such as Reddit – writing posts, upvoting, or commenting, mines the STEEM – that's S-T-E-E-M – cryptocurrency. You can then cash in that cryptocurrency for the currency of your choice. The attention economy and digital distraction You've heard me talk about the economics of digital distraction on the podcast before. Hooked author Nir Eyal and I talked about it on episode 21. Companies such as Facebook steal your attention, because the current models of supporting content creation incentivize them to do so. For example, because the bulk of Facebook's revenue is from ads, they want you to spend as much time on your news feed as possible. This then incentivizes content creators to create the most attention-grabbing content possible. They'll use tactics such as inciting rage – even if it means ruining an innocent person's life. We saw this tactic backfire when Gawker outed a closeted gay executive. Or, they'll just plain lie – which is something we're seeing with the current "fake news" crisis. The incentives of the attention economy By the way, I discussed some of these incentives with Ryan Holiday on episode 31. Ryan wrote a great book on the subject with Trust Me, I'm Lying. Will STEEM incentivize different behavior? Well, that remains to be seen. Many journalists are currently paid by the page view. I have journalist friends who have worked at a respectable newspaper, and their performance was measured by the page views on their stories. Think about that for a second. They weren't allowed to own stocks because it would be considered a conflict of interest in case they had to write about one of those companies, but somehow being rewarded by the page view is not a conflict of interest? So if journalists are no longer paid by the page view, but instead by their work being upvoted – the incentives will shift somehow. It's hard to say whether it would be good or bad, but they will shift. Spending attention vs. spending STEEM My theory is that we spend our attention far differently from how we spend our money. We're wired not to see the fruit in the bush, but rather the tiger behind the fruit in the bush. With STEEM we aren't spending our money, per-se, but there appears to be a different psychology to upvoting on Steemit. I'm sure those incentives bring along other quirks. From what I've seen, the most popular content – hence the content that has earned the most money – on Steemit is about STEEM. Content like this podcast, I guess. Other than that, like I say, it remains to be seen. To wrap your head around it, I'd recommend signing up at Steemit.com, and looking around. By the way, my Steemit username is kadavy, so let's connect there. Can you earn money on Steemit? I've been a STEEM user (@kadavy), or rather I've used the website Steemit (yes, it's a little confusing at first), for several months now. I've converted some of my STEEM to Bitcoin, just to run a test. So far, I've earned spendable money for using Steemit. And, as I record this, the total value of all of the STEEM that is out there is at over 50 million dollars. Where does that money come from? How does STEEM work? Why might it work in the long run? and why might it not work? Ned and I will talk about all of that and more in this conversation. Remember, none of this is investment advice, just an exploration of a potential new way to incentivize content creation. Seth Godin interview coming soon! A very revealing Seth Godin inteview is coming soon. Make sure you're subscribed, so you don't miss the episode.     Sponsorshttp://freshbooks.com/loveyourwork Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/steem-podcast-ned-scott/    

Warren Buffett (@WarrenBuffett) and I were neighbors. He lived in his famously modest house on Farnam. I lived in a $535-a-month 1-bedroom, in a basement with moldy carpet, several blocks down, on 49th. I used to live down the street from the famous mega billionaire, Warren Buffett. I never even saw him, but his presence taught me a lot. This article originally appeared on Medium. Sponsors http://freshbooks.com/loveyourwork Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/warren-buffet-lessons-podcast/  

Jorge and Tanja wanted to travel the world, dance and party. It turns out, they were able to do that and make more money than they ever imagined they would. Jorge and Tanja wanted to make it as a professional Salsa dancing couple. They aspired to travel the Salsa circuit, to perform in competitions, and they figured they could make ends meet teaching classes in their home city. But the Salsa world was crowded. To make their debut as a dancing couple, they found they couldn't get a slot as Salsa performers. So, they put together a performance dancing Bachata. Bachata is a Dominican style of music first recorded in the 1960's. (Medicina De Amor is played at this point in the intro.) In recent years, Bachata has been remixed with current pop hits. Bachata is kind of Salsa's little cousin. (Latch Bachata Remix is played at this point in the intro.) Bachata wasn't as popular as Salsa, so Jorge and Tanja were able to make an appearance. The performance – danced to Xtreme's "Te Extraño" – ended up on YouTube. And it exploded. Their debut performance has amassed nearly 100 million views, and it's launched Jorge and Tanja – and Bachata dancing – into super stardom. Today, 9 years later, Jorge Burgos and Tanja Kensinger are known as Ataca y La Alemana (joint Instagram). They're Bachata royalty. They travel the world, run conferences, and their dance company, Island Touch, has dance teams all over the world. Sponsors http://freshbooks.com/loveyourwork Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/ataca-la-alemana-interview/  

I take focus seriously. The way I see it, being productive is not about time management. It's about mind management. If you're fully-focused on the task at hand, you can have way more creative output. So, I experiment a lot with ways to deepen my focus. Some of the methods I've settled into are unconventional. I'm going to share them with you today. This article originally appeared on Medium. Sponsors http://freshbooks.com/loveyourwork Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/10-unconventional-podcast/  

Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover) loves software products. He wanted to share new software products with other people who love software products. So, he started a little email list. There were a few dozen people on the list. They were submitting products to the email list, so Ryan got to learn about new products every day. But the email list grew rapidly. Once it got to a few hundred subscribers, Ryan decided it was a time to build a site. Three years later, Ryan sold his site, ProductHunt, for about $20 million. I don't spend much time in Silicon Valley these days, but I've at least heard that Ryan Hoover is kind of the golden child of the valley. He's perfectly executed building ProductHunt, and most importantly, building the community that drives ProductHunt. And I think you'll notice in this conversation. I actually got kind of frustrated talking to Ryan. He seems to have always made the right decisions. I think some people are able to do that, but I'm not one of them. I think it's actually hard to learn from people who do things right. That's why, on Love Your Work I'm always digging for the ways my guests have changed over the years, and where they went wrong along the way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel you can learn more from hearing about how someone changed than about how they executed everything right. In any case, Ryan's story is a great example of how you can build something explosive by starting with something you're curious about, and building a genuine community around it. Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/ryan-hoover-interview/  

Learn how to hijack habits you don't want, and replace them with habits you do want. I'll specifically be talking about how to replace a Facebook habit with a book-reading habit. That's what I did, and that's what worked for me. But, you can try this with any habits you want to hijack. This article originally appeared on Medium. You can follow me at kadavy.net/medium Don't forget to take the Love Your Work survey for a chance to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card: http://kadavy.net/survey   Show Notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/hijack-habits-podcast/

Joanna Wiebe, Founder of Copy Hackers, talks about facing writer's block, the importance of research in writing, and leveraging customer feedback. She shares her journey from an information business to building Airstory, an app for writers. The podcast explores streamlining the writing process with Airstory and information cards, highlighting the evolution of business from information to software solutions.

How do you feel first thing in the morning? If you're human, you're probably at least a little bit groggy. You aren't thinking straight, you can't focus. You're a wasted morning just waiting to happen. So, the first thing you do is reach for the coffee. I have a suggestion that may help you get more out of your mornings. Are you ready for this? I think you'll hate me for it. Well, I think you should let the coffee wait. I promise, I can explain. You see, that groggy feeling you have in the morning. You can do some amazing things in that state. It's the subject of this week's episode. This article originally appeared on Medium. You can follow me on Medium at kadavy.net/medium. Before I begin, how would you like a $20 Amazon Gift Card? Sound good? Well, I'm GIVING AWAY a $20 Amazon Gift Card every Friday from March 10th until April 7th. All you have to do is go to kadavy.net/survey and answer our short listener survey to be entered to win. It's seriously short. It will take you less than two minutes. I promise. Remember, I'm giving away a gift card EVERY WEEK, so, the sooner you answer the survey, the more chances you get to win. You only have to answer the survey once, and you'll get up to 5 chances to win. This episode comes out March 9th, so if you go to kadavy.net/survey and answer the survey RIGHT NOW, you'll have a very high chance of winning a $20 Amazon gift card, because I'm giving away a gift card TOMORROW. Again, go to kadavy.net/survey for a chance to win a $20 Amazon Gift card. Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/write-first-coffee-later/