January 24, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode, we explore the Craftsman Mindset from Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You. This idea flips the script on "following your passion" and emphasizes mastering skills as the key to meaningful work.
I share a powerful dream that confirmed my dedication to my path, reflect on the challenges of entrepreneurship, and discuss how honing skills—like marketing and leadership—has brought meaning to my work. We also touch on examples like Steve Jobs and finding fulfillment in any job through mastery.
If you’re questioning your path or looking for more purpose in your work, this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So I wanted to talk aboutsomething that I learned recently. It's a concept called the Craftsman mindset. This is from a book, from a book that
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some of us at the studio arereading. It's called So Good They Can't Ignore You. And the book goes on about kind of differentiating. Well, not
differentiating, it's making anargument about
developing skills over followingyour passion. And that's like a very oversimplification of of the book, but it's
(00:34):
just making an argument againstthe whole idea of like you need to follow your passion and all this kind of stuff. And so I wanted to start with this dream
I had, which might be kind ofweird, but it'll lead into, it'll it'll lead into what I'm what I'm trying to talk about here. So in this dream, I dreamt
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that I died, and myconsciousness was still there, so I was able to think and kind of like reflect on on things in my life. And one, one thing that
hit me immediately was I wasvery disappointed that I didn't accomplish all the things that I was trying to accomplish. And then shortly after that, I was
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disappointed that I couldn'tcontinue on the path that I'm currently on. And
when I woke up, I thought a lotabout it, and it was interesting, because,
you know, a lot of times like, Iquestion what I'm doing, like, I I'm not going to give up obviously. Well, not obviously to you, but to me, it's obvious.
But there's no part of me thatwants to give up, and there's nothing else that I would want to do, but sometimes I'll, I'll think about my life and and I
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wonder if this is how I'msupposed to be living, you know, because,
you know, being an entrepreneuror running a business, I guess there's similar things. There's, I don't know that's a whole nother conversation, but it's
it's challenging and it'sstressful, and so most of my days are filled with stress and anxiety and all these kind of feelings that,
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you know may seem negative, butyou know, on the level of
of being A business owner,that's like what you sign up for. So those,
if you look at it objectively,those are just things that are just the way they are. And Alex or mosey makes an argument about, you know, don't assign
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these
good or bad labels to these kindof feelings. Because,
you know, I think he might havegot that from stoic philosophy, because there's a whole concept of within stoicism that, you know, it's not the things that
bother us, it's, it's our
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drawing a blank, but it's ourperception of those things that really bother us. So is being stressed and anxious about the future and about, you know,
accomplishing things and and allthese different problems that always come up in business. Is that a bad thing? I don't think that it necessarily is. There is
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some,
obviously, some
research and whatever you knowthat it's not necessarily good for you, you know, to be stressed out all the time. And so that that stuff comes into my
mind pretty frequently, and it'slike, man, is this really fucking, is this really what I'm doing? You know, I'm dedicating pretty much my whole life to
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building this business,
and it occupies the vastmajority of my time, and oftentimes when I'm even sleeping, like I'm dreaming about problems and shit. So it's
like that that'll tend to causeme to question, question, you know, is this the right thing? And so when I had that dream, it was like kind of confirmation,
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because in the dream, it wasvery real to me that I was dead, and that was it. My My journey was over, and I'm sure if I was, you know,
if I didn't wake up immediatelaugh immediately after that, there would have been a lot of other things, like I would not be able to be with Jesse
anymore, I wouldn't have my dogsand all these kind of things. But right after I
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I had that feeling that I wasvery disappointed that I didn't get to continue living the life that I was living. That's when I woke up and I felt like that was
confirmation that, like, well,you know, when I am questioning, is this what I need to be doing? You know,
in in a sense, I was dead, andit was the journey was over, and I got to experience that. So I kind of feel like now I know that if I didn't get to do this
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anymore, I would be reallydisappointed. So there, you know, there's definitely something to be said about that.
And so then to tie back to.
I back into the what I talkedabout in the beginning, I was thinking about that dream, and I had this dream before I started reading this book.
And when I was reading thisbook, it was pretty interesting, because you hear a lot of people say, like, find your passion and follow the passion, and all
(05:17):
these kind of things. And like
a lot of people will say, like,find something you're passionate about and build a business around it. And that's what I did with machine, you know. So I,
I'm obviously passionate aboutgraffiti, and I love the culture and all that stuff. I don't love everything about it, but, like, you know, as an overall concept,
I do love the graffiti culture,and I want to give back to the to the culture and all these kind of things. But
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you know, when you when youreally break down what I'm doing day to day, it's not like I'm doing graffiti for a living. You know, I'm building a business.
I've built a business aroundgraffiti, and I'm trying to scale this business so at the end of the day,
you know, this bit, the thingsthat I have to do can apply to any business, like I'm doing marketing, I'm doing leadership. I'm kind of, you know, I don't
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know. I don't need to go on thewhole list, but there's a whole bunch of shit that I have to do day in and day out that is not graffiti, and most of the stuff
that most of my time isobviously not spent doing graffiti. It's operating a business. I make a lot of content, so I do
get to get out and spray paintfrom time to time, but that doesn't
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occupy a whole lot of time. Youknow, the spray painting part of any of these videos that I make is just a few minutes, and the rest of it is editing and
writing captions and doing allthese things, scheduling posts and posting it across all these platforms and all this stuff. So like, what I'm getting at is
like I did, in a sense, pursuemy passion, but but
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more so I'm operating a businessthat could be for any avatar, essentially. So
let's see, how do we tie thisall together. So in the book, one of the best examples that he gave, well, I don't even know if it's the best, but one of the
examples that stuck out to me,and I think it was probably one of the first, if not the first, example of a person that he gave, was Steve Jobs. So like
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when he described Steve Jobs,and I'm going to paraphrase, because I don't remember exactly everything that he said, but Steve Jobs, before he started
Apple, he was more of like ahippie type of dude. You know, he was known for
walking around his college withno shoes on, and I think he went off into some Zen meditation retreats and shit like that. So you wouldn't think that he would
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become like a tech giant, hethat didn't seem to be where his passions were. And so when Apple came to be, and I won't really get into the whole story, I
would I would say, go in andlook, look it up. Or maybe I'll put a link to something in there, because I don't remember exactly, bit by bit how it all
unfolded, but my understanding,and what I remember is that Steve found an opportunity, because at the time when Apple came out, computers were more of
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like a hobbyist type thing, andobviously for professionals and stuff like that. But it was just starting to get into where people could use them at home.
But there wasn't like pre madecomputers. It was like,
I think he said something aboutgoing to a hobby store, but I don't think it was the same kind of hobby store that I picture, like remote control cars and
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shit like that. But I might bewrong. I don't know if there was, like, computer hobbyist type stores, but anyway, so those are the places where you
would get these kind of, likehome computers.
And so Steve Jobs found thisopportunity where he could get these chips, or something like that, and sell the chips to these stores. And then when he
tried to do like on a like, lookthis up, because I probably have some details wrong, but this is how I understand it, and for the sake of what we're talking
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about, it'll work. So myunderstanding is the one of the stores was like, I will buy X amount of pre built computers, and it was kind of a lot. I
think it was like, 50 orsomething. I'll buy X amount of these, but I want to all in one thing. I don't want the chips. I want a whole computer. And so,
long story short, that's kind ofhow Apple started. Steve Jobs found this opportunity. And he was not a tech guy. He didn't know how to do any of that
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stuff, as far as I know. So hegot other people involved. There was one guy, I can't remember his name, and then there was Steve Wozniak.
And between these people, theyhad everything they needed to get this thing off the ground. So, you know, obviously Apple turned into what
what we know now, and Steve Jobsturned into the person that we know now. And obviously, when, if you saw any of his
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keynote speeches or anythinglike that, he was obviously very passionate about what he was doing. But he didn't get there by pursuing his passion. He got
there by, you know.
Know, finding an opportunity.But this is where the Craftsman mindset comes in.
You know, it's, it's abouthoning in specific, a specific skill set that's needed to advance in any endeavor. So in his case, in his career. And so,
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to tie this together a littlemore, the reason why? Well, the this book came up because I wanted to read this with a couple people on my team to kind
of get this idea across of justgetting really good at something, so regardless of what it is. So when I'm reading this book, I'm thinking like,
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you know, when I startedmachine. I didn't really think about being passionate about all of the inner workings of running this business, but over time, I
did become passionate aboutlearning all of those things. Like I was never interested in marketing. I never had any interest in it at all. And I
don't necessarily enjoymarketing, but I am developing a lot of passion around,
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you know, learning that skilland developing that skill. So the more I do it, the more that's where the Craftsman mindset comes in, trying to get
so good at something that youcan't be ignored. So
if this, this can apply tosomebody, you know, working at a job that you might not think like, you know, I don't, I don't really like what I'm doing, but
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if you take the time to getreally good at whatever it is that you're doing, you can find some kind of enjoyment in that. And, you know, there was another
thing that
the guy that wrote theUntethered Soul, he did a it was like an audio book. I don't know if it's written as well. I would imagine it isn't, but on Audible
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I found it, and it was like, Ithink it was called Untethered Soul at work or something like that. And
it was like a collection oflectures that he did, and one of the things that he said, and this was a while back that that I listened to this, but it
really stood out to me that
you could find a lot of pleasurein any work that you're doing. So he was talking about, well, I don't know if it was pleasure, but it was meaning you could
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find a lot of meaning in anywork. So
let's say you're like, thelowest person on the totem pole, and your job is, like, to clean the toilets and sweep the floors. And that was one of the
examples that he used.
People might think, like, howcan I find any meaning in a job like that? Like, that's just kind of like, whatever work. But there's a lot of people that do
find meaning in that kind ofstuff, and people, maybe above them may look down on that work that that person's doing, but
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not in my company. I certainlydon't look down on anybody that does any of that kind of work. I mean, I'll, I'll fucking clean the toilets too, you know, I
don't really care. But,
you know, he was talking about,you know, when you're cleaning the floor, if you have a lot of if you're invested in that task, in doing the best job you could
possibly do, you can find a lotof meaning in that. And you know, you're making the floor look really nice for everybody else that's in there, and you're
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contributing to the sort ofvibration of everybody, you know. So like, if you walk into a place and the floor is all sticky and gross and shit,
that's gonna lower the energy inthe room. But, like, if you go in and everything's all clean and shiny and like, you know, well taken care of, and it looks
like whoever's running thatestablishment actually cares, then,
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then that work has a lot ofmeaning. You actually contributed to the happiness of everybody else. It's not like, everybody's gonna come in and be
like, Oh, this floor is so nice,and that's gonna, like, elevate them, but every little thing,
every little thing, can add asmall amount of like, I don't, I don't know, like, high frequency or whatever the fuck like, for example, like Jesse and I, when
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we were thinking about moving toVegas, we were looking for Like places to eat. And both of us are vegan, so it's like, not the easiest. It's not the hardest
either. It's, I don't know it iswhat it is. So we were looking for like vegan places, and we found this one. I can't remember what it was called, but we went
there and it was disgusting. Thefood was really good, you know? And it was expensive, too. I mean, it wasn't like, it wasn't like super expensive, but it
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was, you know, it wasn't likecheap food, you know. It wasn't like 10 bucks a person. It was, you know, I don't remember 20 bucks a person or something. I
don't know. Whatever it was. Itwasn't cheap food, you know, and but it was, it was so gross in there, it was, it like, just lowered,
it just lowered the value ofeverything. Like, even if the food was like the best food ever, like the floor was sticky and it was like, noticeably
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dirty, and, you know, they hadlike,
I saw them, like I saw the guythat was wiping the counters down, and he just went over there was, like, these five.
Fucking buckets and shit justsitting in the view of all the customers, like it was really in the dining room, and off to off to the side against the wall,
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and the guy just reached in, andthere was a bucket full of water, and just grabbed a rag and just started, like, cleaning everything with it. Then he just
threw the rag back in thebucket. And I'm like, How old is that fucking rag water that's in there? You know what? I mean, it's just sort of like, lowered
everything, and it gave theimpression that, like, they didn't give a fuck, you know, even though the food was good. So maybe that, maybe the the
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chefs cared about their endproduct, but maybe the food wasn't even good. I just liked it. I think Jesse didn't like it anyway. I'm kind of getting off
track. But so back to theCraftsman mindset. So that's why we wanted to have some people that on our team read it, because
I think that's a really healthything to do, because there's an argument to be made that you could pursue your passion, and it could lead you to getting
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nowhere in life. And there wassome examples there. They had, like, a couple different people, where they were sort of highlighting in one chapter, and
one person pursued theirpassion, and one person pursued skills. And the person that pursued skills was in a
was in an in a job that, like,you know, he wouldn't necessarily do in his free time, but that was the job that he got. It was a good job, and he
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spent a lot of time focusing ondeveloping the skills needed to do that job really well. And he ended up, like really excelling and doing really well in life,
and also developing someenjoyment in his work. You know, it's it's even if you're doing something that you don't necessarily like, if you if
you're really good at it, like,there's some some enjoyment in that. So there's something to be said there. And then there was another person that pursued
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their passion, and they ended uppretty much losing everything. And so they they made this sort of like,
I don't know what the word is,but they, they sort of did, like a comparison, I guess, of where these two people were at the same time, and they basically
started at the same time. Andthe person that pursued skills was,
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I don't remember exactly what hewas doing, but maybe he was like, buying his dream house or something crazy like that, and then the woman that pursued her
passion was in line to get foodstamps or some shit like that. I don't remember exactly, but that's pretty much the gist of what happened. So it doesn't
necessarily mean that you knowthe people that pursue their or the people that say to pursue your passion are wrong. This book is just making an argument
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for the other side. Rather thanPursue your passion, pursue getting really good at what you're doing. And so I think it, I don't know how much it ties
into the shit I was talkingabout with the dream and all that stuff, but the, I guess it does. So long story short, like I did sort of pursue my passion,
but it didn't. It doesn'tnecessarily mean that
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that's the work that I'm doing.In fact, like, I wouldn't even really want to do that if somebody was like, hey, you know you could do graffiti and get
paid for it, and that's what youwould do. I don't know that I would necessarily want to do that, because then eventually graffiti would become work. If I
had to do it, like, if it waslike, hey, you know, you have to go paint today, or you're not going to get paid, I would probably start hating painting.
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You know, I wouldn't really likedoing it back in the, you know, I don't know when I started doing motion graphics, like I I started learning about it in 98
and
I started my motion graphicscompany in 2002 and when I was learning about it, I was loving what I was doing. I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed doing
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that. And then when I wasrunning the business, I still enjoyed doing it. And even when we had downtime, I spent a lot of time learning how to develop
those skills even better. And soI guess, I guess I had a little bit of both. I was pursuing art in a commercial way, so that it was like I was still doing
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artistic shit, but I was,
you know, being able to earnmoney by doing it, because I never really saw the path of, like, being a professional artist, like selling art and
shit. That was never reallysomething that was of interest to me. And I couldn't even really conceptualize, like, how that would work. And commercial
art makes a lot of sense,because you have a customer. They have a need. You know, if you're good at your craft, then you can fulfill that need, and
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you get paid. It's like, prettysimple,
you know, a pretty simple, Idon't know if simple that's, you know,
it makes more sense to me. Itso, it makes a lot more sense to me. So I think I was pursuing a passion and a craftsman mindset while I was doing that. And I.
Ended up getting out of thatbecause I didn't like the people that I was doing the work for. Like, I don't know, no, no hate on TV producers, because I met
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some cool ones. Like, there wasa lot of, you know, I can think of a few people that I kind of miss, you know, interacting with them. But there was a lot of
them that were just, I don'tknow, there's just a weird attitude in the television industry that, like, eventually I was like, This is not for me.
And I don't, I don't really wantto do this anymore, and that's kind of what led to,
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led to me doing what I'm doingnow. So anyway, I'm starting to ramble so I don't know. Check out the book. It's called so good, they can't ignore you.
There's a there's a lot of goodstuff in there about developing the Craftsman mind mindset. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that are doing jobs that they
don't necessarily enjoy. And ifyou were to adopt this craftsman mindset, I think you would enjoy your work quite a bit more, even if it's like a temporary thing,
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and you're like, I'm gonna dothis until I make enough money to be able to do my own thing. There's no reason to not get really good at whatever it is
that you're doing. So anyway,hope that was helpful. I'm gonna get going and yeah, I'll talk to you next time.
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All right,
appreciate each and every one ofyou guys who are supporting the cause and continue to spread the love and yeah, stay up.
So I wanted to talk aboutsomething that I learned recently. It's a concept called the Craftsman mindset. This is from a book, from a book that
(00:10):
some of us at the studio arereading. It's called So Good They Can't Ignore You. And the book goes on about kind of differentiating. Well, not
differentiating, it's making anargument about
developing skills over followingyour passion. And that's like a very oversimplification of of the book, but it's
(00:34):
just making an argument againstthe whole idea of like you need to follow your passion and all this kind of stuff. And so I wanted to start with this dream
I had, which might be kind ofweird, but it'll lead into, it'll it'll lead into what I'm what I'm trying to talk about here. So in this dream, I dreamt
(00:55):
that I died, and myconsciousness was still there, so I was able to think and kind of like reflect on on things in my life. And one, one thing that
hit me immediately was I wasvery disappointed that I didn't accomplish all the things that I was trying to accomplish. And then shortly after that, I was
(01:17):
disappointed that I couldn'tcontinue on the path that I'm currently on. And
when I woke up, I thought a lotabout it, and it was interesting, because,
you know, a lot of times like, Iquestion what I'm doing, like, I I'm not going to give up obviously. Well, not obviously to you, but to me, it's obvious.
But there's no part of me thatwants to give up, and there's nothing else that I would want to do, but sometimes I'll, I'll think about my life and and I
(01:47):
wonder if this is how I'msupposed to be living, you know, because,
you know, being an entrepreneuror running a business, I guess there's similar things. There's, I don't know that's a whole nother conversation, but it's
it's challenging and it'sstressful, and so most of my days are filled with stress and anxiety and all these kind of feelings that,
(02:13):
you know may seem negative, butyou know, on the level of
of being A business owner,that's like what you sign up for. So those,
if you look at it objectively,those are just things that are just the way they are. And Alex or mosey makes an argument about, you know, don't assign
(02:34):
these
good or bad labels to these kindof feelings. Because,
you know, I think he might havegot that from stoic philosophy, because there's a whole concept of within stoicism that, you know, it's not the things that
bother us, it's, it's our
(02:54):
drawing a blank, but it's ourperception of those things that really bother us. So is being stressed and anxious about the future and about, you know,
accomplishing things and and allthese different problems that always come up in business. Is that a bad thing? I don't think that it necessarily is. There is
(03:15):
some,
obviously, some
research and whatever you knowthat it's not necessarily good for you, you know, to be stressed out all the time. And so that that stuff comes into my
mind pretty frequently, and it'slike, man, is this really fucking, is this really what I'm doing? You know, I'm dedicating pretty much my whole life to
(03:36):
building this business,
and it occupies the vastmajority of my time, and oftentimes when I'm even sleeping, like I'm dreaming about problems and shit. So it's
like that that'll tend to causeme to question, question, you know, is this the right thing? And so when I had that dream, it was like kind of confirmation,
(03:57):
because in the dream, it wasvery real to me that I was dead, and that was it. My My journey was over, and I'm sure if I was, you know,
if I didn't wake up immediatelaugh immediately after that, there would have been a lot of other things, like I would not be able to be with Jesse
anymore, I wouldn't have my dogsand all these kind of things. But right after I
(04:22):
I had that feeling that I wasvery disappointed that I didn't get to continue living the life that I was living. That's when I woke up and I felt like that was
confirmation that, like, well,you know, when I am questioning, is this what I need to be doing? You know,
in in a sense, I was dead, andit was the journey was over, and I got to experience that. So I kind of feel like now I know that if I didn't get to do this
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anymore, I would be reallydisappointed. So there, you know, there's definitely something to be said about that.
And so then to tie back to.
I back into the what I talkedabout in the beginning, I was thinking about that dream, and I had this dream before I started reading this book.
And when I was reading thisbook, it was pretty interesting, because you hear a lot of people say, like, find your passion and follow the passion, and all
(05:17):
these kind of things. And like
a lot of people will say, like,find something you're passionate about and build a business around it. And that's what I did with machine, you know. So I,
I'm obviously passionate aboutgraffiti, and I love the culture and all that stuff. I don't love everything about it, but, like, you know, as an overall concept,
I do love the graffiti culture,and I want to give back to the to the culture and all these kind of things. But
(05:44):
you know, when you when youreally break down what I'm doing day to day, it's not like I'm doing graffiti for a living. You know, I'm building a business.
I've built a business aroundgraffiti, and I'm trying to scale this business so at the end of the day,
you know, this bit, the thingsthat I have to do can apply to any business, like I'm doing marketing, I'm doing leadership. I'm kind of, you know, I don't
(06:07):
know. I don't need to go on thewhole list, but there's a whole bunch of shit that I have to do day in and day out that is not graffiti, and most of the stuff
that most of my time isobviously not spent doing graffiti. It's operating a business. I make a lot of content, so I do
get to get out and spray paintfrom time to time, but that doesn't
(06:28):
occupy a whole lot of time. Youknow, the spray painting part of any of these videos that I make is just a few minutes, and the rest of it is editing and
writing captions and doing allthese things, scheduling posts and posting it across all these platforms and all this stuff. So like, what I'm getting at is
like I did, in a sense, pursuemy passion, but but
(06:50):
more so I'm operating a businessthat could be for any avatar, essentially. So
let's see, how do we tie thisall together. So in the book, one of the best examples that he gave, well, I don't even know if it's the best, but one of the
examples that stuck out to me,and I think it was probably one of the first, if not the first, example of a person that he gave, was Steve Jobs. So like
(07:16):
when he described Steve Jobs,and I'm going to paraphrase, because I don't remember exactly everything that he said, but Steve Jobs, before he started
Apple, he was more of like ahippie type of dude. You know, he was known for
walking around his college withno shoes on, and I think he went off into some Zen meditation retreats and shit like that. So you wouldn't think that he would
(07:39):
become like a tech giant, hethat didn't seem to be where his passions were. And so when Apple came to be, and I won't really get into the whole story, I
would I would say, go in andlook, look it up. Or maybe I'll put a link to something in there, because I don't remember exactly, bit by bit how it all
unfolded, but my understanding,and what I remember is that Steve found an opportunity, because at the time when Apple came out, computers were more of
(08:10):
like a hobbyist type thing, andobviously for professionals and stuff like that. But it was just starting to get into where people could use them at home.
But there wasn't like pre madecomputers. It was like,
I think he said something aboutgoing to a hobby store, but I don't think it was the same kind of hobby store that I picture, like remote control cars and
(08:31):
shit like that. But I might bewrong. I don't know if there was, like, computer hobbyist type stores, but anyway, so those are the places where you
would get these kind of, likehome computers.
And so Steve Jobs found thisopportunity where he could get these chips, or something like that, and sell the chips to these stores. And then when he
tried to do like on a like, lookthis up, because I probably have some details wrong, but this is how I understand it, and for the sake of what we're talking
(08:58):
about, it'll work. So myunderstanding is the one of the stores was like, I will buy X amount of pre built computers, and it was kind of a lot. I
think it was like, 50 orsomething. I'll buy X amount of these, but I want to all in one thing. I don't want the chips. I want a whole computer. And so,
long story short, that's kind ofhow Apple started. Steve Jobs found this opportunity. And he was not a tech guy. He didn't know how to do any of that
(09:24):
stuff, as far as I know. So hegot other people involved. There was one guy, I can't remember his name, and then there was Steve Wozniak.
And between these people, theyhad everything they needed to get this thing off the ground. So, you know, obviously Apple turned into what
what we know now, and Steve Jobsturned into the person that we know now. And obviously, when, if you saw any of his
(09:49):
keynote speeches or anythinglike that, he was obviously very passionate about what he was doing. But he didn't get there by pursuing his passion. He got
there by, you know.
Know, finding an opportunity.But this is where the Craftsman mindset comes in.
You know, it's, it's abouthoning in specific, a specific skill set that's needed to advance in any endeavor. So in his case, in his career. And so,
(10:17):
to tie this together a littlemore, the reason why? Well, the this book came up because I wanted to read this with a couple people on my team to kind
of get this idea across of justgetting really good at something, so regardless of what it is. So when I'm reading this book, I'm thinking like,
(10:39):
you know, when I startedmachine. I didn't really think about being passionate about all of the inner workings of running this business, but over time, I
did become passionate aboutlearning all of those things. Like I was never interested in marketing. I never had any interest in it at all. And I
don't necessarily enjoymarketing, but I am developing a lot of passion around,
(11:07):
you know, learning that skilland developing that skill. So the more I do it, the more that's where the Craftsman mindset comes in, trying to get
so good at something that youcan't be ignored. So
if this, this can apply tosomebody, you know, working at a job that you might not think like, you know, I don't, I don't really like what I'm doing, but
(11:29):
if you take the time to getreally good at whatever it is that you're doing, you can find some kind of enjoyment in that. And, you know, there was another
thing that
the guy that wrote theUntethered Soul, he did a it was like an audio book. I don't know if it's written as well. I would imagine it isn't, but on Audible
(11:51):
I found it, and it was like, Ithink it was called Untethered Soul at work or something like that. And
it was like a collection oflectures that he did, and one of the things that he said, and this was a while back that that I listened to this, but it
really stood out to me that
you could find a lot of pleasurein any work that you're doing. So he was talking about, well, I don't know if it was pleasure, but it was meaning you could
(12:16):
find a lot of meaning in anywork. So
let's say you're like, thelowest person on the totem pole, and your job is, like, to clean the toilets and sweep the floors. And that was one of the
examples that he used.
People might think, like, howcan I find any meaning in a job like that? Like, that's just kind of like, whatever work. But there's a lot of people that do
find meaning in that kind ofstuff, and people, maybe above them may look down on that work that that person's doing, but
(12:44):
not in my company. I certainlydon't look down on anybody that does any of that kind of work. I mean, I'll, I'll fucking clean the toilets too, you know, I
don't really care. But,
you know, he was talking about,you know, when you're cleaning the floor, if you have a lot of if you're invested in that task, in doing the best job you could
possibly do, you can find a lotof meaning in that. And you know, you're making the floor look really nice for everybody else that's in there, and you're
(13:11):
contributing to the sort ofvibration of everybody, you know. So like, if you walk into a place and the floor is all sticky and gross and shit,
that's gonna lower the energy inthe room. But, like, if you go in and everything's all clean and shiny and like, you know, well taken care of, and it looks
like whoever's running thatestablishment actually cares, then,
(13:34):
then that work has a lot ofmeaning. You actually contributed to the happiness of everybody else. It's not like, everybody's gonna come in and be
like, Oh, this floor is so nice,and that's gonna, like, elevate them, but every little thing,
every little thing, can add asmall amount of like, I don't, I don't know, like, high frequency or whatever the fuck like, for example, like Jesse and I, when
(13:57):
we were thinking about moving toVegas, we were looking for Like places to eat. And both of us are vegan, so it's like, not the easiest. It's not the hardest
either. It's, I don't know it iswhat it is. So we were looking for like vegan places, and we found this one. I can't remember what it was called, but we went
there and it was disgusting. Thefood was really good, you know? And it was expensive, too. I mean, it wasn't like, it wasn't like super expensive, but it
(14:22):
was, you know, it wasn't likecheap food, you know. It wasn't like 10 bucks a person. It was, you know, I don't remember 20 bucks a person or something. I
don't know. Whatever it was. Itwasn't cheap food, you know, and but it was, it was so gross in there, it was, it like, just lowered,
it just lowered the value ofeverything. Like, even if the food was like the best food ever, like the floor was sticky and it was like, noticeably
(14:48):
dirty, and, you know, they hadlike,
I saw them, like I saw the guythat was wiping the counters down, and he just went over there was, like, these five.
Fucking buckets and shit justsitting in the view of all the customers, like it was really in the dining room, and off to off to the side against the wall,
(15:10):
and the guy just reached in, andthere was a bucket full of water, and just grabbed a rag and just started, like, cleaning everything with it. Then he just
threw the rag back in thebucket. And I'm like, How old is that fucking rag water that's in there? You know what? I mean, it's just sort of like, lowered
everything, and it gave theimpression that, like, they didn't give a fuck, you know, even though the food was good. So maybe that, maybe the the
(15:34):
chefs cared about their endproduct, but maybe the food wasn't even good. I just liked it. I think Jesse didn't like it anyway. I'm kind of getting off
track. But so back to theCraftsman mindset. So that's why we wanted to have some people that on our team read it, because
I think that's a really healthything to do, because there's an argument to be made that you could pursue your passion, and it could lead you to getting
(16:03):
nowhere in life. And there wassome examples there. They had, like, a couple different people, where they were sort of highlighting in one chapter, and
one person pursued theirpassion, and one person pursued skills. And the person that pursued skills was in a
was in an in a job that, like,you know, he wouldn't necessarily do in his free time, but that was the job that he got. It was a good job, and he
(16:25):
spent a lot of time focusing ondeveloping the skills needed to do that job really well. And he ended up, like really excelling and doing really well in life,
and also developing someenjoyment in his work. You know, it's it's even if you're doing something that you don't necessarily like, if you if
you're really good at it, like,there's some some enjoyment in that. So there's something to be said there. And then there was another person that pursued
(16:52):
their passion, and they ended uppretty much losing everything. And so they they made this sort of like,
I don't know what the word is,but they, they sort of did, like a comparison, I guess, of where these two people were at the same time, and they basically
started at the same time. Andthe person that pursued skills was,
(17:17):
I don't remember exactly what hewas doing, but maybe he was like, buying his dream house or something crazy like that, and then the woman that pursued her
passion was in line to get foodstamps or some shit like that. I don't remember exactly, but that's pretty much the gist of what happened. So it doesn't
necessarily mean that you knowthe people that pursue their or the people that say to pursue your passion are wrong. This book is just making an argument
(17:44):
for the other side. Rather thanPursue your passion, pursue getting really good at what you're doing. And so I think it, I don't know how much it ties
into the shit I was talkingabout with the dream and all that stuff, but the, I guess it does. So long story short, like I did sort of pursue my passion,
but it didn't. It doesn'tnecessarily mean that
(18:07):
that's the work that I'm doing.In fact, like, I wouldn't even really want to do that if somebody was like, hey, you know you could do graffiti and get
paid for it, and that's what youwould do. I don't know that I would necessarily want to do that, because then eventually graffiti would become work. If I
had to do it, like, if it waslike, hey, you know, you have to go paint today, or you're not going to get paid, I would probably start hating painting.
(18:32):
You know, I wouldn't really likedoing it back in the, you know, I don't know when I started doing motion graphics, like I I started learning about it in 98
and
I started my motion graphicscompany in 2002 and when I was learning about it, I was loving what I was doing. I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed doing
(18:54):
that. And then when I wasrunning the business, I still enjoyed doing it. And even when we had downtime, I spent a lot of time learning how to develop
those skills even better. And soI guess, I guess I had a little bit of both. I was pursuing art in a commercial way, so that it was like I was still doing
(19:15):
artistic shit, but I was,
you know, being able to earnmoney by doing it, because I never really saw the path of, like, being a professional artist, like selling art and
shit. That was never reallysomething that was of interest to me. And I couldn't even really conceptualize, like, how that would work. And commercial
art makes a lot of sense,because you have a customer. They have a need. You know, if you're good at your craft, then you can fulfill that need, and
(19:40):
you get paid. It's like, prettysimple,
you know, a pretty simple, Idon't know if simple that's, you know,
it makes more sense to me. Itso, it makes a lot more sense to me. So I think I was pursuing a passion and a craftsman mindset while I was doing that. And I.
Ended up getting out of thatbecause I didn't like the people that I was doing the work for. Like, I don't know, no, no hate on TV producers, because I met
(20:07):
some cool ones. Like, there wasa lot of, you know, I can think of a few people that I kind of miss, you know, interacting with them. But there was a lot of
them that were just, I don'tknow, there's just a weird attitude in the television industry that, like, eventually I was like, This is not for me.
And I don't, I don't really wantto do this anymore, and that's kind of what led to,
(20:28):
led to me doing what I'm doingnow. So anyway, I'm starting to ramble so I don't know. Check out the book. It's called so good, they can't ignore you.
There's a there's a lot of goodstuff in there about developing the Craftsman mind mindset. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that are doing jobs that they
don't necessarily enjoy. And ifyou were to adopt this craftsman mindset, I think you would enjoy your work quite a bit more, even if it's like a temporary thing,
(20:53):
and you're like, I'm gonna dothis until I make enough money to be able to do my own thing. There's no reason to not get really good at whatever it is
that you're doing. So anyway,hope that was helpful. I'm gonna get going and yeah, I'll talk to you next time.
(21:15):
All right,
appreciate each and every one ofyou guys who are supporting the cause and continue to spread the love and yeah, stay up.
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