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Best of 2019 Paul Jarvis: Company of One
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In this episode of the Art of Authenticity, we are joined by Paul Jarvis, the author of the new book, Company of One. Paul has worked for himself and by himself for the last twenty years and is a strong believer that smaller businesses are the way of the future.
His writing has been talked about by everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Arianna Huffington. He’s worked with clients, such as Microsoft, Danielle LaPorte, Mercedes-Benz, Marie Forleo and Warner Music. His ideas and words have been featured in WIRED, Fast Company, Vice, USA Today and more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Paul Jarvis
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Ko, your host, and thank you guys for tuning in. We got Paul Jarvis here. He is an author and podcaster for freelancers and entrepreneurs. Paul's courses, Creative Class and Chip Essentials have been taken by over 13,000 people. His writing has been talked about from everybody from Ashton Kutcher to Ariana Huffington.
00:00:42
Speaker
And his clients are all over from Microsoft to Daniel Laporte, who is on our show. You should check it out. Marie Forleo, he has been featured in Wire Magazine, Fast Company, Vice U.S. Today. It goes on and on and on. He's a super cool guy. I really loved chatting with him.
Defining Success with 'Company of One'
00:00:58
Speaker
He's got a new book coming out, Company of One.
00:01:01
Speaker
Paul has a very unique perspective to share with you guys about what it means to really have success under your own terms. And for those people out there that are thinking about this topic, we are always investigating different people's views of what success looks like, what authenticity looks like. And Paul has a very, very, very thought out, very unique view that he has been
00:01:26
Speaker
thinking about for years and years and it's about how much growth is enough growth and about goals and your ambition and staying present. We hit all of
Exploring Personal Definitions of Success
00:01:36
Speaker
this. So if you're interested in finding that balance and thinking about different ways to explore what it means for you and not just following a prescriptive method, this is the episode for you. Tune in, check it out, check out his new book.
00:01:49
Speaker
company of one. You can find it everywhere. I will also have the links on my website as always and I appreciate you guys listening and I hope you enjoy the show. Hey Paul, how are you? I am great. How's it going? It's going well despite the fact that Chicago is having an abnormally cold fall.
00:02:07
Speaker
where are you calling it from saw that i live on the west coast of canada just above seattle so our winter i grew up in toronto so i understand how chicago winters work because i had the same winters growing up but now it's just rain in the winter and that's all we get but i was watching a chicago channel last night and i saw
00:02:26
Speaker
that last night was supposed to be the coldest night of the month and i was like i don't live in that neck of the woods anymore because i'm now a wimp and if it gets cold i don't know what to do yeah i could go without it but you know i just think global warming too it's it's all over the place now i'm not even sure you know chicago will be a desert in 20 years so
Staying Small in Business
00:02:47
Speaker
Anyways, before we get on a tangent about the environment, I wanted to, just everybody out there who hasn't checked out Paul, he's the author of Company of One. It's a new book, Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business. And I'm excited to have you on because I feel like so many of the people listening are looking for their purpose, looking for the thing that ignites them and excites them. And they also have heard me say over and over and over that it's not just enough to find an authentic life, a purpose based life, but she got to work.
00:03:16
Speaker
And so I loved, like, a lot of what I read in your book because it really dove into, I think, I think that complicated dichotomy. So first of all, before we jump in, though, if you could just give a little background, company of one, where did this come from? We have, you know, what inspired this idea for you?
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, so I've worked for myself for 20 years now and I started out doing web design and I've worked with some of your previous guests and I did well at that. It went well for me. And there was always people were always saying, hey, why don't you hire more designers and some project managers and like build your one person business into an agency because I was always booked like six, nine months in advance.
00:04:01
Speaker
And i'm sure they were all well meaning in that but the problem was that i really like the design aspect of it i liked working directly with clients and working through feedback and problems and so i didn't want to promote myself out of the job i like to do so i didn't i didn't want to grow my business.
Influences on Business Philosophy
00:04:19
Speaker
And then when i moved into products probably about six years ago it was kind of had the same mentality i really like building things and making things and talking to customers and like doing the digging in the research and stuff.
00:04:32
Speaker
And I didn't want to have a business where I wouldn't be doing the things that I like on a daily basis. But it wasn't until probably a couple, probably about 10 years ago when I was talking to one of my buddies, who's a South African surfer, we were actually surfing at the time. So I lived in a little surf town off the coast of Vancouver Island. And he was, I was like August or September. And he was like, well, I pretty much made enough for the year. So I'm going to stop. And then he caught a wave and I was sitting out there still and I was like, what the fuck did you just say?
00:05:02
Speaker
understand the words and I just sat there and then he paddled back like he caught the wave he paddle back to the lineup and we started to talk about it and he was like well I know how much I need like I know how much like to cover my like all of my expenses to put some money away for retirement for everything he's like
00:05:20
Speaker
I don't wanna have to work more than I need to because it's diminishing returns at that point and he's like if i hired more people i would have to do my enough would grow and if i grew my business then the things i needed to do to make enough to get by would increase exponentially and i would have all this more responsibility and he's like i don't want that he's like i want to be able to have three four months of the year to surf more and to go rock climbing everything else i was like.
00:05:46
Speaker
this is kind of the way i've been doing things i haven't thought about it but when he started to explain it in that way i was like i would like to subscribe to this newsletter this is exactly how i've been unconsciously running my business and then when i start to think about it it started to become more of a conscious idea and plan and mindset and then a few years ago i was like this is probably a book
00:06:07
Speaker
Well first it was I'm weird for thinking this way is like me in this one other south african surfer guy thinking like this then i started to write about it and then i got in and dated with people saying i thought i was the only one who didn't wanna grow my business.
Maintaining Passion in Work
00:06:21
Speaker
Okay, this is the problem like the worst pun ever but there's a growing movement of people that don't want to grow their business in the in the normal way and that's kind of how it started. I love it. I love it. I love it. You brought so many things that I want to circle back to so because I was an entrepreneur. I'm not sure if you know but I grew a healthcare company and I
00:06:38
Speaker
I did grow it you know we had yeah i think i don't know fifty seventy five people before i left but build out it systems and everything though to deal with scale and mother why is it might have been several hundred people and i think what you're saying is so critical to get clear on right because if you found what you love in your case design and you grow your company,
00:07:00
Speaker
You will not be doing that you will be managing and delegating and organizing and you have to decide if that's what you love right like cuz all of a sudden you're working with systems and I don't think people think about that so knowing how did you understand that you had really found the thing that you loved and you didn't want to work on growth.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from doing. I think that it's probably hard to just pick a passion out of the air and go for it. It could be doable to do that, but for myself, I need to do things first. And then I'm like, okay, I'm passionate about this. I want to do more of this. I don't think I'm smart enough to just be like,
00:07:42
Speaker
I'd be super passionate at this and I've never tried and never done it but I think this is right for me for my life for for like five ten years so I just didn't doing things like even I didn't think that I wanted to be a writer full time which is pretty much my life at this point until I started to write a little bit and I was like okay this is this is interesting if I want to make this a business and I'll keep track of the income that I can make from writing.
00:08:04
Speaker
And as that grew, I was like, okay, well, I'm actually liking writing more than design said been doing design for about 1214 years at the time. So I was like, maybe if I want to make a goal of this, I'll just kind of keep track of how much I make. And when I start to make more with the writing and the products than I do with the design and the client service stuff, then I'll make the switch. So it was kind of a, it was like a slow process.
00:08:26
Speaker
20 years to get to the place that I'm at now, I think. It just took me trying things and seeing things. I think the problem with the corporate world is that people get rewarded and promoted into managing other people. Like you said, I know some people who are ridiculously good at their calling is managing others.
00:08:51
Speaker
managing teams, dealing with creative people on a team. They are so good at that. But I don't think that should be the default. I love that you said that because I think it's so important not to judge one or the other or like, right, say there's a right way and wrong way. Some people absolutely love management and systems and growth and strategy. And other people love the product, the build, the design, whatever it is. But I think that you to your point, right, culture really
00:09:18
Speaker
Identifies those people and says it's the ambitious route and they pay them more and you know There's there's like this is the path you're supposed to take. Yeah, and that shouldn't be the default It's cool if people want to do that. I don't know lots of people who are totally skilled at it But having that as the default just seems slightly problematic to me
00:09:35
Speaker
And the truth is after I grew my company and scaled it, I was bored out of my mind, right? Like I am a builder. I like to touch things. I like to grow them. I don't really like to sit around and manage them and talk to other people who are doing this stuff that I feel like, you know, touching it is the fun part to me. And so when you talk to me about though, you know, first of all, I love that you said it took 20 years because I, again, I think there's this big myth out there that you just dive deep in your soul.
00:10:04
Speaker
find the thing that you love and then boom, it's all going to just fall into place and it should happen in six months and then I'm going to have passive income and the passive income is going to give me this incredible opportunity to be on a beach to your friend's point and it takes time and what you mentioned about interacting with the world and figuring it out and you're not smart enough is actually what existential philosophy talks about, right? That there's this internal
00:10:28
Speaker
Sense of self the thing that we think we like but then by trying it in the world We figure out is this actually working for me? Does it not work for me? And you have a chapter in your book called when passion is the problem is a problem, right? I loved that right that
00:10:43
Speaker
It's not just enough to say I have that passion. Passion is a concept. When we try it in the real world, we can decide whether or not we're good at it. Then to your point, you want to master it. Can you talk a little bit about this idea of why passion is a
Balancing Passion and Skills
00:11:00
Speaker
problem? You were just hinting at a little, so I just want to go a little deeper into it.
00:11:04
Speaker
I think we put passion in the wrong order. And what I mean by that is a lot of people that, and I think a lot of it has to do with a lack of introspection, which is the problem with pretty much everything ever. Agreed. So for passion, I think the people who are truly doing what they love and passionate about their life and have found their calling,
00:11:27
Speaker
I think that there's two things that have happened before they found the courage to follow their passion. And it doesn't sound as sexy, but I think it's two things. I think it's skills and viability tests. And what I mean by that is I think first people have to have
00:11:43
Speaker
at least some hint that they are skilled, not even the best, because I don't know how to be the best at anything. I don't know how to be the best designer, the best writer. But I do know that if I try things, I can see if I have some skill. And if I don't, I can see if it's something I want to work towards. Because it would be cool if I knew how to play the trumpet. But I don't want to put in the time to learn how to play the trumpet. So it's a skill that in my mind, I'm like, oh, that would be cool to have. But it's like, I'm not going to sit down and try to play the trumpet every single day.
00:12:10
Speaker
So I think that the first thing, skill before passion, is that you need to kind of determine whether or not you have the skill or want to work towards the skill before you take the leap towards that passion. The second thing is that I think it makes sense, and we were kind of hinting at this before, it kind of makes sense to test the leap with small iterations instead of just saying like, this is the passion I think I have, I'm going to stop everything and just do this.
00:12:38
Speaker
I think that that can potentially work, but I think that there's a lot of risk there. And I think contrary to popular opinion, I think a lot of entrepreneurs aren't as risky as other people think. I'm not very risky a person. So I like to try things in a small way. And what I was talking about in the beginning of our conversation was that writing was interesting to me. Writing was a skill that I wanted to further develop, right? And then I started to see, okay, I'm going to completely separate the income I make from web design and writing.
00:13:07
Speaker
and until the writing hits the same because i wanted to do this for a living so until the writing made the same amount of money as my design business i'm not gonna be doing that full time and i had to juggle the two for probably about two and a half years before i made the the leap fully into in the writing and products.
00:13:26
Speaker
So first skill and testing the skill and seeing if it's a skill you want to develop and second, these little iterations or viability tests I think are important because I think then you can end up at a passion, but I don't think the passion is very beginning. I think those two things kind of happen first, but it just doesn't sound as fun.
00:13:44
Speaker
Right? No, and people call me all the time for coaching and I just want to know what I want. I want to know what I want like they're digging and digging into their soul. But it's stressful. It's stressful and it's the most annoying conversation to have with yourself when in reality, right? I tried 10 things and to your point, do I want to continue to do this? You know, I tried writing this book and I sat down and in fact, I felt like I wrote something that I felt good about and then I
00:14:10
Speaker
you know i wanted to keep coming back every single day and work at it and you know develop that skill and continue to do it and the passion and the skill and the work right they all are coming together you can't say you know i wanna feel this deep passion and and not put the time and energy into that skill.
Incremental Progress Over Instant Success
00:14:29
Speaker
And this viability testing, right? Don't you think, Paul, it's really important to think about what that means to you. In your case, you're saying, hey, I want this to bring in enough ink so that it mirrors what I have in the design side and I'll work two jobs. For somebody else, right, to your friend who's surfing. I mean, do you want it to cover three months of your year and then nine months? What does it mean to you to have a viability test? Do you need to...
00:14:53
Speaker
So, you know, not only do I want to find my passion, you know, a lot of people push so hard into that one, but they want to feel like I'm a New York Times bestselling author and I'm a millionaire and I need to be there first. I don't want to really get started until I know that that happens. But in truth, life happens in these little steps one by one over time and to set goals that are more realistic has always made more sense to me.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't even like goals, to be honest. I'm very goal opposed because I think goals can be... So I think that... So two things there. I think you can have a goal to reach enough. So if you want to make rent, that's a good goal to have. If you want to be a New York Times bestselling author, it's kind of a fake goal, right? Yes, exactly. You could even one book away from the list. And are you really unsuccessful if you have one book less than it took to get to that list?
00:15:43
Speaker
Uh-huh, and it doesn't count. So it feels like they're artificial targets. Yeah, and the New York Times bestselling list doesn't even count Amazon sales, right? No. It's like this goofy. It's totally, it feels like some old white, I don't know if it's true or not, but it feels like some old white guy who just feels like he knows books and he's like, this is on the list. Nah, this is not on the list.
00:16:01
Speaker
No, there's a lot of that. I have some people behind the scenes that have informed me about the complexity of that list. So what is the short-term goal in setting up rent or I just want to write a page today and see if I can get that done? Or if I want to start a business, do you want to write a business plan? Could you start there and feel motivated towards that? Because while I don't always think you need a business plan, but
00:16:24
Speaker
working on something that is aligned with a business and meeting one step of that process instead of I need to become a millionaire, right? Yeah. So I think what makes sense for goals are goals that make you be present in the moment, right? So if I had on my to-do list write a book, I would look at that on my to-do list and
00:16:46
Speaker
be stressed out and overwhelmed and probably not do it. If I had on my to do list, write a chapter outline. That's something that I can be present about and do right now. That's something like I have a to do list, but nothing is on it that I can't accomplish in one sitting.
00:17:06
Speaker
If it is too big, then I have to break it down. Otherwise, I'm stressed out just in general, so I don't want my to-do list to stress me out. I want to just be like, okay, here's one thing that I can do. My to-do list is usually only two or three things a day because I don't have time for more than that. Other things, life is always there.
00:17:26
Speaker
Oh, my God. Wait. Pause. Paul, everybody listening out there, I teach this. I talk about this constantly. Nobody wants to hear this one. So I want to pause everybody listening today. That is such great advice. And it's so small. But people feel like if I make this huge list, you know, I don't know, I'm a busy person and I'm busy is good. And I don't know why people do it. But nonetheless, it is so stressful and so overwhelming and a few set up things that you can achieve.
00:17:56
Speaker
achieve them you will feel good every day so sorry I wanted to pause there nobody
Setting Realistic Productivity Goals
00:18:02
Speaker
wants to hear that one why do you think people are resistant to achievable list yeah I mean I have a really apt but awful way to describe it and it's that life sometimes shits on your face.
00:18:12
Speaker
because things always come and I think that the problem is that we think that we can be a lot more productive than we can. Yeah, right. And we try to optimize our tasks and our priorities based on a best case scenario. Yeah. And there is never ever, ever, ever, ever a best case scenario.
00:18:31
Speaker
because things always come up and i mean that when i was freelancing i would always set milestones or deliverables for at least double to triple the time i thought i was gonna take because i i knew that things are always gonna come up whether it's like an important email or like my pet has to go to the vet
00:18:47
Speaker
or we ran out of soy milk and we need some for dinner or something like that. There's always just little things that come up. And so I think we have to be more, because I think the more realistic we can be with our tasks and our priorities, the better we're going to feel. Because like I said, I don't want to be stressed out by my to-do list. And I think the best way to be productive, regardless of a million productivity hacks out there, is to just do less stuff. That's the easiest way to be more productive.
00:19:17
Speaker
So the more that you can figure out, the less you can do, the better you're going to feel about the time. And it doesn't mean you're not doing things. You totally are. But you're just doing them reasonably. It kills the ambitious person inside of us, right? Because if I set up this crazy list and I push myself through it, I'm earned. It's like this. But four agreements, right? You're personal best. And that changes every day. And so I think most of us have this, look, there's the couple days a year where I'm on fire.
00:19:44
Speaker
I can't be stopped, right? And everything is happening and there's this flow state and I get to the end of the day and I can't believe what I've accomplished. But that's not most days, right? And so I think when we set up these lists that are impossible to achieve, we've got this single case scenario of ourself where the wind is at our back and nothing wrong happens and everything is just the phone call comes in.
00:20:05
Speaker
and the emails are float, right? Everything just seems to be flowing. But like you said, most days are more complicated. And when you have an achievable list, you can always add to it if you find that you have more energy at the end of the day. Yeah, exactly. And I think you said it well. Those are exceptions to the rules, not the rules. It's just like being busy.
00:20:24
Speaker
I don't mind being busy as long as it's not the default. If I'm default, if my default for work is busy, then I'm doing something wrong. I truly feel like I'm doing something wrong if my work is busy all the time. Because I don't think that makes for a durable business. I wouldn't be able to, and I've worked for myself for 20 years, I don't think I could sustain that for another 20 years if I was busy all the time. I feel like being busy for little bursts, awesome.
00:20:50
Speaker
Totally cool. Like around book launch, I'm going to be so busy. Probably the month after that, I am going to be not very busy and my calendar is going to be hopefully completely open, right? So I think we can, we need to work in these ebbs and flows and not have it just like hustle mode 110%, like 24 seven. I don't know how, I don't know how you could operate like that in a healthy way.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's not healthy, right? And people are looking at each other thinking, well, but my friend does it and, you know, my neighbor's doing it. And I put behind the scenes and I coach a lot of these people behind the scenes. People are falling apart,
Preventing Burnout and Managing Workload
00:21:24
Speaker
right? They're stressed out. And, you know, people who have come out and publicly said I had a panic attack. I fell apart. Like I've brought on so many people onto the show who admitted, you know, Ryan Holiday, he he ended up in the hospital over it. Right. So, yeah. Yeah.
00:21:39
Speaker
Same. I thought I was having a heart attack the first time I had one. Yeah. And since then, I've radically changed my life as well. And I haven't had any for a while because I was just in that mode of like, everybody's busy. I've got to be busy too. And I'm like, hey, wait a sec. Maybe I don't have to.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, I woke up. I was taking Ambien because I couldn't breathe at nighttime, right? Thinking this is the way to do it, but it's not. And I don't know if people have to hit that wall before they come back, but hopefully enough of us keep saying it to make that point. Yeah, hopefully not because it's a bad place to be in.
00:22:12
Speaker
It really is. It really is. And so you also say in this section, and then I want to move on. But while in the book, once again, guys, if you're interested, the company of one, Paul, has written. It's your first book, yeah? It's my first traditionally published book. I published four self-published books before that. Yeah. Yeah. So you quote, I'm quoting you, while no one should ever tell us to not pursue our passion, we can't feel simply entitled to make money from them.
00:22:40
Speaker
I love this. Thank you. Tell me what your thoughts were behind that and then I'll tell you why I love it so much.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that it's okay to be passionate about things. So one, it's okay to be passionate about things that have nothing to do with work. And I have a little story about that too, is where I was a musician for the longest time, and we started to see success in the band. And I just love music, and I love playing music, I love playing live shows, which is weird, some super introverted and socially awkward, but I could be the guitar player with a loof and not really have to do anything other than like play guitar.
00:23:13
Speaker
But it started to go really well for us. And it turned into a business, whether we wanted it to or not, just because we got more popular and we were touring more and playing bigger shows. So I had to run it like a business. And then I got so pissed off at music because I was like, I just like to do this. And now I now I have to like I have to do bookkeeping for my band like nobody wants to do that. Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
And I have to be doing all of the booking and promos and talking to promoters and college radio stations. And I don't even play music anymore because I just completely burn myself out on that. Whereas I never thought that I would be a writer. As a kid, I wanted to be a dinosaur. It didn't even make any sense. I didn't want to be a writer when I grew up. But that just kind of morphed into something that I'm now super passionate about. So I think that's
00:24:03
Speaker
It's cool to want something but it doesn't want it doesn't mean you should do it in two it doesn't mean that you probably even wanted people idolize like elon musk or steve jobs or oprah or briefly or people like that they might like those people are doing great work right but it may not be a job like i wouldn't want to be i work in tech i would want to be mark zuckerberg i don't want to have to sit in congress in front of congress and answer questions like that.
00:24:28
Speaker
Like that to me would not be that's not my idea of success that somebody else's yeah So even if I succeeded at that, I would just be leaving somebody else's version of it, which doesn't make sense
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah.
Defining Personal Happiness and Success
00:24:39
Speaker
Again, for this podcast and for everybody listening out there, you're just hitting on so many key points, knowing what you love, knowing what you feel passionate around. We put these people on pedestals and it's a small group of people that are the head of these top companies. But if you look behind the scenes at what they're doing on a day-to-day, do you actually want that life?
00:25:00
Speaker
Totally. Yeah, I don't. When we were purchased, a $4 billion business purchased us and I was talking to the CEO, he was so burnt out. He's got a private jet and he has all these stock options, but he hasn't been in the same city one day in a row all year. Yeah, but his Instagram probably looks nice.
00:25:20
Speaker
And he's got a private jet. But that private jet, he's that's where he lives. So you have, you know, like, I want to see the inside of my house, personally. Yeah. Yeah. So each to their own and figuring that out for you. Cool. So on the in the book as well, I really want to highlight some of these other areas while we're talking about passion and figuring out what makes sense for you and thinking about
00:25:42
Speaker
how to get started in small bites you also talk about things like customer service and organization and schedules and we talked about you know starting small testing it making it work but for people who are like and i want to say to everybody listening like again all on point i love everything you're you're saying on these topics.
00:26:03
Speaker
But starting small testing, moving through it, seeing what works, how do you know when to quit? Yeah, and that's a hard question to answer. And I don't even know if I know when to quit. I think for me, at least for me personally, it's when I'm no longer
00:26:20
Speaker
doing the thing that i want when i'm no longer putting in the work and seeing things move forward even if it's a tiny bit like i don't even wanna have like we've been talking about i wanna have a big company i don't wanna be somebody that's like recognize walking down the street or in yoga class i just wanna have my little thing going and do it really well so for me it's always like it depends on the thing so for things like sales like i want something to be because business is hard.
00:26:51
Speaker
I want some things to be easy so if I can't get initial traction for an idea that I have then I don't want to pursue it right because all of the other things to make that business work is going to be very difficult.
00:27:07
Speaker
So if people aren't excited right out of the gate by the idea that I have, and I don't even want to spend a ton of idea on it, a ton of time on it, a good example of that is I built an analytics platform that's privacy-based. And I started by just doing a mock-up of what the software might look like. It took about an hour, put it on the internet, and hundreds of people were interested, and then thousands of people signed up for the list. I was like, okay, that part was easy.
00:27:31
Speaker
all of the other stuff is going to be ridiculously difficult to build the software and build good customer support and do all the server architecture and all of that. But if I can find easy wins, then I know that I should keep moving forward. I've scrapped tons of ideas where I couldn't see a little bit of an easy win in the beginning and I'm like, this could be viable, but I don't want everything to be hard.
00:27:58
Speaker
Couple things to be easy and the other thing is in terms of like the determining when to quit I quit some things that were doing well because they were taking me in a direction that I didn't want to go so I had a company where it was profitable but it was requiring an inordinate amount of customer service.
00:28:17
Speaker
And I didn't want to run a customer, like it was basically I was running a customer service business and that wasn't how I wanted to spend my day. So even though like the money was good, it was profitable, but it required so much support to keep it profitable that I ended up folding it because it wasn't what I wanted to do. And so now I'm always thinking about what is the outcome of success for this and how does that like change my day or change the role that I will have to have with this product or business.
00:28:47
Speaker
And that to me is always the most important thing. It's like I like the life that I have. I'm always willing to try new things and experiment with business, but I don't want to take like I don't want them to have to take me in a direction I know I don't want to go.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's so important. And again, being authentic, what is it you want to spend your time on what excites you what uplifts you not just because you've committed to it and you have the obligation which your chapter title that cracked me up the most opportunities are just obligations wearing an appealing mask.
Recognizing Beneficial Opportunities
00:29:20
Speaker
It's really funny. Most people would be shocked at that statement, right? Because opportunities are supposed to be the best thing ever. So how do you know, right? You got an opportunity, always chase it. But that's not true, right? And what you're saying to over and over is to think about what you love, where you want to spend your time setting up a life that is meaningful to you. And so talk to me a little bit about this idea of opportunities are just obligations.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I think it even comes back around all the things we've been talking about. It's like, so if this opportunity results in success, what does this look like? And then what is the potential risk of this opportunity not working out? So to the latter point, I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket. When I was doing design work, I wouldn't want to just have one client that was bringing in the bulk of my revenue because if that dried up, then it would be really difficult to make money the following month.
00:30:12
Speaker
So I'm always trying to look for things to kind of like a diversified portfolio and investment, another way to put it, where I have a bunch of different things on the go. And yeah, I think that's probably the main thing there.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about, you know, really thinking about what we say yes to. And I think for anybody out there, you know, it's like this question of how do you say yes? Is it just because you see an opportunity? Is it just because you're staying busy? Or is it really fitting in with this bigger question of how you want to spend your time? What makes you happy? What you want to be doing with your life and how much stress and obligation you want to take on against relationships and
00:30:48
Speaker
health etc. And so you know what I love in this book and you repeat over and over is to really keep thinking and introspect, right? People don't want to do that. It's so deeply personal. It's so personal, right? And so just saying yes because it's an opportunity or because you should or because it quote makes sense isn't necessarily true. My yes and yours is going to be very different, yeah?
00:31:13
Speaker
Totally. For me, at least, that's the whole point of authenticity. Am I living for what I want or for what other people want? Because other people may have great intentions. We turn into such people pleasers because the first bit of our life, we just have to listen to others because we don't know any better. So we have to listen to our parents, listen to guidance counselors, listen to teachers,
00:31:36
Speaker
But then it's really hard to break out of that at least for me it was really hard to break out of that where it was like I ended up at really prestigious University and I was like this isn't like I don't want to be here like I ended up in this place because I was just listening to what other people what other people's goals were for me and
00:31:55
Speaker
I was like whoa this is not like i ended up dropping all i have is my high school education at this point but it was the right move for me personally because i was like this isn't like this isn't working for me like this isn't right this isn't a goal that i have this is the goal that somebody else has for me and they might mean well.
00:32:12
Speaker
but they're not me. Yep. Yep. And there's the beginning of the work. What does it mean to say me? And how do we think about that? So you just hit on the question I ask all guests, is there anything else you want to add to that? Cause it was such a beautiful summation, but we know what does an authentic life mean to you?
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it was either Jung or Freud said that the privilege of a lifetime is to become who
Value of Introspection and Self-Care
00:32:35
Speaker
you truly are. And I think that it's hard work. Everybody would do it. But I think it's such difficult work to be truly introspective.
00:32:46
Speaker
Like, it's scary. There's been studies done by universities where people would rather shock them. Men more than women, which I found really, really telling. But people would rather shock themselves than sit in the room and do nothing and think.
00:33:01
Speaker
And it's just so telling of our society at this point where we just have constant need for stimulus that it's okay if it's even harmful stimulus. And it wasn't bad shocks, but it was still, you felt the electric shock. I don't want to be electrically shocked. And it's hard work to be introspective and to think about what you really want because a lot of times we have to unravel those stories that we've told ourselves in our minds because our brains don't always have our best interests at heart.
00:33:30
Speaker
Like they tell us stories and we believe them to be true unless we challenge them. And that challenge is hard work. But I do think that it's necessary. And it's even like I feel like I'm the weirdest author because I'm like, don't read the book and agree with it. Read the book and think about it.
00:33:46
Speaker
The things that I lay out in company want aren't for everybody, but you have to decide what's right for you and what's not right for you, and probably everything in the book isn't right for everybody. But I think that this thinking about things and thinking about us and thinking about... Because it's funny, because starting a business requires ego, because you think you can do something better than somebody else.
00:34:06
Speaker
But which is a good which is kind of good. But then we don't apply ego to like what's right for us a lot of the times. It's hard. It's hard work to say I want to do what's right for me. Like I have to take care of myself. I got to put my mask on in the plane if the oxygen thingies drop from the ceiling before I help my loved one sitting beside me.
00:34:28
Speaker
And in order to help my loved ones sitting beside me, I have to take care of myself first. But in life and in business and in goals and in all of that other stuff, it's hard to unpack that and be like, okay, taking care of me makes sense for being a helpful person, for being a good person in society and to my loved ones, to my family. Taking care of me has to come first, and it's hard. It's hard work. I'm not great at that.
00:34:52
Speaker
to be honest all the time. No, I mean, we're great at it all the time, right? I always joke I'd be Buddha and there's only a couple people. Yeah, I love that answer. So what are your daily rituals? Do you have anything you could share with the audience? Meditation, walks, like what do you do to bring yourself back to that authentic core when you lose it? Yeah, I mean, I'm a fan of slow-mo, which I feel is the opposite of FOMO.
00:35:18
Speaker
I turned off every notification on every single one of my electronic devices probably five years ago now, other than phone calls, which nobody ever calls me. Even my mom texts me and text messages. During the day, I have my phone on Do Not Disturb. I have no notification. If somebody messages me on social media, I don't know. If somebody emails me, I don't know.
00:35:40
Speaker
unless i'm doing so i feel like the only way that i know how to get work done i'm not smart enough to multitask is just if i'm doing something i'm in it like if i'm on twitter that's the only thing i'm paying attention to if i'm an email same thing so i try to go slowly but i feel like going slowly
00:35:57
Speaker
I don't have that FOMO, that fear of missing out, because I'm just focused on the one thing. And I do exercise a lot. My wife is a firefighter, so she has a free gym that I can use, which I feel is pretty awesome. So I go to the gym all the time. I live in the
00:36:14
Speaker
rainforest in the woods on an island. We used to live downtown Vancouver and now we live middle of nowhere. I feel like that pace is really good for me. I haven't had a panic attack since I moved to the middle of nature, which is probably a connection there.
00:36:30
Speaker
Also things like eating for like eating is a huge thing for me I did a food I did like the weirdest nerdiest food journal many years ago where I paid attention to how my attention and focus were altered after I'd eaten the foods that I was eating and I drastically changed my diet after I paid attention to that because I was like I
00:36:48
Speaker
some foods are making it really hard for me to concentrate or some foods are making it really hard making me really really groggy and so by changing that i noticed huge differences and i feel like i can sit and work for an hour at a time if i treat my body like i feel like the more that i treat my body right the more that my brain rewards me with the ability to think and be creative.
00:37:11
Speaker
and i feel like that not a lot of people pay attention to that especially people who work a lot where they don't take time for themselves to decompress i did have a almost a daily yoga practice as well like a.
00:37:22
Speaker
I feel like I'm more productive because I spend a lot of time not working. And I feel like by doing that, when I am working, I am just laser focused. Get my stuff done and then I can do the other things. And I feel it's more productive that way. 100%. Couldn't agree more. Everything you're saying, I love it. Paul, thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing all these incredible tips with everybody. If people are interested in you, the book, where can they find you?
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, so Company of One is available pretty much at every bookseller, digital, and probably locally as well. The website is ofone.co for the book, and then I write a weekly newsletter, and I've written it every Sunday since November 2012 called The Sunday Dispatches, and that's just on my personal site, pjrvs.com. Awesome. Thank you, Paul. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks, Laura. This is great.