Don't Compete, Go Deeper | #258

February 24th, 2024: Greetings from Austin. Who’s excited for leap day this year?

I’m experimenting with some designs of “pathless” stuff - you can check the hats here.

• Austin SXSW Meetup: I’m planning a SXSW meetup on March 11th. RSVP here

• Write Online: Write of Passage is hosting a free “test drive” workshop on March 13th. RSVP here (affiliate)

  

#1 Deep Rewards

Almost all of us operate with scripts that dictate how we behave in the world. Some of these are simple and don’t need questioning, like “be nice to babies” or “driving without hitting people is good.” Others are more subtle but probably need questioning, like “work must always be a struggle” or “you should never leave a job before putting in five years of service.”

On unconventional paths, hidden scripts can be even harder to untangle or question because you are often on a path that is uniquely yours. But in reality, you should be even warier of any strong narratives you whip up and cling to too firmly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolving creator economy and the myths that many creators have around the “early days” of putting in the work, sharing without much of a following, and getting better, slowly, failure by failure. The script might be something like “you need to play a long game to win.” This kind of narrative is mostly harmless but it can lead people to think that the arena in which they are competing, business, and more specifically, the creator economy, is fair. If that narrative is important to you, it is probably pretty painful to see well-connected career switchers swoop in to the creator economy and build massive audiences quickly. Their secret of course? Money and social capital.

This is happening most impressively in podcasting. With increasing number of entrants doing expensive shit it can seem hopeless to be committing to something that matters to you. Hell, even Tim Ferriss is like what the heck is going on?!

And I looked at the driving forces or the different converging trends related to say, podcasting, several of which lead to the creation of basically fixed television studios, right? Most podcasters, if they’re aiming to be highly competitive and to feed growth, are building studios. Legitimately building what would be recognized as television studios.

Ultimately you need to be aware of these things if you want to do creative work in public. You can’t be naive about the games and incentives at play. I have been doing my podcast for six years and love it and plan to keep going. Of course I see what other people are doing but the most important thing is to realize that doing work that matters to you has value. Doing this requires courage to keep going even though it seems like everyone else is doing it and courage to keep doing it despite it seeming like other people are "beating" you by doing much crazier stuff.

As I was thinking about these things, I was re-reading Venkatesh Rao Be Slightly Evil, which is a worth reading if you are on an unconventional path.

He has a great riff about costs and rewards:

When you choose to do certain things – like building a reputation in business, a trusted clientele or a solid personal relationship – the hard way, the costs and rewards get flipped. Instead of easy rewards and deep costs, you end up with easy costs and deep rewards.

An easy cost is a cost that is easy to pay. Money is the perfect example. It is the easiest way to pay for things, and also the easiest thing to give up, beyond a certain point. As many people like to say, money is a problem to be solved, not an end in itself. Once you’ve got yourself “problem solved” levels of money (corresponding to the lifestyle you want), giving up more money is far easier than (say) giving up a potentially rewarding lifelong relationship that you are tempted to exploit for immediate gain, simply because you can.

The rewards, on the other hand, are the deeper ones. A sense of deeper understanding of how the world works, and a sense of gradually increasing peace with my place in it, is the main one for me.

Ultimately, everything in life depends on what the deeper rewards are and your ability to actually find states where you can enjoy them.

#2 Go Take a Walk - Dom Francks

Dom Francks reignited my passion for the outdoors in the episode, which was also recorded from his camper van at the base of a mountain (impressed by Starlink’s performance). It was interesting to hear how Dom has stayed committed to finding a path in life that connects him to nature and it seems like he’s in a great place right now.

"The worst day guiding in the wilderness was still generally better than the average day doing anything else."

• Learn More About Dom’s Vivify Program

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#3 Goodreads

This essay by Calvin Rosser was the best thing I read this week. It has near-death, bears, views, and love. If you like it, subscribe and help me convince him to write a book.

Oh hey there, you made it all the way down here

Here are three things worth checking out

1. If you’d like to meet others on “pathless paths”, you can join The Pathless Path Community or if you are already a subscriber, get access here.

2. Buy or listen to my book, The Pathless Path. If you’d like to do a bulk order you can do that here for a discount.

3. Subscribe to my podcast and leave a review.

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