“They [the first contract prospect] said, ‘Okay, well it’s a six-day shoot.’ . . . In my head, I’m shitting myself doing the math. It’s more than I made last year, but I’m going to make it next week. They said, ‘That sounds fine. We may need to add an extra day. . . .’
“I said ‘I’ll get back to you on that’ [to play it cool], and I felt like I was going to go throw up in the bathroom. There were some stakes there . . . it was an indicator of where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to be a top price point. I wanted to do less work, and do high-end stuff. Now, I don’t want to pretend I didn’t do a shitload. This is like a 10-year, overnight success program . . . I was eating, breathing, sleeping photography, [and then] when I was able to start to monetize my craft, I did so at a very high price point. Little note: If someone ever says ‘yes’ that quickly, you didn’t ask for enough.”
TF: Chase and I share many philosophies, including this one. I didn’t accept advertisers for the podcast until I had 100K+ downloads per episode, as measured at the industry-standard 6 weeks post-publication. Why? Novice podcasters (which I was), bloggers, and artists of all types get too distracted in nascent stages with monetization. For podcasting: In the first 3 to 9 months, you should be honing your craft and putting out increasingly better work. “Good content is the best SEO,” as Robert Scoble originally told me.
You have fundamentally two choices, and the majority of people choose Option A.
Option A: You can waste 30 to 50% of your time persuading a few small sponsors to commit early, then stall at 30K downloads per episode because you’re neglecting the creative. Things are even worse if you get mired in the world of sketchy affiliate deals.
Option B: You can play the long game, wait 6 to 12 months until you have a critical mass, then get to 300K downloads per episode and make more than 10 times per episode with much larger brands who can afford to scale with you as you grow. Haste makes waste. In this case, it can easily make the difference between $50K per year and more than $1 million per year.
Amplify Your Strengths Rather Than Fix Your Weaknesses
“Everything is a remix, but what is your version of the remix? Say I have a relationship with a bunch of celebrities, so I might be able to get a photograph of them that no one else could because they were on my couch playing PlayStation. . . . The point is thinking about, ‘What is the unique mojo that I bring, and how can I try and amplify that?’ Amplify your strengths rather than fix your weaknesses.
“If you’re not the best person at capturing something visually, but you’re a good storyteller, you have your visual art, then you have an incredible narrative to go with it. When you go into art galleries—and I don’t have the budget for it, but I’m a classical-type guy—you’ll see stuff on the wall for $10 million, and you can’t figure out what it is. You read the plaque next to it and you’re like, ‘That’s a damn good story. I see how they’re selling these things.’”
Different, Not Just Better
“I took a lot of cues from Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat [he took graffiti off the street and brought it into the gallery], and Robert Rauschenberg [large-scale guy, crazy mixed media], the artists in New York in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s because they were hackers. . . . [Some of them] were making art about making art. They were reinventing the game while they were playing it.
“If I look across and everyone else is doing X, how do you zig when everyone else is zagging? The way that I zigged when everyone else was zagging in photography was I chronicled my exploits of learning my craft. . . . It was 10 years before it was cool to be transparent, and I was actually vilified for sharing trade secrets.”
Specialization Is for Insects (As Heinlein Would Say)*
“I was told my whole career: You have to specialize, specialize. I ‘specialized’ in pursuing the things that interested me. I talked a lot about action sports, but then I also talked about fashion, break dancing, and all kinds of different cultural stuff. I’ve made TV shows, shot commercials, done ad campaigns, created startups, and [made] the first iPhone app that shared images to social networks. I historically would have been called a dilettante, but to be able to touch all of these things [is to] find out that they ultimately inform one another.”
(Reminiscent of Scott Adams’s career advice on page 269.)
Show Your Work
Both Chase and Derek Sivers (page 184) are big fans of the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon.
* * *
*From Time Enough for Love: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
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Dan Carlin
Dan Carlin (TW/FB: @HardcoreHistory, dancarlin.com) is the host of my absolute favorite podcast, Hardcore History, as well as Common Sense. Jocko Willink (page 412) is also a huge fan of Hardcore History. Tip: Start with “Wrath of the Khans.”
On Not Doing What You’re Qualified to Do
“If I’ve learned anything from podcasting, it’s don’t be afraid to do something you’re not qualified to do.”
TF: This is a common thread throughout this book. Kamal Ravikant, Naval Ravikant’s (page 546) brother, told me how Naval once said to him (paraphrased): “If I had always done what I was ‘qualified’ to do, I’d be pushing a broom somewhere.” As I’ve also heard said, “Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.” Dan preemptively disarms potential criticism of his credentials by saying in nearly every episode, “Keep in mind that I’m no historian, but . . .”
The Origin of Hardcore History
“I used to tell my stories that I’ve told my whole life, and I was telling them around the dinner table. My mother-in-law said to me, because I was already doing one podcast on current events [Common Sense], ‘Why don’t you do a podcast on the stuff you’re talking about here at dinner?’ I said I couldn’t do that. I said, ‘It’s history, and I’m not qualified to talk about history. I don’t have a doctorate, I’m not a historian.’ And she said, ‘I didn’t realize you had to have a doctorate to tell stories.’ I thought about that for a bit. . . . Most of the great historians from the non-modern era didn’t have doctorates, either. They’re just storytellers, too. As long as I’m not purporting to be a historian, and as long as I’m using their work . . . I will tell you the [historical] controversy, and then I will say, ‘Here is what historian A says about it, and here’s what historian B says about it.’ I’ve been surprised how much the listeners like to hear about what’s called ‘historiography,’ which is the process of how history gets written and made and interpreted. They love hearing that! So you’ll actually talk about the different theories. I’m not making this stuff up. I’m using the experts to tell you a story.”
TF: Dan builds shows around his answer(s) to “What’s weird about this story?” when reading various and often conflicting historical accounts.
“Copyright Your Faults”
“I always was heavily ‘in the red,’ as they say, when I was on the radio. . . . I yelled so loud, and I still do, that the meter just jumps up into the red. They would say, ‘You need to speak in this one zone of loudness, or you’ll screw up the radio station’s compression.’ After a while, I just started writing liners [intros others would read for him] for the big-voice guy: ‘Here’s Dan Carlin, he talks so loud . . .’ or whatever.
“That’s my style. ‘I meant to do that. As a matter of fact, if you do it, you’re imitating me.’ So it’s partly taking what you already do and saying, ‘No, no, this isn’t a negative. This is the thing I bring to the table, buddy. I copyrighted that. I talk real loud, and then I talk really quietly, and if you have a problem with that, yo
u don’t understand what good style is.’ Just copyright your faults, man.”
✸ Advice to your 25- or 30-year-old self?
“I remember coming out of the television station where I was a TV reporter. I was working the night shift. I had just worked on some stories all day, and I was just thoroughly unsatisfied with them by the time they hit the air. I remember walking out of the station around midnight. It was up on the top of this mountain, a beautiful place. I remember looking out and just saying, ‘Oh, my God, when am I going to like this? When am I going to really be happy with the work that I’m churning out?’ I look back on that all the time . . . if I could go back and just tell myself, ‘Don’t stress about it, it’s all going to work out in the end.’ Wouldn’t any of us like to know that? Just tell me it’s all going to be okay, and I can get by in my 20s. The 20s were really hard for me. . . . If you could have just said, ‘Stop worrying, it’s all going to be okay,’ . . . I would have saved a ton of emotional stress and worry. I’m a natural-born worrier. Although, if you had told me that, I might have relaxed so much that [my current] reality might never have occurred. So that’s why you can’t go back in the time machine and step on the butterfly—you’ll screw up everything. So I won’t go back and tell myself that, Tim, because I’ll screw up my future.”
Spirit animal: Common swift
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Ramit Sethi
Ramit Sethi (TW/IG: @ramit, iwillteachyoutoberich.com) graduated from Stanford University in 2005 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in technology, psychology, and sociology. He grew his personal finance blog to more than 1 million readers per month, then turned this college side project into a multi-million-dollar business with more than 30 employees. Some of his weeks now break $5 million in revenue. In a finance space saturated by “gurus” of dubious credentials, Ramit has always been willing to share real numbers.
Behind the Scenes
Ramit and I often laugh about how we are blessed and cursed with scammy-sounding book titles. I Will Teach You to Be Rich and The 4-Hour Workweek are about as bad as it gets. Easy to remember, hard to live down.
Every few years for the last 20 years, Ramit has read Iacocca: An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca and William Novak.
A Man Called “Ass”
“My actual birth name was Amit, which is a much more common Indian name. About 2 days after I was born, my dad woke up, rolled over, and told my mom, ‘We cannot name him Amit because his initials will be ASS.’ And the best part is, like true immigrants—my parents are from India—they went to the hospital, and they didn’t want to pay the $50 change fee, so they told them that they had forgotten to add an R and they got it for free. Thanks, Mom and Dad.”
TF: On a related note, I recently got this text from Ramit: “Btw I think I told you how my sisters wanted to get a dog for 15 years. We couldn’t because my dad is allergic. Only . . . we found out he’s not. He just lied to us because he hates pets.”
Are You J. Crew?
“We send millions of emails a month with multiple-million [combinatorial variants] of email funnels, and we generate roughly 99% of our revenue through email.
“[My emails] look like plain emails. . . . I am not J. Crew. J. Crew is selling a brand, so their emails have to be beautiful. My emails look like I am writing to you because I want to be your friend . . . at scale. That is why my emails appear to be really simple. Behind the scenes, there is a lot of stuff going on, but they appear . . . like I just jotted you a note.”
TF: One of the reasons I put off using email newsletters for years was perceived complexity. I didn’t want to have to craft beautiful templates and ship out gorgeous, magazine-worthy missives. Ramit convinced me to send plain-text email for my 5-Bullet Friday newsletter, which became one of the most powerful parts of my business within 6 months.
Some Tools of His Trade
Infusionsoft: Complete sales and marketing automation software for small businesses, with a particular focus on “funnels”
Visual Website Optimizer: A/B testing software for marketers
Advice from a Mentor
“Tactics are great, but tactics become commoditized.”
TF: If you understand principles, you can create tactics. If you are dependent on perishable tactics, you are always at a disadvantage. This is why Ramit studies behavioral psychology and the elements of persuasion that appear hardwired. One of his most-gifted books is Age of Propaganda by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, and his favorite copywriting book is an oldie: The Robert Collier Letter Book, originally published in 1931.
“Indian people do not get punched in the face, dude. They do not get in fights. We are doing spelling bees.”
For some godforsaken reason, I asked Ramit, “Do you remember the last time you were punched in the face?” He answered with the above.
1,000 True Fans
“[‘1,000 True Fans’ by Kevin Kelly] was one of the seminal articles that inspired me to really build amazing material, rather than just recycling what else was out there. I knew that if I had 1,000 true fans, then not only would I be able to live doing the things I wanted, but I would be able to turn that into 2,000, 5,000, 10,000—and that is exactly what happened.
“In terms of getting my first 1,000 true fans, you can look at my posts. They tend to be very, very long [and definitive]. In some cases, 15, 20, 25 pages long. . . . If your material is good, if it is engaging, there is almost no maximum you can write. . . . My point is not ‘write longer.’ It is ‘do not worry about space.’
“Second, I cannot recommend guest posting enough. I did one for you [‘The Psychology of Automation’]—that probably took me 20 to 25 hours to write. It was very detailed. It included video, all kinds of stuff, and to this day a lot of the people I meet, I ask, ‘How did you hear about me?’ and they say, ‘Oh, through Tim Ferriss.’”
TF: For the launch of The 4-Hour Workweek, I used this same guest posting strategy on Gigaom, Lifehacker, and other sites.
“I give away 98% of my material for free and, then, many of my flagship courses are extremely expensive. In fact, 10 to 100 times what my competitors charge.”
TF: I have mirrored Ramit’s approach to pricing and selling. I rarely sell high-ticket items, but when I do, I charge 10 to 100 times what “competitors” might. In general, I split my content in a very binary fashion: free or ultra-premium.
“Free” means that 99% of what I do is free to the world (e.g., podcast, blog) or nearly free (books). I write on topics that A) I enjoy and want to learn more about, and that B) I think will attract intelligent, driven, and accomplished people. This is what allows ultra-premium.
Ultra-premium means:
Once in a blue moon, I offer a high-priced and very limited product or opportunity, such as an event with 200 seats at $7.5K to $10K per seat. I can sell out a scarce, ultra-premium opportunity within 48 hours with a single blog post, as I did with my “Opening the Kimono” (OTK) event in Napa. Of course, then you have to overdeliver. My measurement of customer satisfaction? The Facebook group established for attendees is still active . . . 5 years later.
I use the network and contacts I’ve built through “free” to find excellent non-content opportunities, such as early-stage tech investing. I found Shopify, for instance, via my fans on Twitter while updating The 4-Hour Workweek. I started advising Shopify when they had ~10 employees. Now they have more than 1,000 and are a publicly traded company (SHOP). Fans on social media recommended Duolingo to me when it was in private beta-testing, and I invested in the first round of financing. Now, they have 100 million users and are the world’s most popular language-learning software.
An openness to indirect paths means I don’t obsess over selling my “content,” and I never have. My network, partially built through writing, is my net worth. If you want to increase your income 10x instead of 10%, the best opportunities are often seemingly out of left field (e.g., book
s → startups).
Checklists
Ramit and I are both obsessed with checklists and love a book by Atul Gawande titled The Checklist Manifesto. I have this book on a shelf in my living room, cover out, as a constant reminder. Atul Gawande is also one of Malcolm Gladwell’s (page 572) favorite innovators. Ramit builds checklists for as many business processes as possible, which he organizes using software called Basecamp. Google “entrepreneurial bus count” for a good article on why checklists can save your startup.
✸ Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”?
“I think of a guy I recently met named Mark Bustos. He has an awesome Instagram account (@markbustos) and is a very high-end hairdresser in New York. He works at a top salon, and on the weekend, he goes and he cuts the hair of homeless people around New York. He records it, and he writes about their stories. I think it is so amazing that he is at the top of game as a hairdresser, working with celebrity clients and things like that, and then on the weekend—on his one day off—he goes around and is of service to people who ordinarily would never have the chance to get their hair cut, especially by somebody like him.”
✸ Two people Ramit has learned from (or followed closely) in the last year
Jay Abraham and Charlie Munger.
TF: Jay Abraham is one of Daymond John’s (page 323) mentors and the author of Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, which is one of Ramit’s most-gifted books. I often recommend Jay’s work to people who ask about how to structure “JVs,” or joint ventures.
Tools of Titans Page 30