Good Life Project - How to be unmistakable (even when you’re falling apart): Srinivas Rao

Episode Date: August 4, 2016

Srinivas Rao was following the typical life path for an American kid. Raised in a family steeped in high-expectations of professional success, he ended up pursuing an MBA at Pepperdine. He figured, when he got out, like most MBA grads, he’d be minted. Except for two things. He graduated in the worst time in the […]The post How to be unmistakable (even when you’re falling apart): Srinivas Rao appeared first on Good LifeProject. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The three things that I think about when I think about a good life, words, waves, and love, you know, fill your life with words that inspire you. And for me, that's writing and reading books, waves, because waves have given me everything, you know, waves given me one of my best friends, it's given me, you know, career opportunities I couldn't have dreamed of. And then, you know, getting to do things with people that you love, you know, I mean, I look at all the things that have happened. And, you know, a lot of the people that I have just a tremendous amount of love for in my life are the byproduct of a lot of the things that I've gotten to do. I think it's probably a pretty safe bet to say that surfing saved today's guest's life on a number of different levels. So Surni Rao graduated from Pepperdine with an MBA at a time,

I think it was around 2009, when essentially the economy had collapsed and there were no jobs. But that wasn't necessarily such a bad thing because in a way it forced him to really examine what he was about, what he wanted, what he didn't want. And he had become a surfer recently and become somewhat addicted to it. And the lessons, the analogies of surfing start to really lead him to redefine what mattered to him. And it served as a really powerful reset and place of contemplation and solace as he navigated his way through creating a new life. That eventually led him to writing. It led him to this fabulous world of podcasting way before most of us were ever in it. And recently led him

to write a book called Unmistakable. As always, we touch on the book, but what we really explore is his journey. And we also spend a chunk of time talking about a very recent window in his journey, where he went into a pretty deep, dark place. He went into a depression. And I had a conversation with him pretty much when he was in the middle of it, and I didn't really realize the depth of the place that he was in until quite a long time later. And we have this conversation. I think it's an important conversation because so many people, especially people who consider themselves high-functioning or high-achievers, go to that place, or they feel the tug of

it, and it gets buried. It gets shelved. Nobody wants to talk about it. And I think that's a shame because it associates a sense of shame with it. And the more you can have public conversations with the demons that we all live with and live through, I think it's a better thing. So I hope you enjoy this conversation and find it interesting and enlightening. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. So good to be hanging out. So how do we know each other? I was trying to remember, I'm Jonathan Fields. Oh, wait a minute. You know what? The story is coming to me because I remember you

telling me something now that embarrassed me. So I think what happened was that back in the days of Blog World, which for those who don't know was a bigger conference that was around for a bit, they had this New York session for one year. And I was speaking there. And I think you told me at one point that you came up to me to say hello, and I kind of snubbed you. And I was like, I think it was also because I was just in massive introvert mode and overwhelmed mode. And I was just trying to run and just get a little break. And you took it as you being snubbed. And a couple years later, you told me that story. And I was like, wait, were you in New York? I was in New York.

I don't remember that. I don't either. I might have at that time. It's possible. Yeah. I just remember being mortified that I felt like I had in some way dissed somebody. I was like, no, man, really. I just needed to be away from people.

That's funny. Yeah. That was actually my first time speaking anywhere outside of, I spoke at a travel conference once, but that was like my first big speaking gig for the work that I was doing. Right. At that point, how far were you into the podcast? Because that was what, maybe five years ago, something like that? Yeah. So we started in 2009. Like I had a blog called The School of Life, and I never really achieved liftoff with it. It wasn't unsuccessful, but it wasn't really successful either. It kind of plateaued. And I think we started as a weekly interview series called Interviews with Up-and-Coming Bloggers. And the 13th guy I interviewed emailed me one day and he said, I'm going to get on my soapbox here, but he said, I think you're a much better interviewer than you are a writer. So he

actually suggested that we take it out and spin it out as a separate site. So we were new to it. We started this long before everybody else and their mother had a podcast. I think we were like us, Mixergy, and The Rise to to the top we're sort of the three interview based shows and we didn't really do it because it was a trend we didn't do it because it was cool we were you know this friend said he's like you're good at this and so i sent him an email and said great when do you want to get started and that was the impetus for the whole thing and we had no idea where it was going to lead us then so we you know we really started as a podcast for bloggers and at this point it'll be seven years, I think.

Yeah, that's amazing. And also, I mean, of the two other shows you just mentioned, my recollection is those were all both a video series. Yeah. So to be a pure podcast at that time, because that was a window. Now it's kind of funny because everyone's like, oh, it's a reigning podcast.

And it's the next generation. It's new, intimate radio. But back then, everyone was like, podcasters do this thing on the planet and they're going away, so why bother? So for you to actually double down, that was pretty unusual. Well, so here's the funny thing. I gave a keynote speech at Podcast Movement and I opened it by saying, I don't really think of myself as a podcaster. I actually hate that label and I hate the term because it sounds so stupid and limiting. And I said, I am a storyteller who happens to use podcasting as the medium by which I tell my stories, which that

wasn't always the case. But I really, I think I didn't look at it as, you know, the medium. I looked at it as, okay, I'm kind of good at this. Like I'm better at this than I am as a writer, which is ironic since, you know, I have books coming out now and the next book is all about writing and habits. But it was one of those things where it just felt very natural to me. Like the medium was natural. And I think the other thing things where it just felt very natural to me. The medium was natural. And I think the other thing was that I got some very, very positive feedback early on. And I was like, okay, you know what? There could be really something here if I stick it out. And so I was kind of like, okay, you know what? We're just in this for the long haul. I'm not

trying to climb some sort of ladder or get rich quick in any way. Yeah. When you got that feedback from guest number 13 that, hey, dude, you was like a cliche. Everybody and their mother had started something like this. And so the guy's name was Sid Zavara. The reason the email exchange took place was because I emailed him to ask if he would be willing to contribute. And he actually replied back saying no. He said, and that sounds like a giant waste of time. He said, I think it more or less it would be a waste of your time. But he said, I think your interviews are gold. And so at that point, I was kind of like, okay, wait a minute. He's not insulting me. He's definitely not saying I'm a great writer. But he said, you know, your personal development writing is good. But he said, what

makes you distinctive is the fact that you have these really unique interviews, and you're genuinely curious. And so that always kind of stuck with me. And I thought, okay, you know what, he's right. There's there's actually nothing he's saying is absolutely wrong. Because at that point, you know, personal development blogs were a dime a dozen. I mean, you guys were around, like you and Pam, and you guys don't even necessarily fall into personal development. You're sort of a broader genre, but you had Leo Babada at Zen Habits and a bunch of other

people who had already kind of claimed their names in that space because they had been at it for three or four years. And so I thought, he's right, but why would I try to compete in something where I that's proven, yes, it's crowded, but at least the demand is proven and the medium is proven. And then to go and say, okay, I'm going to go away from that format. I'm going to go to a medium that's been my primary source of storytelling that the world seems to be saying is dying. It's unusual. But as we sit and have this conversation, you've got a book out, you've been producing the podcast slash media slash interview slash storytelling show for seven years called The Unmistakable Creative. You actually have become a prolific writer again.

And I want to actually deconstruct all of those, but not quite yet. I want to take a step back in time. So this is kind of funny because I know a fair bit about your, I guess, modern incarnation, but I know almost nothing about sort of the young Srini. That's because I hide it from the world. I know. It's sort of like, you know, you're very open and transparent about so much, but it's interesting that there's fairly little about, you know, you and the younger phase. Is that deliberate? I asked AJ Leon a similar question. I remember we had him. He's a mutual friend of ours. And he had somebody who had been a profound influence on my life. And I said,

it's weird because you look at everything those guys do, and there's a level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail that is almost Steve Jobs-like. It's pretty insane. And I remember asking him, I said, I have, I have to ask you, like, has this always been this way? Because I don't see anything that you've ever put out from the earlier days of Misfit. He's like, yeah, that's because I hide it from the world. So, you know, so to answer your question, a lot of this stems from a really weird sort of past. So I'm not the typical sort of, I was disillusioned with my successful corporate career, you know, risen to like, you know, $100,000 a year in salary and left my job as a successful banker, a lawyer, whatever it is, to find meaning and purpose in

life by doing some, you know, sort of entrepreneurial endeavor. I think most of what I've done is the result of feeling that I had no choice. Because if you look at that earlier sort of version of me, I mean, it's very clear, like if you read the book, and I've talked openly about this, I've been fired from just about every real job I've ever been at. Most of my early bosses wrote me off as not interested in controlling my own destiny, unmotivated, lazy, all sorts of things which are amusing nowine. And the reason I went to Pepperdine was because I got rejected from every other business school that I applied to. My dream business school was to go to NYU and work in media and entertainment, which ironically I'm doing in the most roundabout way at this point. But I really thought I wanted to work in programming at a television network and choose what went

on the air. And I realized what I get to do now is run my own network and actually choose what goes on the air. But I also get to create it, which is, I think, deep down what I really wanted. But I also grew up in this Indian culture where we were taught very early in life that you do very pragmatic things that nobody ever sits you down and says, you know what, you can make a career out of doing something in the arts. You look at filmmakers like Mira Nair, writers like Jim Pahiri, who wrote an amazing book called The Namesake, but they're really rare. You don't see this as sort of a common story among Indian American kids. I mean, my dad's a college professor. My sister is the chief anesthesiology resident at Yale. I'm this just anomaly. I always jokingly say that maybe God made a sorting error when I got paired with my family in the hospital. And so I went and I did everything that I thought you should do, which was after getting fired from

all these corporate jobs, I thought, OK, you know what? Maybe the reason is I'm not qualified enough. So I went and I got an MBA. And it turns out that getting an MBA teaches you absolutely nothing about running a business. It teaches you how to be an employee in somebody else's. But believe it or not, it's one of those weird catch-22s because people ask me, do I regret doing it? And yeah, I regret the student loan debt that's come from it.

But at the same time, the MBA led to Brazil. Brazil led to surfing. Surfing opened up the world to me. And in addition to that, I was the social media strategy intern at Intuit where I started getting exposed to this whole world of content creation and started really dabbling with all of this stuff. So it's one of those weird things where you kind of look at it and say, yeah, okay, I might've done things differently. I wouldn't encourage anybody to go to business school. And at the same time, like, well, there's a lot of

things that happen in my life that wouldn't have if I hadn't gone there and done that. So to fast forward to sort of the first incarnation of all of this work, the earlier things I did were laughable. They really were. The first thing that I did online that had any sort of public presence was a website called 100 Reasons You Should Hire Me. And it was terrible. It was just abysmal in terms of creative projects. If you looked at that, you would never be able to look at that and predict that it would translate to what is now the unmistakable creative. And we can talk a lot about process. I think process plays a big role in all of that. But that project failed abysmally. I mean, I got hate mail from strangers, from classmates who had never talked to me in the two years. And I realized, I think the biggest failure, I couldn't come up with to actually do this the right way. And that led to starting to really kind of study this and look at,

you know, what might be possible. And so I enrolled in a course on how to build a blog. But I think that the biggest thing, and this is something, you know, we'll probably come back to is I didn't follow the instructions to the letter in that course. And that made all the difference in the world. Because what happens often is that we're given formulas, and we treat them like gospel, not guidance. We look at what somebody like you does, or somebody like Pamela Slim, or somebody like Danielle Laporte. And I think the natural temptation for us is to say, okay, you know what? If I do that, I will get the exact same result. And I think what happens is we deny the very essence of what makes us unmistakable, which is us. You take the part of you that makes that project unique and you completely forget about it. and ask them questions. I don't think that the art in what Brandon Stanton does is taking pictures.

I think it's in the connection that he creates with people that gets them to open up and be as vulnerable. And what's funny is if you do a search of humans of on Facebook, you'll find a thousand other cities trying to replicate the same result, but they're missing the ingredient, which is Brandon. So, you know, and it's funny because I didn't think I had this perspective early on. So, you know, we did all sorts of stuff. So largely it was a lot of early experiments. So the School of Life blog, which probably reached a couple thousand readers and some people liked it.

And, you know, fast forward from 2009 to 2013, which I think is really where what I do started to really become known. And, you know, believe it or not, we go back to AJ Leon of all people. This was one of the few afternoons I think I always look back at and think, wow, I really am so grateful that I somehow connected with him. Because somebody put a link to his essay collection, The Life and Times of Remarkable Misfit, on my wall and said, have you talked to this guy? He would be a really interesting interview. And I had no idea who he was at the time. And everything that he spoke of resonated with me so much that it really fundamentally changed,

I think, the way I viewed everything that I was doing. I stopped looking at myself as an online marketer or a blogger. And I started to think, okay, you know what? I want to be an artist. That's a much more interesting thing to identify with because labels limit our capacity. When we say, I am just a podcaster, I am just a blogger, I'm just an online marketer, I'm just an author. And it's funny because I've done all of these things. That's because I finally have realized how much those labels limit us. I've produced a live event. I've co-produced an animated series with SoulPancake based on our podcast. And I realized when you shed all these labels,

the world opens up to you in a way that is just so much more expansive than it is when you identify with this one thing that you think you're known for. And of course, it's not like I came out of the womb thinking all these things and having all these thoughts. It was more like an iterative process through which ideas are revealed to me, layers are shed, masks are taken off. And in 2013, in addition to meeting AJ, I met another friend, a guy by the name of Greg

Hartle, who I'd interviewed, who I jokingly call the Jack Bauer of the internet because he's easily the most resourceful human being I know. He has a crazy project called $10 on a laptop where he decided to visit all 50 states, work one-on-one with 500 people and start a business in an industry he knew nothing about. The only caveat was that the only thing he could use were the $10 on a laptop. And the way I met him was through somebody who was following some of the things that I'd written on Twitter. And somehow she connected the two of us. And I, you know, the other sort of big thread in my entire body of work is morbid curiosity. I kind of just look where the rabbit hole leads. And so I saw Greg had like 100 followers on Twitter. And if you think about it, the average person, what they do is they go and they say, okay,

you know what, I want to connect with this person because they're famous, they're well known, they have authority, they can, you know, take me to the next level by being connected to them. I didn't look at it that way. I look at it as this guy is really interesting. I just want to find out what this story is because who the hell walks out of their door with $10 and a laptop to visit all 50 states? And I met him six weeks into the project. And two years later, we did another interview.

And for some strange reason of all the people he could ask, he said, hey, the project is coming to an end at the end of 2013. I'd like some help writing a book. And I'm kind of like, you're asking me, I've self published one book that kind of did okay. You know, sometimes I wonder if he deliberately chose me because he knew he could have the kind of impact that he did. So I ended up being one of the people that he worked with one on one. And he was actually the one who came up with the name Unmistakable Creative. Of course, there's another sub story in all of this that probably is worth mentioning. This is probably where my name starts to get on the radar of a lot of people. I gave this talk called The Art of Being Unmistakable in Fargo. When I came

back, I had this entire collection of things that I had written that I'd been publishing as Facebook status updates. And I thought, you know, it's time to assemble this into a book. And that book ended up being called The Art of Being Unmistakable. And of all people in a million years, I would have never guessed Glenn Beck found it. And so I ended up on the Glenn Beck Show. The book became a Wall Street Journal bestseller. And that ultimately kind of brings us full circle to how the Unmistakable Creative came to be because Greg came up with the name Unmistakable Creative. What we figured out was that we had a really expansive body of work, but it didn't have an identity. It didn't have something that said, this is who we are. This is what we stand for. And this is how we want people to feel when they come into our

world. We want you to know that you have arrived at a place that is unlike any other on the internet. And we drew our line in the sand. And I think that kind of really brings us to where we are now, which is writing books, producing events, producing animated series, like all sorts of stuff. And of course, through all of this, there's been one underlying thread that has been something that's deeply informed my life, which is I'm an avid surfer. How does that work? You basically just asked and answered a whole bunch of questions that I have. So many places that I want to deconstruct here. Where do we begin? I want to talk about unmachakable. I want to talk about surfing because especially I know surfing is such a central part of your life. And I think that's actually probably a good place to dive in because as you mentioned, you actually got out of your MBA program at a time in history when it was the darkest hour economically in the world, which made it brutally hard for you to actually go out there and try and start a career. And so you took a

left turn, depending on which way you're facing. You headed to Brazil. Yeah. Well, actually, Brazil was a study abroad. Okay. All right. First semester of my second year. Is that where you began surfing? It was, actually. So the interesting story, I was supposed to be with a bunch of friends who are from Denmark. We'd become very good friends. And they all ran out of money, and we were supposed to spend New Year's Eve together. So I got stuck traveling

with this guy. I had absolutely nothing in common with, and we didn't really get along very well, but he liked to surf. And I kind of finally just got sick of sitting on the beach, drinking caipirinhas, which is all we did for like six months. It was drink and party and hang out on the beach. And so finally I rented a surfboard two days before I came up to this day. I'm just like, I had six months of sitting at the beach doing nothing when I could have been in the water the entire time. And I stood up and I remember thinking, okay, I'm just like, I had six months of sitting at the beach doing nothing when I could have been in the water the entire time. And I stood up. And I remember thinking, okay, maybe that was a fluke. And then I got out of the water. And I mean, you've had East Key Britain here. So you know, anybody who's heard that interview knows like surfing does

something to you. I had spent a good amount of the last few years, you know, wrestling with severe digestive issues like IBS and stress and anxiety and all sorts of stuff that came from the working situations I was in. And I remember thinking, wow, this is unreal. Everything that I have worried about and have been concerned about is just gone. I feel this lightness and this playfulness and this joy that I've never once experienced in my entire adult life. And I want to feel like this as much as possible. And conveniently, I was going back for my last semester to Pepperdine, which happens to be in Malibu, which is a world-class surf destination. So I didn't go to the bookstore when I got my financial aid check. I went to the surf

shop. And instead of buying books, I bought a surfboard and a wetsuit. And so I started surfing between classes. And I wasn't getting good. I was still terrible at that time. And not that I'm amazing now. But what happened was I had this very unusual period. Like you said, I graduated into the worst possible time you could have to build a career, especially as an MBA. Because prior to 2009, when you were an MBA, the expectation was you get an MBA and you'll walk out of there with at least a $90,000 starting salary, a good job at a Fortune 500 company as a senior associate type position and literally none of that was available to me all of a sudden and so it made me start to really examine all the choices i had made in my life up until that point surfing played a big role in that because what happened was i had

that entire summer which i call the endless summer from you know probably april until december and i had to find something to keep me from going insane because one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from this guy named Peter Bregman. He said, when you're unemployed, the worst thing you could do is spend all your time looking for a job. And I thought, that's so counterintuitive, but it makes so much sense. And surfing became this thing that just became this great escape. I would go to the beach and I would realize, oh, wow, while I'm here and I'm in the water, I'm not worried about finding a job. I'm not worried about money. You know, at this point we jokingly say surfers can't have real jobs because it's

just this thing that becomes so addictive because it produces so much joy and pleasure in your life. And it became this metaphor for everything that was going on somewhere along the way. I can't really pinpoint where exactly this happens. I thinking about this and it's fresh on my mind because I'm writing a talk about this right now. So there's a scene in The Matrix where Neo is about to be unplugged and they pick him up in the cab and he's about to get out and he says, you know where that road ends. And in many ways, when I looked at sort of the path of a regular job, a regular existence, well-lit paths, clearly marked destinations, I was like, wait a minute, I've already gone down that road and it's going to bring me right back to where I'm at now because I've made all those choices in my 20s that have led me to where I am now at 30. I'm like, the only way to end up in a completely different place by the time I'm 40 is to go down a road where there aren't well-lit paths. None of the destinations are clearly marked and it's a complete unknown. I'm like, I would rather gamble on the uncertainty of that than

the guarantee of mediocrity that I've already experienced. How does that play in your upbringing in the family dynamic? Because like you said, you're brought up in an Indian family, certain expectations and certain cultural beliefs. You clearly are, at that point, somebody who's not wired in alignment with those expectations. But at the same time, from what I know of you, you're a loving guy. You care about your family. You care about what people think. And what's going through your mind? Because on the one hand, you're like, there's this thing that you need to do where I'm clearly choosing a path where I have no idea how it's going to end. And at the same time, I want to do it right by my family. There's this thing that's been hardwired into you culturally for almost your entire life. That, I think, is one

of the most challenging things. And it's so hard, I think, for somebody to truly understand if they haven't experienced it. Like I can deconstruct it for you. And yet the only way to really understand it is to live it. Don't get me wrong. It hasn't come without its set of challenges. I mean, you and I were walking in Central Park and I actually tell this story in the book and I remembered it so well. I remember I met you. I was in New York to meet with Penguin. The book deal had been officially set up and it was just time to start talking about what this book was going to be. And I remember I met you. I was in New York to meet with Penguin. The book deal had been officially set up, and it was just time to start talking about what this book was going to be. And I remember turning to you saying, I hope my parents don't think I'm still screwing around on the internet now that I've gotten a book deal.

It's one of those things that I, to this day, still honestly struggle with. There are moments when I'm like, wow, I'm 38 and I'm not married. I've seen all my friends get to do all these things that I do want in my life. want in my life. Like I want to meet somebody, I want to fall in love. Like I want to have all those things happen. And then I have to always remind myself, I'm like, yeah, but I also get to do a lot of the things that I get to do because I don't have those things. I think somebody, I don't remember, maybe it was our friend Jennifer Boykin who said to me once, you know, you can have it all, but you can't have it all at once. And I thought that was actually very fitting because we really liked the idea that we can have it all. But I think that none of this comes without sacrificing something. And I think for me, moments when I thought, you know, I felt sort of

not validated because there are moments when my parents aren't interested in my work. But then I kind of look at all the things that they've done that have enabled it. Like I wouldn't be able to do what I do without them, you know, being as kind as they are about it. I feel very fortunate in that they haven't quite understood it entirely. But I think for them to see that it's actually going somewhere rather than this sort of vague uncertainty that it was in the beginning has kind of enabled me to get over that part of it, if that makes any sense. Yeah, I think it kind of does. It is so interesting because we all have our sort of standard set of expectations. And also in a

culture where there tends to be much more emphasis on everybody complying with following a certain path because that's just what you do. I had the opportunity to sit down with someone recently who was brought up in India until he was 25. And the time he was 25 is when he first decided he wanted to be a writer. But until then, he basically said the path was, you do this in school and you work fiercely hard. you give up everything, including relationships, friendships, so you can take this one test, which gets you into this one school so that you get this, which is the only thing, you get this one particular job. There are 3,000 people competing for every one spot. And he was kind of saying that, when I tell this to a Westerner, it's just like unfathomable. But the culture I grew up in, this was the norm. And it was also, there are

actually some good things about that. And so it's interesting when you have somebody who grew up in, this was the norm. And it was also, there are actually some good things about that. And so it's interesting when you have somebody who grows up in that culture. And then when you have somebody who grows up in that culture that's been transplanted into our culture where you get exposed to two different worlds simultaneously. And now you're the first generation that kind of says, how am I going to reconcile these in a way that actually feels right for me? And am I going to? Yeah, it's so actually feels right for me? And am I going to? Yeah, it's so interesting because you're right. You're talking about two totally different upbringings. I had friends who grew up in India and just to watch them look at the life here. And at the same time, I look at the way my parents grew up in a place like that or in a culture like

that, your alternatives are not, okay, I might not make it and things might not go perfectly if I go down this sort of risky path. You're kind of stuck between two extremes because the way society is set up there, if you don't do something that guarantees a safe and secure living, the alternative is extreme poverty. There's sort of no in between. And it's really hard in those kinds of environments to get out of the situation that you're in. So no parent will encourage you. And I realize that's a big part of the way my parents were raised is because if they chose to do something that didn't lead to security, the end was disaster.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, which brings up another interesting question in my mind, which is that people ask this sort of said this to me. You got an MBA. I got a JD. So I went to law school and then I went into practice for about four or five years. And when I decided to leave it all behind, there's in my mind, I was done. But every once in a while, some of us say, well, but sure, you know, like you can go out and be an entrepreneur, you know, but you always know in the back of your mind, you have this degree and should you need to, you know, you can always go back and do that. What was your thought pattern around that? Because you did, you had an MBA from a good school and God forbid, you know, this path less drawn doesn't work out for you. You've got this unique degree and, you know, to fall back on.

You know, it's interesting you say that because I felt, I think at a certain point, I looked at the job history and the degrees and I thought, you know, I'm like, this is going to lead to nothing because it led to nothing. So I actually thought it wasn't something I had to fall back on. And what's interesting is now seven years later, I look at the body of work that I've created, the things I've learned from the people that I've talked to and all the skills that I've developed as a result of this. And now I kind of like, okay, now I feel like if it doesn't work out, which is funny, because, you know, I'm getting to do all the things that I had aspired to do seven years ago, I would be far more valuable to somebody now than I ever was then. And interestingly, too, since you started now, the world that you're operating in,

you know, the media that you've chosen that was so risky has become, you know, like the leader of this zeitgeist. It's sort of like the end thing right now. So it is interesting how it all comes full circle. Yeah. You know, I, I jokingly say that we were, you know, seven years ahead of the curve on a trend. You know, we, we were just very fortunate to have the timing that we did. Tell me more about surfing. So this becomes a part of your life where you're kind of doing it on a regular basis. But it's also, it literally, you know, it sounds like it's something that kind of breathes you in a major way. You know, in addition to becoming this thing that just brought this insane amount of joy to my life, it, so, you know, if you look at habit formation in general, what happens is if one habit starts to change after a certain point and creates a ripple effect through your life, through all these other habits. So, you know, I mean, I went

from being the person who would stay out till two in the morning, drinking and smoking cigarettes when I drank to going home at 10 o'clock and being up at five in the morning so I could be in the water. And it's funny because you look at it, you know, we talk about what's involved in living a creative life and doing this kind of creative work. And all of a sudden, I have a tremendous amount of physical energy. My physical health is completely different than it's ever been. I feel younger and more vibrant at 32 than I did at 22. And as a result, I've got all this sort of energy that comes from being in the ocean. People say surfers are a tribe and they feed off this energy of being in the water. And that energy is something that I bring to the work that I do on a daily basis, so much so that I can quite literally say that surfing transformed both my life and my career because that became the entire organizing principle for how I ended up writing a book. And the other thing I always jokingly say is surfing is like going to a church, a bar, and a gym all in one activity because it meets your physical, social, and spiritual needs.

And I have friends that I surf with. And it's funny because I couldn't tell you if we've ever done anything together because we never have dinner together. Like, hey, you want to hang out? It's like, what are we going to do? We're going to go surf. My business partner, Brian, I ended up meeting because we surf together and he's one of my best friends now. And it became an outlet for dealing with stress, for dealing with anxiety, you know, over and over. And I know you know this through a lot of the work that you've done and a lot of the people that you've talked to. We all know that exercise tends to be one of those things that nearly every successful person who is a high performer in every field continually points to. So it's become, you know, a physical practice. It's become a spiritual practice.

And it's become a social practice, it's become a spiritual practice, and it's become a social outlet, all in one thing. And it deeply informs the way I think about life, the way I think about the world. I think the ocean really is such a profound metaphor for the way we actually live, because it's constantly changing. It's constantly dynamic. You can show up one day and the conditions are terrible. You show up tomorrow, the same surf break that was absolutely terrible yesterday is just firing and going off with one perfect wave after another the next day. And that to me is so much like what we experience in life, especially when we decide to go down a creative path that's incredibly uncertain. Yeah. And it's interesting. I mean, like you said, it's got all the different elements. It's got the salvation element,

the challenge elements, and the solitude and all wrapped up in one experience. I've done the smallest amount of it. I wouldn't consider myself in any way proficient. But what's interesting is I have so many of my friends, people that have actually been in business with in the past have been hardcore surfers. And I've always been drawn to really trying to understand why. And also, I keep saying, it's like every summer, this is a summer. But I haven't. And then I have the chance to sit down with Iski, who you said.

And for those who have listened to her in the past, Iski Britton is Iris' big wave surfer, one of the top in the world. And she's just this tremendous woman who's also PhD and doing incredible work in the world. And it seems like the, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but it seems like it's almost like whenever you bring to the water, it gives you what you need back. I grew up, I didn't grow up surfing, but I grew up on the water and it was always my experience. It was the place where for some reason I would always go and continue to go to Touchstone because there's just something about it. It's interesting. I think in a lot of ways, everybody has said this, you get out of the water in a very different

headspace than you do when you get in, assuming that you've had a good surf session and caught a lot of waves. I think what it does is it resolves whatever you're dealing with. It literally washes away all your worries when you're in the ocean. It's incredibly healing. That is, I think, the real draw to it. No matter what is going on in your life. I remember meeting a guy on the beach. This was when I had first started surfing, really surfing hardcore. It was right after I'd finished business school. It's funny because you can spot big inning surfers because they carry these giant blue foam Costco boards and they don't know what

they're doing. They look like idiots in the water. But I was there every day. So I was really actually getting quite good with this blue board. And, you know, I see this guy as we're showering off at the showers at this place called Bay Street in Santa Monica. And we get to talking because, you know, you always chat with other surfers about the conditions and, you know, what's going on.

And, you know, I tell him that I have just finished grad school and I'm kind of down and I can't find a job, but this is actually keeping me grounded and keeping me going. And he tells me that surfing had gotten him through the death of his mother who died of cancer. It had gotten him through a divorce. And I think really for so many people who do it, it actually starts to become a form of therapy. It becomes this thing that just creates so much peace in your life. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, actually. It's interesting, too.

You referenced it a couple of times, just sort of being in a bit of a down place. One of the conversations that we had, actually, when we were both out in Fargo, North Dakota at Misfit, and I remember bumping into you, we're just kind of hanging out. And I talked to you in a while, and it was a couple of years. I was like, hey, what's up? And you were telling me that I think it was then that you were either still in or had just emerging from a really tough time. And you actually write about this in the book, you know, under the umbrella of the impact

zone is sort of the analog in surfing. Take me there a little bit. Yeah, I'm happy to. I figured you'd ask about this. And it's funny because I don't think a lot of people know in detail about it. I mean, I've made subtle references to it on the show, but I think the first time I've talked so openly about it was in the book. And I felt that it was probably one of the most important chapters to talk about because

let me tell you the story of, you know, kind of what led there. It was a combination of a lot of things all at once. You know, for the better part of eight months, I was on what you would probably call a pretty incredible ride. I mean, if you looked at my Facebook status updates from probably summer of 2013 till May of 2014, it was almost like I could do no wrong. Everything in my life started to come together in a way that it never had. And especially after so many years of enduring a lot of uncertainty. And my story wasn't one of working for three years and having the blog take off and having everything take off. It was very much like a lot of ups and downs. And finally, I'd hit this big upswing with Glenn Beck,

the rebrand of the show, more money coming in. We went from something like $600 in the bank in June to about $140,000 in the bank by January. And don't get me wrong, some of that was revenue for our event, which you end up spending a lot of it. And then you have this other thing that really defines your life, which has been planning this event for so long. And of course, there's some personal relationship related stuff that happened as well. And in the span of about three weeks, it all came to an end all at once, like all of it. Sponsors didn't renew their contracts. The event was over. Somebody left my life that I didn't think was going to leave my life anytime soon. And I was devastated because it was going from an extreme high to an extreme

low really fast. And I thought that would be the end of it. When I met you in Fargo, that was about two weeks after all of this had happened. And I thought, okay, you know what? I'm sad. This is going to lift. I'll pull out of this. And it just got worse. It got worse and worse and worse and worse. There were days when I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. Almost everything would reduce me to tears. I had a very difficult time being in public around people. And I was kind of a nightmare. And when you have a public presence, you're held to incredibly high standards of what's expected of you because you're a public figure. You can't have a meltdown on social media. And eventually, I mean, it got into the point where a partner

bailed out on us for the business. My mentor was very ill and he handed back all of his equity. And I was stuck with this idea that, wow, everything I've done has failed. And the same event, which had sold out in two weeks the year before was like, okay, this is really kind of it. I'm like, what's the point? I don't have any reason to live anymore. I'm never, and the worst part was because I always felt that the alternative of just going and get a job was something that wasn't available to me based on my job history. I thought, oh my God, I'm totally screwed. Like there's nothing I can do and I'm never going to get out of this. And then it really, I think, hit. We had gone out and surfed, my friend Brian, who's my business partner and I, and we got out of the water and we'd been in the water for four or five hours. And I mean, who's my business partner and I. And we got out of the water. And

we'd been in the water for four or five hours. And I mean, it was wave after wave after wave. And if you have a session like that, normally, you get out of the water and you're just, you know, like, they call it stoked. You feel, you know, this incredible high, and I felt nothing at all. And then there's a picture of us on the beach that he took, you know, we put it on Instagram. And he looked at it. And he actually sent me a text. And he said, I actually legitimately think that you're actually dealing with clinical depression.

He said, I'm looking at this picture of you. And he said, I've seen tons of pictures of you. He said, you look emaciated. And you're wearing a wetsuit. So at that point, I finally saw a doctor. And I was in this cycle of all of the things going wrong in my business life and my personal life feeling like that. And I couldn't sleep. So I finally was like, all right, you know, you had already

in a Huffington here. So she's talked extensively about the importance of that. And I was waking up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations. So finally I went and saw a doctor and, you know, it's funny that we're talking about this because for the first time since that moment, just this past Sunday, I got out of the water and I was like, oh my God, I feel the buzz again. And I was like, I've been missing how this feels for almost 18 months. What was it like just to be aware of that? It was scary. I mean, it was really, really scary because I was going to sleep almost every night, kind of literally hoping that maybe I won't wake up tomorrow. And not only that, wondering who you can talk to about this, knowing that there are only a handful of people that you can talk to about it. And I saw a therapist the entire time. I started to probably around June or July. And I think the reason I'm really actually happy that you brought this up is because I think we have a real problem in our unwillingness to talk about this. It's such a taboo subject to talk about anything mental illness. And I,

for the longest time, I thought it was very, very like isolated to, you know, the Indian culture, which I, you know, I mentioned that, but I'm realizing more and more, like, as I look online, and I watch the way people portray their lives, that we're very scared to talk about the darker chapters of our life. And yet, I think, you know, like, we only get wake up calls calls when we hear an Aaron Schwartz story. And I think that's really unfortunate that we've gotten to that point. Luckily, I think you're seeing more and more people who are willing to have conversations about this, like the work that people like Jerry Colonna are doing at Reboot. And the other thing you start to realize is that this is way more common than we think it is.

And it's way more common among really high performing people than we might think it is. That, I think, gave me a lot of solace in looking at it and saying, okay, wait a minute. There are people who have achieved really grand and significant things who have basically pulled through situations far worse than this. But I think we've gotten to the point where our world is so driven by the idea of positive psychology and self-improvement that there's a tremendous stigma around saying, you know what? I take medication because if I didn't, I couldn't sleep at night, and it would exacerbate the whole situation. That we've done everything possible to avoid because that in and of itself carries a whole narrative with it. So there's so many places we could go with this.

So tell me where you want to go. I agree. It's bizarre to me that at this day and age, and we're recording this in 2016, where the public spin is that there's no stigma anymore. It's totally normalized. Everyone has a therapist. So many people are going to go through some form of anxiety or depression. So it's just kind of a pretty regular. But the truth is from so many people that I've either been close with or it's like you're saying, it's not normalized, not nearly in the way that or accepted as this is something that many people go through, even that it's not a judgment on who you are, on your value. And that what you said, the idea that many of the highest performing people in the world also have and likely will go through moments of extraordinary emotional swings that can manifest in all sorts of really major challenges. I wonder if social media also makes it a lot worse

because you look on Facebook and it's all about my shiny happy life and reinforces the fact that you're not one of them. Yeah. Well, I actually want to talk about the social media piece of this in quite a bit more detail because I became hyper aware of everything related to social media during this period. And anybody who knows me knows I have really just ridiculous routines that I abide by in order to maintain my creative habits. And where I got really clued into the effect that social media has on us is through the work that Simon Sinek did in his last book, Leaders Eat Last, where he dedicates an entire chapter to dopamine. And the book is worth reading for that chapter alone. Because what he said is that when we get these constant likes, every time we log into Facebook, what you're getting is a surge of

dopamine. And of course, dopamine is incredibly addictive. But what happens is you're getting this constant surge of dopamine that doesn't last, like the fulfillment that comes from that doesn't last. And what's funny is we do this all day long, every single day. And you start measuring your worth in Facebook likes and comments. And it's funny because I know it all too well, especially from the last year, because the last couple of years, last probably 16 months or so, maybe nine months or so, my highlight reel from my life looks really amazing on Facebook. I never talked about any of these things publicly on Facebook because it's inappropriate.

And I think social media absolutely does exacerbate the problem. I think we have actual research, scientific research to show this. And so as a result, I've actually been very mindful of how I spend my time online. And I try to limit it. I've deleted every app from my phone. I don't use email from my phone. Every now and then, I'll reinstall them if I'm on a flight somewhere and I'm not going to have access to a computer for several hours. But I realized that just putting these sort of restrictions in your life can actually increase your happiness significantly.

It's interesting. I agree with that. I have almost no social media apps on my phone. I do have email. But it's interesting because on the one hand, just having them there means every time you look at your phone, you're going to see the little icon from it and your brain is going to be called to like, oh, I haven't checked that in the last 32 seconds. And then once you check it, depending on the state, if you're in a really good place in your life, you may look at it and say, awesome. They're my friends. We're all doing really good things. It's cool. It's fun. But if you're in a dark place in your life, and maybe it's just a

dark moment on a given day, if it reinforces for that moment that everybody else is doing so great and I'm a screw up or this is going right, or in some way, if that becomes a recurring pattern where it starts to reinforce that horrendous message that is so often a part of depression, which is that tomorrow is not going to be any different than today, then anything that reinforces that message can be devastating. So I think on the one hand, I feel like technology has given us access to people and resources that may make the ability to navigate struggling with any form of depression or anxiety better. But on the other hand, it's also a double-edged sword. You brought up one really important component of this, which is people and resources. I mean,

I think that probably the biggest thing that played a role in my being able to navigate this period were people, community and support. And it was, you know, from a handful of close friends, you know, I think that you kind of start to figure out that, okay, you know what, there's only a handful of people that can really guide me through this, that I can talk about this because they're the ones who, they're not going to judge me for this. They'll be there unconditionally. And, you know, one of those people was my business partner, Brian. I honestly wouldn't have made it through without him. And I think what we try to do, especially because everybody appears to be sort of the quote unquote personal brand behind the empire that they are creating, what you don't see is how many other people it really takes to make all those things

happen. Even looking at the process of a book, I remember Elle Luna was telling me, she says, yeah, so I wrote a book. But she says there's an editor, a designer, an entire team of people who work on making this thing become a reality. And I think that applies to nearly everything that I do. And I think we really, really need community and support systems to get through difficult periods of our lives. And I think the danger is that we think that online can be a substitute for having those types of people in person in our lives. I don't remember who it was. I think it was a doctor that I saw at one of the summit events. And he said more and more, a lot of the things that we used to do to create community, like come to each other's houses for dinner, are happening less

and less. Probably one of the most important things I do every single week is I meet with my business partner, Brian. Fortunately, he happens to surf. So we just meet at the beach and we do almost all our meetings in the water. And then we have lunch after. Yeah. I'm so on board with that. Just the creating that sense of a line community is something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. And essentially also, as you were speaking, one of the things that's gone through my head was, well, in addition to just moving through this very personal and deep struggle, you're also at the same time, you use the board of public person. And so you feel like on the one hand, you need to honor and just get through this and let out what needs to come

out. But at the same time, you have a certain public persona that people are counting on, and you have to engage. So I'm curious, you said when we started a conversation, you actually used the phrase morbid curiosity as one of the things that absolutely drives you. And from what I know, and tell me if this is right in your circumstance, one of the things that goes immediately that's the hardest to find in the depths of depression is curiosity. So I'm curious how you navigated both finding that and also being so public. And what's interesting is, because I don't think this is just a question about you, it's, you know, you said you're a public person, but the truth is the way that so many of us use social media these days, on some level, we're all public people. So we all have to navigate this

thing. That was definitely one of the more challenging aspects of this. Like you said, I have a public person. And not only that, I have a show where I interview people. So people hear my voice every week. And I never stopped working during any of this period. We just kept producing stuff. But what's interesting is that if you actually go back and listen to the interviews, you can tell that I was definitely asking a lot of questions to deal with my own struggles. I still have a lot of questions that are driven by my curiosity about that period. In one way, I think the really great thing that came from all of it was that I think I have a deeper and sort of more empathetic understanding of dealing with issues like this.

So I can ask questions that I don't think ever would have come up had I not gone through this. And in the short run, it was kind of annoying. In the long run, I think it's made the depth of the conversations I have with people much more profound. I mentioned Jerry Colonna earlier, who was a venture capitalist who worked with Fred Wilson, also another famous venture capitalist. And I asked him a lot of questions because he covers some really, really deep territory in the work that he does at Reboot. And he told me something that really kind of struck me. He said, you wouldn't ask the questions that you do if you didn't have the difficult stories yourself. But so in terms of the work, I think I was able to pour it into

the work in terms of actually dealing with people in public. I avoided every public appearance I could on purpose. I really wasn't sure how to handle dealing with people in public because, I mean, you saw me in Fargo. I mean, more than a handful of times, I was just really not well, like breaking down in tears. I went to World Domination Summit in 2014 and then I pretty much never showed my face in public with the exception of very small dinners where I kind of knew who would be there and I knew whether I could handle facing them or not. So I purposely actually, it's funny because I could say that I didn't come because we couldn't afford to do it as a company, but I actually didn't come to Fargo this year because I didn't want to. I didn't go to the World Domination Summit because I didn't want to. I was kind of like, I'm not ready to handle big crowds at this point and answer a lot

of questions that I feel will be incredibly uncomfortable, which was funny because I'm about to have to answer a lot of these questions very publicly considering it's all in a book now. And that's sort of like the center of my curiosity, which is that you've got a book coming out right now and you have all these amazing analogies to surfing as a metaphor for becoming unmistakable and building something extraordinary. But you also, this is the first time where you really share a lot of this journey. So when you think about the fact that, okay, now you've actually, you're not only going public, but with this part of yourself, you're, it's not the whole story, of course, it's certainly a chunk. And you know that part of the process of bringing a book to the world is that you go out there and you, for a shortish window of time, you're generally as

public as you can be. What goes through your mind? I thought a lot about that chapter, especially because I've gotten some friends to do early reads of that chapter. And every one of them has said, that's the chapter that's going to make the book. That's the one that will resonate so much with people. Because what I realized was the most important thing I could do was to show the world that I'm human and I'm fallible and unbreakable. I'm not immortal. And I don't have this shield that keeps any of the world's problems from occurring to me. I'm just like all the people who I've interviewed, all the people who listen to our show. More than anything, what I hope it does is take me off of a pedestal of being all these labels that people identify with and potentially look up to. I felt that it was a really important chapter because it would

be really easy to gloss over all of that and not tell that part of the story. But I felt if I didn't tell that story, I would be not really authentic, which more and more – I mean, the word authentic probably comes up a hundred times every time I ask people the question, what do you think it means to be unmistakable? And I thought, not telling this would be the antithesis of everything that I believe in. It's funny in my mind, it kind of telegraphs the message that unmistakable does not mean unbreakable. There are two different things and you can be both and you will be both. So probably a good time to come full circle as you think about, because it really feels like the last year or so has been this return to the serenity inside, stepping back into what lights you up, into your essence, rediscovering curiosity and writing this book and coming out into the world. It feels like you're in a building phase when you look at the future. It feels like just talking to you, there's a flicker of possibility in you, which is growing into an emperor.

And when you think about the bigger question, which I always end with, which is, what does it mean to you to live a good life? What comes up? It's funny. I've heard so many people answer this question and listen to you ask it so many times. And I had been thinking a lot about this question. And I think for me, it always comes back to the three things that I think about when I think about a good life. Words, waves, and love. Fill your life with words that inspire you. And for me, that's writing and reading books.

Waves, because waves have given me everything. Waves have given me one of my best friends. It's given me career opportunities I couldn't have dreamed of. And then getting to do things with people that you love. I look at all the things that have happened and, you know, a lot of the people that I have just a tremendous amount of love for in my life are the byproduct of a lot of the things that I've gotten to do. So, you know, I think those three things to me, every day that I get to experience those three things are days that I'm living a good life. Yeah. Love it. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real

unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. And you can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there. And if you haven't yet subscribed while you're there, then make sure you hit the subscribe button while you're at it. And then you'll be sure to never miss out on any of our incredible guests or conversations or riffs. And for those of you, our awesome community who are on other platforms, any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message would just be so appreciated. Until next time, this is Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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