Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - How to be an ENTREPRENEUR! CALL IN SHOW

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Aug. 29, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:28:55

How to be an ENTREPRENEUR! CALL IN SHOW

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	Well, first, first I want to thank you for your time.
	But, you know, I just want to make sure that I do that upfront just because it's generous of you to spend your time this way.
	But basically, yeah, I've been at this job for ten years.
	I have about thirteen years in software development or so, maybe it's nine years for this job.
	And we were acquired just this year.
	And then, slowly but surely, the screws have been turning in terms of just further process and micromanagement and whatever and the current project.
	is basically to rewrite, or in my mind, sort of destroy, everything that we were writing for the last nearly decade.
	And that's caused me to definitely start thinking about going, you know, leaving.
	Part of it was really the micromanagement and all that stuff.
	I was really coming into it.
	But as I've been thinking on this for weeks, some of it's like trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life, I guess, and realizing that.
	Uh, if I ever went to do entrepreneurial stuff that I don't really have a definition of done and to to launch into that.
	So, you know, I'm looking at, you know, my finances now and how much I make and all that, and like I could survive for X number of years off of savings and interest and whatever the house is paid off and all that stuff.
	But that doesn't feel good enough.
	I feel like, and so then if I extrapolate and I say, oh, well, what if I saved for what if I. kept at this for ten more years and I had, let's say, a million in the bank and I could live off the interest per month from that?
	The same problem, the same, at least, philosophical problem exists.
	You're still dealing with the opportunity cost of not making money every day and a burn down rate on your savings and all that.
	So I think that in there is the real crux of the issue.
	You know, we could talk about me finding whether it's mature or not to find the micromanagement and the processes that are being imposed on us and whatever, whether that's actually worth leaving a job for or not.
	But I do think that the kind of crux of it is, is I'm realizing that there's there's not an endpoint that makes sense to actually go do like what's the point of the money?
	You know what I mean?
	Like, like, what's the point of saving if I'm not going to go do the thing that I want to do?
	Like, if the point of the money is to go, you know, make games or make software that I actually want to make as opposed to working for somebody else.
	And then I extrapolate ten years and that doesn't necessarily meet, you know, a definition of done or whatever such that I could go do that, then it doesn't make sense to not do it now or something like that.
	I think I'm mixing myself up a little bit here, but does that make sense?
	So what is your family situation and how old are you?
	I'm 38.
	When I moved across the country a few years ago, it happened to align with COVID.
	I was planning to have a family that has not worked out.
	We then attempted to do foster.
	I don't think that will work out, but it's still a possibility.
	We looked at adoption.
	This is my frugality coming out, but I really don't think adoption is for me.
	I had no idea how expensive it was, and you might still get a drug baby or whatever.
	You might tell that I'm reasonably risk averse, at least for these kinds of things.
	Yeah, so 38, no kids.
	I have a wife, own my house, decent savings, not a lot of debt.
	The debt that I have is either zero percent APR or it's school debt, which if the government is going to threaten to pay it off, then I figure we'll just pay it off slow in case they ever do pull the trigger on that.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So again, sorry if this is an uncomfortable topic.
	Don't talk about anything that you don't want to, but what was the story with having kids?
	Well, when we got together, which was quite a while ago, twelve years ago or so, probably twenty five or twenty six, we were neither of us were super interested.
	And I had always kind of assumed that I would go adoption anyway.
	This is just sort of programming from school, I would say, like, oh, we shouldn't have too many kids because the world already has enough or that kind of thing.
	And so I think I was, I don't know if I was convinced on that, but I was sympathetic to it enough because it suited me, maybe.
	And so then we did take care of Anise for a year, and that was probably around when we were thirty.
	It might have been a little bit later than that.
	It was in this kind of interim where I was planning to move, but we hadn't moved yet.
	And we took care of her for about a year.
	She went back to her father, and that's right.
	Why were you taking care of Anise?
	So if you had me take your quiz on how screwed up my family is, I'd probably score very low.
	But my wife's family was horrendous.
	And so her sister drank herself basically into a coma and then abducted her kid and made them homeless using the kid as a way to get into shelters.
	And her niece or our niece contacted us and said, Hey, I'm homeless, can you help?
	So we said, Yes, but we are not taking in your mother.
	So we did that.
	And then it didn't go perfectly swimming.
	We couldn't even get guardianship or anything.
	We couldn't really get both parents to cooperate at the same time.
	So after about nine months or so, we got her back to her dad when he had gotten his self straightened out enough to, you know, have an apartment and a stable job and all that stuff.
	Okay, got it.
	All right.
	And so when was that?
	As I think on a bit, probably when I was 31, 31 or 32, because we were talking about how we'd probably be moving in the next couple of years.
	But we hadn't moved yet.
	And I moved when I was 34, I believe.
	you Thank you.
	okay got it and did your wife also um go with the um We can't have kids because there are too many babies in the world, kind of propaganda?
	No, she Well, I don't I don't quite know how to answer that.
	I don't think so.
	I think she was she's sort of deathly afraid of having a being growing inside of her.
	I think that's that's part of it.
	Okay.
	I also think that she's lived with enough insecurity in her life that maybe that was part of it.
	I actually don't I probably don't have the root of that, if I'm honest.
	Uh, so how long have you guys been together?
	We were together.
	It's been, uh, it's it's about twelve years, I think.
	Um, I could trace it back to either 2013 or 2014.
	I get the years a little mixed up.
	Um, we were together for.
	Lee was seven years before I proposed.
	And then we moved, we married after we moved.
	We were originally going to marry before then, but COVID, you know, we were going to have like masks at the wedding and, you know, six feet between guests and all that stuff.
	We said, this is dumb.
	We're just we'll just move and then we'll do it, right?
	That's a little bit talking past the sale.
	I'm sure you're wondering why it took seven years.
	I have questions.
	Sure.
	Do you want to ask them or should I just No, no, I mean, just tell me what was the seven year thing?
	I just I I I don't have a good answer for that, I guess.
	It always just felt like it wasn't Sorry for the dead error.
	I'm thinking on the fly here.
	Take your time.
	Yeah, it just I think we were both waiting for the other to commit more.
	Like I was always kind of like, well, you know, if you want to get married, like you should act more like the house is part of yours.
	And I think for her, it was like, well, I don't want to take care of the house as much as if it's not part mine.
	Like she didn't have a stake.
	And I felt like if you want a stake, you should act like it.
	So that might have I think that's a way to phrase it.
	Like sort of.
	a stalemate on that because the house was in my name and I was paying for everything and whatever, but she didn't have a stake in it until we moved and then I, you know, and then when we bought this house, I put her on the deed and then we got married.
	So, you know, everything's very solidified now.
	But at the time, I think that was part probably a security thing on her side.
	You know, she was also wondering, like, why aren't you marrying me?
	But.
	But I I think it was just sort of what I didn't I didn't I didn't feel it yet.
	Sorry, um, what were you hoping to feel?
	Uh, that's a good question.
	Um, I don't know.
	I guess I guess I thought that at some point she might go on her own.
	Like to some degree I was in it, uh, transactionally maybe.
	Like when she was going to school, part of it was, you know, if we were having a ro hard time, part of my brain was saying, well, I want to make sure she gets through school, so I'm not an excuse for her not to get through it.
	Because that had sort of happened to someone she had been with before, where she felt like when their situation dissolved, she had to quit school for various reasons to take care of herself and that kind of thing.
	And so, so yeah, that doesn't answer your question.
	I'm sorry.
	No, that's fine.
	I mean, these are not always the easiest questions to answer, so that's totally fine..
	Yeah, I I think sometimes I was.
	sticking around in part because of, uh, that's who I am.
	You know, duty or something like that.
	And, and, and other times it was good, but like if the time, if we, if it wasn't going good, then that was a good glue was like setting a, I definitely through portions of my life set goals or time frames or that kind of thing to be able to keep myself.
	on the straight and arrow, you might say, right?
	So, so when I was planning to move across the country, that was like a five year plan.
	I said, okay, I I like that area.
	I'm going to move in X amount of time, but to do that, I'm going to save a whole bunch in equity and I'm going to keep an eye on the markets and make sure that the differential is still there.
	So we make money in the move by a significant margin.
	And then if I lose my job, I can whatever.
	Right?
	So it was like a plan.
	And so I build these sort of long term plans around swaths of my life to keep myself on track, you might say.
	And so I think that could have been part of it too, frankly, is keeping things stable and not acting rashly, that kind of thing.
	Okay, I think I got it.
	And where did you guys meet?
	I was in a metal band for a while.
	I guess technically I might still be in one, but I'm basically the member that's left.
	And so she had dated the singer years before that.
	And then she moved into town and came to see the band as sort of becoming friends again with the singer.
	And I chatted her up thinking that they were getting back together, not real, that was not the case.
	And anyway, she invited me to her birthday party, which was a couple of days later, which was like karaoke and stuff.
	And it became very obvious that her and the singer were not together, and so I asked her out on a date and went from there.
	Okay, got it.
	What did you play in the band?
	I am or was a bassist.
	Since then I've also done lead vocals.
	And that kind of thing, but not very many of them.
	Okay, got it.
	And how did you get into the computer programming side of things?
	I started doing a little bit of modding and/or game programming when I was in high school, and I was originally going to be a Marine.
	That was the plan, right?
	I told you we set up plans anyway.
	Then that didn't work out.
	I'm sure you'll ask a question about that in a minute.
	And so then it was like, well, I can do band.
	band and college.
	And so college, I kind of straddled math and or computer science.
	And at some point I was convinced more towards computer science angle because it, frankly, it's more practical for job use and if I did want to do stuff on my own later, you know, it's it's more practical for, let's say, starting a software company.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And sorry, just remind me how old you are?
	38, right?
	38.
	38.
	And your wife?
	38.
	38.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So it's unusual, not bad or anything, but it is a little unusual for people of different family sort of situations to get together, like wildly disparate family situations.
	So what was your family situation?
	What was her family situation?
	And so I can get a sort of sense of the difference between the two.
	Yeah.
	So I grew up pretty middle class, two-parent household until late high school.
	My dad was a nuclear engineer slash like spec ops warfare guy.
	So he was, you know, I always say, every war you've heard of and every war you haven't heard of, kind of a thing.
	He was he was doing it all.
	That's who he was, you know, and she grew up, her dad committed suicide very early.
	And she grew up semi-homeless, in and out of different homes.
	Her mom is basically a drug addict who's professionally homeless, you might say.
	I don't quite understand the laughter here.
	It's I guess it's nervousness.
	Yeah, if you could, because it's a bit disconcerting.
	Yeah.
	I know it's I guess it's not your job to know how to do this, like, daddy on the internet thing, but it is a bit disconcerting if you're talking about suicide and homelessness.
	Yeah.
	It's So she grew up in and out of different homes, couldn't quite get, like sometimes a family would get close to wanting to adopt her, but then you have all the hurdles of the state, and then she'd get nabbed by her mom and then shipped off somewhere else in Rhode Island.
	I'll say rural Oregon.
	We don't live there anymore, so it doesn't matter.
	Yeah, yeah, okay.
	And then her mom would get another husband, and then something would happen there, and then they'd move again.
	And so she was in and out of different homes, and it was reasonably rough going.
	going.
	Uh, she emancipated herself at fifteen, I want to say, and then, um, finished high school, uh, how do you say it at not, not, um, where you do it on your own, however you say that.
	Yeah, at GED, I think it's called something like that.
	It's it's it's it's still a high school diploma, but it's.
	she did it on her own time, rather than Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And what does she do for a living?
	Well, um, frankly, I've I've earned well for our entire time.
	So despite, you know, trying to make sure that she got her degree because she wanted to, uh, we, she did that.
	She did a little bit of graphic design for a while.
	Um, and off and on, she'd hate those jobs and that kind of thing.
	So for the most part, uh, she's been pseudo stay at home off and on, depending on how how bored she is really.
	So for the last few years, especially since the kid, when the kid's situation isn't working out, let's say.
	So we did have foster placements for a little while.
	So when we didn't have foster placements, she's tried out different small businesses like making soaps and lotions and nickncks and those kinds of things.
	And so currently she does a few days a week at a shop where she sells oddities, let's say.
	She pins bugs and that kind of thing.
	She pins bugs?
	What is that?
	Yeah, it's like taxidermy for bugs.
	Like you mount them in.
	frames or put them next to dried flowers or in a cloche and that kind of thing.
	Okay.
	And so has she had any kind of career that would be, I don't know, standard or, you know, not that that's better or worse, but not really since we've been together.
	Like I said, she did a couple of years of graphic design, but it was very not.
	didn't pay as well as you would hope for a graphic design degree, right?
	helping make pamphlets for the schools and that kind of thing where they do they sell like local coupons to burger joints and that kind of thing, right?
	So it was like some of those kinds of businesses or a place that made like all kinds of safety signs and that kind of stuff and they weren't very fulfilling, we'll say, and the pay wasn't amazing.
	And so basically if she wanted to go, I said, well, you don't have to stay there.
	Like we're more than covered.
	So that was my position.
	And I would rather have a happy wife and a clean house and all that niceties of that than a job.
	But then, you know, an extra 10% income or 20% income that's unnecessary, frankly.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So she has been a lady of leisure to some degree, right?
	To some degree, yeah.
	Okay.
	I mean, because she works a couple of days a week, right?
	Yeah, right now it's probably three, I'd say.
	Three days a week.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And does she have ambitions for anything else or, I mean, how is she going to have, is this a satisfying life for her?
	Is this what she wants as a whole?
	I think right now she's probably satisfied.
	That would be a good question to ask her.
	But there have been a few jobs where she probably would have taken them if I didn't prefer that she had some more time at home for homemaking, let's say.
	So like she could have worked for the local township or whatever to do something.
	I don't quite remember what it was.
	I think she had a there was a graphic design gig she could have done for the town or.
	There might have been another job that she had considered.
	And she probably could take a full time position if she really wanted.
	she's talented enough.
	But yeah, in terms of is she satisfied?
	I would say since she's running a shop right now, she's probably reasonably satisfied because she gets to make art things that she likes and then sell them and it works, you know.
	Okay.
	And again, you don't have to get into any huge details, but what sort of differences of income are you facing with each other?
	Oh, it's a lot.
	Her money is effectively canaled back.
	towards that business.
	I would say she, I think we were talking about it the other month as I was kind of doing burn downs to see what our savings would last if I just left and then was utterly unsuccessful, let's say.
	And so I think she pulls about like 400 to 1000 a month and I'm closer to 8000 a month after taxes.
	Oh, wow.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Now, of course, normally the setup is that she's running the household, raising the kids, but you're saying that she does run the household, right?
	Yeah.
	She helps, you know, get all the things I need for DIY projects and she gets the food and she cooks the meals and keeps the house clean.
	And, you know, if the pets have a problem, she takes care of it or that kind of thing.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So what is it that you want to do with your career, do you think?
	Well, I've I've always wanted to make games.
	I I'm mildly embarrassed to say that, I guess.
	But that's that's kind of what got me into programming.
	And I think when I originally, you know, I had sought advice many years ago.
	And oh, how do I do this?
	And basically the advice was don't.
	It was how do you what?
	What?
	You said, how do I I didn't quite catch that.
	You said, how do I?
	Oh, how do I do this?
	Like, how do I go make games?
	And basically the advice I got was, well, you can work a crappy job in the industry until you're able to make what you want to make, or you can just go get, you know, do it as a hobby kind of thing and make much better money in the non game sphere, we would say, right?
	Okay.
	And so the sort of long term plan has always been, you know, to make games.
	And in theory, you know, get a big amount of savings, be nice and secure, and then I can go take risks like that if I want to, right?
	Okay.
	And since you're not having kids and have you made that sort of final decision?
	I wouldn't say final.
	She's 38, right?
	Well, right.
	The biological kids are not on the table, I would say.
	And that's because she doesn't want to have things inside her, is that right?
	No, I know.
	So in the last few years, we were trying to have kids, but she has medical things that probably preclude that.
	Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
	That's very tough.
	My sympathies.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So kids is off the table biologically because of medical issues and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	And my sympathies again.
	I'm very sorry to hear that.
	Okay, so...
	uh you're thinking of making games as a whole right that's that would be your ideal I mean it could just be other software that I was super interested in.
	If there is an interesting problem to really dig into, I can nerd out on it, right?
	If there's, if there's, you know, a sufficient math thing to dig into that I can program against, you know, there's certainly possibility there.
	And I've been reasonably satisfied with my job until it became annoying to the point of like actively being angry every day.
	Right, right.
	So that's kind of the crux of the issue is that.
	this wasn't in the plan.
	You know what I mean?
	This was sort of thrust upon me like, well, if I'm angry all the time, I should probably start looking at something else.
	And as I've been doing on this for a month or two, I was sort of realizing that I don't have this next stage planned out, and that's in part because I guess this last one didn't quite, you know, I was expecting when we moved, we would end up having children, and that would be sort of the next life stage, but that is not where we're at.
	So yeah.
	And so it reminds me of the move.
	I moved across the United States partly for financial reasons.
	Basically, as you may be aware, the west coast is kind of Californianized and so prices have gone insane.
	So I looked at the differential to move out into the Midwest and said, well, they'll basically pay me to leave, so I guess I'll leave.
	So that's what I did.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	All right.
	So.
	So, have you had any entrepreneurial experience before?
	Not unless you include the band stuff, which would be a very negative profit or whatever.
	Maybe if you went the bassist.
	Barely an instrument.
	Anyway, you went.
	Yeah.
	Unless you were writing songs too, like John Deacon style or whatever.
	Right.
	Well, we it was a very collaborative effort and I do miss those days, but they are gone.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	So you don't have any entrepreneurial, which is fine, right?
	But you don't have any particular.
	Do you have access to entrepreneurial experience?
	Do you, is there anyone you know or anyone in the family or anything like that that might be able to help you with that stuff?
	I mean, yeah.
	You know, I'm in a small town and, you know, I know the guy who, I know a guy who, who does his own, what do you call it, handyman type of thing.
	And I know the guy who owns the local feed store.
	And I know the people who own the bar.
	You know, and that kind of thing.
	So several people, I probably know a lot of entrepreneurs, really.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So what is it that would be the most helpful information that you could get out of me today?
	Extract what would be helpful information.
	So one of the things I have sort of noted was you somehow I know that I think you started your own software company or something and you eventually sold it.
	And then question mark question mark question mark became a philosopher.
	And I assume that you didn't go into philosophy for the money.
	So you've somehow made this transition before.
	And I don't know where all the question marks are in there, but I did think you had to make a similar decision where you said, Okay, I got a pile of money from software.
	It's time to go do the thing that I presumably really wanted to do.
	Okay.
	Excuse me if I've mischaracterized that.
	No, no, that's I mean, that's not entirely inexact.
	I did take a lot of the money, of course, that I got out of software, and I was writing novels and books and all that because that was going to be my thing, the philosophy.
	You know, I enjoy it for sure, but I never really thought of any particular way to monetize it or if it even could be a thing.
	Although the novels, I mean, that's still also much riskier than a presumably reliable paycheck from the software, right?
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, I took a year and a half and didn't make a penny because I was doing the software thing.
	Well, and so part of that, so that's one of the key insights, one of the wrenches that's really in my gears is the opportunity cost., you know, I'm kind of sitting here in what people call analysis paralysis where I look at, you know, just, let's say I quit tomorrow, no notice, blah, blah, blah, done.
	Monday, it's time to go.
	Monday, I write a little bit of code, end of the day, zero dollars.
	You say, was that, was that a $400 vacation or what, right?
	Like that's a, it's a total mind shift.
	Sorry, mind shift.
	I can't understand the $400 vacation.
	Well, so, so, let's say I earn roughly $400 a day.
	Uh huh.
	Right.
	And so if you don't make really good use of that day.
	You've effectively paid $400 by not earning it.
	Okay.
	And so if you're in that mindset, that adds up very quickly to be like, oh, this was a bad idea.
	Oh, so everything you do that's not software is costing you $400 a day.
	Something like that.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And somehow, so there was a break in my employment between the two software jobs that I've had.
	And somehow, nine years ago or whatever, when I did that, I just said, I'm going to, I hate this job.
	Now I'm leaving.
	And I left and I said I'm going to take a few months for myself and then I'll get another job.
	And I think that was easier to swallow because the plan was I'm just going to take a few months off and then get another job.
	Right.
	There's a couple of key differences here, and some of those could also be squared away potentially by chitchatting.
	But one is that AI exists and the economy is probably on a cliff.
	I've been waiting for us to fall off the cliff, but we seem to something keeps getting in the way of that, I guess.
	And so, you know, there's not exactly software jobs are not as plentiful as they were, although there's a lot online.
	But also, if the plan is to leave to go do my own thing, then you've got a sort of contradiction.
	Am I supposed to be applying for these jobs or not?
	Right?
	You can see how I've got my head really mixed up in this.
	Right, right.
	Right, okay.
	Sorry if there's more that you wanted to mention, I'm happy to hear.
	I'm certainly happy to give you my thoughts, whatever works best for you.
	I'd love to hear some thoughts.
	And yeah.
	Well, tell me a little bit about, because I know this may sound like a nonsequitur, but I'll explain it in a sec.
	Tell me a little bit about your wife and what has drawn you to her.
	Well, I mean, I did, I obviously found her attractive.
	Well, it's still, still find her attractive, but you know, that certainly lubricates the conversation.
	But she's the top thing that comes up when I think of her is loyalty.
	Like, I can tell her anything.
	I don't, I don't worry about her leaving.
	It's just utter trust.
	Like, she has faith that if I leave this job, things will be fine.
	She, you know, just a lot of trust, a lot of loyalty.
	Is very nice to me, tolerates my isms.
	As you might as you might assume between software and the way I talk to you, there's probably a few isms.
	So yeah, just very compatible.
	Okay.
	And what are the virtues?
	that you most admire about her?
	And please understand, I'm not saying there aren't any, I'm just curious what they are.
	Honest, it will sound ironic but hard working.
	Like she emancipated herself at fifteen.
	She had to work for herself to be in an apartment before most people have their first job, you know.
	So she's definitely willing to put in the effort to go through those hardships and be able to support herself.
	And yeah.
	So, so, yeah, very honest, trustworthy, uh, hardworking, loving.
	Um, and how do you think she was able to achieve these skills?
	I mean, it's really remarkable, and I mean that in the very best possible sense, uh, given the, uh, the, the childhood that she had.
	I don't, I don't know.
	Uh, She gets she's got that question from, you know, family members and stuff, like, well, what differentiates you from, you know, your other family members who are like complete, uh, leeches on the government or drunkards or homeless, right?
	Right.
	And I don't I don't really know if if I were to take a guess, I she's I mean, I think she's reasonably intelligent, frankly.
	And that's a big marker of being able to take care of yourself.
	I think, anyway.
	Right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And what does she think of your entrepreneurial ambitions?
	I mean, I think she would support it.
	You think?
	Well, she's very supportive of the idea that I could leave and we would be fine.
	So we don't talk.
	I haven't talked directly about.
	I'm trying to figure out how to answer your question.
	She's not, she's not if I went to do that for a few years and, you know, and that's what I was doing, I don't think she would be concerned at all.
	Like, she knows she's she has faith in me that I can go do it and she would probably help me with it.
	And, um, you know, I'm sure she would be anxious about it, but we do have savings for X number of years.
	So it's not like we would be starving or eating only rice or anything, you know.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So what does your father think if you're, you know, if you've talked to him about any of your ambitions or preferences, what does he think of these things?
	Ah, well, I guess I I didn't mention that.
	He died of cancer quite a while ago.
	That was actually around the my wife had a Oh, dang it.
	I can't remember the words.
	Baptism by fire, kind of a thing.
	Like, basically, he was dying while we were getting together.
	So, he was going through cancer treatments and, yeah, so he passed away about eleven years ago, if you put me on the spot.
	Right, okay.
	Okay.
	And what's the story with your mother?
	She was a stay-home mom and very, very kind, very saintly, very religious, very.
	I mean, I would say she's very patient.
	I'm trying, I'm looking for a different word about cautious.
	So I would say my, a lot of my caution comes from there, right?
	And, you know, she's the type where if, you know, she's very much like, Oh, if you're leaving a job, you should have a job before you leave.
	And I'm very much not that.
	I don't think I've ever done that.
	I might have done that once when I happened to get a job in like a day, you know, from going as a bootmaker to like a cook.
	And again, it was because they ticked me off.
	They but they basically said, uh, don't come back tomorrow.
	And when you come back Monday, maybe you'll appreciate your job.
	So I went and found a job on Saturday and I, no call, no show to them.
	Or maybe I called, but I was mad.
	So, um, so anyway, she's much more, she's very cautious.
	And, uh, so I I definitely think that comes through in the way I approach some of this stuff, or at least think about it.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	Okay, and what has been, if anything, your management experience or team lead experience or something like that?
	Oh, definitely very little, unless it's just kind of managing myself, like maybe a tiny bit in college as part of a, you know, a class that said, oh, one of you needs to be the manager, one of you needs to, you know, kind of imitating the software team, but very little on that side of things.
	Okay, got it.
	All right, so you've got the analysis paralysis thing, if I understand this correctly.
	Sure.
	And have you done the sort of pros and cons of?
	of getting into entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial staff for us is not.
	Well, I if I mean, I haven't made a list.
	I've definitely been thinking about this a lot.
	So I get that as an entrepreneur, you're wearing all the hats and you don't make any money until you basically completely finish the thing unless you somehow get some sort of forward.
	um uh You know, you have to deal with all the marketing.
	You have to have a novel idea.
	You have to.
	You know, there's a lot of things there.
	But, you know, the pros are I get to write what I want and I get to write it the way I want and I get to just slam it out and feel productive rather than dealing with processes that, you know, purposely impede you from getting stuff done to appease.
	What does that mean?
	Processes that purposely impede you?
	You mean like in your current job?
	Yeah, like just like I said in the last So, a big one.
	So, I don't know if peer reviews existed when you were in software.
	Well, I was building the board.
	Yeah, the board would give me a review, but yeah.
	But, well, the peer review is you put your code up, your code changes up, and then people go and review it.
	And we've had this for years.
	Right.
	But the current one is that your approvals are not sticky, which means any change de-stick them.
	And that sounds reasonable until you're dealing with files that change every time someone merges, which means every time someone merges, every single other PR, which is a pull request, is unapproved.
	And now you have to go harass people to approve them again.
	And then they'll look through it.
	And if they leave comments, now you got changes.
	So you might get one or two of the approvals you need.
	And now you have to make changes and those changes unapprove your thing.
	And it's very annoying.
	Like, I feel like in the last few weeks I've lost like a week of work just waiting on people just over and over.
	Oh, sorry, I have to get this reviewed.
	Oh, this guy's this guy's mandatory on the review, but he's on vacation today.
	Right?
	Stuff like that.
	That's a, that's a small bit of my gripes, but it was, it was really spinning me up.
	Because we have, like, basically we've been dictated to to, oh, we need this done by the end of September.
	Also, we're writing it in a language that nobody has any experience in on a new build server.
	And we're going to tell you how the build script works.
	Also, we don't support the normal build process.
	You know, just like dictated down to your pull request will have, will have this as its title and your branches will have these as what they're called and just X, Y and Z just on down the line.
	And like the team I'm on, basically we our approvals.
	don't count, but people who were just hired back into the company the other day because they're known, because we were acquired.
	So we've been kind of in a silo, if you want to think about it that way.
	So where we've been, we had a very high trust thing where we could just do work.
	And then if you put up a PR and someone put comments on it, A, their approval stuck, but B, there was like trust there where they put their approval on and there's an understanding where they left some comments and you said and they understand you're going to go address those comments and you're probably even going to bug them to go look at it.
	But it's not actually required for them to go, click all the buttons and whatever.
	Again, it's just sort of like I've gone from a high trust to a low trust environment and a very low and a low oversight to a micromanagement thing.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So you feel like you are smarter than the people that you are working with, right?
	Or working for.
	I So not necessarily.
	I I I try to be humble on that kind of thing.
	But when they make decisions and then don't deem us necessary to talk to, it's very annoying.
	Like we have at least three layers of management between us and the architect.
	Now that makes sense in a big company, but the architect is putting comments like going and commenting on the PRs.
	He's probably paid three times as much as I am, right?
	And he's spending his time and these are not comments that affect, let's say, the interface that the customer is ever going to see.
	These are like the inner workings that don't matter.
	Like, sorry, this is going to to get me fired up, potentially, but like we're talking about whether the zero is defined in the inup, like defined as none or just not there.
	And you're sitting there, potentially arguing in the comments about that.
	And that's holding up real work, like you set the deadline for the end of September and you're holding up my thing for two weeks on these inane comments, right?
	And you also won't explain yourself.
	Like there's two other layers of management beyond my manager, at least between us and him, and he's never tal like if you're going to set the deadlines and set the requirements and you're not going to talk to us, that's like a level of disrespect or something.
	It's something about that really irritates me.
	It's Yeah, so that does it does that help?
	Yeah, okay.
	So yeah, you're frustrated at work and is this something that because I mean, it's not like if you become an entrepreneur, all your frustrations are going to vanish, right?
	I mean, they just, they shift, but at least you're more in control of them.
	And you're not subject to other people's whims, except maybe the customers, which is certainly an issue.
	So you replace your boss with your customers, and it's not like you escape the irrationality or, you know, because customers can want things and then they can change things.
	That's this weird thing.
	Because software is not like a physical thing, people think they can just change it.
	You know, like if I order a car and I say, and they say, do you want a sunroof?
	And I say, no, I don't want a sunroof.
	And then the car is being delivered.
	And then I say, oh, you know what?
	Can you just throw a sunroof in?
	They'd be like, okay, well, I mean, we can take it back to the factory.
	We can carve it.
	It's going to cost you 10 grand or whatever.
	whatever in which case i'm going to say no right But customers in the software space, at least it was the case when I was there, are just like, oh, we forgot this.
	So could you add that?
	Or could you throw this?
	And because it's not a physicalical thing, in the same way a car, if they think you can just tweak it or adjust it or massage it, or it's like, you know, just take the plasticine and just add a little thing on it.
	It's kind of a funny thing.
	So people's saying, well, the same with when you're sitting there and you make arguments, let's say in the comments or whatever about how you've written a piece of software, it's like, well, you can write it in an infinite number of ways.
	So, you know, yes, you can do anything in software, but what's actually wrong with the thing that's in front of you and does it have an impact?
	I guess.
	So one thing, and then I want to get back to what you whatever you were going for, I apologize.
	But one thing that I often would say about myself versus the people I run into conflicts with is I think of myself as very pragmatic, as in I want to get it done.
	We can deal with especially tech debt that is not going to affect anyone later.
	Like, you have a deadline.
	We want this done.
	If what you're arguing about is zero defined in an enum, that's dumb.
	Like, that doesn't matter at all.
	We can deal with it.
	I can do like I can go fix it for sure, but we don't need to quibble about thirty things on this for a week or two.
	And so I'm happy to go fix all those things or content fixing those things is a better word, but at the same time it's a total waste of time.
	Like we have a deadline that you set and you're in my way.
	Like, you want this thing.
	I'm trying to give it to you, but you also want this other thing.
	And anyway, so what I was saying is pragmatism versus what I would call idealism.
	Some people get very stuffy about, oh, what this, this doesn't have a good eff pattern about the way it is.
	And it's like, that's fine.
	We can change it.
	But first, let's get it working and and in and then we can worry about making it perfect.
	It's the whole perfect in the way of the good problem.
	Right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Do you have something in the software field that you have as a sort of hobby or something you're excited about or something that you work on for free outside of office hours?
	Yeah.
	A lot of times I've I'll take in in the spring and fall.
	A lot of times I find myself doing some sort of personal programming project to advance one of.
	the things that I have in my backlog.
	So, uh, the previous summer before I had the foster kids, there's something called it was a mod for a game and it uses code injection.
	And that was pretty cool because because because of the code injection, you could pretty much do whatever you wanted to like alter the AI or alter how some of the base things in the game worked.
	So you could make it more difficult or make the AI act more intelligently and all that kind of thing.
	Um, I've written a couple of like, let's say the backends for games in terms of, uh, so there's like a Pokemon like game where I did all the battle system and all the catching stuff mechanics and all of the back end work for like all the creatures and all that kind of stuff.
	But it I always hit a roadblock.
	And I know that like if you really want to do it on the cheap and you're like you should go just use sprites that don't matter.
	And then you can get art later.
	I get that.
	But I don't because I don't have the art and it looks dumb.
	And if I'm doing it in my off time for free, it's not very satisfying at that point.
	Right?
	Like it's it's satisfying for me to like totally geek out on a damage function and be like, oh, it's kind of like an x over one here, and you get like this semi cubic when you add these functions together.
	Totally fine for me to geek out on that, but it's a lot more lame to like deal with the UI if it's just for free and it's going to look dumb anyway, if that makes sense.
	So like if I'm not paying for art, then it's not going to look dumb, I'll put it that way.
	Okay.
	And have any of these projects gone to fruition or gone to the App Store or something like that?
	No.
	That's the short answer.
	No.
	And why not?
	Because they're unfinished.
	Okay, by definition they're unfinished, but why are they unfinished?
	Because I mean, if you're an entrepreneur, you know, like ninety percent of the work is the last ten percent of the project.
	I fully agree.
	So if you're taking if you're not taking things through to completion, I guess in the stuff that you're passionate about that you're doing for free, why do you think that you don't do that?
	It's that last hurdle of paying somebody for the art, I think is a big part of it.
	Like, and some of that, you know, I can get around.
	So there's like a D twenty system.
	If you know what I mean by D twenty, like Dungeons and Dragons.
	I have a very detailed D twenty system that I've kind of beta tested with friends and that kind of thing.
	You mean sorry, Jamie.
	You mean for Dungeons and Dragons?
	This would be its own thing.
	It's just similar.
	So kind of like how Pathfinder is its own thing, but similar, this would be like that.
	But like making that as a book and getting all the art for it and finding, you know, let's say a publisher to make sure you understand.
	Do you mean like a how to play the game book?
	Yeah, like a rulebook, like making those as rulebooks and beast diaries and getting all the art.
	Okay, so why I just I don't want too many details.
	I just need the principle.
	So why is it that you don't finish stuff?
	I would say the cost of the barrier to entry is the cost.
	Like, and if I expect No, that it's not No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	Eight thousand dollars a month, bro.
	I listen carefully.
	Yeah.
	Don't tell me that your cost when you're making eight thousand US a month, don't tell me that cost is the major issue.
	Well, I guess it's part of it is that and your wife makes between $500 and $1,000 a month.
	Sure.
	And I mean, I also there's like interest on savings and whatever if they really want to get it.
	You have money.
	So, so why are you trying to sell me that you don't finish stuff because you don't have the money?
	Well, I think that's my mindset.
	I think that's the problem.
	Okay, but the mindset isn't that you don't have money.
	So the issue isn't that you don't have money.
	The issue is something else.
	That I won't spend it.
	Okay, but so why don't you spend it?
	I well, so my current frame of mind.
	The kind of plan that I was operating under was, well, well, part of it, like I said, is it kind of got screwed up with the family thing.
	Okay, a little bit is what we're trying to do.
	I'm so sorry.
	I I I I I I I I need more direct answers.
	I feel you're taking me on a journey and I don't really know that I want to go.
	You do.
	So why don't you spend money to finish your passion projects?
	You got the money.
	Why don't you spend it?
	Because otherwise your time's all wasted, right?
	Right.
	That's the problem.
	Okay, so why don't you why don't you spend the money to finish your passion projects?
	You got it.
	I guess because in theory I need to save it to go do them.
	And I know that that's so to go do what?
	To go do those projects, right?
	And I know that that's No, no contradiction.
	That doesn't explain anything to me.
	No, it's a contradiction, but give me give me the give me a project name for the book that you were working on, the D twenty book.
	The real the current working name or what?
	We can refer to it as we'll call it Psyon.
	Psyop or Psyon?
	Psyon.
	Psyon card.
	So how much time did you spend on Psyon?
	Overall?
	Oh, who?
	I don't know.
	Probably I wouldn't be surprised if it was 100 hours or better.
	Not, not insane.
	I, uh, it's, it's definitely.
	It's like 13,000 lines of stuff, at least, uh, plus a bunch of, you know, but, uh, sorry, to answer your question, probably, let's call it 100.
	Okay.
	So, over the course of your life, on this particular D twenty project, Scion, you spent 100 hours.
	Let's call it that.
	I, I don't believe that.
	I'm not saying you're lying, obviously.
	But because there's a lot of thought time as well.
	You know, you don't just sit down and start coding, right?
	Yeah.
	So in terms of like, you came up with the idea, you puzzled it over, you turned it over in your mind, you maybe drew it out a little bit, and then you started coding, like, what's your total time investment?
	Oh, sorry, this isn't, uh, this isn't coding.
	This is a d twenty game like on paper.
	Uh, so this is all like written rules and written No, so thirteen thousand lines is, is what you've written.
	Yeah.
	So it's like all the how you do skills and how you do you know all that stuff.
	Okay.
	So how much time have you spent thinking and reasoning and puzzling and playtesting and over the course of your life in this area?
	Just this game or all sorts of things?
	Let's say this game.
	This one, I mean, I don't have a good estimate.
	I, I, I, I, maybe we could call it 500 hours, I guess, but I don't think it's that high.
	Okay.
	Let's just say 400 hours.
	Okay.
	So 400 hours, 10 work weeks, 2.5 months.
	And you said that you make 400.
	a day, is that right?
	I mean, if it that's rounding up, but it's like a good round number.
	Okay, so you make $50 an hour, right?
	Yeah, I guess so.
	Okay, so if you've got 400 hours in, that's quite a lot, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, we're talking $20,000, right?
	I guess so.
	Okay, so you've got $20,000 invested in your game, and why don't you finish it?
	What is the, you said there's a cost barrier for the artist, right?
	So I'm just getting you to think like an entrepreneur, right?
	It's sort of the mindset that you need, right?
	So because usually when we get paralysis, it's because we haven't run the numbers.
	So if you've put $20,000 worth of time into this game, into Scion, then what was the barrier to finishing it?
	You said it was the cost of the artwork.
	How much would the artwork have cost?
	I have no idea, but I think.
	No, that's not true.
	That's not true.
	No idea is zero to infinity, right?
	Well, I don't know, a few thousand dollars, let's say, yes.
	Okay, two, it's a few, two or three?
	I would guess three, but you know, like, I I haven't looked into artists for it.
	I mean, it's, it'd be cheaper now if you were doing it with AI or something, but yeah.
	And when did you abandon the project?
	I wouldn't call it fully abandoned, but the last time I was No, so you've got to, you've got to think like an entrepreneur, which is, if you're not working on it, okay, when was the last time you worked on it?
	Apart from, like, little bit bits, probably.
	That's probably when was the last time you worked on it?
	Well, you also have to be concise.
	Well, do you mean at all or seriously, right?
	Because I can go and put two sentences into it, but that's not really working on it, right?
	Okay.
	When was the last time you put substantial labor into your project?
	I I'd say two years ago.
	So is it reasonable to say that it's abandoned?
	Sure.
	No, don't hedge me, bro.
	If you don't agree, that's fine.
	Just tell me.
	Well, like if I if I went to go to entrepreneurial, you know, because I've been kind of trying up plans, let's say.
	And so one of the things I thought that would make it very cheap to be able to go do that also might expand my skills if I was trying to apply to places is I could go turn it into a website to like do a character builder and be able to link skills and have an easier time picking feats and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Go turn it into a website, go build a database for all the stuff, make it relational so like you can say, if you have this feat, suggest a better, a good combination for it, right?
	So the reason I say not abandoned is because it's kind of on my list of things that I might go do if I stop making money.
	So the question is why don't you finish stuff?
	And we've been talking for twenty minutes about it.
	I don't have a clue.
	I think.
	And this is not a criticism, right?
	That's not a criticism.
	I'm just, this is why you're having trouble.
	Yeah.
	Now, since AI came along, you could do the artwork, at least you could do placeholders, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So the AI came along a couple of years ago, right?
	Maybe you could say over the last year or two years or whatever, it's advanced to the point where you could get some decent art out of it, right?
	So if the barrier was the cost of the AI art, oh sorry, the cost of the art as a whole, then why haven't you finished it now that the art cost has vanished?
	Well, I mean, if you'll indulge me for a second, this might go back to being in a band.
	And the reason I say that is we did spend an atrocious amount of time and money making a couple of albums, and they did not work.
	And they didn't work out, right?
	Like, sorry, what did you say?
	Tens of thousands of what's that?
	Like, they obviously didn't make their money back.
	We didn't get interest from labels.
	We didn't really accrue tons of fans or anything.
	It was I would call it a big failure other than it's a cool album.
	Like, we made something cool at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars and many hundreds of hours.
	Huh?
	We did finish it.
	Okay.
	So why did the album fail?
	I, I, I, I mean, it's very niche, right?
	It's a subgenre of a subgenre.
	Tons of niche stuff succeeds.
	That's fair.
	I mean, it's not like philosophy podcasts are all the rage, right?
	Yeah.
	So there's only two reasons that things fail.
	Number one, low quality.
	Number two, low marketing.
	That's it.
	That's all there is.
	Now, it's the new Coke thing.
	I mean, you're a younger guy, but I think it was in the 80s.
	The brilliant minds at Coca-Cola said, well, we've got the most popular soft drink in the world, so I know what we're going to do.
	We're going to change the formula.
	And they came up with new Coke.
	And I mean, it's still studied in business schools as one of the most atrocious business decisions ever made in the history of the world.
	Because everyone hated it.
	It was too sweet.
	And it was just abandoned.
	And it was just terrible all around, right?
	So, and there, of course, they marketed the living crap out of that stuff.
	I mean, there were ads, you know, new Coke, you know, there were ads for like six months or a year or something like that.
	Building up and everyone was dying to try a new Coke.
	coke and and all of that so they had all the marketing but the quality was crap Nobody liked that crap.
	Yeah.
	On the other hand, there are lots of bands and songs.
	I saw a singer not too long ago who, believe it or not, gave the backstory to the song, a very famous song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
	And it was some pianist, he noodled it out, he doodled it.
	It sat in a drawer for like 10 years or something like that because he just never got round to getting people to record it and he'd play it for people sometimes and then Tony Bennett came along and just turned it into an absolute classic.
	It is an odd and quirky song.
	It's very short.
	It's kind of atonal at the beginning and so on.
	But that was a very high quality song with no marketing, no push, right?
	Yeah.
	So when I first started doing my show, you've heard me say this before, but it's worth mentioning again, I'd been a director of marketing, fortunately, before I started my show.
	And so when I started my show, I spent about 80% of my time promoting it.
	You know, it's the old story of like MC Hammer, the rapper from the 80s, just driving all over every place, just nagging all of the DJs to try and play his album.
	You know, he spent, I don't know, a week recording the album and then spent a year driving around, nagging people to get them to play it, right?
	Now he had a shirt album and he had good pushy marketing.
	So the question is why did the album was it one or two or three?
	We made two.
	The first one was much cheaper and whatever, you know, but the second one we really I mean we took years doing all the professional recording and dang it mixing and correcting things and yeah just loads and loads of time.
	And tens of thousands of dollars, right?
	Okay.
	And what happened then when the album was complete?
	I mean, we did we did some marketing.
	Like we hired a guy who does, you know, marketing for that kind of album.
	And we did we tried to do interviews and a couple of podcasts and that kind of things.
	But you're probably right.
	We probably like, if I were to look at it as a movie, you know, when they do a movie and they spend sixty million, you expect them to spend a million 60 million on advertising.
	Sure, yeah.
	But, but, you know, we spent, let's call it 50 grand.
	And Wait, you spent 50,000 on the album?
	It was split up between people over years, yeah.
	It was digging deep.
	And it was not mindful.
	And what was your budget for marketing?
	The budget, I don't know, a couple of thousand.
	So it's definitely like when I look at it in the context of like what they do for a movie, you're absolutely right.
	It's like the proportion wasn't isn't there.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So why?
	Why do you think and now of course you've had a bit of time and so on, I guess a lot of time, do you think that the album was had enough quality in it that it could have succeeded with the right marketing?
	Definitely more than it did, you know, but yeah, that's a that's a big question.
	Like, sorry, to give you a concise answer, yes.
	So why why didn't you market more?
	I guess sunk costs and we didn't know what we were.
	we didn't know what we were doing i guess that would be why didn't you know what you were doing why didn't you talk to people and again i know this is all naggie stuff right but i'm just yeah this is to get you to think like an entrepreneur so you can decide if you want the life or not right yeah we so i mean part of my mind albums get recorded and released for like 150 years or whatever right so there's people out there who know how to market right they know oh if you're going to do an album man Here's what you do.
	And, you know, you guys understand the studio stuff, but you got to develop your contacts in the radio industry or the music industry or you got to tour like cra crazy and sell the albums everywhere you go and, you know, word of mouth.
	And I don't know, because I'm not a musician or anything, but there's a whole bunch of people who you could have paid for, you could have dropped them a thousand bucks for a couple of hours of their time and they could have drawn out a whole plan for you and you could have budgeted some for the'cause you spent all your money on the album and had nothing left for marketing, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, and like you talking about this, there's sort of built in poison because at least me and somebody else were software guys.
	And so for us it was more of a hobby.
	Like, hey, this is a thing that we don''t expect to make money and we have a career.
	So probably taking it that way, um, didn't help, I'll say.
	Sorry, but didn't you, I mean, if you could have been in a band rather than a computer programmer, wouldn't you have preferred that?
	Um, yeah, I mean, probably.
	Uh, that's a, uh, sorry, that question caught me a very off card.
	Um, yeah, probably, but the, the likelihood of being a successful band is extremely low., I guess?
	I mean, the likelihood of being a successful entrepreneur isn't that high either.
	That's fair.
	Okay, so how many people were involved in the album?
	Well, five, well, five in the band, although one left during the album.
	He basically recorded his parts and left.
	And a producer slash the guy who was doing the mixing.
	Technically there was a guy at the end for mastering, but that's very short involvement.
	And then a couple of guest musicians who were in for short stints.
	So like a cello did a solo, a cello as a competitor, maybe, right?
	Yeah, something like that.
	Okay.
	And a bunch of you put in a couple of grand each to record it.
	And after you finished the album, I guess nobody had sat there and said, How are we going to get this after the masses?
	Or was that something you discussed or not?
	I guess we just didn't frame it right on how much we should have marketed, right?
	Because like when I compare it to a movie now, it's like, oh., I guess I guess half your budget is supposed to be marketing or something.
	But that's not like the same thing.
	I mean, I don't exactly know how it works in the music industry as opposed to the movie industry, but you gotta do something, right?
	You you gotta, like, once you have the album, then what?
	When you went on a couple of podcasts and, you know, did you, did you turn relentlessly with it?
	Did you, you know, run after record executives down the street or I don't know what you do, right?
	I mean, we shipped it off to labels hoping to hear back and we did do some shows.
	It wasn't like a big tour or anything, but it was a handful of shows around the time.
	And because the bad out of hell guys like Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf, I mean, they had this album written out.
	I think they would, it was 18 months, they would just take it from place to place and everyone was telling them, you can't make it, it's not going to happen, it's not, not possible, nobody's going to buy something that long.
	Or of course, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody, nobody's going to play a song that's over seven minutes long and, you know, and they just kept pushing and they wouldn't come.
	Like, and, I mean, obviously it's easy to say, Well, look at these are the really very successful musicians.
	do what they do.
	I know that that's an annoying thing to hear, but they're
	The album cries out to be delivered to the world and you can't sleep until more and more and more people.
	hear it.
	That's the entrepreneurial mindset.
	It's a crazy passion, and it is, I will not stop until my passion project is out there in the world.
	So whether it's your two albums or it's Scion, the role-playing game, the question is, why haven't you finished this stuff or why haven't you pushed this stuff?
	And I think it's probably because, like most people, like mean just about everyone it's painful because you care enormously about it this is the entrepreneurial problem right i care enormously about philosophy and this podcast.
	Nobody else does.
	I mean, at least when I was starting out.
	Right?
	I'm just some guy who's yelling at a car and recording it, right?
	And so nobody else cares.
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	I mean, there's a million people who have a million projects that they've probably passed through your life at some point or another.
	You don't particularly care about their projects either, right?
	Yeah.
	So to try and differentiate yourself from the crowd is the entrepreneurial challenge, right?
	And it's a big challenge.
	Now, this is why I keep haranguing you as to why you don't finish things.
	And the correct answer is, I think, again, either you don't care enough or your caring is stopped by the fear of rejection or the fear of other people's indifference.
	I do think that it's the, like the way I was phrasing it, where I was saying, sort of, I have a very prepare for the worst or what do you say?
	Hope for the best, prepare for the worst mindset.
	And so the word comes from the military debt, right?
	Sure.
	And does it?
	I mean, does it does that make sense?
	I think so.
	I think you're right.
	Because in the military, the downsides of mistakes are like death.
	Yeah, they're not good.
	And so it's a little too high stakes for entrepreneurial mindsets, but that may have been what you inherited.
	Like, you can't do anything wrong.
	The ammo needs to be there when I reach for it or we're all dead, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, and so when I'm, and this is what I've been really stewing on, but it's like when I'm looking at it, it's like, well, what if I just fail for two years?
	and get and get nothing out of it, then I'm just two years down earnings.
	You know what I mean?
	And then I've screwed up the current plan and that plan, if you want to think of it that way.
	And it's like I shouldn't be expecting failure.
	So let me.
	No, you should, you should, you should be expecting failure because statistically that's that's likely.
	How many people stop podcasts that go nowhere?
	Most of them.
	And the difference, of course, look, I can't do do anything about the foundational quality, right?
	Because that's yours to create.
	And there's nobody who can say, make it quality, right?
	I mean, you guys put years and tens of thousands of dollars into these albums.
	So I assume that you believed, of course, that this was the best source material that you could do, right?
	Now, so I can't do anything about foundational quality.
	But if you believe in it, if you believe in it, then you should stop at nothing to get other people invested.
	Other people are going to judge the quality of the thing you do not based upon the thing itself, but based upon you at the beginning.
	Right?
	If you're passionate about it, if you won't take no for an answer, if you're behind it 150%, if you're an insane guy who just pushes and pushes, so to speak, people will be like, okay, maybe he's got something.
	But if you're like, oh, you know, I sent an email a month ago.
	I'm just following up with another email, right?
	Nobody's going to think that you believe in it.
	And if you don't really believe in it, why would anyone else?
	I mean, you're the guy who made it, right?
	If you don't believe in it to the point where you're willing to be kind of, quote, annoying, right?
	If you don't believe in it, why would anyone else?
	So people judge the quality of what you do, not based on the thing itself, but based on your own Your perception of it.
	Your perception of it.
	And that's my question is, if you're passionate about the album, then you should wake up every day saying, what can I do to get people to listen to this album?
	Oh my God, what can I get people to do to listen to this album?
	So, I mean, again, I mean, I'm an annoying entrepreneurial guy, but I'm just giving you the mindset.
	So when I was starting out my show, I would make a show and I would send, I would turn it into an article.
	I would send articles around.
	I would post the show on forums.
	I would massage my contacts and message people, anyone I'd ever had any contact with, that, you know, I'm doing this podcast.
	I'd love it if you could listen or share it around, that kind of stuff, right?
	And then I just started trying to get people.
	I started doing call-in shows.
	I started getting people to come in and do interviews.
	And then, of course, they would share on their side as well.
	I'd collaborate with other podcasters so that, you know, we could potentially get double the audience.
	And again, it was 80% of the time was just...
	Why?
	Because it's the greatest show ever.
	I mean, I would go to my grave believing this is the greatest show ever show that ever will be because everything after this has this as a template and this is unique.
	Now, I can't control whether people agree with me or not.
	I can work as hard as I can to make the material as quality as possible and then I can push it as hard as I can.
	But that's the entrepreneurial mindset, which is I will stop at nothing to get this out.
	Like, it's like if you have a child, And your child needs medicine that's hard to get, how hard would you work to get it if your child was dying?
	Yeah, you would do everything you could.
	Right.
	The album is your child and it died.
	And the medicine was marketing.
	And you're like, ah, let it die.
	I mean, I'm not saying it was like that exactly.
	But you have a child.
	And your child needs an audience in order to live.
	Whether it's your prion role-playing book or it's your album or You have a child and you have given birth to a child and the child dies without an audience.
	So you go and get the freaking audience because your child is going to die.
	Do you see what I mean?
	Yeah.
	That's the mindset.
	The world desperately needs philosophy.
	I think most philosophy in history, it doesn't suck.
	I mean, obviously, incredibly brilliant people, but they missed the point of a stateless society and peaceful parenting, right?
	That's the issue for me.
	Now, if I...
	dragons massive massive some of my great memories uh are of of that game so Gary Guycax and all the people who got got it going, I mean, they had to really push it because nobody cares about your child, nobody cares about your passion project, nobody cares about your dream.
	Just as you don't care about other people's dreams.
	And, you know, like a couple of times a week, people email me like, hey, man, I've got this book.
	I've got this article.
	I've got this video.
	Right.
	Now, generally, I won't review it until they bugged me three times.
	I don't know if you want to say that on your podcast.
	No, I will absolutely say that on my podcast because people need to know this stuff.
	And the reason I do that is because I don't want to invest in someone's book or project or video or article or whatever.
	I don't want to invest in that if they're not fully behind it.
	If they don't feel like, Steph, you have to read this.
	Like, I'm sorry to bug you.
	I'm sorry to this.
	I'm sorry to that, right?
	Sometimes when people invite me to come on their shows, I'll look and it'd be like, it's kind of small or kind of obscure.
	you know, it's not particularly a great use of my time, blah, blah, blah.
	But, you know, if they're patient and persistent, I don't mean like, Why haven't you gotten back to me?
	Because that is just rude, right?
	Yeah.
	But if they're patient and persistent, that can overcome my resistance, right?
	Thank you.
	They care.
	They want to get me on the show.
	Obviously, they care about what I have to say, but they care about their show to the point where they're willing to work hard.
	I remember many years ago being on a plane, and I'm going to think, it may not have been this exactly, but it was something like a cigar magazine or a...
	Now, you've got to admire that in a way.
	It's a little manic.
	It's a little OCD, but so what?
	I mean, that's how you get things done in the world, right?
	So the entrepreneurial mindset is, I will not let my child die for lack of medicine.
	I will do whatever it takes.
	Right.
	I mean, this is the old story I mentioned it before about the guy who developed the Ethernet protocol for internet transfer or for transfer of information across a network.
	And he taught at a university.
	He had all of the kids over, all of his students over to his big giant-ass townhouse and all of that.
	And they're all looking like, wow, beautiful view of the ocean this place is magnificent man man i wish i'd invented ethernet and he laughed at them literally laughed at them he said bro inventing ethernet was nothing in fact there were 20 guys around with as good ideas or even better No, no, no.
	The reason I have the town host is not because I invented Ethernet.
	It's because I spent years going Going to conferences, making presentations, writing articles, pushing it and pushing it and pushing it.
	The other guys, they thought that inventing it was going to be enough.
	The other guys, they thought that they were going to be enough.
	The song Roxanne was played on the radio well over a year before it became one of the biggest hits of the 70s.
	Just they didn't have the push behind it.
	They didn't have any of that.
	So as far as being an entrepreneur goes, you think that it's about money.
	You think that it's about, well, if I invest two years and it doesn't work out, I've lost two years.
	No, no, no, no.
	That's nothing to do with entrepreneur stuff.
	The entrepreneurial stuff is, am I willing to overcome fear?
	Am I willing to get behind an idea and push it?
	When you look around in your life, it's an old line from a Peter Gabriel song, all of the buildings and all of the cars, it was just a dream in somebody's head.
	look at everything, right?
	You look at a lamp, you look at a table, you look at a carpet.
	They were just an idea in somebody's head.
	Now, how did they get from an idea in somebody's head into your living room well it's one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration it's because these people work like crazy bastards to get it from their head into design into manufacturing into a sales pipeline into a workflow into a store right and the idea for the lamp or
	the table or the carpet It's maybe one percent of that.
	So the entrepreneurial thing is, am I going to break out of the terrible public school mold of don't be annoying, don't impose, don't do this, don't do that.
	Am I willing to really get behind an idea and push it?
	Because that's what keeps humanity alive.
	You know, that's what keeps humanity.
	I mean, the guy who invented the Edison, invented the light bulb, went through like hundreds of iterations.
	And then once he got the right iteration, he had to push like crazy to get people to accept it.
	Do you have something that you're passionate about that it's no longer ego-based?
	To free yourself from the ego is the foundational entrepreneurial goal.
	Right?
	It's not about me.
	Right?
	It's not, well, I got this philosophy podcast, but, oh, if people don't like it, I'm going to feel really bad and I'm going to recoil from it.
	I'm going to drop it like a hot potato because it's not about me.
	It's about, is philosophy good for the world?
	Yes.
	Am I good at philosophy?
	Yes.
	Then I have to get out there in the world and do the best philosophy that I can do in the most practical and actionable and comprehensible manner.
	Possible.
	It's not about me.
	Now, if people reject, and Lord knows I've gone through my share of rejection and counterattack and blah, blah, blah, but it's not about my ego.
	It's not about me feeling good.
	It's not about me feeling good.
	It's not about me feeling smart.
	It's not about me making money.
	It's not about me getting the right numbers earned.
	It's about me passionately pushing the truth to the best of my ability.
	And I'm still working on the edges of my ability just about every time I do anything.
	So it is a psychological exercise that frees you from the tyranny of fear and the ego.
	Is there something that you care enough about?
	that you will put your ego aside, ignore rejection, and push that thing out into the world.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, that does.
	Now, I don't think you've cared enough or you've surrendered to fear or it's not been put to you this starkly.
	But it's like the creation is just having the baby.
	That's not easy, right?
	But you bring the baby home, that's just the beginning of your parenting, right?
	So creating the thing is just the beginning of the process.
	So the question is, why don't you finish things?
	It's because if you don't finish things, you won't have to deal with the ego battering of other people's indifference and projection.
	And you'll put it out there a little bit and then you'll recoil like most people do.
	And listen.
	this is not a diss on you i have my own issues with this stuff too so i'm right down in the trenches with you but you want to avoid finishing things because i don't think you have had it put to you clearly that if you can overcome the fear of rejection and other people's indifference you have a superpower held by not one person in 10,000.
	If you can overcome shame, embarrassment, not wanting to impose, cringe, negativity, anxiety.
	Oh, I, you know, I don't want to get in people's faces.
	It's like, well, everything that gets made is because people get in other people's faces, not in an aggressive way, but in a persistent way.
	Yeah.
	I think I'm not sure about your level of passion as a whole.
	I'm sort of trying to gauge that in the first part of our conversation.
	So I'm not sure about your level of passion as a whole.
	Obviously, being in the band was a passion project, but you let the album die on the hard drive, you and the band, right?
	And the question is, why?
	Well, because it's personal to you.
	And then when people reject your album or your recordings, or they're indifferent to them, you don't want to push.
	And you have to.
	You have to.
	And if you wait for things to fall in your lap, you'll wait forever.
	So you say, well, but I could be out all of this money if I go for two years and I don't succeed.
	But the entrepreneurial.
	thing is you can't fail.
	You can't fail if you believe in the quality of your product and you test it with people, right?
	I mean, I had done hundreds of conversations about philosophy before I ever touched a microphone on this show.
	Probably thousands over the years, right?
	And so I was sort of prepared.
	I knew that I was really good at philosophy.
	I knew I was really good at self-knowledge.
	And so I knew I could provide quality.
	And I also knew that the world would be indifferent, if not hostile, to what I was doing.
	That's a given.
	That's the gig of a philosopher is to be loved by the future and hated by the present for the most part, right?
	That's a sad deal, but that's why a lot of people don't do it.
	But I knew the quality was there, and therefore all that was left was the willpower.
	You've got to be like water cascading from the top of a mountain, right?
	It hits a rock.
	What does it do?
	It just changes shape and goes around it.
	It hits a pool while it waits to gather its strength, and then once there's more water, it spills over the pool and keeps going down the mountain to find a way down.
	Just find a way down.
	Because, I mean, the water, which is not a bad analogy for the entrepreneurial will, it's just you find a way and you don't take it personally.
	So when I ask you, why didn't you finish stuff?
	Or I guess with the record that you made, you and the band, the 10 people, the record was not finished because it didn't get into people's ears.
	The record is finished when it's in people's ears.
	It's not finished when you stop recording the last track.
	when the record is finished my my podcast is not finished when i finish recording it my podcast is finished when it gets into people's ears.
	And you didn't have that completion and i don't know if you didn't love the album enough or if you feared rejection too much and only you can answer that and i'm certainly happy to hear your answer but that's what you think of as being an entrepreneur well i could fail it's like but you can't fail because if you cure yourself of the fear of other people's indifference and rejection that's a superpower you carry with you for the rest of your life if that makes sense Yeah,
	it does.
	So what is it?
	Why don't you finish stuff?
	Yeah, I think I think there were several things that you said where you're like the schools, the what whatever you said about, like, don't be bothersome, don't be, you know, be annoying.
	Don't be awfully backward, don't make noise, don't get in trouble, don't impose, right?
	Don't be creepy, don't be enthusiastic, don't be too happy, don't be, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, that made a lot of sense to me.
	You're you're definitely right about, you know, the album was born and we took care of it for a few days and then, yeah, just like, well, we don't need to feed it anymore.
	And it's very sad.
	But why?
	Why did you abandon the baby?
	in the cold.
	Why didn't you move heaven and earth to get your album into people's ears?
	Did you not believe it was high enough quality or did you fear other people's indifference and projection?
	I think the latter, I think that is connected with the, um, that don't impose mindset, right?
	You fear rejection because if you're, uh, if you impose on someone, they're like, well, why are you even talking about this?
	You know?
	Or, yeah, we heard you the first time, kind of a thought.
	Hey, did you, did you bug all of your friends?
	and say, well, listen to this.
	Tell me what you think.
	What could be improved?
	What could be better?
	What could be different?
	Did you enlist your friends?
	Tell your friends, you know, get other people, you know, involved in.
	Yeah.
	I mean, there was a there was a single we put out later.
	So a couple of years later, I thought, well, what if we tried to do this was this was pretty depressing, but like a couple of years later, I, you know, I was kind of trying to keep things going and I thought, well, what if we I can't afford a full album right now, but what if I do a single and then I could maybe do little singles along the way.
	And so, you know, put in a couple of grand like we like I really budgeted it and then we made sure we got a high quality thing and you know I got a little bit press and I bothered people who had or were in theory the best customer for it.
	People who had already bought stuff from us and there's thousands of them or whatever and they can go listen to it for free.
	I put it out.
	God bang it.
	Just about nobody listened to the thing and it was it was very I pretty much abandoned it at that point.
	I said it's time to about face like this is clearly not so why?
	Hang on.
	Why did people not listen to it?
	Well, I guess I guess you're right that I didn't push it.
	I should have Well, no, you said you did, and I'm not disagreeing with you about that.
	You said that you went to thousands of people who had bought your music before, right?
	Yeah, but I just did the, you know, contact people who had bought your stuff before on Bandcamp and like, put up a few Facebook posts and things.
	Like, I really, I'm, I'm, I'm very willing to take the blame of, like, well, I should have actually like put a lot more effort into getting so many people to listen.
	If I was, if I was ticked that they didn't listen, then I'd.
	Right, so you were angry.
	and listen, every artist has this with the audience, right?
	It's like, you bastards, I should be the most famous artist in the world, right?
	Okay, so what was your relationship?
	You put this single out from, was it a recut of the album song?
	No, it was, so when the album came out, the singer left and we have a similar range, so I'd be able to do the old stuff.
	And so I said, well, what about we make a single?
	And then that's like a very manageable slice of work where we can put something out.
	And also, you know, it was during COVID and all this other stuff, so it was like, it was supposed to be kind of a statement like, we survived, we're still here, You know what I mean?
	And then the irony is then we haven't done anything since.
	So sing me the opening bit.
	Um, maybe just a half sec.
	Oh yeah, no problem.
	Oh, the sirens that called me to a place that might endear.
	They don't want me to go.
	And so they hold me to their chest out of fear.
	Oh, comfortable at last.
	Anyway.
	All right, is there more to the song?
	Keep going.
	Whoa, comfortable at last.
	And a feeling wells up inside, wondering what it would be like to return.
	Nice.
	See you again.
	That's great.
	It's funny because you're singing.
	voice very different from your speaking voice.
	You get all Viking.
	And I really get that.
	That's really good.
	Like that's like horned helmets staring out to sea at the dawn.
	The fog rolls in and the dragon ships arrive from far land.
	So it's really good stuff.
	Okay, so you believe in that.
	It's very Celtic.
	It's very Northern European.
	It's very Viking.
	And I guess the heavy metal aspect of it is great.
	So when you put the single out and people didn't listen to it, what were your thoughts about that?
	I I I was just kinda mad.
	I was I was like, you guys bought stuff before.
	Like, you won't even listen to it for free.
	Like, what are you, what are you doing?
	You know?
	If I were to relate it, I know that you've gone through that.
	I know that happened, you that happened, the whole YouTube debit shoot thing.
	And mine's on a much smaller scale.
	But yes, I was pretty grumped about it.
	Okay, so it wasn't the people listened to it but didn't like it.
	They didn't even come to listen to it.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So how do you process that?
	Because it's not like they, it's like you can't even get people to come to the restaurant.
	It's like they come to the restaurant and don't like the food.
	So how do you process that?
	How did I?
	Or how do you say, what are your thoughts about that?
	What are your conclusions about that?
	What does that mean to you?
	At the time it was, I really felt like, oh, they just don't care.
	Like, but now, I mean, right now, I'm sort of in the frame of I didn't push it, you know?
	Right.
	Okay.
	How many people have asked you to listen to songs that you don't really get around to or you don't spend much time on.
	At the time I mean, I assume in the music world, I'm sure there's people who want you to listen to their stuff, right?
	At the time that was more of a thing.
	I've largely killed off any social media that I would have, so now it would be zero, but at the time I'm sure it was semi frequent.
	Okay.
	And sorry, I probably didn't go listen to a lot of stuff.
	But when it came to people not listening to what it is that you're doing.
	You're angry at them.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So why do you think it's a natural reaction.
	So this is not that this is a criticism, but why do you think you took that approach?
	If I'm being very mature about it, it would be that it externalizes it.
	It puts the onus on them and not on me.
	Yeah.
	Well, what does it cover up?
	Bailey, what does the anger cover up?
	I thought failure would be the answer, if I'm honest.
	It covers up hurt.
	Failure is a judgment, not emotion.
	It covers up failure.
	Sorry.
	So what is the feeling when people don't even listen to the song for free?
	What is the feeling?
	Yeah, abandonment or hurt or, uh, I guess loss.
	Rejection?
	That's fair.
	Okay.
	So.
	Rejection hurts.
	Now, if you don't have the.
	the ability to blame the audience, what happens?
	Because blaming the audience is a conclusion.
	People are just careless.
	They don't care.
	They're indifferent.
	They don't care about music.
	They don't care whatever.
	You get mad at them, right?
	So if you don't have the option to get mad at your audience, I mean, you may feel it, but if you say, okay, that's not very productive.
	If you don't have the capacity to get mad at the audience, What opens up for you?
	Because getting mad at your audience is an answer.
	Well, there's no point going any further because they just don't care, right?
	That's the.
	answer, right?
	But if you don't have that anger, what opens up?
	What possibilities open up?
	So if you don't get angry at them for not caring or being indifferent or whatever it is, right?
	You don't get angry at them, what else opens up?
	Questions about like how to make them care, I guess.
	Right.
	Right.
	So because you haven't come to a conclusion, they just don't care.
	Right.
	So if you don't allow yourself to just blame others, but simply view that as information.
	So what I'm doing isn't working.
	This is the entrepreneurial mindset, right?
	So what I'm doing isn't working.
	So rather than create a fake answer called, well, people just don't care to withdraw from my own hurt and to get mad and blame others and throw my hands up and walk away, if I don't have that as an option, lots of other options will open up, right?
	Yeah.
	And again, I don't want to make this about myself, but 95% of my audience didn't follow me over to other platforms, right?
	And I was a little surprised, a little surprised, because I'm not just like, oh, it's just some meme channel.
	There are other people make.
	This is a unique show, right?
	So I sort of thought about it.
	I thought about it, and I'm like, well, I can't contact them, right, because I can't send messages on YouTube.
	My YouTube channel's gone, right?
	So I can't contact them.
	So what this means is that I have been liberated from...
	from having to satisfy my audience.
	And so that's when I started reading my audiobooks.
	I started writing novels and I didn't do politics really because I mean I didn't hugely enjoy doing politics.
	I just know that people liked it and I think we did some good good good work in in helping people understand the world that is but for me it was like okay I'm not just going to get mad at them I'm going to look if I don't allow myself to get angry at my audience what opens up well I've been in the trenches fighting this combat called politics for 10 plus years.
	Closer to 15, I think at that point.
	And it's like, okay, so if the audience is not following me, I'm freed from pleasing the audience, which means I no longer have an obligation to the audience.
	I now have an obligation to what?
	Well, to create things of beauty, to do more art, to have more intimate conversations, to, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	So if you don't allow yourself to just resent rejection, lots of things open up.
	And you, and listen, this is pretty advanced stuff.
	So So you came up with a answer called, well, the audience just doesn't care.
	Well, that doesn't give you, and there's no moving forward from that, right?
	Right.
	Then you become like a stalker.
	Look, she just doesn't want to go out with you, man.
	Stop calling her, stop going past her house.
	Well, and I just I just turned my back on him.
	I said, Well, I guess I'm not doing music this way because like, commit to the failure, I guess.
	What sorry, what do you mean by commit to the failure?
	Well, I just don't know what you mean.
	I didn't make any more music after that.
	At least not.
	And how could you?
	Because you put your best foot forward and people didn't care.
	And at some point, don't you have to stop?
	Right.
	And so, but, but that's because you got mad at the audience..
	Now, if I had gotten mad at the audience and just said, you know, you fickle bastards, you know, I'm out for you.
	I get death threats, bomb threats, you know, I give speeches under threat of bullets and explosives and you all can't come one website over and, you know, you know, this kind of stuff, right?
	As opposed to, okay, that's information.
	It's all it is, it's information.
	People aren't following me over.
	Now, people might have been very wise to not follow me over.
	I don't think I've talked about this, so I'll just keep this really brief.
	So, you know, things got kind of.
	crazy there in politics for a while there, right?
	I mean, people are getting in all kinds of crazy trouble, right?
	So maybe by not following me over, they were also keeping me safe, right?
	Because I got to drop politics, which, you know, was becoming an increasingly risky game, right?
	I mean, Mike Cernovich talks about this quite a bit and he's right to do that, right?
	So I refuse to sort of say, well, this is just an indifferent, callous audience, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	It's like, well, they're just giving me information, which is they don't want to follow me over.
	So I'm not just going to get mad at them because all it is is information.
	You know, it's like when you really want to ask a girl out, you ask her out and she just kind of says, ah, no, you know, but it's not like, oh, God, no, or whatever it is, right?
	That she's just giving you information, which is that she doesn't find you appealing at that particular time.
	Maybe it's your outfit, maybe it's your haircut, maybe it's you, or maybe it's whatever, right?
	Or maybe, you know, she's having a really terrible, I mean, I remember.
	when I was a teenager going out with a girl and it was super awkward, right?
	And I was like, geez, I wonder what, what's going on?
	What's like, am I doing something wrong?
	Anyway, many years later, I found out.
	that her father had killed himself, you know, like not too much in the past.
	So of course I realised it had nothing to do with me.
	It was just she was going through, you know, just about the worst time you could possibly go through, maybe not the best time to go on a date.
	So I actually viewed it as a real, whereas I thought it was kind of a rejection, I actually later found out that it was a real compliment that she'd even think about going on a date with me when her father had committed suicide recently.
	So that was, um, uh, it turned from something that felt like a rejection to something that was actually a huge positive that she'd even think about.
	it must have been because she liked me quite a lot or found me quite attractive or something like that, right?
	Sure.
	So it's just information.
	It's just information that says people are not responding to what I'm doing.
	So when people don't respond to what you do, what could you do?
	Well, I mean, I could have tried to build up the audience on, you know, the other platforms and gone back into politics and this, that, and the other.
	Maybe, maybe, but enough people didn't follow me over.
	And how was I going to contact them to even tell them I was doing politics again, right?
	I mean, I was shut out of just about everything.
	So, Again, not to sort of make this about me, but you just got some information that people weren't responding to what you were doing.
	And it wasn't like they didn't like the song because they didn't even listen to it, right?
	Yeah.
	And that's just information.
	And if you view it as just information rather than jumping into wounded vanity pride stuff, which we all do.
	I'm like, I'm singling you out here.
	We all have that tendency.
	We all do it.
	But if you don't jump into wounded vanity pride thing, then you have a whole plethora of options to choose from, if that makes sense.
	You can't.
	can, by not taking it personally, you can try again.
	You could try in a different way.
	You could try other ways.
	Rather than just having an email list, you could try some other way of doing it.
	You could get the band together and do some ridiculous video.
	Like, you know, there's this band, I can't remember, they do these Goldberg machine videos and they did one where they're hopping on these treadmills back and forth.
	And I can't remember the name of the band.
	I don't actually particularly like their music, but the videos are genius, right?
	So, I mean, there's tons of things that you, okay, well, that's not working.
	Well, what else could we do?
	that might be interesting or challenging or fun.
	And you just keep playing until something clicks, right?
	Yeah.
	But you withdrew, or you were driven out, by the story you made up about the audience that they just don't care.
	Just bad people don't care, and so on, right?
	As opposed to, my baby needs air, and the air is ears, so I got to go get my baby some ears.
	And the entrepreneurial thing, why do so many businesses fail?
	Because, well, two reasons, either the product isn't that great, or it's a good product, but they just don't.
	They recoil from people's indifference and rejection because they take it personally.
	It's ego-based.
	you know and the funny thing is that all the people who stopped listening to me missed out on a 600 increase in bitcoin since i was de-platformed right so i mean i i didn't lose out i got to spend half a decade doing stuff that i really loved and writing some great books and and having great conversations with people i mean who really lost out,
	I think, were the people who didn't follow and listening on all of the Bitcoin roundtables and all that kind of stuff that we were doing.
	And, you know, my presentation on the updated presentation on Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff, right?
	So they missed out on the investment opportunity kind of of of a lifetime.
	Am I going to be mad at them for that?
	Well, no.
	So if your song is going to make people happy, and I hope you'll send me a copy of it when we're done, but if your song, we'll put it at the end if you don't mind, but if your song is going to make people happy, then, you know, go get it into people's ears.
	And so whatever you're doing next, if it's going to make people happy, people are going to be indifferent about it.
	Of course they are.
	I mean, think of, think of you go to the mall and you have to buy a thing, right?
	You have to buy a widget, right?
	So let's say there are 80 stores in the mall.
	You walk past all the stores, right?
	And all of the, all of the store owners are looking up as you walk past.
	It's going to be a sale and you just walk past, right?
	Do they rage quit and shut up the store?
	Nope.
	They're just like, well, I guess he's not looking for what, right?
	And then you go into that one store.
	And if the, let's say it's got a thousand items in the store, you just go in for the one.
	All the other 999 manufacturers and entrepreneurs, if they were there, be like, choose mine, choose mine.
	You're like, no, you walk right past them.
	You don't even look at them, right?
	You reject and are indifferent to just about everything.
	And it's the same thing with other people to you.
	Think of all the music you don't listen to.
	I mean, I'm sure that there are bands that have put out music that you liked in the past.
	You like the band, you like their music, but you haven't listened to the new stuff.
	Yeah, I guarantee that's true.
	Of course, it's true, right?
	And is that because you hate them?
	No, you just kind of forgot.
	Like, I'd completely, basically forgotten about the band Alan Parsons Project, which I liked when I was younger.
	And I've been listening to them again.
	And it's been great.
	And, you know, there'll be some other band that I've completely forgotten about.
	I listened to Kevin Samuel some years ago.
	I forgot about him for like two years.
	up and it's just you're busy everyone's busy they've got stuff to do and and all of that so That's why I keep asking, oh, that's why I kept asking, why didn't you finish things?
	And I think it's because you have burned yourself with your interpretation of other people's indifference to the point where your confidence is low and your capacity for resentment is high.
	And if your confidence is low and your capacity for resentment is high, you can't succeed.
	now if you go in dig in for two years you push you know you create you push and all of that and let's say it doesn't work out okay so it doesn't work out but you've lost the central fear in your life Forever and ever amen.
	And you no longer react with resentment or pettiness.
	And that's another reason why I was asking about your wife is if you care about Pryon, then your wife should be doing what?
	Oh, I I I don't know.
	I guess you do supporting that.
	What does support mean?
	What should she be doing?
	I guess I I guess working to keep the our our accounts looking good.
	Our accounts?
	What do you mean?
	Well, I I I assume you're talking financially, but no, or do you mean support that because she can do art and stuff for what?
	She's a graphics designer and you say, oh my God, the big barrier is art.
	Yeah.
	So what should she be doing?
	I guess working together, yeah.
	She should be saying, hey, you know, when's this book going to be done?
	Oh, I'm stuck on the art.
	It's like, well, I'm a graphics designer.
	I work part time.
	I bring in only $500 to $1,000 a month.
	I'll do the art.
	I'd love to.
	Thank you.
	Why isn't that happening?
	I mean, you're paying most of the bills.
	Why can't she contribute some art to your passion project?
	I think it would be my reluctance.
	No.
	Because No.
	You don't think so?
	No, no, no, because you're taking ownership on yourself.
	If she sat you down and said, Honey, I know you really don't like the programming job, I know you're passionate about Pryon, I know you're passionate about creating video games, and I'm going to do the art.
	I don't care what you say, I'm doing the art.
	You tell me what you need, I'm going to do it over the next two weeks or week or whatever it is.
	And even if all she does is tweak the living crap out of AI, whatever it is, you've got the art right why isn't she and this is not any big diss on your wife it's a genuine question of curiosity why isn't she doing that um uh i mean i think the the water that you're leading me to is that i might reject it no no
	no come on if if your loving wife who's a graphics designer did the art to finish prion why would you reject her would you say no i don't want you to do that no i'd rather it stay unfinished i mean, come on, you're not going to do that, are you?
	Are you, are you saying that?
	No, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to do, I'm just asking a question.
	I'm not trying to lead you to anywhere.
	I'm just, why hasn't she said you've put you've put 400 hours and $20,000 worth of labor into this and the only thing that prevents it from being finished is a skill your wife possesses in abundance.
	Come on, man.
	Why hasn't she?
	She has suggested it for a different project.
	And I was like, oh yeah, maybe.
	Okay, so, so, I mean, if I was your wife, right?
	I'd be like, well, what do you mean maybe?
	What's, what's the problem?
	Like, why wouldn't you take free labor from someone who loves you?
	I mean, that's a good point.
	Why, why, why did you say maybe?
	Because I'm not taking it seriously enough.
	I don't know.
	I don't know really what that means.
	She offers you free labor, which is quality because she's trained in it, right?
	So she's offering you free labor about a project you care about and you're saying, no, not really.
	And why?
	Well, by by by me saying not taking it seriously enough, I mean, it's probably that fear of rejection thing, like, well, I'm going to put all this type into this thing.
	And it's not going to materialize.
	Okay.
	So what does a loving wife, and I'm not saying your wife doesn't love you, but we're just trying to up the standard here a little bit, right?
	So why, if you say no to your wife offering you free skilled labor to finish an important project for you, and you say, not so much or maybe later or whatever, what does she do?
	I'm sorry, I'm totally missing the mark here.
	It's about persistence.
	So if I was your wife and I offered you free labor and about something that was important to you and you said, maybe I'm not sure, I'd say, I'm not sure what you mean.
	Why wouldn't you want to finish the project?
	I mean, what do you feel about it?
	And you'd ask questions and, right, all the stuff that we're talking about here, right?
	I mean does she know Yeah.
	Does she know that what's missing is the artwork?
	Yeah.
	Has she offered to do the artwork for you?
	Say what?
	Has she offered to do the artwork for you?
	Given that she knows it's an important project for you, you put in $20,000 worth of labor and the only thing that's missing is the artwork and she's a graphics designer.
	So has she offered to do the artwork for you?
	Maybe not on that specific project, but I would say, yeah.
	You mean on that other project?
	Yeah, she's offered it kind of in general for projects.
	Okay, and when was the last time she made the offer?
	I don't know, in the last two weeks as I've been really stewing on all this.
	Okay, so she's offered in the last two weeks, hey, if you need graphics design, I'm your girl, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, now the problem is, I can tell you what the problem is.
	The problem is that she doesn't want to impose, and neither do you.
	Well, I made the offer, I don't want to bug him about it, I don't want to be pushy.
	And you're like, well, she made the offer, but, you know, I don't want to bug her with having to do all this work.
	Like, aren't you both not imposing on each other?
	Yeah.
	Okay, well, that sucks.
	Marriage is about imposing on each other.
	It is.
	Three to four times a week.
	But marriage is about imposing on each other.
	Because if you're so delicate and you don't want to impose on each other, i mean that's not a marriage as far as i mean i'm not saying you're not married right but but marriage is Yeah, I need help.
	Yeah.
	So you think that maybe you don't want her graphics design help because that will mean things are completed and then you've faced the same rejection that you did with the band.
	I mean, that would be a fair explanation.
	Yeah, procrastination is kind of like your way.
	It's everyone's way of avoiding testing their own potential.
	I could daydream as long as it's not finished, right?
	Okay, so she's offering artwork.
	And you know that you need artwork.
	And if you were to say, I'd appreciate the artwork, would you feel like you're imposing?
	Maybe.
	It's probably a lot of work.
	She's not busy.
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's one thing if she's an orthopedic surgeon or something working 80 hours a week or something, but she's not busy.
	So why won't you let people help you?
	Or your wife?
	Because she's a perfect person to do it, right?
	Yeah.
	So why don't you let people help you?
	I don't know.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Because, you know, helping people is really Fun, it's nice.
	You get to work together on a project.
	You get to produce something that's really cool.
	You get to have a product that you can start to think about marketing.
	Like, it's fun, isn't it?
	I mean, until the brutal rejection parts and other people's indifference, but isn't it to work together with your wife on a on a project?
	Yeah, that wouldn't be, yeah.
	So why why not?
	I don't have an answer for you.
	Well, let's get back to your childhood.
	were you welcome to participate and contribute into your parents'projects?
	I don't know.
	I mean, maybe little things.
	My dad wasn't super accessible, you know, with, with, you know, he might ask you to come out to the garage and then he'd get all mad because you weren't that helpful.
	Oh, yeah.
	Holding the flashlight wrong, down, left, right.
	This is the wrong tool.
	Is it that sort of nightmare of the dad who needs things done and you don't know exactly what he wants?
	Right.
	And then you'd leave because you're like, well, I don't want to be yelled at for it, you know.
	Okay.
	I mean, that's a bit dickish on the part of your dad, right?
	Because, I mean, kids, they don't know how to help too much and you've got to be patient with them, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And so, did you ever have a successful project that you enjoyed working on with your dad?
	Yeah, maybe like building, you know, like model airplane type things and he might help me paint it or that kind of thing.
	No, but that's him helping you.
	What about you helping him?
	Oh.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know if I don't know if that occurred.
	I would have to really think about it.
	Okay.
	So maybe it's a little stressful.
	You have a bit of avoidance about mutual family projects.
	And what about your mom?
	Did she, you know, if she was cooking a big meal, people coming over, I mean, did she get you involved, engaged, have you help out?
	Yeah, I mean, I would probably set the table or No, no, but I mean, not the boring stuff.
	I mean, like the cooking stuff.
	Oh.
	Maybe not.
	Yeah, probably not.
	Why didn't she why didn't she know.
	But you must have a theory.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess I haven't really thought about this before.
	Why don't women like men to help them?
	Oh, why don't moms?
	Oh, because they take over and they they take over.
	They take over.
	They elbow you aside.
	You're doing it wrong.
	You need to do it this way.
	And eventually, it's like with your dad.
	Don't you just wander off?
	Sure.
	Right.
	So you have a family history of not enjoying projects because of yelling or micromanaging or something like that.
	Right.
	So you shy away from projects with your wife because it probably breaks up some minor PTSD from your childhood.
	Yeah, I mean, that's, uh, that's probably fair.
	Most of the stuff that I do for DIY around the house, I generally say, you can stay out of it.
	I'll deal with this thing.
	You know, I'll bring her in if I need her, like, you know, a wall is too heavy to put up or something, but I generally don't.
	I try not to bug her to help.
	Right.
	And does she have any interest in helping?
	I think so.
	sometimes she's like, Oh, I would have helped if he asked or that kind of problem.
	I mean, I assume that, I mean, you don't have kids, so you are each other's company at home, right?
	Yeah.
	So she's able to spend less time with you when you're working on projects, right?
	That's fair, yeah.
	How long ago did you put the single out?
	The what?
	The single, uh, the one you sang.
	Oh.
	Uh, phew.
	Four, probably four years ago.
	Okay.
	It was right before I moved, yeah.
	So it would have been 2021.
	And you'd been married how long at that point?
	We weren't.
	We were married right after we moved.
	We were engaged together at that point.
	Oh, um, seven years, maybe eight.
	Okay.
	So you have a big project going out.
	And it's very disappointing.
	And how does your wife handle that?
	Or what does she do?
	Or how does she help?
	I don't I don't really remember.
	Um, because we were we were super busy.
	No, no, no, no, I don't do excuses.
	I know, I don't, I don't do excuses because this was your biggest heartbreak.
	I mean, how long, how long did you pour, how much of your life did you pour into being a musician?
	A decade or a decade and a half, something like that.
	So this was your biggest single project and your biggest single passion.
	And you got brutally ignored.
	That's not something that a wife is too busy to deal with.
	And the reason I'm pointing this out is, look, we can all improve our relationships.
	And if you're going to be an entrepreneur, your wife needs to.
	be by your side.
	She needs to be with you.
	She needs to be fully supportive.
	And I think she's not there.
	Because, I mean, if my wife had poured 10, 15 years of her life into something, got a brutal rejection and ignored, and, I mean, we talk about it for days.
	Days.
	Weeks, probably.
	to process it, to understand it, to look at our options, whatever it is, because we're a team, right?
	Yeah.
	Are you guys a team that way?
	I really don't know.
	I mean, well, no, you're not.
	And that's not the end of the world, right?
	It's just, it's an area to grow within your marriage.
	But if you're going to be an entrepreneur, she's going to have to be right on board with you.
	Yeah.
	And she's going to have to be watching your back and talking to you out of the tree and making sure you don't overreact and all those kinds of things, right?
	I mean, I'm sure you've done this with her at times.
	And if you're going to go into the entrepreneurial thing, my concern would be that you go and do it and you kind of self-isolate.
	And then you wrestling with it all on your own and it actually makes you further away from your wife.
	And that''s not good, right?
	Yeah.
	She should have been right there in the trenches when your sounds like great.
	I thought you were going to give me some banshee like shrieking or screaming or something.
	It's actually very pleasant, almost like a sea shanty.
	And so when you got brutally rejected from the biggest dream of your life and gave up on the biggest dream of your life that you'd poured the most energy and effort into, Your wife should have been right there with you talking through it.
	All night if need be for weeks, if that's what it took.
	But it just kind of came and went, right?
	Yeah.
	So you guys are you still I don't know.
	Are you a religious man?
	Somewhat.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Like, I do you I'm sorry, go ahead.
	If you if you ask me, I would say yes, but I'm not exactly a I'm not like in a denomination at the moment.
	I can't.
	But do you believe that with marriage, you become one flesh?
	I don't know.
	If she hurts, you hurt.
	If she succeeds, you succe're right down there with her.
	You don't have two separate egos that you stand back and judge each other, but you're in it together.
	Sure.
	Well, then there's still some merging, I think, that you can do.
	Which is you should not go through a brutal rejection of your biggest dream without your wife right there with you.
	for as long as it takes.
	asking, probing, figuring things out, helping you process.
	You said she's a very nice and thoughtful person, but maybe you're over solicitous with each other.
	Well, I don't want to bug you.
	Well, I don't want to bug you.
	And it's like, no, no, bug each other.
	That's how you stay on course, right?
	I mean, the GPS bugs you when you drive off course, right?
	Recalculating, right?
	So that would be my suggestion is to work on things with your wife and say, you know, how did this come about?
	Like, was I pushing you away?
	You know, I went through this horrible thing, destroyed a ten to fifteen years of my passion project.
	I mean, she knows you've never picked up music again, right?
	Effectively, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a huge deal, right?
	She was with you for half of your music career and then you just dropped it and has she said, How do you feel about it?
	Or do you miss it?
	Or what's going on?
	Or she mentions it on occasion, like, Oh, why don't you do this any more?
	You know, I, you know, I like it when you, when you play bass and that kind of thing.
	Okay, and how long do those conversations last?
	Well, they're, they're pretty short.
	Um, you know, I think I write off stuff pretty quickly.
	You know?
	Well, yeah, I wouldn't do that for sure.
	And so this was my concern about your entrepreneurial life is that you'veve got to open your heart, man.
	You've got to really care.
	You've got to be very passionate.
	And I think you play it distant a little bit.
	I think you play it guarded a little bit.
	I would agree.
	Yes.
	And I understand that.
	I mean, this is not any big criticism or anything like that.
	But if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you just have to go balls in, man.
	I assume you don't mind some coarse phrases given that you were in a heavy metal band, but yeah, you have to go all in.
	And you have to have the support of people around you and you have to be passionate and you have to not let your precious baby die for lack of attention.
	It has to be like getting medicine for a sick child.
	Like you wouldn't just say, oh, well, you know, they were out, so I guess I'll just go back home.
	You're like, no, someplace else, right?
	Gotta, whatever, right?
	Gotta go knock on the pharmacist's house door.
	I've got to, I've got to get this medicine.
	I can't get home without this medicine.
	That's what it's got to be like.
	But to do that, you have to be vulnerable.
	And you have to survive people's indifference and projection about that which you care about the most.
	And it's not an easy process, but man, is it liberating to go through.
	Does that, does that make sense about a way that I would suggest approaching it?
	Yes, yeah, I think that's all very helpful.
	Good, good.
	Okay, is there anything else that you, uh, wanted to mention just as we close things up?
	Um, no, I, uh, you didn't, you didn't talk about your transition between, you know, your software stuff and whatever, but that's probably, that's not, it doesn't seem to be..
	It's the same principle.
	Yeah, I just, I cared about the sufferer stuff.
	I cared about my employees.
	I cared about the work that I did to help clean up the environment and keep workers safe in dangerous factory floors, all the health and safety environmental stuff.
	I cared very passionately about it.
	And I care even more passionately about philosophy.
	So, I'm just, you know, you get bruised, beaten up, you get back up, you do it again and all of that.
	So, these are all the principles that I was working with, if that helps, or if that makes sense.
	No, that does.
	And I was just going to say that it's not, it probably wasn't too important a point about how you transition since this is a lot more about uh my reactions or resentment towards let's call it the audience and um well and also i don't i don't do half measures like if i'm going to do podcasting i'm going to just do podcasting i mean i basically did it in my car and it was just you know for for fun and education of the world and all of that and then i found out that it
	was possible to monetize and then i remember I said, geez, if I can make $75 a day, that's, I mean, that's a huge pay cut, but I mean, that means that it's potentially viable.
	I mean, all you have to do is sell your your first item to know that it's something that people will buy.
	And after that, it's just a matter of willpower.
	So, and then you just keep, you just keep pushing and you just keep dedicating yourself to producing as crazy quality a product as you can being as responsive to your audience's feedback and criticisms as you can that's why i always open up the shows with you know feedback questions issues comments criticisms whatever it is right uh and i'm constantly asking donors you know how can i do it better or what can i do differently and i mean if you you really dedicate yourself to the quality product and you get as much feedback as possible and
	And you don't take indifference and rejection personally.
	And, you know, if you had a cure to cancer and somebody was sick with cancer and they were like, they didn't want to take your call, would you be hurt?
	You'd react like, what are you doing?
	Like, you need this.
	This is the thing.
	Yeah, that's it.
	Like, you could listen to other podcasts, but why?
	What are you crazy?
	Right?
	So, yeah, I mean, so entrepreneurs is, you know, I hate to sort of use this kind of phraseology.
	But for me, it's like, hey, I have a QF of cancer.
	cancer and um if people are indifferent to that i think that's a real shame right i i think that's if people don't want to listen to what i have to say about bitcoin over the last five years i think that's a real shame you know they they they could have made some coin, Bitcoin, that is right.
	But I'm not gonna be like, Oh, I'm so wounded.
	It's like, You know, I've got a cure for cancer.
	Oh, you don't want the cure for cancer, even though you're sick?
	Okay.
	I guess I'll move under someone else who does.
	It's kind of baffling, but I'm not gonna be like, Oh, my God, I'm so rejected and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Do you know what I mean?
	Like that, that has to be, you have to believe in it that strongly.
	Yeah.
	There's one other thing, and I think this is, this is already answered, but I think it's worth maybe saying it for your audience.
	So one of the things I was also really concerned about kind of before this conversation, one of the things.
	I was mulling over was that there's so much AI slop, right?
	And like, how am I going to get anything through this ever growing swamp?
	Well, but you use it as leverage, right?
	So you use the AI as leverage.
	Well, I agree with that.
	Or the stuff that you're creating on your own.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	But you've pointed out that the way you get through it is persistence and that, you know, the person pushing the AI slop is just pushing, just dumping it into the swamp.
	They're not sitting there knocking on your door every day saying, this is the way cool thing that you need to look at, right?
	And that sounds like the difference.
	Like that's how you get over that hurdle is that you don't just dump it in the swamp with the with the with the with the with the rest of the sludge.
	You say, no, this is actually this is actually something worth your time.
	Yes, yes, it is.
	And if you believe in it strongly enough, the world will end up agreeing with you and fighting you, but they they won't ignore you.
	And that's the big difference.
	Okay, guy, I appreciate the call and I hope you'll keep me updated.
	Send me the song.
	We'll tack it on at the end here.
	And what's the website that people can go to if they want to hear more of your music.
	Oh, it should be sorry, let me pull it up real fast.
	It should be tenagra at bandcamp dot com dot But I'm double checking to make sure I got the order of that right.
	Good, good.
	and we'll yeah it's nice to have an outro outro song uh Sorry.
	I'll trim this part, so don't worry about it.
	Yeah, give me, let me just, there we are.
	Let's see.
	Tenagra Band.bandcamp.com.
	And how do you spell tenagraband?
	TAN A G R A B A N D. Okay, tenagraband at bandcamp.com.
	Okay, fantastic.
	So we'll put the song in the outro.
	I hope that people will leave comments on your Bandcamp website and I look forward to hearing how things are going and keep me posted.
	All right.
	We'll do.
	Thank you very much for your time.
	All the best.
	Thanks, man.
	Bye.
	Yeah.
	Bye.
	Are you ready to rock?
	I'm ready to rock.
	I'm ready to rock.
	For the sirens that called me here To a place that might appear They don't want me to go So they hold me to the chest out of fear Oh, comfortable at last.
	Oh, comfortable at last.
	Then a feeling wells up inside.
	Wondering what it'd feel like to return And the sun that shines down upon Golden beaches I gaze upon Remind me it's too late To leave this place For the storm
	that's long begun Whoa, oh, oh, oh Comfortable at last Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh Comfortable at last And although God's alone
	Long ago, there was no echo hollow The greatest stuff just like the man that made them And I wonder,
	seems to be now sweet.

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