Focused - 105: Living the Multipotentialite Life, with Jay Miller

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

Jay Miller joins us to talk about balancing many interests, transferring your focus as you switch between them, and what it means to live the multipotentialite lifestyle.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How about you? I am excited because we have something coming up on the schedule. Yes, we do. So August 20th at 7 p.m. Central Time, 5 p.m. Pacific. I have no idea about the other time zones, but we are going to be having our first focused virtual meetup. Yeah. So we talked

about this when we started doing the membership thing. If you are a member, you're going to get an email that is going to give you a link you can click on to sign up for the meetup. It's limited to 100 people. So the first 100 get in. But we wanted to get the word out there so you can get it on your calendar for August 20. Be watching your email. I'm not going to send the email out until about a week after this publishes. So people who listen to this have time to get in on it.

But please do sign up if you're interested, and it's going to be fun. We're going to talk about some of our technology we're using. We're going to hopefully have some fun guests in and just hang out with other like-minded Focus nerds. Yes, I am really looking forward to this. Every single time that I have been able to connect with focus listeners whether it be in person or at a live recording of mpu or whatever it's always been

a ton of fun we got yeah we got good people yeah my lighting is a little like off in my studio at night so that's what we're recording at five but it may get kind of romantic on my camera if we go too long. I'm just saying that ahead of time. But anyway, it's going to be fun. You've been warned. And we have a guest today. Yes. Welcome to the show, Jay Miller. How are you, Jay? I'm doing good. How have you been, Mike? Doing good. I actually just saw you last weekend as we record this because you presented for the virtual MacStock conference. I did. That was a ton of fun. I've been trying to get up to MacStock for three years

now. And when I finally have the ability to do it, everything shuts down. So at least being able to do it virtually was good enough for now. Maybe next year I'll actually make it to Woodstock. Yeah, you did a good job. I liked your presentation. So it seemed like you got a lot of good feedback on it too. But for those people who aren't familiar with you, Jay, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are? Sure. So my name is Jay Miller. I am a podcaster. I tell people I'm a podcaster first, even though my paychecks would say otherwise. But I am also what I'm sure Mike will snarl at when I say it. I'm a multi-potentialite. I like to refer to myself as kind of a renaissance artist with a focus in development and content

creation and community. So for me, a lot of that is just interviewing people, putting them on the show, live streaming when I can, my successes and failures, and connecting with people in the community and learning a ton and just finding a way to making a living while doing all of that. I'm also subscribed to like 400 podcasts.

And I think David is probably a host on while doing all of that. I'm also subscribed to like 400 podcasts. So, and I think David is probably host on at least a hundred of those. So I have way too many podcasts. Yeah. You know, it's funny though, when you tell people you're a podcaster, do you get the eye roll? I tell, I get that all the time. You know, I think I'm still kind of in the group where because I say like developer, podcaster thing, they go, oh, can you build an app? And I'm like, oh, not that kind of developer. Sorry. Well, I have it really rough. So when people ask me what I do, I can either say I'm a lawyer, and then they get angry at me, or they want me to solve a problem in their life. So that's a non-starter for me. And I can

tell them I'm a podcaster, then they're going to roll their eyes. Or I can tell them I'm a blogger and they'll just laugh out loud and walk away. That's still a thing? Yeah, exactly. I don't know what I do. So I just tell people I work in tech. Like we had the guy here to fix the air conditioning today because it broke today. What do you do? Well, I work in tech. That's good enough for most people. I like it. Yeah. But I'm really glad you came on the show, Jay. You've been kind of writing and working in this space for several years now. I was telling you before we started, I fell into a hole with your 2016 website, which I thought was pretty good, by the way. But you wear more hats than just your tech stuff. What else are you up to?

So right now, the biggest thing is productivity and tech, which is mostly about tech. I say it's about productivity, but people that listen often argue with me about that. But yeah, mostly productivity and tech has kind of become my thing. A few years back, I think this podcaster once started a podcast called Freelancers or something like that. Free agents, yes. It's not around anymore, so I don't know. Kind of. But I kind of took some inspiration from learning from that and with the birth of my first child, my daughter, and decided that I was going to take the idea of just doing a podcast

and take it to the next level, which meant helping other people do their podcasts. And a lot of that came in with like editing. But then I also realized as someone who has worn many hats in the, we'll call it adult job space, I was in a very unique position to where I could help people with automation stuff. I could help people with marketing things because during the day I played marketer. And I could also, you know, help people with the whole podcasting and streaming thing because that's what

I've been doing for fun for, you know, five, six years. And that turned into its own little, you know, unique business. And it's been growing every year year it's gotten bigger and bigger. It's not enough to say I'm a full-time free agent, but I'm getting there and I'm enjoying it. It's been cool to see that grow over the years. I looked back because you had me on your podcast and I went back in our email thread to figure out when that was that you had invited me on. It was 2016. So you've been doing this for a while, but I feel like recently you've kind of got some momentum. You kind of shared the aspirational job description by putting podcaster first, but you were accepted for the virtual Mac stock presentation.

I know you're going to be part of Mike Hurley's podcast mentorship. So you've been doing a lot of this lately. Yeah, and there was a lot of kind of concern, I guess. Because, I mean, there's always a discussion about taking up space that could be available for someone else, someone else's voice. And, you know, when Mike emailed me saying, hey, you know, I want you to be a part of this thing as one of the mentees. And I was like, Mike, that's a huge thing for me. And it's great. And there's so many people that, you know, I joke with Matt Cassinelli, because he often tweets out that I was the first pod,

my podcast was the first one he was ever on. And now, you know, guys working over at Twit doing stuff. So I'm like, yeah, you know, that's all me, even though it's not. It's entirely him. He does all of the work. And I just shouted it for him. So for me, it felt weird to have, you know, an opportunity for people, for new faces and new voices to come into podcasting. And for Mike to say, I want to focus a little bit of my time and energy on me. focus a little bit of my time and energy on me. And, you know, I was after talking a lot, I realized something very, very, very wise, you know, you have the opportunity to learn from a lot of people, just because you've been doing something for a long time doesn't mean that, you know, you know it all. And I was never claiming to know it all. But I didn't realize that he intentionally had selected me as one

of those people because of my experience. And I think that just doing that, a lot of things that are happening right now in 2020, which people will say is a year that will live in infamy, will live in infamy. This has been probably my best year professionally. And, you know, in a time where people are like, all businesses are shutting down and everything else, you know, I'm making record progress. And it comes from constant networking and business decisions that I made five years ago before I even knew that I was going to turn this thing into a business. Yeah. You know, when I first started doing Mac Sparky stuff, and even when we started Mac power users, I was pulled aside and told, you know, you're wasting your time. This space is already full, you know, move along. And I think I felt at the time, well,

I've got a unique voice and I've got an angle to this that I haven't heard. I tried to create content that I wanted to consume. And that's been my role the whole time that I've done the Max Bargis. The reason this podcast exists because I think focus is important and there's no place else I can hear about it. And so I think you're right on track, man. I mean, first of all, to hear that from David Sparks is just like, yes, I'm doing it. This is awesome. But also the idea of hearing that your voice shouldn't be out there. I mean, that's something that I get all the time. I mean, that's something that I get all the time. I mean,

that's something that download numbers get. That's something that, you know, a lot of podcasters talk about, like, how do you deal with negative feedback? And I was like, well, first of all, be grateful that you get any feedback. You know, that's kind of a thing that a lot of podcasters that I've worked with have struggled with. They're like, I just want someone to tell me I'm doing a good job or that I'm doing something. And, you know, that's kind of where the community side of what I do has been such a big deal is having this group of, you know, misfits that just all hang out together. And whether, you know, you're talking with them on a daily basis or whether you're just listening to their shows, listening to Bookworm,

listening to Intentional Family, Mac Power Users, all of the amazing shows, Automators because Rosemary Orchard is amazing. All of those things, like being a part of those communities has only helped in amplifying not my voice, but the voices of so many amazing folks inside of those groups. Yeah, it's a, it's a weird experience when you meet someone and they know so much about you and you know nothing about them, but it's, it's also very enriching.

But, but let's talk about how you're, as you're, as you got more popular with doing some of this and you're starting to see some success, you're probably at this phase right now where you're getting a lot of people writing you and asking you to help out on things and get involved with things. How are you dealing with all of this? A lot of it is just saying no a lot. Honestly, that's kind of the hardest part. One of the things that I talked about in the Mac stock talk was giving away as much as you can for free. And I mean, as a developer, we kind of have this built-in system or ideology of it called open source where it's like, hey, I made a thing. You can copy it. You can sell it. You can do whatever you want with it. Um, I don't care. And you know, that's, that's a great way to do it. But you know, to answer the question directly, sometimes people will ask me for stuff or they'll ask me for advice. And, and I just tell them like,

you know, there's a, there's a lot of content out there that's available for you. If you have a very specific question that you feel like I'm the only one that can answer, I am more than happy to sit down and share a little bit of my time. But more and more that is becoming a kind of a bottleneck. So ultimately, it's making more and more things available for more people to use. That way, my mailbox can stay pretty light. But also kind of just the idea of talking about it openly. answer your question if everybody on my podcast can hear the answer. And, you know, it puts it on them. And then I get to interview someone great for the show. And we talk about their questions. And we talk about the things that interest them and the things that they want help with. And we do it in a very open and public way. And I think that's great because, you know, anyone will waste your time. But when you put it on a calendar like that,

that means they have to commit. Anyone will grab you while they have a free opportunity. But when you go, OK, in three weeks, we're going to sit down for an hour and a half, two hours, and we're really going to have this discussion. That's when you kind of start to separate the wheat from the chaff. They've got skin in the game at that point. It's a commitment on their end, too. separate the wheat from the chaff. They've got skin in the game at that point. It's a commitment on their end too. So how do you balance? One of the points you had in the outline here is building for fun and profit. And I imagine it's probably a lot of fun to talk to some of these people and feel like you're helping them and building a community, but you've also got a family at home. So how do you strike that balance?

I think with the easiest way to strike it is to be open and honest about it. You know, when you're telling people like, I want to help you, but here's, you know, my, my words are often, I will, I will talk via text or not, not actual like messages app text, but like, I will talk via Slack channel, Twitter, wherever, email me. I'll do that for free as long as you want because I can do it at my pace and my time. The second we want to sit down and have a conversation,

there needs to be some type of profit discussion. And that profit doesn't have to be monetary. It can be, like I said, it can literally just be, hey, that's another episode for the podcast that I don't have to be monetary. It can be, like I said, it can literally just be, hey, that's another episode for the podcast that I don't have to worry about now. Or it can be, you know, let's have a discussion about how I can help you with a project that you're working on. It can be any of those things. And a lot of the great discussions that I've had have started out as you just need help figuring something out. We're talking about it through, you know, email or whatever. And then we get to the end and I go,

you know, I have this the shortcut that I use, or I have this script that I use. You can just use that. And if you're uncomfortable doing that, if you're willing to pay me for my time, I'll just do it for you. I learned that trick from a mutual friend of all of ours, Kathy Campbell, who basically did the same thing for me. You know, said, hey, you have some great ideas. If you genuinely need help, we can have this discussion. But now we're we have to put on the business hats. And I think just being open and upfront about that has allowed people to respect my time, but also respect the boundaries of like, OK, if I'm going to ask him to do something for me, I have to understand that it's going to come at a cost and I have to be OK with that cost as well. I heard somebody describe it one time as making either a deposit or a withdrawal from

an emotional or relational bank account. And that image really stuck with me. I think it maybe is easy for anyone to go one of two ways with that, depending on your personality, where you tend to default to making the withdrawals. Or on the other end, you just want to make people happy, so you make all the deposits. That's probably the one that I lean towards if I'm not careful, just being a people pleaser. I'm curious, David, how do you handle stuff like this? Because you were kind of instrumental in my journey. You were reaching out and encouraging me via email. Stephen shared how you and Jason had the talk with him and encouraged him to go indie. How do you decide this is something that I'm going to invest my time in, but you can't do

it, obviously, to everybody who asks? Yeah, that's a good question. I hadn't really thought it through. There's a degree of love involved. I try to help people who I think have a unique and interesting voice. And to the extent I will help, I can. And I can't help everybody. But I do think, I think it's when you see somebody that you think, this person has it, they just need a little boost and I can give the boost. Why the hell not?

I mean, I feel like the same way about Rosemary. When I met Rosemary the first time, I'm like, oh, she's got a great voice. She's passionate. She needs to be on a podcast. And then it was just a question. I didn't even know that I was going to be on a podcast. And then it was just a question. I didn't even know that I was going to be on a podcast with her. I was just trying to figure out how to get

her hooked up with somebody. But her and I spent so much time talking about those automator things, you know, those things that we really can't talk about on Mac Power Users because they're too nerdy. I'm like, let's just do a show. And I kind of felt the same way with you when the opportunity arose. I don't know. That's a wishy-washy answer. You know, Mike, you mentioned the idea of it being for fun and profit. I think in the original question, I think that's where Dave just drove that home. The stuff that I'm doing, I'm having fun with. I tell people one of the very unique things about productivity and tech interview is the after show. And, you know, I sit there for 30 minutes asking all these questions about this person, what they're doing and, you know, how they're getting it all done. That's kind of the tagline. And the questions are just their free form. Like people ask me, do you have

a script or anything? That's like, no, we're going to get to know each other. We're going to have a conversation. It's just going to be a recorded one and a bunch of people are going to listen. And then at the very end, right before we get on the air, I go, and this means no one else here can be on the show. I'm just kidding. Everyone's invited. But I tell them like, oh, by the way, when this is over, I'm going to flip the script

and it's going to be your show to interview me. And they go, wait, what? And then we start the conversation. And at the end of it, we have these off the wall, just fun, laughing, amazing conversations. I mean, there's been conversations where we've both ended in tears, just sharing life stories. There's been conversations where we talked about football teams. And, you know, we talked about why San Diego is better than LA and all these other things. And it's just so many great moments happen. And it all happened because, you know, you just made yourself available to do

something. And I mean, I've started at this point, I think like eight podcasts. And right now I do two. And some of them have kind of folded into other things. Some of them have just kind of faded away. But taking the opportunity to go, this sounds like fun. I want to commit a little bit of my time and energy to this thing. Well, there's a couple things to unpack there. I think one of them is the idea of making a podcast and sticking with two. On a show called Focused, I believe that one of the key personality traits of someone who wants to stay focused is the ability to try things out, but the quick ability to throw things overboard as well. How'd you go through that process of dumping six podcasts? I think a few of them, it just kind of made sense.

Instead of doing, you know, productivity and tech every other week, and then doing a solo show that I called What I'm the Underground podcast that was never on, you know, Apple podcasts or anything like that. Actually, I launched that when Spotify announced they were getting into the game. I was like, you know what, we need to do underground radio again. Great ambition, great idea. But at the same time, it was like, I'm gonna have to sacrifice something. And instead of sacrificing, you know, doing a weekly interview show and a personal show, I said, what if I just do bi-weekly interviews, and then I lace my own reflections of what's been going on for the last couple of weeks

into that podcast. And that became the rebirth of Pit Reflections, which I had done four years ago as its own solo show, and it just didn't work out. And then also, I think doing things that are designed to have a limited run is a great way to do to scratch an itch. You know, I mentioned when we were preparing for all of this that, you know, I've been diagnosed with ADHD. And a lot of people think of the ADHD of, you know, not being able to focus. There are actual benefits to having ADHD in some ways because it can allow you to get very, very invested in a single thing for a short period of time. So for me, that meant doing something like Devotaku, where I talked to people from different

lifestyles and different places all over the world as we watched Cowboy Bebop, one of my favorite animes together. And, you know, it was a good excuse to talk to some friends and it was also a good excuse to watch some anime. And at the end of the show, we were like, well, okay, we're kind of done. All right, thanks everyone. Have a good time.

And then you just move on to the next thing. So I think not feeling like your entire self-worth is tied into just one thing that you do or all eight things that you do, being able to pick something up and set it down. One of the best decisions I ever made was doing like holiday hours for productivity and tech of saying like, I'm going to work super hard from January to about August to make sure that I have content up until Thanksgiving. And then from Thanksgiving to the end of the year, I don't do pit. I don't, I don't do, I do some of my marketing clients and that's it, but I don't take on any new jobs unless they were,

they were kind of already agreed upon beforehand. And that allows me to really explore some things that maybe I didn't have time for during the middle of the year. You know, if it's still pressing me like that, then why not do it? So this kind of gets into the multi-potential light stuff I feel. And I'm kind of curious how you decide what is the right number of things to be doing. I know you're trying to mash things together and you're doing a bunch of different things, but that sounds to me like a recipe for doing too much. I will definitely say I have been guilty of doing a thing or two too much in my history. But I think that doing things at different levels allows you to explore opportunities that you couldn't have imagined before. Like something that I really enjoy that I haven't actually seen much of.

So since I have him on the show, you know, Dave used to put out these great recommendations for jazz to listen to on the weekends. And am I right about that, Dave? Yeah, I've got more for you to just stay tuned. And am I right about that, Dave? Is that? Yeah. I've got more cue to just stay tuned. I mean, that's great. And, you know, the interesting thing is I grew up around music. I played guitar for a long time. And, you know, my family is deeply rooted into the music scene. My uncle actually owns a former Motown studio. And it's one of these great things that I love being able

to do that. But I'm sure if, you know, not to speak for David, but I'm sure that, you know, someone said, Hey, David, I love this one section of your newsletter. I love this one section of a blog post that you do. I would love it if you just did a daily podcast outlining, you know, some jazz album that you want to listen to throughout the if you just did a daily podcast outlining, you know, some jazz album that you want to listen to throughout the day. Like, I'm sure that would be met with a very quick no thank you. But to be able to sprinkle it in, you know, just in a couple of things that you do, I love coffee. I love coffee like Oprah loves bread. And one of the things that I do is I have a coffee subscription that I subscribe to and you know if you subscribe to my newsletter there's always like what I'm drinking which

actually came from the what I'm podcast and I just take a quick shot of you know the the bag of coffee that I'm drinking on for that month and you know usually my setup with my grinder and my new gooseneck and my Chemex. And, you know, if people want to ask me about that, we'll have a conversation. If not, I at least got that little bit of me out. But Mike, to answer your question on, you know, doing too much, I think that there is, there's going like shallow and then going deep. there is there's going like shallow and then going deep. If you've ever ran on the beach, you know, running in sand is hard. Running right on the surf, you know, right as the tide comes in is a little bit easier. But eventually you get to a point where like the deeper and deeper that you

go, the harder it is to run. To me, that's kind of what I do with all of my projects I go I want to stream something well what do I want to stream I don't know let's just pick up a project so then I pick up a project and I'm not going to commit to to know building an iOS app I'm going to commit to fixing like my documentation or something like that something that I can do that's manageable and then if I'm interested in it I dig a little bit deeper if I'm not feeling it then I dig a little bit deeper. If I'm not feeling it, then I put it down and I pick up the next thing. And there are ways that you can do that that allow you to touch multiple facets of your life that, you know, for a while I just streamed video games. Now I'm mostly streaming me coding because of some potential job opportunities. And, you know,

now I'm working with conferences because every conference has gone online. So now I'm actually working on my transcription tools that I've been working on for a year now. And it's just kind of taking it as the season comes in and what I personally feel like doing. Is there any sort of common thread between things? Or what's the point where you start to think, hey, maybe I could build a community around this? I don't like to say that I build communities because I think the communities are there. I often look at the group that has huddled around whatever it is I'm doing. And then when they say, hey, it would be great if we were able to connect with one another outside of this, you know, that's when we start having that discussion.

But at the end of the day, like, I have a Slack channel for I call it pit for productivity and tech, but I have a we have a pit community that's, you know, it has 100 people in it. And it's free to join. The only requirement is you have to email me asking for access. And I do that for a few reasons. One, the people that are in that community are like some of my closest friends from the internet. And I want to make sure I mean, and some of them are in a group that I would say needs a safe space to, you know, express themselves, a safe space to talk about their journey wherever they're at in life. And I want to make sure that I'm protective of that. So I personally vet everybody. And people would say, hey, that

doesn't really scale all that well. Well, it's designed not to scale. And it's not designed to be something that I make money off of, because every time I've thought about that, just the idea of, okay, now I have to set up, you know, a Patreon, then I have to link it to this thing over here. And then I need to set up these, these promises that now I am obligating myself to fulfill. At that point, it's like, I don't want to do all of that stuff. I just want to have fun conversations with cool people. And I can do all of the fun conversations with cool people without having to monetize it. Sure.

I've felt that pressure too where you're hesitant to commit to something because it means you have to do it all the time now. I just want to get you to read the book. That's it, Mike. I just want you to commit to that. Yeah. This episode of the Focus Podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

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again, that's squarespace.comcom focused and the code focused to get 10 off your first purchase we thank squarespace for their support of this show and all of relay fm squarespace make your next move make your next website i want to pull apart this word multi-potential life. I know you've kind of talked about it a little bit. Are what you're saying is focus shallowly distributed? Is that what I'm hearing? Like a bunch of focus on a bunch of little things? How does it work, Jay? So I will first, I'll be the first to say I didn't create this phrase. It actually came from a book that hasn't been covered on Bookworm yet, cough, cough, hint, hint, called How to Be Everything, a guide for those who still don't know what they want to be when they grow up by Emily Wapnick. multi-potentialite lifestyle. I kind of mentioned it a little earlier, that idea of a Renaissance artist isn't necessarily saying that I want to do a bunch of things not very well. In fact,

it's actually saying I have a few interests that I'm actually really passionate about, and I want to find ways that I can make my life be about all of those things, not just one. You know, I would definitely label you, David, as a multi-potentialite because you enjoy doing law work. You may not enjoy like everything you do in law work, but you enjoy being a lawyer. Otherwise, I'm sure you would have figured something else out, you know, but you also enjoy podcasting and you enjoy talking to people. I'm talking you would have figured something else out. But you also enjoy podcasting and you enjoy talking to people. I'm talking a lot for David right now. It feels kind of weird. I feel like I've known him all my podcasting life because I've listened to his

shows for that long. But to be able to say that, for me, I look at, they call it multipods. I guess someone who is a multi-potentialite. But to me, being a multipod means that you have the ability to do something well, regardless of how deep or how narrow your focus is on it at any given time. So a good example that people look at is like Einstein. You know, Einstein was an amazing physicist, but I mean, he didn't necessarily make a living doing physics. He made a living, you know, working at the patent office. And, you know, I think of some of the more recent artists like Donald Glover, who was a hip hop artist, was a writer, was a TV producer and is an actor.

You know, he's, you know, I just heard that Disney announced they're going to be doing an entire Lando series with him as the, you know, the front actor. And I mean, that's awesome. I look at artists like Janelle Monae. And I mean, you can look at some of the like Da Vinci, you know, if you go way back, these were all people who, if they focused on one thing, you could say that, yeah, they would be successful in it, but they wouldn't necessarily be fulfilled just doing that one thing. Well, there's definitely a blowback against the concept. I mean, as someone who kind of has a few things, I get emails occasionally from people angry at me.

And the most recent one I got was from a lawyer saying, what's wrong with you? You're a lawyer. Stop all this podcasting nonsense. Although he didn't use the word nonsense. It's like, it's like people get upset because you're doing more than one thing at once. And, um, but I do think it's an interesting concept held up against the, you know, the mirror of focus, which we try and, you know, that's the point of this show. the mirror of focus, which we try and, you know, that's the point of this show. Hey, real quick, why do you think people get upset with the fact that you're doing more than one thing? Maybe, you know what, I don't worry about what other people think. So I'm just guessing, you know, if I had to hazard a guess, it'd be that they find it offensive that you can't settle on one thing.

I don't really know. I don't write people like that back. I just put it into the same box black hole and never think about it again. I think there's probably, well, everybody is obviously a little bit different. And you got to figure out what works for you. And if I've learned anything in the productivity space over all these many years, it is that there is not one system that works for everybody. GTD is not the end all be all. And all people have to do is stumble upon that and bam, their task management problems

are solved. And I think it's a little bit hard to understand why what works for you isn't going to work for somebody else. And it's even more frustrating maybe if you see somebody else doing something that you kind of wish you could do, but you can't just because you've tried it that way and it doesn't work for you. I think there's something to say about the idea of doing something well. just being in tech, being in tech in general. A long time ago, the only way that you could get into technology was you went to college, you got a computer

science degree, you did an unpaid internship while you were in college, you raked up a bunch of debt from student loans and all of those things only to get a job at a junior level as a help desk technician. And that's just not the case anymore. Apps that are coming out now, they're not just repair apps. I interviewed an amazing individual named Cecil Phillips, who is a senior cloud advocate at Microsoft. And his story was he came to America from Antigua. And he thought at the time that he went to college, working in tech meant fixing people's computers. That's it. That was the only job that was available in tech. And once he saw that there was an opportunity to do more, tech. And once he saw that there was an opportunity to do more, he just put himself in those positions to do more. And, you know, I think that that's something that I don't want to say the old guard,

but there's something that a lot of people who are, quote unquote, specialists, quote unquote, like the master of one, and they spend all of this time and energy to get to where they were. And they had to like grind to get there, which is a word that I can't stand. But for me, I have been able to use a culmination of the skills that I've developed as a podcaster and a streamer to be able to do public speaking. One of the things that when Mike first met me, I was actually a minister for a homeless community church thing that I was doing. And that was a very tough decision because I you know, I don't talk about my faith very much, but that's also something that I don't play with, you know? So, I felt like at

the time that was a thing. And what I realized was it was, in a way, me being able to use that multi-potentialized muscle, being able to speak, being able to engage with a community, a community that needed a lot of help, to be able to help coordinate and network and connect people in the homeless community to shelters and organize with food banks and all of these things, all of the things that I enjoy doing. But if I were focusing solely on one aspect of those things, I never would have had that opportunity. And I think that that's where being a multi-potentialite really does allow people to excel beyond the idea of being the person who worked at a company for 37 years and is a senior now because they worked there for 37 years, only to be sat next to someone who just had a bunch of

skills and is kind of aloof and likes to play with a bunch of different ideas and passions. The same skill sets are available. They just got there in different ways. You know, hearing you describe multi-potentialites, it kind of occurs to me, you can tell me if this is accurate or not, that maybe the multi-potentialites, it kind of occurs to me, you can tell me if this is accurate or not, that maybe the multi-potentialite where you do a bunch of different things, that is really just a different way of defining the fact that your one thing doesn't fit into a pre-made box. I just got done reading The Crossroads of Should and Must, and Ellie Luna talks about the must being who we are, what we believe, what we do, and we're alone with our truest, most authentic self. And sometimes that, I think personally, that truest, most authentic self doesn't fit inside of a convenient label.

So you end up saying, well, I'm a lawyer over here and I'm a podcaster over here and I do this over there. But if you were to really dig beneath these things, there is some thread of commonality that ties the things together. You just can't see it until you really look for it. Is that fair? Not to merge all of the podcasts that I listened to into one show, but listening to that episode, there was an analogy that you made that talks about, you know, three brick layers, and kind of the mindset that each person had, you know, the first person says, you know, I'm laying a brick, you know, the second person says, I'm building a building. And the third

person says, you know, I'm creating art or, you know, something along those lines. Cathedral, I think. I'm creating art or something along those lines. It's in a cathedral, I think. Yeah. So for me, it is like that. It is when someone says, hey, what are you doing when you're podcasting? I could give them 15 answers. And it's just, it's easier, like you said, to say, you know what?

Trying to explain why I podcast is too hard. So I can just say, you know what, I do a bunch of things. I've had companies that want to reach out because I podcast and they're like, well, we don't care what you podcast about. It's the fact that you know how to talk on a microphone. That's the important thing to us. And, you know, the same thing with live streaming right now, all of these conferences, all of the advocates that are out there that attend conferences left and right, they're having to set up their home studios to give talks virtually, which is something that, I mean, in theory, I've been been doing it differently. I've been doing it to a Twitch audience talking about video games or to the podcast community talking about some topic that a guest brings to the table, and I'm just facilitating the conversation. I think to be able to do that makes it a lot easier. You can't just say, I'm a podcaster. It's not true. I mean, if you're a podcaster, well, what do you podcast about?

You know, I think Friends in Our Ears, there was a show, episode I was on, we talked about the infamous LA Yodeling Society, or Yodelay. To me, that would be an amazing podcast, even though there would only be like five people that listen to it. Those would be the five most dedicated people in the world. But you wouldn't call them podcasters, you'd call them yodelers. But maybe they love podcasting. So why can't they be both? And I think that that's...

And I mean, like, you've both been getting into Rome research. Would I call you zettelcasters? Like, no, you're just podcasters that happen to like productivity and, you know, the zettelcastingasten method apparently, and, and all of these other things. So it's, it, to me to say that you're just one thing, like, that's not fair. It's not fair to you. That's not fair to all of the other stuff that you do for fun. I would call myself a professional bowler, but I haven't won any tournaments. You know, I still love bowling. Well, the most important question, do you put the bumpers up or do you put the bumpers down?

My average is 205, and I'm a league bowler, so they wouldn't let me put the bumpers up if I wanted to. I hadn't bowled in like 30 years, and recently I went, and my technique was that of which the bowling ball got too much air and I was asked to stop. So I don't think I'd be a professional bowler. But getting back, I want to come back to something. Now, first of all, I don't really want to use this word multi-potentialite because to me, words like that are such a turnoff. You know what I mean? That is exactly what's wrong with productivity space is words like multi are such a turnoff you know i mean that is exactly what's wrong with productivity space is words like multi-potential light but i mean what what i'm

hearing is you're a man of many interests you feel like you can pursue more than one at a time and um i think there's nothing wrong with that um however, it comes with these traps, you know, and that's what we've been dancing around today is, you know, focus is very important. It's hard to stay focused with one thing. It's much harder to stay focused with five things. And I know from, you know, kind of the pre-interview stuff we talked about is that you're not a big fan of terms like the hustle and this idea that everybody's got to keep hustling. In fact, Mike and I did a show last year about how we've turned on that term ourselves. But I feel like this is something that's really hard to square when you're doing several things. It almost sounds like you describe a hustle when you talk about all the different things you're doing at once.

hustle when you talk about all the different things you're doing at once. You know, I, at one point I was a fan of, of the quote unquote hustle culture. And at the end of the day, it cost me a little bit of my health. And I learned that's, that's kind of the difference is being able to say, I enjoy doing this thing so much that it doesn't feel like hustling. That's the difference. Like to me, of course, there are always going to be moments where you just you're not going to want to do a thing and you got to get it done and you just want to kind of do it and just deal with it, get it over with. But to say that I hustle is not a thing because to me, hustling has this ulterior motive attached

to it. You know, to me, hustling has this ulterior motive attached to it. You know, why are people hustling? Why are people burning the midnight oil or, you know, burning the candle at both ends and doing all of these things? It's because they're trying to get to a place. I'm not trying to get to a place. I'm just trying to enjoy the ride. Yeah, that's a good summary and and i would also argue that the term hustle has come to have like a badge of honor feel to it in certain circles like oh yeah i hustle you know i'm the hustler you know whereas what i think you really want to be is the efficient one you know the one who still gets the important work done, but goes and sees his

family once in a while and has interests, listens to jazz maybe, you know, but the, uh, but I feel like we're turning the corner on that, but it's still very much a thing out there. The thing that I worry about with that though, is we're turning the corner, but what are we turning it into? You know, I feel like the productivity space as a whole has this idea that everything has to have a name to it. And like you said, you know, multi-potentialite, sure, call it whatever you want. Like, I feel like we have to identify, and I think there's some psychology behind that, to where we are tribal in nature. Like we want to feel like we belong to a group. And sometimes that group is the, you know, the mindfulness group. Sometimes

that group is the hustle culture. Sometimes that group is the minimalist, you know, movement. And I think that by, you know, I'm going to sound super 90s or early 2000s here, like by labeling yourself as one thing and just conforming to it, you know, like that whole thing is I feel like what happens when you want to be a minimalist, but there are just some things that you don't want to get rid of. of? You know, how do you get away with that by saying like, oh, I get to be a minimalist and keep six bowling balls in the garage and then also have a marble racetrack because I really liked marble racing before it was cool, you know, in my office. That's not minimalism. That's obsessiveness, I guess. But at the same time, it's things that make me happy. It's things that spark joy or whatever. And all of those things make up a little bit of the whole picture that is me. Yeah, and I do think that that kind of gets back to the problem with the labels, is the labels are 1,000% in and 0% out.

the labels are 1000% in and 0% out. And when you have a label like a minimalist, you're not allowed to keep six bowling balls. Well, you know, I think there's some minimalists that would disagree with you because, you know, there's different ways to define all these terms. And I guess that's something we run into on this show quite a bit because we talk about these concepts. And really the answer is always and always has

been and always will be somewhere in the middle yeah that's why i think you know focused has a connotation maybe of looking at one thing and nothing is able to distract you and i kind of like the term intentional a little bit better. I think that they're basically the same thing. What Jay sounds like you're describing is your ability to be focused on one thing, be intentional about one thing, and then it's time to do something else. So you can switch that focus, you can switch that intention, but that's really the measure of whether you are being successful is whether you're able to follow through with the thing that you intend to do, the thing that you want to do, the thing that brings you joy, the

thing that is fun, the thing that you are building. And at that point, it doesn't matter if anybody else sees the connection, and they probably aren't going to see the result of the effort, maybe even that you put into it. But you just enjoy the process. So that's good enough. I think it's often like, how did I get to where I am? You know, question. Like, if someone were to say, like, you know, David, how did you get to, you know, having three successful podcasts and a successful law firm? And like, you know, how did I get to where I am? I have no idea. But I had a lot of fun in the process. And I made a lot of really great friends. And at the end of the day, like, I'm still having fun. And I'm still allowed to focus on things. Like, you know, last night is a great example.

I working on a project for a client. I was tinkering with some code and broke a bunch of stuff. And it was like, I better focus if I want to get this stuff working. So I pulled up a stream and said, hey, we're fixing this problem. And if anybody has any questions about the problem, I'm more than happy to answer them. But if it's not related to the problem, I can't answer them right now, because I'm focusing on solving this very, very, very particular coding issue. And having the community along for the ride to me was just, I mean, that's part of the social contract, I guess, that I have with my

community. But, you know, I can play my music and, you know, listen to Jacob Collier or listen to Corey Henry and just just get some code done. And then at the end of the day, you know, I looked out of my phone, I go, wow, I've been streaming for like four hours, I should probably go to bed. And then just get up and say, All right, see you later, everyone. Good night. And then just go to bed. And I still got focused and I got quote unquote, deep work done. But at the same time, it didn't come with this whole, like, I got to sit down and, you know, create a bulleted outline for everything that I'm going to accomplish. And then also write a blog post on like, the top 10 ways to execute on it, and then make it happen. It was just like,

I saw a need, I fixed that need, and then I went on to the next thing. But while I was in the moment, darn skip you, I was focusing because at the end of the day, if I didn't focus, I wasn't getting paid. Yeah. And that's really what we mean by the term focused on this show. I don't think we're trying to get people to spend the whole day reading the newspaper with focus or even writing their book with focus. I think the idea is, can you carry that along with you? To me, it's more of kind of in line with the traditional Buddhist principle of mindfulness. At the moment that you are peeling the banana, are you peeling the banana or are you struggling over some other problem? You know, and, and I think if you can bring that throughout your day, that's the superpower. And as someone who, who does jump between a lot,

how do you make those transitions without, you know, falling off the wagon. I think the best way to, for me, that I'd get that done is I have, I have set things that I do. I stream, lately it's been every single day, you know, Monday through Friday evening. And I mean, the stream can be about anything, but you're streaming, you know, between the hours of, you know, when I get off, you know, work from the day job. And when I'm at the day job, I'm at the day job. You know, that's, that's the other thing is also being able to put a boundary on it. Now, being able to do the stuff that you enjoy for fun, as you know, the same that you do for a living, like if those two are the same thing, then that's even better. Because that means you're scratching that itch. But you know, when I get off work, it's time to spend time with

my family and, you know, play with my daughter, you know, spend time with my wife and, you know, not not thinking about my stream until my daughter goes to bed. And it's like, all right, stream time, time to go do that thing. And then, okay, now, and then even blocking days off. I am not, I'm not a time chunker, blocker, or any of the other time management via calendar tools person. But, you know, when something needs to get done, I definitely put it in my calendar and say, look, you know, this is the day that you're going to do that. This past weekend when we did, well, I guess I'm dating this now, but when we had to do the virtual MaxDoc conference,

that happened to also fall on the same day that we were clearing out our backyard of all of the weeds and cruft that had been developed over time so that we could get ready to put in a playground for my daughter. And it was fun talking with everybody and meeting, you know, people that I've been listening to their shows for years. But after my talk, I said, hey, you know, it's been great and I would love to continue this conversation. But let's do it over a podcast because right now I've got a playground to get ready for. Yeah, I think there's a real trick to this with a transition when you're going between two different things. And it would have been very easy to carry the client problem into the car. But I just intentionally, you know, I add intentionality. I say, okay, now I'm not a lawyer anymore. Now I'm a father and we're going to get in the car and I'm going

to be, that's the hat I'm going to wear for the next, you know, couple hours. And being able to kind of manually turn the switch in your head almost, I find very useful in trying to retain focus from one task to the next. But I think it's difficult. How do you handle that stuff, Mike? Not very well. several months as I have been home all the time, and my kids have been home all the time, is to be more flexible during the daytime hours when they just barge into my office and they want to show me something or they want to do something. I am trying to learn to let work go. And at the beginning, I would do it because I knew that I needed to. I'd follow Adelaide into her room because she wanted to show me something,

but my mind really wasn't there. To your point, I was still in work mode. I still had the writing hat on or whatever. And practice has gotten me better at that, but I still don't think I'm very good at it. I actually think for me, 30 years of meditation helps with this because it's actually, you know, learning about observing the breath actually gives you space for stuff like this. But I think a good tip for somebody that is having trouble with this would be, and I'm going to get hippie now, so just bear with me. But visualize the hats.

You know, have a hat on it that says, you know, nerd. Have a hat on it that says daddy. Have a hat that says husband. Have a hat that says gardener, you know. And just put on the right hat. Just stop and literally in your head put that hat on before you go into the next phase, whatever it is, and see if that helps you. But it sounds goofy, but stuff like that can help you kind of retain that focus. And kids make for great Pomodoros as well.

Yes, yes, they do. Like, I think sometimes my daughter will run in right when I'm at my peak of like, I'm fed up with this and I know I need a break. But if I just, you know, focus on this for a few more minutes, and then all of a sudden, you know, I talked about the marble racetrack. My daughter loves this thing. She goes, Daddy, marble race. And I'm like, all right, well, let's do it. And we just, you know, get on here and make it happen. And after that, I, you know, I thank her for the race and she wins every time. And I send her back in the living room to go hang out, and we just get back to work.

But it's great to have that interruption. I think sometimes interruptions are just what we need. And instead of setting an alarm, I just let an 18-month-old be my alarm. Yeah, I'm reminded of something Chris Bailey talked about in his book Hyperfocus. He's got one of those two by two grids as you do in productivity books, but it's basically about interruptions and distractions. And it breaks it down into if it's enjoyable or not, and if you can control it or not. And a lot of the kid-related ones for

me, those are fun ones that I can't control. And so at that point, there's no sense getting upset that the interruption or the distraction happened. And being able to let go and transition to your point, David, that is going to ultimately produce a better outcome for everybody involved. And at the end of the day, if I'm going to measure what I'm able to get done by the standard definition of productivity, it's even going to increase that because I have been in the other side of that where I've been interrupted and I'm upset that I've been interrupted, but now I'm upset that I'm upset and I'm not writing like I was when I got interrupted in the first place. And it's just a downward cycle. I remember once I was going, I was at a meditation retreat and I had a Zen teacher at the time and, and I was dealing with stuff at work and I still went and did this retreat and

we had like a lunch break and nobody was really supposed to talk. You're supposed to be mindfully eating. And she walks up to me afterwards. She's like, you weren't eating your cereal. You were eating your problems. I could tell. And you know what? That stuck with me a long time. I still think about it. That's great. a long time. I still think and it's hard to know what's really going to work. That's where Ahrefs comes in. It's an all-in-one SEO tool set that solves that problem, gives you the tools that you need to rank your website in Google, and get tons of search traffic. I have to admit that SEO has always been one of those things that I've been hesitant to

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is likely to perform before you even write it. So Ahrefs has a bunch of useful stuff. Content Explorer can help you find guest blogging opportunities. Rank Tracker lets you track your progress on keywords, and it'll even pick up broken backlinks and help you fix them. on keywords, and it'll even pick up broken backlinks and help you fix them. Take the mystery out of SEO. Go to ahrefs.com right now. That's ahrefs.com. Sign up for their seven-day trial for just $7 and get reports on your website so you can see what's performing well and you can figure out your next move. Whether you have a personal website that you want to get a following on, or your company needs more traffic to convert into sales, go there now, ahrefs.com, and get that $7 trial. Our thanks to Ahrefs for their support of Focused and all of RelayFM. So before the break, Jay, you were talking a lot about being in the moment with the things that

you were doing and then when one thing was done you're jumping to another thing and you're just enjoying the thing that you're doing you are being intentional you're being in the moment i'm guessing that that is contrary to the standard productivity advice of setting goals and identifying the actions to get to the goals, yada, yada, yada. Are you a goals person? I mean, loosely, I like to think that I have some morals and values that I live by. Actually, I think that's probably one of the only pieces of productivity advice. The funny thing, I think David hinted at this earlier, I used to be really big into like, I want to be like the productivity guru of my time. And, you know, I have amazing stories of like eating poutine with like Mike Fardy and Canada and all this other stuff. And after a while, I just kind of lost interest, I guess. I don't know. But out of all of those things, kind of setting myself kind of a mission statement of like, what am I here to do? At the end of the day, what am I here to do? And for the longest, that has always been to amplify the voices that remind me of me.

And it could be me, a future me. It could be a present me. It could be a past me, whether it's providing insight or wisdom to someone that's trying to get into the industry, whether it's helping someone that just feels like they need a friend. helping someone that just feels like they need a friend. As long as I'm working in that area, I feel like I'm working towards my goal. And I don't like to think of, quote unquote, smart goals. Yes, I think that there is a place for those things. But in terms of life and living, for me, I kind of live by the value of small incremental improvements every day. Did I learn something new? Did I do something that seemed like fun? Did I laugh? Did I share a moment with somebody that maybe I can talk about two or three years down the road. If I did any of those things, then it was a good day. It didn't have to be all of them. Just, you know, did I do something to quote the productivity guru David Sparks, move the needle in whatever that needle was pointing towards? You know, did I drive a little bit

faster than I was supposed to? Did I do something that just that made me stop and enjoy life? If I did that, then, you know, honestly, I feel like that's enough. Yeah, the vision and the values thing, I think is really important. And I would consider that kind of contrary to the typical definition of goals, which is maybe the SMART goals, like you defined them. I'm going to achieve this outcome by this time with these resources. outcome, by this time with these resources. And I feel like that's the thing that kind of leads to the hustle because you feel like you're behind all the time. Like you have this plan to get to this point, and then things don't go exactly according to plan. So now you're behind, you got to work harder to try to get back. And that's kind of what leads to a lot of people

burning out, I think. You know, being a U.S. Marine veteran, one of the things that I guess Marines are known for is having like this hellish boot camp experience. And I almost died in mine. So yes, very, very accurate. It was my fault. But you know, that's another story for another time. But one of the things that we were always told to focus on was, it was called, you know, formation to form or was it lights to lights, chow to chow, which was basically the idea of, you know, whenever the lights, whenever the lights would come on in the morning, morning being a loose term for like 4am, you would hear lights, lights, lights, lights, lights, lights, everybody had to get up and get

in formation and then they have to go back and make their acts and all that stuff. During the time that you're in boot camp, the first few weeks, you are constantly feeling like you cannot do a thing. And by the end of it, you feel like it's a game. You feel like you've you've just like, unlocked some technique to get past, you know, World 3, 1 and Mario. And it's I like to live life like that, where everything I don't want to say everything is a game, because I take, you know, my responsibilities as a husband and as a father very seriously. But who says I can't enjoy the process of two mastery? You know, just because you eat an elephant one bite at a time doesn't mean you can't put some salt on it, you know? Okay, that's the winner today.

No, I'm with you. I'm with you, brother. You got it. You know, Mike, I have a question for you. So I think the last time we did a recorded podcast, I was still in my hustle culture phase. And I remember there was a book called, was it Thou Shalt Hustle? Yep. I think I saw what the goal was. But, you know, I know we've talked about the idea of like, maybe not the best choice of words there. But at the same time, do you feel like all of the things that you do are in your way, how you are investing those talents that you were given. Because I think that that's the ticket. That is like the thing that people who don't understand like multi-potentialized lifestyle are just doing something regardless of the goals. Like if you were given a talent to do something and you just didn't do anything with

it, doesn't that feel like a waste even if it wasn't part of your quote unquote goals for that year? Yes. So the, okay. The book, uh, yes, it's called thou shalt hustle. And since I've written that, I've kind of evolved that idea. And I have my own definition of hustle, which is very contrary to the Gary V style hustle that people typically associate with the word. My definition is the force to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction. If you break that down, there's three parts. There's the destination, the long-term vision, there's your purpose, like the direction that you're going to go, and then there is the actual work. And that's the thing that most people who hustle, in my opinion,

start with. They're just, I'm going to get up at four in the morning and I'm going to write, and six months later, I'm going to have a book, yada, yada, yada. But that's not sustainable without the other pieces, without knowing where you're going. So there will be a new version of this at some point. In the meantime, in Faith-Based Productivity, I talk about the idea of a life theme. And that is kind of a one-sentence summary of my vision and my values, which I try to filter everything that I say yes to through. values, which I try to filter everything that I say yes to through. So my life theme is to help people answer the question, why am I here? By inspiring, encouraging, and teaching them to

connect to their calling, discover their destiny, live a life they were created for. So everything that I do, even the tech stuff, I have to figure out how that fits into that life theme. And if it doesn't, then I say no to it. Sometimes I'll say yes to something because I think it'll fit and then I do it for a little while and then I'm like, actually, maybe not so much. So those are the things that I force myself to let go. But that finding that unifying thread, that's something that's super important to me. I think for me, it is the everything that you said without the thread. I think for me, it's like, I can, I can look at a painting by, by, you know, Jean-Michel Basquiat and just go, that's a cool painting. I don't have to analyze it down to his childhood traumas and his drug addiction and his fascination with Andy Warhol. I don't have to. I can just look at the painting and go, I bet he had a ton of fun making this painting.

is him doing a thing that he'd love to do and it didn't come with a 10-year plan or a like overall arching focus towards achieving this overall goal in his life and and that's not to say that there are you know that you shouldn't do those things i just, do you feel like there are things that you want to do that don't fit that? How did this turn into my podcast? Hold on. Anyway, do you feel like there are things that you want to do that don't fit that model that you prevent yourself from doing that we'll say is ultimately not going to be devastating for you? Well, there are maybe things that I enjoy doing that don't fit into that, but they're hobbies. David and I interviewed Mike Hurley on here, and he made a distinction between hobbies, which are things that you like doing just for fun, and jobbies, which are things that you like doing that pay the bills.

And he basically encouraged people to be careful about which hobbies you try to turn into jobbies because as soon as it is a job, then there are different expectations associated with it. So if you just purely enjoy something, don't necessarily try to make money from that. Be careful about the things that you're going to try to grow. And I think that's where the stuff that doesn't fit into the life theme fits for me. It's fine to do that stuff on the side, but if I'm going to get serious about something, it's got to be in line with the life theme. Okay. I mean, that sounds a lot like it sounds like we're talking the same language. Mine just happens to be a little bit more spanglishy, I guess. I mean, at the end of the day,

I never set out with the intention to turn something into the one thing that I do to make a career. I always like to say, you know, what I wind up doing at the end of the day is like a peppering of all of my hobbies or all of my skill set kind of blended into one. And I mean, that is kind of like the the muddy like group hugger i think that's what emily wapnick calls it kind of like this group hugger idea of like my perfect job is that one thing that covers all of the things that i'm interested in and there's also a level of like ikigai in there where it's like if you can find the thing that you're good at doing that you're

passionate about doing that the world needs that people are willing to pay for like that's the dream job but then at the same time i think that there's also to tell yourself that there is a dream job gets rid of so many potentially wonderful opportunities like i sit there and think like when we were in school, you know, we took like, skills assessments that would tell us what we should be when we grow up. And YouTuber or podcaster like wasn't on that list. And now there are people, there's a guy that made a musical instrument that runs on marbles, that makes a living just working on his marble machine. And it's one of the most captivating videos that I watch on a regular basis is him just doing a thing that he enjoys doing, that he loves doing, that he has found a way to make a living doing.

And I'm sure that growing up, he wanted to be like a music producer. And he just kind of found this thing that he loved doing that made sense, that probably didn't fall on any of these trajectories. That's why I live the goalless, directionless lifestyle, I guess. I don't know what's going to be the thing that when I'm 50 years old, I'll be known for from my family. what's going to be the thing that when I'm 50 years old, I'll be known for, you know, from my family. I'll just be the person that had a bunch of fun and somehow made a living doing it all. Yeah, I totally agree. You should, you know, I can tell you in my life, I have a general idea what direction I want to go. But if I see a storm on the horizon, I'll turn around it. And if I see a pretty island on the other direction, I may go there too.

So you just got to be willing to be flexible. Yep. You know, there's a, not to go back to the crossroads and should and must again, but there's a quote in there by Howard Thurman that I had not heard before. And it really hit me when I read it. It says, don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs are people who come alive. And it sounds to me, Jay, like

that is what you are doing. You are finding the things that make you come alive and you are doing them. Yeah. So there's a passion that comes out when people are doing things that they enjoy. You can hear it. You can see it like uh we always i'm trying to remember there's like we i call it stank face whenever you have a musician and they're playing and you can tell they're in the groove and it's like their lip kind of juts out a little bit and they have like this loss in a daze look and and like you can just tell that like oh man they're feeling it like yeah bass players are the best at stingface. And like that idea, it, it comes from that moment, like some of the best bass lines, some of the best guitar riffs, you know, they didn't come from

hours and hours of preparation. They came from just feeling it. And I know that all of my examples have been kind of artistic. but I will say you're talking to someone who's a programmer and all of the projects that I code on come from just solving problems. And I try to do it in a kind of unique way based on the knowledge that I have and what I think would be fun. Sometimes I build stuff just to try like, like I've built entire projects just to try some feature in a programming language. And it's like I needed an excuse to do it. So I did it. And I don't care if anyone downloads it or not, because I got to do it. And it was fun. And when someone says, hey, I'm having a problem with this, you know, code or whatever, I can go, oh, yeah, I totally did this like stupid, you know, project that wasn't really that important that totally used

that. Let me walk you through it. And I only had that because I took opportunities. One of the things I wrote in the notes, and I don't know why, was the idea of embracing a wild idea, thinking about a wild goose chase. And I think I got that from Liz Gilbert in her book, Big Magic. And it's like, you know, everyone loves a wild goose chase, but it's better when you can actually catch that goose, cook it and place it on a table. Like when you when you're able to do a thing that, you know, just kind of seem like a wild hare. And then all of a sudden, you're like, wow, I have turned this fleeting idea into this super awesome part of my life, part of what I do. And now it is a thing. It's a thing that someone can go, hey, you're that guy that did that thing that one time. Like, yeah, that's me.

And it was awesome. And it's challenging and it's stressful, but it's also fun. And I don't know, I feel like the more we box ourselves in in the more we don't get to do stank face we're too busy trying to play on the ionian scale man Jay you're just pushing all my buttons today aren't you I've had a lot of years of preparation for this moment Dave sounds to me like the Jay stank face appears when you're trying to solve a problem. Yeah, I would agree. I have been known to move heaven and earth to figure something out. It is kind of a problem.

It is something that can often lead to burning out on a subject from time to time, if I'm honest. But I think that at the end of the day, if I'm having a blast, I'm having a blast. And people see it, and people respond, and people resonate with that. And I often don't realize how far I've gotten in something until someone stops and they're like, oh, well, Jay built this thing or Jay does this whole thing. And I was like, wait, did I do that? Really? And I look back and go, oh, I guess I did. Okay, cool.

Yeah, let's go with that then, I guess. So, Jay, you do, I'm sure, have days where it's not easy. What are the challenges that you're struggling with now as you try to go further down the road with this stuff? Well, having an infant running around the house is definitely a challenge. But for me personally, I think that over time, my mistakes when I was younger have come back to haunt me. And then also some things that I don't have control over. I have some autoimmune issues that limit my ability to do things for an extended period of time. After cleaning said backyard, I was out of commission for two days because all of my joints were inflamed and I couldn't close my hands. But at the same time, I feel like those aren't necessarily problems.

Those are just new challenges to figure out a way to work around. But overall health is definitely something that has been a challenge. You know, I kind of hinted that I have definitely been a victim of burnout before. At one point, I worked myself to the point that I gained what can only be called a vasovagal syncope, which is literally me passing out when I laugh. Yeah, that's an embarrassing thing. Can often make for some really interesting pictures. But at the same time, just working with a cardiologist and things like that, they reveal it's all stress. not getting too engaged to an idea of success or too caught up with everything being so serious all the time to avoid having moments like that. Yeah, your health is so important. And I do think that is something that it's real easy to ignore when you're young but as you do get older you know the machine breaks if you stress it well and i think it's like a it's almost like that

trying to run a car with no oil i mean it's not even a matter of stress it's just foolishness at some point um and and that's where that that's where you know, doing too much, it has its dangers. And that's where I kind of looked at the idea of starting shallow everywhere, allowing myself to go deeper into the areas that feel better, but then also giving myself permission to let everything else continue to be shallow is so important. You know, I really take a lot of inspiration from, you know, what you've been doing for so long, you know, David, and what so many other people have been doing, where it's like, yeah, you have these other things, but you don't have like, at least to my knowledge, you don't have like a music agent out there trying to book gigs

so that you can go play saxophone, you know, on the weekends. I'm sure it would be a ton of fun, but at the same time, like you're doing so much already. It'd be fun for me, just not the audience. already and it'd be fun for me just not the audience but but i do i think that there's something about that of like maybe you don't book shows at a coffee shop but maybe you go to an open mic night like do everything at the amateur level that seems to be more fun that way that that spot anyway so when you're doing and you know one of the themes of today's show, obviously, is you're somebody who is doing a bit of juggling. You've got these different areas of interest. What are the warning signs when you've got one too many things in the juggle?

Passing out is a big warning sign. Let's talk about before passing out. Okay. If we've gone that far, that means we've immediately turned around. That's when the engine stops running. When does the light come on? For me, there's the overall feeling. There's a

cool video from... What's his name now? I think Sid, is it Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols? Um, but he, it's him sitting on a guitar amp,

just saying not fun, no fun anymore. And when you get to that point, I feel like that's the first warning sign. When, when you're doing something that's like, wasn't this supposed to be fun? And when it's no longer fun, I set it down. I just set it down. That's when you're strapping your parachute on, when you start thinking that way.

Yeah. The second that happens, I'm like, I'm out. Now, when you set it down, have you made the decision at that point that you're jumping ship or are you just giving it some space to see if the joy comes back? I'm often giving it space. I'm rethinking it. I mean, I've set the podcast down for like six months at a time and just said, you know what, I've got I've got interviews in reserve. I'll space those out and I'll send a notice to everyone. You know, I'll do a little quick episode saying, hey, not in the right mindset for this right now. I will be back next year. And some people are like, oh, that's not fair. And I mean, again, this is why I tell people like, you know, like Mike said, be careful what you make your job, because since I do this for fun and my podcast doesn't work on any type of membership model, you can't pay me for my podcast.

You can pay me for the code that I write, but I mean, that's on you. But I don't have any expectation to anybody except for my clients. I don't have any expectation to anybody except for my clients. And at that point, you know, when I have a client and I'm like, this job sucks, I'm going to finish that job and I'm going to make sure that I never take a job like it again. That's a good point, you know, where you have control over the direction and the complete ownership of it. That has value, even if you're not getting paid as a exchange for that ownership. And you can get paid other ways. I mean, like I said, there are people who have reached out to me purely on the fact that I do a podcast. Although I make zero dollars and zero cents per episode that I put out, there are people that are like, hey, we want you to come to, you know, Business X

and just talk about how we can get a podcast up and running, or just talk about what it is to live stream. And just being open about it. Like I end all of my shows with like, there's no way that you can pay me for this. But if you want to tell me that I did a good job, hey, I'll always take some gratitude. And, you know, at the end of the day, like that's that's profit for me that that is fun you know another thing i would add as somebody who's got a few hours in the water is i think a warning sign is um is deadlines uh it's too easy when you're doing more than one thing at once to give yourself artificial deadlines that don't really matter which is just another source of stress that really doesn't need to be there. Yep. I agree with that. One of the warning signs for me,

and this is where time blocking actually helps, I force myself to pick five tasks for a day. And when I have to try to figure out which one to cut because I have too many that need to be done that day. That's too much. And it's if I operate like that for very long, then it's not going to be very, it's not going to be very long before it hits the fan and I'm overwhelmed. I know this isn't the pen addict, but, uh, you know, I, I am an analog note taker and I, I bullet journal and that's, that was the sound of my Lamy 2000 hitting my microphone. One of the things I love about analog productivity is you can see what you're doing. You know, I often write what I need to get done and then what I'm actively doing on the same page, because the days that I feel completely burnt, I can look at that page and say, yeah, I should feel burnt.

I did a ton of stuff. And in the days that I feel like I'm kind of, you know, I'm ending the day feeling lacking. I often notice that those days were a little light. And if for some reason I ever run into a day where it was, you know, I did a lot of stuff and I felt lacking still, that's when I know that there's a problem. And it's not a it's not like a discipline thing. I don't like, you know, chastise myself if I don't write everything done and how you feel from doing it all. I think that is a key indicator that will help you make decisions that can kind of keep you from, you know, skidding off the side of the road. Yeah. The other day I had a day like that. I

finished thinking that I was just a wreck. And then I've been tracking my moving the needle hours in a spreadsheet just for giggles this month. And so I wasn't aware of how many I had actually logged. I'd logged eight hours. I'm like, oh, no wonder you're a wreck. Yeah. I had a really good conversation with the developer for a project that I'm working on in my spare time.

And we were talking about it. And he goes, well, do you track your hours? And I said, well, you know, I have timing on my computer, the timing app from Setapp. Well, I forgot who actually makes the app, but I got it through Setapp. And I looked back and I go, man, I've spent 30 hours on this project this week. And he's just like, how? How is that possible?

And I was like, basically every second that I had to myself was working on this project. No wonder it's driving me crazy. I think I'm going to set it down for a week or two. Well, you know, focus is something you can bring to multiple projects, as Jay has told us. And you're more or less walking the walk, Jay. Good for you. I'm trying. the walk, Jay. Good for you. I'm trying. Better than I am.

I'm trying. You know, I think that's the thing that we can all say. Like, no one's going to do it perfectly, you know, every single time. But again, like, what's the whole Japanese thing? I'm asking the productivity people here. Like, was it wabi-sabi? Like, the beauty and the imperfection? Oh, yeah. Yeah, kaizen is the the small improvements that that too yeah it's tough but uh i guess that's why our show is so weird because mike and i both routinely fail at all of this stuff but we still feel compelled to talk about it yep y'all started doing this new thing where you give each other challenges and stuff like that. I think what focus, at least what I've been getting out of the show lately,

is it's almost like a mindful time to think about improvement. It's not necessarily sharing. This is the way to do it. It has become an internal way for the two of you to just go, where did I kind of miss the mark? Or where did I really just absolutely crush it this week or these past few weeks? And what can I do to make it better and actually have each other to bounce ideas off of? I wish I had someone sitting. Well, I have a Bob Ross plushie that often tells me that I'm making plenty of happy little accidents while I'm doing and maybe how I can bring a little bit more fun into the mix or maybe where I need to like avoid this clear obstacle that's, that I can't see for some reason. Yeah.

I mean the dirty secret after you think about this stuff for any length of time is that the way does not exist. There's your way and your way is always changing. But just like the fact that, you know, you're thinking about the journey with your career i think there's a journey with this stuff as well and you just got to go on the journey hop on at any point and figure it out as you go along like the rest of us absolutely well on that note i think we're about ready to wrap up jay where can people find you so if you want to connect with me you can do so on twitter um i know some people are like boo and hiss at that uh but i'm kjay miller on twitter

um you can also go to my website kjmiller.com uh there's a contact page on there i think if not there will be by the time this comes out. And then, I mean, just reach out to me and say, hey, I want to talk or I've got a bone to pick with you. And I'm more than happy to do it as long as you're okay with airing it for all of my audience to hear. All right. And we are The Focus Podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm slash focused. I want to thank our sponsors today. And that's the folks over at Squarespace and Ahrefs. And we'll see you in two weeks.