Focused - 251: Not Throwing Away My Shot, with Joe Casabona

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast, but more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hello, Mr. Mike Schmitz. How are you today, my friend? I'm doing great, and I'm very excited to have on the Focus podcast, long-time listener, first-time caller, Joe Casabona. Welcome, Joe.

Thank you, Mike, David. It's great to be here. I really am. I've been listening since you were called the Free Agent's podcast. It's been a journey. Yeah. It has been a journey. So I met Joe at Craft and Commerce, like a lot of my favorite people.

And he walks up to me and he says, I'm a big fan of the Focus Podcast. I'm like, oh, cool, thanks. And then I find out all of the things that Joe does. And I'm like, I feel like I should be coming up to you and saying I'm a big fan. Because you are a podcast coach. You teach solopreneurs how to build systems and their business. business, you wear a lot of hats, Joe, not just the yellow one that you've got on the video feed here. But who are you and what do you do? Yeah. So the tightest way that I think I put it

these days is I help solopreneurs build reliable systems so that they can take time off worry-free. But yeah, I mean, I was in the WordPress space. I was a software engineer for many years and then I moved into podcasting and then kind of moved back out into helping small business owners. I've been running my business for a long time in some way, shape, or form since high school. But when I had kids, I noticed a marked shift in how I wanted to spend my time. And I suspected I was not the only one. Yeah, I always tell people kids are like the inflection point of your life. Like there's the before and the after.

And it always goes to that first kid's birth. Yeah, when my oldest was three months old, I quit my well-paying web development agency job because I didn't want to miss her first steps or her first word or anything like that. And I was worried that that was going to happen. My wife was super supportive. I was like, hey, I know that you're where you're on maternity leave and you will not be getting a paycheck very soon. but like can I leave my job and do this? And she's like, yes, you should do that. So very lucky. Nice. Now agency life is not for for everyone. What were you doing in that agency world?

And what was the plan, I guess, when you decided to walk away? Did you have one? Were you like stepping into a side hustle that you were going to try to take full time or, you know, I'm going to quit my job and we're going to figure it out? Yeah, so I had always had a side hustle of some sort. And whenever I got hired at a W-2 job, we'll say, I don't want to say real job. That's like pejorative. Whenever I got hired at like a W-2 job, I always said like, hey, I do this on the side and I am unwilling to let it go. I am not going to let it affect my work. You come first. But if you're going to tell me I can't do stuff like this outside of work, it's not going to work out. And everybody was generally cool with it.

And so when I decided to leave, I was the front-end developer team lead at a small to mid-sized agency where we did work for Enterprise or Fortune 100 companies. So like Disney was actually my main client because they knew how much I loved Disney. And so when I left, I said, all right, podcast is making money. I'm going to teach people like how to podcast and how to make money online. And then I quickly learned that like side hustle money is not full-time money. But I had enough of a good network and people who knew I did good work that I was able to replace my agency income pretty quickly after leaving. It was like a scary three months and then a rather.

comfortable time after that. I think so much of it, like going out on your own, is an exchange of money for freedom. Like, if you look at people who follow tracks like the three of us have, we all value the independence and freedom over what we do more than money. Like, I can tell you the exact cost of happiness for me. It's the difference between what I was making as a lawyer and when I wasn't when I switched to just do this. And suddenly a lot of things fell into place for me. But that's the, I think if you go into it, if you're thinking about it, realize that there is a cost, you know,

and it's going to cost you probably money, and the payoff will be that independence. And then the problem is, of course, then that independence becomes like a drug. Like my fear now isn't like, how do I get to be independent? It's now it's how do I stay independent? Yeah. It's really something I think about this too.

I tell people I'm unemployable because of that freedom. Like I am unwilling to give up that freedom. But I mean, I just listened to your episode with Ernie Svensson. And he said something very similar, right? Which is like the freedom long term, especially, like you will remember that more than any single paycheck. The fact that you could show up for your family, especially. me. I mean, you're only here so long. If you get to spend those years pursuing things interesting

to you and helpful to the world and you make enough to keep your shoes on every day, then I think you're winning. Yep. So I know you've got a big emphasis on building systems. And from what you're telling us here, you're optimizing for that flexibility to do the things that you want to do. but I'm guessing that your systems thinking mindset has influenced how you actually do that. You have any specifics for how you're making that work? Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I feel like even though I haven't, you know, done my agency job in almost nine years, I still think like a software developer, right? and like, oh, well, it's, we give the computer some inputs and we can expect some outputs.

And that could be code for an interface or it could be when this thing happens, make this other stuff happen. And so, like, my main approach here is like, you need to know what you do before you start optimizing what you do, right? And so I usually have people write down everything that they do in a different. day. I like time tracking. I use toggle. But, you know, I will usually just have people keep a piece of paper. Okay, write down when you do this. Be totally honest with yourself, right? If you get distracted and go, look on Facebook for an hour. And then you wonder, where did my day go? You'll know you were on Facebook for an hour. And then based on that stuff, we look at the distracting stuff, the low-hanging fruit and the higher

I'm hesitant to say high leverage because like LLMs have stolen that word but but like the the high impact stuff will say and then we create a plan for blocking distractions optimizing or like making some automations to do some of that low hanging fruit and then building bigger systems so you

have time and space to actually work on the the high impact stuff Joe having done this coaching are there like standard pitfalls people fall into on distraction. Like do you see trends and like common things people let themselves get sucked into? Like if you're in the audience, can you give them some tips about ways to avoid those pitfalls? I mean, social media generally is a really big one.

I don't have, I mean, I got rid of most social media. I'm only on LinkedIn now. Yeah. But like I even well before that, like I took those apps off my phone. And like part of it was I realized that like I would check something on social media and it would annoy me. And then if I was supposed to be with my kids, now I'm like misdirecting my anger towards my kids. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? Yeah. So I think like those habits are hard, right?

I now like kind of check my email because I don't have social media apps on my phone. and I'm like checking something. And so for me, like building software-based or physical boundaries are the thing that works best for me. So there's like the focus app, right, that can block apps. I use something called the brick. So it's like a physical device. You have to scan your phone to and you'll get locked out of those apps and you have to physically scan it to get back into them. Okay, you need to describe that.

I've never heard of the brick. And that sounds really interesting. Yeah, it's great. So it's, it's an app that sits on your phone. It is better than, like, the screen time limits, right? Because, like, screen time is like, hey, you can't access it. But, like, do you want to? Because we'll just let you. The brick is, is, it's like, hey, you can't access this. And it's a little, and it's like a 3D printed cube with an NFC chip in it. It's a magnet. So it just sits on my, my fridge. And you can, lock yourself out from the app, but you can't unlock it until you physically scan it. And so when I was in Disney World last year, I didn't bring my laptop. I didn't bring my iPad. I had my phone. But I would brick my phone before I went to the parks.

So I couldn't even check my email. Okay. And so software-wise, once you brick it, is it lock you out of apps or what does it do? Yeah, so you decide what apps you want to get locked out of, apps and websites. So it's very similar to like screen time or screen time plus in that way. Except like there's no way around it. You get five emergency bricks. And when I was at a conference last month, I decided to test to see if it was five forever or five per month.

And it appears to be five forever. Like I didn't, I have not gotten that one emergency brick back. I love that. Yeah. Well, then you buy a new brick, right? Yeah, or a new phone. You get on the monthly brick club. That's right.

I love that. You know, I think because for so many people, just adding that bit of friction, you know, to say, well, you got to walk over the fridge if you want to open this app and be like, okay, then I won't open this out. And I think for a lot of folks that are struggling with this, that is an excellent technique. What a great idea. I was suspicious. And I'm like a huge advocate of it now.

I just think it's so great. Yeah, ours is on the fridge too. And the thing that makes it work is like you'll be out and you'll say, I want to be able to focus right now. So you go into the brick mode. And you can't undo that until you get back and you scan the NFC tag, which is on your fridge. So it's very much a forcing function. Do you use it too much? I have one.

I haven't gotten, it never really stuck for me. But I got one because at one point for Bookworm, we were reaching out and we were trying to get sponsors. And that just seemed like a natural fit. So we're going back and forth with the folks at Brick before they got big, I think. Now they're all over Instagram and stuff like that. But they didn't really have a marketing budget at the time. I'm like, well, you can have one and play around with it.

And if you have an idea for a pitch, I should have gone to sponsor games prior to reaching out to them because, like, they were interested and I just kind of dropped the blocks. I don't know how to present, like, this is what we should do, or this is how much we should charge or anything like that. So, yeah, I, I'm very lucky. I guess it's because of all the meditation or what, maybe the Gen X thing, but I, I'm just not interested in social media.

So I don't need a brick, but I can see the attraction of it. I mean, even just talking to people around me that are struggling with social media, I think that's a great product. Yeah. And like for me, it's been really good. Like email is tough. Like especially if you have like 2FA going to your email, right? It's like really hard to lock yourself out of the email app.

But like I will lock myself out of like the Gmail app, which I use for like contract work. And I'll just have access to my Gmail. or like I'll lock myself out of games. Like when, oh, I can't even remember the name of that card game, that solitaire-esque card. Bellatro, yeah, right, the poker-esque. Yeah. Half of my screen time for the week was that game at some point.

And I'm like, I got to stop. Yeah, that's not good. Rick was like super helpful for that. I know social media. That's the obvious one. What are some other things that people are getting hung up on today that you wouldn't expect? you've talked about like the busy work versus impact work on this podcast one of the biggest objections that I got I was like testing a a positioning statement that was like I'll help you take a vacation without your laptop yeah and it was like really polarizing because like some people like yeah of course you should go on vacation without your laptop yeah but like some people are like I never travel without my laptop and I'm like why and they're like I need to be able to respond to email in a reasonable time and so like email I think is

I want to revisit Cal Newport's book A World Without Email Because when I first read it I was like this seems too woo-woo But now I'm like maybe it's really important So I think like email is one of those places Where it's really easy to get sucked in and check Because it feels productive

Even if it's if it's more of a distraction And again like I actually have a podcast episode about this coming out But like Mindset is has to be a really big part of that. Like, I don't need to respond right now, right? The world's not going to end if I don't respond for a day or two.

And really the problem with email, I think, it's just such a, you know, from the thing where I teach this stuff is like, people do have things they want to work on, things that's important to them. An email has such a way of distracting you from that because it's someone else in the world asking you to do something. And if you're a people pleaser or a recovering people pleaser, like, Mike, that is very tempting to put down what's important to you and do whatever they ask. So it's, and it just taps you on your shoulder every five minutes if you let it.

So that email, I think you're right, is probably a huge one. Oh, no. When I was working, I used to work at the University's Grant and my alma mater and, like, somebody would email me, but I wouldn't have my email app open, especially if I was, like, trying to, like, get into the zone. And then they would, like, come knock on my door and be like, hey, I just sent you an email. and I'm like, you sent me the email. So, like, it's like that same thing, right?

It's just like somebody, if you let it, like you said, David, like somebody can just interrupt you in the middle of whatever you're doing. And then you lose momentum. Yeah, I had, I've talked about this before, but when I was practicing law, I had a real rule about email. I'd only check it a few times a day. I remember a judge called me. And he's like, I emailed you two hours ago.

How come you ever run me back? I'm like, because you emailed me, you know? Yeah. I don't read email every minute. So if you needed me to respond, you should have called me, you know? Yeah, email is a to-do list that other people can write on. Yeah. It was funny because his response was like kind of shocked and then like, oh, okay, you know.

And it was like, but then like my legal career was just resetting that expectation with a series of clients and lawyers and judges around the world. They're like, oh, yeah. Sparks is not the guy who will answer your email in five minutes. Like, okay. Yeah. I had one. Yeah. Give me this one.

I got to just go down this round. This lawyer was such a jerk. And he would like email me over and over again. He would email me like Sunday night at like 10 p.m. And he's just, you know, there's a reason for the lawyer jokes. And this guy was like one of those reasons. And so I'd have my secretary like print all the emails he wrote to me. And, and like every few days, I would write him a letter.

Like, literally just to type the letter out and I'd sign it. And then we'd mail it to him. And I'd say, attached to all the emails you wrote me and here's my responses. And then, you know, and then that would like open the floodgates for him again. And it wasn't so funny because he was going so fast. And I was intentionally going so slow. It wasn't emailed to him. It wasn't faxed to him.

Just like lick a stamp. Send it to him and just let him burn for like three or five. four days. That's amazing. David Sparks, analog troll. Yeah. I love that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to steal that. The key was to put the copies of his emails in it with it. That's hilarious. There's a thread here to something that you said earlier that I want to pull on a little bit because you kind of made a distinction between high impact and high leverage. and I think the whole discussion around email and whether you fall into that sinkhole hinges on the difference between those two terms. So what's the difference between high impact and a high leverage?

And I'd love to hear your thoughts, but I guess just off the top of my head, it feels like high impact is if there is a certain number of widgets that I can point to as we're cranked by this activity, that could be considered high impact, right? But high leverage is sort of more specific. And this is the thing that I want to optimize for. This is really what I'm trying to maximize, as opposed to just, yeah, profit, you know. Yeah, this is really interesting because I haven't really thought about this beyond.

There was like two instances where someone used leverage in a really weird way where they were like, oh, you're in, you, you know, you have the leverage of using these communities. And like the, the subtext, I think was explicitly, you know, overtly sell to people in this, in these communities that are not yours. And I'm like, I don't like that. But yeah, I mean, like, for me, the high impact work is the, the thing that's going to, uh, have the biggest blast radius, right? Like, I, I do something and then it, whatever I'm trying to do, it's like a force multiplier, right? So checking email is not going to be a high impact thing for me or for the people I'm emailing.

But like working on a really deep video on changing your mindset and your relationship with email, that would be really high impact for me because it would establish me as the person who can help you, you know, get unchained from your inbox. And also high impact for the viewer who feels like if I don't respond within five minutes, this sponsorship opportunity is going to evaporate. So that's like, that's what I think of with like high impact stuff. Right. So that's the nuance I want to insert here, I think, is like if you're a content creator making a video, you could say high impact is the one that gets the most views.

but that could be not at all what you're optimizing for. And to borrow your term, David, you want to move the needle in terms of getting people to disconnect from the urgency of their inbox. So high leverage is you make a killer video that helps a couple people specifically affect permanent lasting change in their life. And it totally changes the conversation. It brings way more motivation, I feel, to the work that you're doing when you can connect it back to why you're doing it.

And again, like, what are you optimizing for? You get to define that. You don't have to just assume that, like, well, there's a big deal out there that might land in my inbox, so I better check it all the time and respond within 15 minutes. I mean, I know salespeople who, that is the job, and that's how they work, right? But I don't know. It just seems to me like there's a little bit of nuance there, which maybe is helpful for listeners between impact and leverage. And really, like, what is the dent that you're trying to leave in the universe? Yeah, this is really, I want to

think about this more because based on your example, I would say like my highest impact, let's say LinkedIn post was one that said like people who like seeing an AI headshot is a red flag to me. Tens of thousands of views like hundreds of comments did nothing to move the needle for me. Right? Because like it was just like kind of a hot take on AI headshots. But this post I made last week asking people about my positioning statement or as our friend Justin Moore says, the surprising transformative promise. that unearthed a lot of objections from people for what I'm presenting, which in turn

helps me create better content to help them. And I think, you know, no matter what you're doing out there, how you pay for your shoes, that high impact work exists, you know, the important stuff and it almost never is email. And I get that email, I get that note from people about Hammond sales and everything is email for me and I get that but that is a very fringe case I think for almost everybody that's not true although you've got that mentality that it is somehow and that that is something you want to work on yeah for sure and and you know I don't want to give too much of this up this well based on the dates it'll come out around the same time and I don't want to give too much of this mindset

email episode away but again David like I say in this episode you teach people how to treat you Yeah. And so people know I'm not going to respond within five minutes. If they really need something and they have my phone number, they will call me. But like if you respond immediately, then people are going to start to expect that. And so this is where I turn into that guy is I kind of treat text messages the same way. Like, you know, text message comes in. I'll read it at some point, you know, I don't have any notifications or anything.

I'm not going to let someone text me when I'm in the middle. doing important work and get off the train. I like being on the train. Can I say one more thing about this? Because, again, like something else that like really caused a lot of comments on LinkedIn was I said, like, I saw somebody at the, I was at the gym. And I saw somebody sit down, open up Slack on their phone and just put it on the phone ledge and just had Slack up the whole time. And I said, like, if you can't take 30, 45 minutes, 60 minutes to yourself at the gym, like, when can you take it? And I got a lot of pushback on that where people were like, you go when you can and you work when you can.

And I'm like, you work when you can is dangerous. I don't, my phone goes in a locker on airplane mode and I stream music from my watch. And the only person who can break through my wife and my kid's school. Yeah. If my wife is working. Right? So like, no distractions. The gym is like an oasis for me where nobody else exists. You know, I had a similar experience. Three or four months ago, I wrote a blog post or actually a newsletter about this experience at Disneyland where we were eating dinner and the table next to us. There were two kids and two parents and the kids were on iPads. The parents were on phones. And they did not, I watched the whole time. They did not speak to each other once. They all sat. there the food came the salads the desserts all of the whole thing and they were all doing it and i made

a newsletter making fun of you know i was like that's crazy you know as much money as you spend to go to a theme park you should at least enjoy it with each other and uh and i got pushback people wrote me said well you know maybe their jobs required them to do this or that and they needed and i'm like i just don't buy it just don't buy it yeah yeah man we we have very similar blog posts because i said that i saw the thing at Disney World. We were at Be Our Guest and I'm like what's the point of paying all this money to be here if you're not going to look up from the screen?

I was so proud of my kids because we had a strict no screen policy in the park and we did all the things that I did when I was akin when we were waiting in Q. Right? Like play I spy or play trivia games. My daughter and I counted the number of people who were just staring at their

phone. So I'm so proud of them because we had a great vacation and it was largely screen free. But this is the pushback, Joe. Like you and I and Mike are very blessed. We have these lives where we teach about stuff and we're very, as we said earlier, independent. And people listening are like, yeah, that's great for Mr. Content Creator, you know, air quotes, you know, that you can be so fancy, you know, but I got a boss. You know, I got three bosses and they're always throwing stuff at me. And I need my job. I need my money. And I, you know, and I got to deal

with these people, I can't just like do this. And my response is always, look, I used to be a trial lawyer. I get it. But I did this as a trial lawyer too. This wasn't just something as I did as a fancy creator. And I believe that independence and gained in small steps, but the steps are there. Just start taking them. The question I feel like that transforms this is, what are you optimizing for? because optimizing doesn't mean that you don't do all of those things. But it's a clarifying question because if you had to pick one that is most important, then that overrides trying to make it all happen. So what are you optimizing for isn't, well, you got to let all of that stuff go and just focus

on that one thing. It may manifest as that once you figure out what you're optimizing for because you realize this is the thing that really is so important. And I got to draw these lines and create these boundaries, intentional friction to keep these things that are not important from stealing my time, energy and attention. But it doesn't have to be that way. It's a, it's a, it's a simple way to get started with this, I feel, is just identifying, like, what is the thing that is the most important? You know, to that point, I saw in my career, the people who advanced were not the people who were most efficient at answering email that the boss sent.

They were the people who won their cases, you know, in your career out there, whatever it is, what is it that people are going to value and want to make you higher level, pay you more, you know? To me, generally, the person who answers the email is always on the spot, always ready to be at Linda Hand. They are great people to have on the team. They're not the people who get advanced

because they're not the one making the dent. So even from a selfish standpoint, just getting into being Johnny on the spot on that stuff, you're actually doing yourself a disservice most likely. Yeah. I mean, when I worked at my agency and in higher ed, and like I was a pain in the neck. I would ask really hard questions.

There was a time where we weren't getting paid on time and we made a new hire. And I said during our company meeting, like, did we tell this person that we're not getting paid on time? time. And like the HR manager got mad at me. Yeah. But I didn't get fired. And when we were told, like, we had to work through the weekend if we wanted to get paid on time, I said, that is not the agreement that we have. But also, it's my anniversary and I'm going to see Hamilton. I'll see you

Monday. And I got paid on time and I did not get fired. You did not throw away your shot. Competency is a, yeah, I did not throw away my shot. Like, competency is a good currency. And I would, was very good at my job. And so when I drew these boundaries and the people who I worked for saw, I was serious. They started to respect those boundaries more. This episode of the Focus podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Go to Squarespace.com and save 10% off your purchase of a website or domain using the code focused. SquareSpace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place.

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So we talked a little bit about your background creating systems, but I know Joe from the prep call that we did that you've got a pretty, pretty intense personal story that kind of kicks this off. So what got you to the point where you really needed to start paying attention to the systems in your life? Maybe from there we talk about automation and things like that in terms of what you're optimizing for. Yeah. So some of the stuff that we talked about earlier, you know, where it's like mindset and drawing boundaries. I've always had those because I was freelancing since 14. But I said in my early 20s, I don't care if I'm married or have kids as long as I'm a millionaire by 30. And then I met my wife

who would become my wife when I was 26. And all of that changed. Love is the ultimate agent of chaos. That's right. That's right. And I knew she was the one early on. And then as we've said, like, kids change everything. And so we bookended more or less the pandemic with kids. So going into the pandemic, we had one child, and by the end of 2021, we had three children. My wife is a nurse. And so she's working. There's no school. I have a toddler and a baby. And I am unable to work because my mother-in-law was sick in a way that we could not, like, we didn't want to be near her and compromise her in any way. So it's November 2020. And I'm getting to. emails and my son just like got sick everywhere and I start to have my first and only panic attack.

And as I am sitting on the kitchen floor, my daughter comes up to me and says, it's okay, daddy. Everything is going to be okay. And I get choked up like 60% of the time I tell the story. And I thought this is not okay. Like I should be taking care of you. And I realized that I was trying to do like most small, business owner, solopreneurs. I was trying to do everything myself and I felt like if I didn't do it, it wasn't done right. And this was a huge wake up call for me. It probably should have come a little

earlier, like after our first babysitter left two years ago, but like there was not a forcing function. And so the next time I could work, right, my wife's next off day, I sat down, I put in a job posting for a VA. I wrote down everything I was doing and I thought I don't need to to do this. I can automate this. The VA can do that. And fast forward a year later, December 2021, our youngest, Abby, was born. And I took six weeks off for Christmas and then paternity. She was born on Christmas Eve. And like, I felt perfectly comfortable that the wheels were not going to fall off. So in the span of about 13 months, I put in the automations and the systems in place to make sure I could take time away for my family.

That's a pretty good progress there in only 13, 13 months. What did you do that allowed you to take those six weeks off and not feel that pressure and that anxiety? Yeah. So I knew this was coming, obviously. You know, the birth of a baby is nary a surprise to most people. But I also like to take those two weeks, you know, around Christmas and New Year's off because had it off all throughout school. And then I worked in higher ed for my first like W-2 job after school. And we always had that time off. So I just always like having that time off. So I knew that

this was going to kind of happen in quick succession, which means I prepared a bunch of content. And I communicated to my clients that I was going to be away. I set up an auto-response. and then I let my VA know the same. And I'm like, hey, I'm going to be out. These are the things that need to be managed. I'll like check email here and there, but nobody should expect to hear from me, really. And it was like a combination of I prepared ahead of time. I communicated and managed expectations.

And then anything that a human needed to do, my VA was prepared to do. nice so when you decided to work with a VA it seems to me like that that might be something that past Mike would have made a much bigger deal about than it than it really is what did you learn through through that process was it easier or harder than you anticipated that it was going to be like if someone is considering this should they do it what do they need to have in order to start doing this where would you recommend that they start you know that kind of thing so it was harder than I expected it to be because I'm like not the best at delegating.

I'm just like, say, I'm a lot like my old man. Like, he would, like, tell me to do something, and then he wouldn't like the way I did it, even though he didn't give a lot of instruction. And I'm a lot like him in that sense where I'm like, do this. And then depending on who it is, right, if you're paying good money for an assistant, right, they'll be able to do it or they'll do it better than you.

I did look on online jobs.ph. So my VA is in the Philippines. And so she's really good at the things that I don't want to do, as well as some things that I could do, but she does for me. And so the really important thing, the first thing you want to determine is like, what skill level do you want your VA to be at? I knew that for most of my operation, like think pieces and creating the content, teaching people. Like, that's my whole business. and it's the other stuff, the publishing the podcast episodes, updating the website, you know, doing initial guest research, whatever.

Those are the things that she can do. And so, you know, so, and it's also, it was also a budget thing, right? I had a panic attack because I wasn't working as well as I could have and I was losing sponsors or whatever. I wasn't losing sponsors, but I wasn't getting new sponsors. And so my budget was limited. I do pay her a living wage now. I looked up what a living wage in her city in the Philippines is, and I make sure to give her that every month.

And then as we were working together, I realized pretty quickly I couldn't just give her like a one-sentence description and expect her to do what I was expecting. And so now I use an app called Tella. You can use Lume, whatever, a video recording app. and I just do a screencast of what I do and what I want her to do. I'm very clear that I narrate what I'm doing and I'm showing what I'm doing. And she has, she's like, hey, you did this, but you didn't say it.

Do you want me? And I'm like, yes. And so I'll have her watch and transcribe the video and then write out the exact steps so that we have SOPs for everything. We have the Good House Media. That's my LLC's name. that's my last name translated from Italian to English. The handbook.

And so if she ever does leave me, I hope she doesn't, but I have a list of all the processes for whomever would replace her. Do you feel like that is one of the earliest pieces of advice that you would give the solopreneur that you would work with is to work with an assistant? or is there something else that would proceed that in terms of priority? I think it's, this is like big, it depends energy. It really depends on where you want to free up your time. I think that like low hanging fruit stuff like automation can take care of.

But if you're, if you let's say want another person to manage your email inbox, right? I haven't given my VA the keys to my email. It's like something I need to. I really let Sanebox manage my inbox. but maybe that's something I do need to let go of a little more. But, you know, if you want a person managing your inbox, like, then you want to hire a VA. If it's more like, oh, I'm struggling to get information from my brain to Notion or Obsidian. Or I'm struggling to get my ideas in Notion, which is my PKK, I'm into, or Obsidian into Notion where my team lives, right?

Those are things that can be done with automation. Yeah, and I want to unpack something that you mentioned earlier because I feel like this is one of the stigmas with working with a VA, specifically in the Philippines. You mentioned that you pay them a living wage. I just finished reading a book, The End of Burnout by Jonathan Malisich. And kind of the vibe throughout that whole book is that people shouldn't assume that the work that they do is going to be. going to give them dignity, they have dignity even if they don't work. And that is, that is true. And we in the U.S. have a very capitalist culture that we're, we're a part of. So it's hard for us to go beyond, like, well, these are the jobs to be done. And these are the people who are going to do

them. There's some language in there, though, specifically about like how right sizing is bad and yada, yada, yada. And I take a little bit of issue with that. Like, you can't just out of the goodness of your heart maintain all these jobs. If you're talking about. trying to run a for-profit company because if you're not making the money, then everybody loses their jobs. And so I've thought about that, and I've worked with an assistant in the Philippines before. I've actually known some people. I've met them in person who have had these sorts of roles in the Philippines. And I think there's a stigma with some hustle bros in the productivity space who are just like, yeah, I'll saw all your work to these assistants, pay them 300 bucks a month,

and you never have to work again. It's all about me, me, me, right? That's not how it has to be, though. I came across a service in the lab. Someone was talking about this. I forget the name of it, but their whole thing is they go find people who are looking for work in companies that are in like an economic crisis like Venezuela right now. And they hook you up with like a video producer if you need it or an assistant. Like there's all these different roles that as a solopreneur, I wouldn't be able to just go hire a full-time video editor. But there are people in the world who would love to help me edit my videos at a number that I could actually afford. So I think it's cool that there are these services and just the internet in general

allowing you to make those bridges. So I wanted to call that out because I don't want people to think that you're taking advantage of people offshore just because you can pay them less. That's not the thing here. It's not, you know, I want to save money. So I'm going to go look somewhere else. I would have to do this myself unless I found someone who is willing to do this for me. And there are people who are willing to do this for me.

We can build those relationships and have a great working relationship. I can help them. They can help me. This is a win-win situation. And I think another big message out of Joe's story is that right now, if you're out there and you're feeling that overwhelmed, you feel like, you know, you're not too far away from being crashed on the kitchen floor as well. There are so many options now. I mean, the, like, if you have, you know, you can go offshore and get help with the virtual assistant.

You can hire somebody local. And now we live in this like kind of golden age of automation on the computer side where, you know, one of the benefits of these LLMs is there's a lot of automation available to normal folks that wasn't before. There's like so many different ways now to get work off your plate. And I think it's very easy when you feel overwhelmed to feel like, well, there's no choice. I have to do it all. And I think one of the escape hatches for you, if you're feeling that, is stop for a minute and look into it because there are options for you, no matter what your position is, whether it involves humans or computers or whatever, to take some of the load off your

back and give you that space. Because without margin, you're never going to do your best word. Just don't treat the humans like you would, the robots. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You want to get a little more into automation here? And what specifically are you doing? How do you think about this? You know, what's your philosophy around automation versus delegation? How do you do this? Yeah, this is a really good question. I'm, when I think about, I have something called like the per method. I'm like not sold on the name, which is why I'm saying it so sheepishly.

But it's basically like perform, evaluate and remove. So as you do it like, again, like you can't really, you can't really know like what you can't automate or delegate until you actually know what you do. And I noticed one of the trends when I sit down with a coaching client for the first time, I'm like, tell me everything you do in your podcast process, in your outreach process, whatever. They get the big strokes. And they, I'm like, no, no, how did you get from there to here? Let's go through every little step, right?

And so I tell people to perform and document and then evaluate. And so when you evaluate a task, so we'll get to that part, right? You want to know what are the inputs and the outputs? If the inputs are always the same and the outputs are always the same, that's a little bit fuzzier in the age of AI. but inputs are the same, outputs are the same. You could probably automate that, right? There is a robot that can take the inputs and you say it's supposed to look like this at the end

and it'll make it look like that. And then as far as everything else, like what to delegate, if the inputs and outputs aren't clear, if it takes like some autonomy and intelligent decision making, then it requires a VA. So one example is I used to, again, all of the social media sites have like kind of killed some of their automation stuff.

But let's say in a perfect world, I could mark a post ready to publish in Notion and it will automatically send that post to LinkedIn. The inputs are very clear. The text field in Notion. The output is very clear. A post on LinkedIn. What I can't automate because or what I couldn't automate for a long time, was publishing my podcast, generally speaking, because I would publish it on my host. And then I had a custom layout on my WordPress website and I wanted to look a certain way.

And that required some human finesse. And then I wanted the transcripts to be added a certain way. And so my VA does that, right? Because I could not bend Zapier or make to my will to, use this block template in WordPress and grab the embed player and so on and so forth. So if the inputs and outputs aren't clear, then you want to say, like, can a computer do this? If not, do I personally have to do it. And if I don't personally have to do it, can another person do it?

And we can talk about, like, how you get to, do I personally have to do it? because that's another hang up for, I think, a lot of solopreneur, small business owners. Yeah, we should definitely talk about that. Yeah. I mean, if you have any specifics of, like, things that you were clinging on to maybe that you thought, I have to do this, and then you realized, I don't have to do this. And then, I guess the other thing, the follow-up to that is, what is it like when you get clear on what are really the things that only you can do? Yeah, so one of the things I was clinging to was publishing my podcast to my WordPress site. Because I was like, I got to go in. I got to find the embed code in my podcast hosts and put it here and get it just so and associate the sponsor logos and make sure the notes are good.

And the transcript has to be in a little toggle because I don't want an endlessly scrolling page. and then I realize that I just will record myself doing it once and give it to my VA. And I'm like, if you have any, like, let me know before you publish something, but follow these instructions. And like, honestly, now she does it better than me. Because I don't consult the handbook every time. Like if she's out or if I'm late on getting an episode or I have some sort of hot take, she does it better than me now.

I will, without fail, miss a step. And I've since simplified it so that it is automatable again. Like I made some decisions like, am I doing this for me because I was like a cool WordPress developer with a podcast or am I doing it because it's like helpful to the user? But yeah, that was one thing where I was like, for sure, I'm the only person who can do it and was proved wrong pretty spectacularly. The simplest solution is always the best solution, Joe. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It also occurs to me that in that specific scenario, you really want, like, publishing a podcast, there needs to be human eyes on that to make sure that they are the right logos and the right sponsors and things like that. But it doesn't have to be your human eyes. And I feel like that scenario specifically hits at something that I struggle with because I write a lot and I publish a lot. and if someone were to give me something that they wrote, I can very easily pick out every single spelling and grammar mistake. But I am blind when I do it myself. Yeah. Yeah. And this is, so I mean, like what, you know, David had mentioned before about, look at your options. And then right before that, you said, you know, it's either this or that for, for, I think for a lot of people, it's like, if you are

hiring somebody from the Philippines, you're taking a job away from somebody in your country. Or if you are using AI, then you're de facto taking a job away from somebody. But like a lot of the times that choice is like, I do that specific thing or like you said, Mike, I do it. Right. Or it doesn't get done. Or it doesn't get done. Right. And so like one of those things for me is I'm, I think I'm AI hesitant at best. I have a custom project that is a copy editor for me because I am really bad at proofreading and I think that the things I say mean exactly what it means in my head.

And so I have a really specific prompter on this that's like, I'm a better writer than you. This is my audience. I don't want you to rewrite anything. I just want you to make suggestions. Do not change my text. And just find the spelling errors. find the grammatical issues.

Tell me if it's clear. Tell me if it's rambling. And then does my closing sentence reinforce my thesis? And I would not have another human being look over that because I usually want to publish my blog posts shortly after I write them. And it's been really good. It's been really good for that.

Yeah. The one I say is I'd say, here's the thing I'm about to post. Are there any showstoppers? And it'll find. you know there's a grammar error or something but it understands not to to fiddle with my words you know yeah i have started doing uh i think i heard about this from you david i'm curious if you still do it where you'll submit your uh like you'll write the first draft of the the post right and then you'll upload it to i'm using clod but then you ask like give me some feedback on this where the whole

reflective questions yes yeah and it's great for that. Most of the time it's a little bit overly positive on what I've written, I feel, but it's always good at identifying the holes. And I don't ever just be like, okay, you know, write something to fill that. I'll take that. I'll make a version two, upload that again. And, you know, what do you think about this? Is this, this better? It's like, oh, now we're getting there, you know, three or four times going back and forth that way. And I can usually get to a place where I really like it. But all the words are still coming from me. I think that's important.

Even if you can upload your samples and write it in my voice, like it's just it's not the same. Yeah, I do the same thing. And the thing I found over time is that the feedback was giving me is consistently about kind of the entry point of whatever I was writing. Too often I would assume the reader already knew like steps one through five and I would start at step six. And I've noticed over time that now I take that into account when I write

before I give it to the robot to ask reflective questions. And it's like it's actually helped make me a better writer in that sense. Yeah. That's always so tough. Like when you talk about advanced things, right? Yeah. How far back do I start for someone to not be completely lost without this becoming like a 5,000 word tome? But it's also sometimes they're dumb.

Like I did a post just the other day about, you know, Apple. It sounds like Siri might get pushed. The new Siri might get pushed. I made a funny post. It was like two sentences about. Charlie Brown in the football. And I asked for, you know, because I just always run them through this thing. And it said, well, you didn't explain enough what the analogy means of what.

I'm like, okay, robot, my people will get it. It's fine. Just stop talking to me, you know. Yeah, you got to recognize where it's helpful and where it's not. Talk to us about this fewest links philosophy and how that goes into building these, these automations and systems. Yeah. So it's really cool to build complex Rube Goldberg machine looking, make scenarios or zapier's

apps or shortcuts. Like those look really cool and they probably get interesting clicks and I have certainly built them. But if one of those things break, the whole automation breaks, right? And that's the core behind the fewest links philosophy. And this crystallized for me when I, before. convert kit now kit, before their embed forms looked good even remotely, I decided, well, you know, I can use this like custom HTML form and I can use Zapier to connect it to

convert kit. And it looked great. And when I tested it, it worked great. But very crucially, when you do automations, you need to turn them on for them to work. And I forgot to publish that automation. And because I don't usually get hundreds or even dozens of email signups a day, about three weeks went by before I noticed something was a miss. And I thought, how many email addresses have I lost because I was, did this too quickly? or I didn't think it through or didn't think to check on it later

after two days or I'm like, well, that's weird. Nobody signed up for my mailing list. And so now I use an embedded convert kit form in a little custom CSS. And now there are no links in that chain. Right? So that's the, that's the,

and I'm not saying like you don't, like there are not times to build complex automations. I'm sure we all have, all of us here have very complex automations, but one really good example is like I would have Zapier send an email when a status changed in Notion, right? And then a couple of years ago,

Notion rolled out, well, about three years ago, Notion rolled out their automations and then like two years ago, they rolled out useful things for their automations. And like once that happened, once I could send emails from Notion, I got rid of that zap.

Yeah. Because it was one less thing for me to worry about. And frankly, one less email in your box. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I think that there's a big idea here. And as all three of us are known for teaching automation and techniques, but I am very, very clear with people that want to learn this stuff is that anytime you're building what I

would call a brittle automation, you have to back up. Like, the more you're going down the rabbit hole of it got this URL. that depends on this API and it's going to be amazing. I guarantee you you're going to spend more time managing that than you will actually using it. It will not save you time. And the trap is when you get good at the stuff, you want to stretch it further. And that's when you make those types of mistakes.

Like just avoid brittle automation. If it's an easy one or two steps, you're going to be very happy with it. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it. And I have experienced it myself. Joe just talked about a story where he did it. All of us do it. You got to learn the lesson. Don't get brittle.

I mean, it's the Jeff Goldblum quote, right? From Jurassic Park. We were so busy figuring out if we could that we never stopped to think if we should. Yeah. Right? And that was lesson learned. There was a time where I couldn't use an embedded convert kit for him because it was like a big quiz sort of thing. and one of the, you know, one of my uses for AI is vibe coding some things because I have that background.

And I had it code a form that connected to the ConvertKit API. And then I thought, also save this stuff to the WordPress database just in case something goes hairy, right? And so I have that backup. And Joe, you have a master's in programming. You're a developer that all of us, including those in the audience, have, a version of that in our lives where we are getting hung up on something we're making more complex than it needs to be and stepping back, whether it is through an automation, giving it to someone else, or just looking at the process of fresh and saying,

why on earth are we even doing this? Yeah, let me ask you, David, because you mentioned don't make brittle automations. Do you feel like there is a point where it has now gone from not brittle to brittle, or is it just kind of a general rule that the more steps you add in your automation, the more failure points there can be when you something goes wrong that you have to figure out when you try to fix it? I think it's personal. I think it's easy to start with a simple automation that becomes brittle because you try

to add too much on it. But in my personal experience, the problem is me making it brittle for the beginning, me trying to accomplish more than the technology is up to. I'm like, but I'm Max Sparky. I can stretch it a little further. You got to do it for your work. I'm going to do a custom regular expression that's going to, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then a month later, I'm not even using it because the maintenance cost was so high.

Yeah, that maintenance costs. You have no idea what that's actually going to be when you first make your automations. But the simpler, the better. The simpler it is, the easier it is to figure. it out when something goes haywire and things will go haywire. And to Joe's point, there are certain things where the robot is just the wrong tool. Like you guys, I have a person I pay that reads everything I post before it gets posted because sometimes, despite my best efforts, I mess it up.

And I think the human has to be in the loop for that. I don't think at this point in history, the AI is up to it. and I hope that remains true for the duration of my life. I'm really confident. I don't want to venture too far into this because there's a lot of commentary on it anyway, but I mean, I will notice the longer I use an AI, maybe this has gotten better, but the worse it gets, right? The more context it has, the more confused it gets.

And I have rarely seen that with a human person I am paying to do stuff. Well, I would argue that AI is really good at dumb stuff. And we all have a pile of dumb stuff. I call it donkey work. But I think it's good for that. But the joke is it's good for that right now. All the AI companies are talking about general intelligence and all this other stuff. But the tool they made is actually useful right now for the dumb stuff.

But I don't think anybody wants to talk about that because it's dumb stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's called OpenClaw now, right? Yeah. One of the examples is like it'll check you in for your flight. And everybody I've asked who uses that is like, have you seen that happen? And they're like, oh, no, I haven't actually seen that happen. And I'm like, so is this a promise or is it a thing it can actually do, right?

Because those are two very different. And like, no shade on Peter Steinberg. Like, he's built a very interesting thing. But that is the problem. Oh, it'll check you into your hotel and your flight. in your flight and it'll do this and it'll book reservations for you and I'm like as far as I can tell all of this is still theoretical but it's like you said David it's the cool thing to talk about open claw inspired me to make my first public YouTube in like six months and nice it was just about

how impressive it was and how terrifying it was because I don't think the security on that thing is anywhere where it should be I was me a dummy lawyer who's not a programmer was finding holes in the security. And I realized there's no way I'm going to be able to use this thing. Because if I can find a hole in the security, you know, who knows what the real hackers can do with something like this. But it's kind of a little peek into the future, an independent agent. My friend told me that there's a service now.

A guy will come to your house for $2,400 and set up open claw on your machine. And I'm like, cool, I have a similar service. Give me the keys to your house. And I'll come over at night and clean out your house for it. Exactly. It is an interesting time. All right, Joe, we like to wrap up the show talking about shiny new objects and books we're reading.

So what's on your desk that's new, Joe? I just got, so my yearly theme is the year of digital detox. I think people aren't unsurprised if they listen to the beginning of this episode. And part of that is I don't want to get rid of technology. completely. I always have a field notes notebook on me, but more than once, it'll go through the washing machine. And so I thought, what's a good way for me to take notes on a thing that doesn't get notifications? And so I got the remarkable paper pro move. It is really small. It fits in my sling bags or in like my coat pocket. And it's a color screen. I can kind of read stuff on it,

but it's really great for me to take notes. I've had it for a couple of months now, and I never leave the house without it. It is an early contender for my favorite gadget of the year. Nice. How do you like the color screen? I've seen the color screens on those e-ink tablets, and I always have thought that that really isn't going to do anything for me.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's okay. I got this for the size, and so I didn't have the option between color and, black and white. I am trying out a remarkable two as well. And like the screen is like slightly more responsive. The color screen is nice though because it's also backlit and so I can use it in more situations or if I am writing a lot of notes like I like highlighting. It's the same reason I like the Kindle Color Soft, right? I just like highlighting in different colors. So like that really like that piques my interest for me. And the, you know,

people will say like between the color soft and the paper white for Kindle, you can tell a difference in the quality, like it's not as sharp. I don't feel like I can see that between the color remarkable and the black and white remarkable. All right. Interesting. I have a different E-ink device that I am very happy with.

So I don't think I'll get the remarkable paper pro move, but I have been intrigued by it ever since they released it. I had a follow-up question for you, Mike, on yours. your, what's it called the notebook? What's that thing called again? Supernote Nomad. It's like the A5 size supernote device. Yeah.

Did you ever figure out how to get Reader to work on it? I never got Reader to work on it, but Instaaper works great. And as I told you guys before the show, I actually vibe-coded my own app just so I could send stuff to Instapaper to read on my nomad. Yeah. So I'm safe still. Can't get reader. Yeah. Yeah.

I actually have a different shining, object though this time around. I think maybe you mentioned this to me at one point, David, but Elgado makes a USB hub that fits into the back of the Stream Deck Plus, and it's amazing. It has two USBA, I think it's three USB, C, maybe four USBC. It's got a SD card slot. So I have my desk that I work from most of the time. I'm recording this at the YouTube desk. I got the fancy camera setup over here in the teleprompter. But most of my other work happens where I got like the really clicky keyboard and stuff like that.

And I was really trying not to overload the USB ports that I had on my studio display. And I'm like, do I get another hub? Do I like daisy chain these things together? I never wanted to do any of that. And so this hub has been great because it takes up no room on my desk, but it allows me to have a whole bunch of other things plugged in here. I don't have anything mission critical plugged in there. You know, I'm not doing the audio interface into the stream deck.

That's just still going straight to the computer, but the clicky keyboard and the things that, you know, I want to charge something via USB, but I don't necessarily need it to interact with my computer, you know, having all those extra ports has been pretty cool. Yeah, that's a nice, that's a nice piece of gear. And like you said, it just disappears behind it. Uh, so Mike, I have a confession. The, uh, I bought a keyboard. All right, which one? You know, so just for folks who aren't following the thread here, I occasionally buy a mechanical keyboard and I end up giving it to a friend about three months later and I just never can stick with

them. I think it's the touch ID that gets me on the Apple keyboard, but I got an email from what's the company called again? The one every key cron. Key cron. Key cron sent an email. The sale, I was perusing that sale. I almost bought the Alice layout, but I didn't. So they have a new one called Q3 Ultra it's wireless. It's supposed to run for three months. And I did it again. I ordered one. I don't know what's going to happen.

Did you get the Allwood special edition one? What? What? I did not know there's an Allwood Special Edition one. Sorry. Send me a link, Mike. Does this have touch ID on it? What's this little key here?

Sorry, this is terrible podcast content. I got it. I got, it's a Q3. It's the one with the arrow keys on it, but not the full number pad. And I haven't got it yet. I just ordered it this morning. So now there's an all wood one now. Now I need to talk to Mike.

I know what that's about. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So the Q3, yeah, this is the standard one that there's a, I was thinking of, I think it's the H3, the one that they just released. The standard one has like the wood overlay around the outsides. kind of like the rails on the sides of the keyboard, but they made a special edition one,

which is like walnut all the way around for the case. I think that one is like a magnetic key switch or something. It's for the Uber keyboard nerds. But they would when I saw it. I immediately thought, you know, if David was going to get a keyboard, it might be this one. Yeah.

Well, I'm going to try again. You know, the challenge, of course, is the touch ID so convenient. But, yeah. It is. It seems like a silly reason. Cool. Well, I hope it sticks this time because as much as you write,

I feel like the right mechanical keyboard could make that process a whole lot more fun for you. I really do like the K-Con keyboard management software and the way you can remap everything. And I know there's other ways to do it, but I feel like they've done it really well. So that, of course, is an attraction to me. But I'm going to try again. So here goes. once more into the keyboard abyss. Everybody check your watches.

Maybe in 30 days I'll be sending you my keyboard. I think I sent one to you, Mike. Didn't I send one to you at some point? I can't remember. You've offered to send me many things over the years. I purge. I'm a purge. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Let's talk about books. We also like to share what we're reading. So what are you reading, Joe? I am currently reading the Iliad by Homer, translation by Emily Wilson. I, again, not to reference like too many of your episodes, but I heard your discussion on the Stoics, the Heroes Journey, that episode. And so I've been reading more Ryan Holiday.

Part of my digital detox is I want to read fewer business and tech books and more classics. So right before that I read Common Sense by Thomas Payne. I figured it's been 250 years. I should probably read it. And so I'm like, I'm going to read the Iliad and the Odyssey finally. So I'm confident that'll take me a very long time. It is a big book. But I'm very happy to finally be reading that.

What do you think of the Emily Wilson version? So I don't have a lot to compare it against. But I did read her like 50 page preface. So I understand the decision she made. I can't get the, like, I can't get the rhythm down as I'm reading it. This is really weird. Maybe it's not weird. But I know that like she used iambic pentameter. But then there's like periods in the middle of it and I cannot not pause when I see the period or the comma. So I'm, I'm struggling with the rhythm a little bit. I might listen to her reading it to like get it down a little bit better.

Show your drummer. You got this. You got this. Thank you. I am a drummer. Thank you very much. Well, I'm going to go next because I have the very same book. Nice. Yeah, a good friend of mine told me that he really liked this. I read it ages ago, but I remember it was a difficult slog. The first time I read it. But he said, no, this is a totally different take on it, the way she translated it. So I just got it and I'm going to start it and I can't wait. Well, sorry, David, spoiler alert.

She does explain her reasoning behind the way she wrote it and the rhythm that she used. Yeah, I expect it. All right. Well, I'm going to keep the classic book theme going, maybe not quite as classic as you guys. But I am reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I say I am reading. It came yesterday. We are leaving for Florida.

We're going to go visit my parents. So going on vacation for about a week and a half. And I'm going to bring this one with me. I'm a little bit nervous about it. From the little things that I've heard, I think there's parts of it I'm really going to like. And parts of it, they're going to make me want to throw it in the ocean. We'll give it a shot. Honestly, I think you're going to really like it.

I mean, don't read it out of time. Read it in the context of its time. Yeah, there's some real wisdom in there. And like the price of nails doesn't matter that much, but it's in there. although I found it kind of enlightening because I didn't realize that nails cost that much back in those days. But I think Mike just read it with an open mind and remember that this wasn't written last week. Yeah, that's fair. Cool.

This is also on my list, so I'm excited. I mean, digital detox, right? And it's like kind of part of the credo of Walden, right? Yeah, yeah. You're going to move to a house in the middle of the woods. and go sit on the dock every morning, drink your coffee. That sounds like the dream. I know, right?

That's stuff we were talking about. You know, find the space. You can. I mean, it's there. You just got to go for it in little steps. Yep. That's a good place to end it, I think. So, Joe, thanks for coming on the show.

Where can people go if they want to keep up with you and what you're doing? Yeah, well, I will have a page set up specifically for listeners of this show. So it'll be casabona.org slash focused. I'm also on LinkedIn. That's assuming we're not live streaming this episode, I guess. I'm going to make this page right after. So casabona.org slash focused. And then I'm also on LinkedIn.

Awesome. We are the Focus Podcast. You can find links to everything that we discussed today over at Relay.fm slash focused. While you're there, you can also leave feedback for the show to be incorporated into an upcoming feedback episode. Dave and I are planning one of those coming up pretty soon. You can also sign up for Deep Focus, which is the extended ad-free version of the show. Today, we're going to be talking to Joe about Disney World versus Disneyland. Both he and David are big Disney fans. Thank you to our sponsors. That's our friends over at Squarespace, and we'll see you next time.