Love Your Work

Elise Bauer's SimplyRecipes (@simplyrecipes) is where I go when I'm searching for a recipe. I always find something healthy and delicious, with clear instructions and beautiful photos, all posted by Elise herself. Honestly, I probably don't have to type in the "simplyrecipes" part because the site is extremely popular. It's been featured in Time Magazine and was named the #1 food blog by the Daily Meal 4 years in a row. Whatever I'm looking for, I find it, because Elise has posted about 1,600 recipes over the past 15 years. She started SimplyRecipes when she was so sick, she had to move back in with her parents at the age of 40. At first, she was hand-coding her recipes in static HTML and just posting them to her personal site, Elise.com. Now the site has grown so massive, she recently sold it to Fexy Media, but still handles all of the cooking and writing and posting of recipes. I wanted to bring Elise's story to you not only because I love SimplyRecipes, but also because she has such a great story. As you'll hear in the interview, during a difficult time, she took the little things that were good in her life and expanded on them. She doubled down on love and built something great. Sponsors http://wpengine.com/loveyourwork http://activecampaign.com/loveyourwork http://kadavy.net/audible Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/elise-bauer-interview/    

A/B testing is a really hot topic in entrepreneurship. Fortunately, I think people have started to come to their senses with it. It's not that it doesn't work if you really know what you're doing, but it can really lead you astray when you are early on in a project.   I've heard Ramit Sethi mention recently that he wasn't really A/B testing until he was at about $1 million revenue. I recently heard Noah Kagan say "almost nobody should be A/B testing."   In this article, I share my experiment with A/A testing, and some of the misleading "results" I discovered.   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/loveyourwork http://activecampaign.com/loveyourwork http://kadavy.net/audible   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-32-stop-ab-testing/

How can your ego hold you back in your aspirations, your successes, and in your failures? Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday) covers it all in his new book, "Ego is the Enemy." You can buy it at kadavy.net/ego   As Ryan talks about in the discussion, he sort of wrote this book for himself. Ryan had an unusual amount of success very early in life. He dropped out of college at 19 to apprentice under author Robert Greene. He worked for a Beverly Hills talent agency, advising multiplatinum musicians, and he was the head of marketing at American Apparel by the time he was about 21.   In addition to writing books, Ryan helps other authors market their books. He's worked with authors like Tucker Max, (who we spoke with on episode 29), Tim Ferriss, and James Altucher.   In this discussion we talk about how to recognize how ego holds you back in all aspects of life and work, and what to do about it. There are lots of helpful thoughts about how to balance your passion projects with your day job, and we also talk about so-called "pageview economics," something Ryan has a lot of insight into. If you want to know how media works, you should also read his first book, "Trust me I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator." You can find it at kadavy.net/trustme    Sponsors: http://wpengine.com/loveyourwork http://activecampaign.com/loveyourwork http://kadavy.net/audible   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-31-ryan-holiday-tame-the-enemy-inside/

The places you invest your money, and the objects you surround yourself with both have a huge influence on how you spend your time and energy, and buying this $600 lamp helped me read more books. This article is available on Medium. You can just google $600 lamp, or go to http://kadavy.net/medium Sponsors http://kadavy.net/treehousehttp://kadavy.net/audible Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-30-buy-a-600-lamp-read-more-books/    

Tucker Max, a New York Times bestselling author and founder of Book in a Box, shares his insights on book marketing and writing. He discusses the psychological differences between web content and published books, emphasizing the importance of strategic positioning. Max breaks down the art of crafting good book titles versus clickbait, and how personal fulfillment plays a role in creativity and social media dynamics. He also highlights how his business helps transform knowledge into engaging books for those who struggle with traditional writing.

Tuesday was the 12-year anniversary of my very first blog post. On this week's show, I'm bringing you the top lesson that I've learned from 12 years of blogging.   That blog post could easily be the worst blog post I've ever written, but it's actually the best blog post I've ever written.   I'll explain why in this short article. You can find this article on my Medium profile at http://kadavy.net/medium   Sponsors Treehouse: http://kadavy.net/treehouse Audible: http://kadavy.net/audible   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-28-start-where-you-are/

Jeff Goins is the author of The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do.   In The Art of Work, Jeff explains why finding your calling doesn't always follow the neat storybook path that you expect. You have to listen to your life, engage in painful practice, and build bridges all to let your story emerge.   In this discussion, we talk about how clarity comes with action, what makes practice deliberate practice, and why frequency matters more than quantity.   He'll also share the most cringe-inducing story of asking someone out I think I've ever heard. Don't worry, there's a lesson to be learned from it. Here's the interview.   Sponsors: http://kadavy.net/treehouse http://kadavy.net/audible http://kadavy.net/activecampaign   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-26-jeff-goins-listen-to-your-life/

I recently turned 37, and this is everything I've learned so far. I originally wrote this post on Medium. Here's the text of the post, in case you're reading this description: 37 LESSONS FROM 37 YEARS I have been alive for 37 years. Here is everything I’ve learned: 1. Whenever possible, act now. 2. You’re worth so much more than your eyeballs. 3. What you think is “all in your head,” may actually be in your body. Find a good doctor. 4. Trust your subconscious. It knows your path better than you do. 5. Get therapy. 6. You’re bombarded with mediocre opportunities. 7. Thus, it’s your challenge to ignore mediocre opportunities. 8. You’re bombarded with mediocre friendships and relationships. 9. Thus, it’s your challenge to ignore mediocre friendships and relationships. 10. Most people are dying to distract themselves from their own thoughts. 11. There is a lot of money to be made in distracting people from their own thoughts. 12. Thus, everything around you is built to help people distract themselves from their own thoughts. 13. So, ignore most everything, and make space for your own thoughts. 14. Nobody reads the whole article before commenting. 15. Nearly everybody is “juicing.” They’re making themselves sick trying to catch up with one another. 16. Thus, your challenge is to catch up with your self. 17. You can only know so much. 18. And, your brain is ruled by biases. 19. Thus, you can hardly trust what you think you know. 20. And, you can only know so much about a person. 21. So, if you feel jealous when comparing yourself to someone else, you’re wrong. 22. Take improv classes. It will get you out of your head, and into the moment. 23. Take voice lessons. It really is possible to improve your singing. 24. Only sing in a key that is comfortable for you. 25. Take lessons in a social dance (Salsa, Swing, Tango, etc.) You’ll learn to cooperate, and you’ll have instant community anywhere you travel. 26. Traveling sucks. It’s much better to live in different places for short bursts. 27. What you think is a personality flaw may just be the bad influence of the place where you live. 28. What you think sucks about where you live may just be a flaw in your perception. 29. If you merely suspect something is holding you back. It’s not. You are. 30. When you dream of something, that thing seems impossible. 31. When something you dream of feels impossible, it makes you unhappy. 32. Thus, be comfortable with where you are. 33. But still, dream, while being comfortable with where you are. 34. When you use a bookmark, you invite yourself to forget what you’ve read. 35. Thus, don’t use bookmarks. 36. Smart people do dumb things when the pressure is on. 37. Even though it’s cliché to end a list with something pithy, it ties it up nicely. Clichés are clichés for a reason. Sponsors http://kadavy.net/treehouse http://kadavy.net/activecampaign Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-your-work-episode-25-37-lessons-from-37-years/      

Steve Case is the former CEO of AOL – America Online. Many of you probably chuckle when you see someone with an email address that ends in AOL.com, but for me and many millions of others, AOL was our first contact with the Internet. Steve has a new book out called The Third Wave. The premise is that the first wave of the internet was building the infrastructure – things like getting computers with modems into people's homes, and getting them on the internet, the second wave was software-focused – things like Facebook, and now that we have all of that built out, it's time to change more entrenched industries like Healthcare, Food, and Government. Steve stresses that perseverance is going to be critical in the Third Wave, which is something for all of you Lean Startup practitioners to consider: you can't necessarily abandon your idea because you don't get traction right away. You'll also have to form partnerships – sometimes with big, entrenched organizations that are slow-moving. So, opportunities to create something world-changing by just writing a few lines of code are becoming scarce. I really enjoyed the book – especially the parts about the early days of AOL. AOL had a huge impact in the 90's, and I remember flipping through channels and seeing Steve on CNN giving some kind of Senate testimony. I don't remember what exactly he said, I just remember thinking it was really next-level stuff to my 17-year-old brain. It was the first time I had any awareness of how entrepreneurs and technology shape culture and shape humanity. I hadn't realized before reading the book that it took AOL about a decade to really get traction, so it was interesting to hear those stories of the perseverance that is going to be so critical in the Third Wave. I think Steve's theories about the Third Wave make a ton of sense. Thanks to having infrastructure, we had a good decade or so where our world was reinvented by software, but now there are big challenges in changing slower-moving industries. Even if you're a solopreneur like me, even if you're an employee for life, and you don't have interest in disrupting entrenched industries, it's important to think about these larger trends and how they effect the world around you, and your relevance. Sponsor: http://kadavy.net/treehouse Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/steve-case-podcast-interview/  

Discover the secrets to saving time and energy through effective mind management. The host shares strategies to maximize productivity, emphasizing the power of tailored routines over strict scheduling. Learn a quick work initiation hack that adapts to your cognitive demands. Plus, celebrate milestones and explore habit-forming tools like the Pavlok device, designed to help you ditch bad habits. Tune in for practical tips that can transform your approach to work and life!