Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - How Basecamp's CEO Lost 30% of His Team, Faced Backlash, and Came Back Stronger | Jason Fried | E153

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Jason Fried didn’t follow the startup rules most founders swear by. He rejected venture capital, refused to chase growth at all costs, and chose to stay small on purpose. What started as a scrappy web design agency turned into Basecamp, a multi-million-dollar business built on profitability, simplicity, and conviction. In this episode, Jason joins Ilana to challenge everything you think you know about scaling a business. He also opens up about how a single leadership decision caused 30% of his company to quit overnight, and how staying principled ultimately made the company stronger. Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp and HEY. For over 27 years, he has grown Basecamp into a multi-million dollar business without ever taking venture capital or chasing aggressive growth targets. In this episode, Ilana and Jason will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (03:18) Lessons from Selling Stereo Equipment as a Kid (06:58) Starting 37signals from Scratch (14:13) Pivoting to Software Through Basecamp   (16:41) The Perks of Being a Small Company (27:24) The Policy That Made 30% of the Company Quit  (31:45) Surviving the Backlash and Rebuilding the Team (39:21) Building Thicker Skin as a Leader (42:43) How to Incorporate AI Without Getting Carried Away (45:15) How Basecamp Is Reinventing Itself with Version 5 (48:56) Why Jason Won’t Advise His Younger Self (54:07) Q&A: How to Decide Your Next Career Move Jason Fried is a co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the makers of Basecamp. He is a bestselling author of Rework and It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work. Known for his contrarian approach to entrepreneurship, Jason emphasizes simplicity, profitability, and long-term thinking. For over 27 years, he has grown Basecamp into a multi-million dollar, fully profitable business without ever taking venture capital or chasing aggressive growth targets. Connect with Jason: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason-fried  X: https://x.com/jasonfried Resources Mentioned: Jason’s Books:  Rework: https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745 It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work: https://www.amazon.com/Doesnt-Have-Be-Crazy-Work/dp/0062874780  37signals’ Website: https://37signals.com  Basecamp’s Website: https://basecamp.com  Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW WAY for professionals to fast-track their careers and leap to bigger opportunities.  Check out our free training today at https://bit.ly/leap--free-training

We decided that we were not going to talk politics at work anymore. 30% of the company quit over it. We were just under enormous stress. It was actually, strangely, probably one of the best decisions we've ever made ever in the history of the company. We've got people here who are committed, people who wanted to join us after this. People are like, you guys have a place where I can do the best work in my life and not have to deal with all this stuff. Jason Freed, he is the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp. And Jason Freed has built multi-million dollar businesses by doing excellent.

exact opposite of what most expert advise us. People take business too seriously. I think at the core of it, it's supposed to be a fun thing to do. And I think you'll do better work if it's fun work to do. How does a leader build like a thicker skin, especially for people pleasers? As a leader, it's not my job to make people like me. Do you want to make someone happy, but are you making everyone else unhappy? That's not a good trade or good balance.

So I'm always trying to think of like... You know, everybody wants to be in general, profitable, but sometimes there's going to be, I don't know, the dot-com bust. Suddenly you have all these salaries and it's like there is a, oh, crap moment. In the moment, it can be very difficult to make a hard decision because the immediate feeling is,

maybe you're scared, maybe it could be the wrong call, maybe a bunch of people aren't going to like it. So I just go like... Welcome to the Leap Academy with Ilana Golan Show. I'm so glad you're here. In the Leap Academy podcast,

I get to speak to the biggest leaders of our time about their career, how they got where they are today, the challenges, the failures, and countless lessons. So lean in. This episode is going to be amazing. I'm on a mission to help millions reinvent their career and leap into their full potential, land their dream roles, fast-track to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, or build portfolio

careers. This is what we do in our Leap Academy programs for individuals and teams. And with this podcast, we can give this career blueprint for free to tens of millions. So please help my mission by sharing this. with every single person you know because this show has the power to change countess of lives. Deal? Okay, so let's dive in.

Jason Freed, he is the co-founder and CEO of 37 Signals, the makers of Base Camp, the New York Time bestselling author of books like We Work and it doesn't have to be crazy at work. And Jason Freed has built multi-million dollar businesses by doing exact opposite of what most experts advise us. So you're going to love this. He stays small on purpose.

He prioritizes profitability overgrowth. And I love it because in Leap Academy, we chose to stay profitable and create mega impact for professionals and careers versus scale at any cost like you were often advised. And if you are also looking to build a profitable business, side hustle, create portfolio careers, like we teach in leap, lean in. This is going to be so cool. So dive in. Jason, so great to have you on the Leap Academy show.

It's fun to be here. I'm looking forward to this. Thanks. Oh, it's going to be so fun. So I'm actually going to take you back in time to when you were a kid, when you were, I think, tinkering with selling stereo equipment and shoes and I don't know, what else. So take us back in time. Who was Jason as a kid? Ooh, I was a little bit curious. I've always liked business and making stuff and selling stuff and reselling stuff, but mostly it was stuff that I was interested in doing to speak to the entrepreneurship pieces. I used to really be into stereo equipment and that kind of stuff. And so I would find this stuff and just mark it up and sell it to my friends who also like this stuff.

But it was always stuff that I wanted first. And I'm like, well, if I want it, they probably want it. And so I could make a little tiny business here. But it wasn't really a business. It was just me selling some stuff to my friends. But it was fun because it was a little bit of mischievous, to be honest, a little bit cool to figure out how to buy stuff. cheap and sell it for a little bit more. Again, it wasn't really about the money. It was just like fun to do it. Like, wow, I could actually spend $60 and make $70 or make an extra 10.

That's cool. Like, I don't know. That's kind of cool. It's like he felt like an unlock. Like, oh, wow, this is a possibility. And then I got into doing other things with business. But yeah, I was just kind of a curious kid, always curious about making things happen, doing stuff that I was into, finding other people who were into that kind of stuff. And just being a little bit of a punk, to be honest. I was a little bit hard to raise, I think. But, you know, that was just my nature, suppose. As they say, they're always the more interesting kids when they're hard to raise. Yeah. So tell me, first of all, I do see a theme that we'll probably go back to because when you like something, you kind of assume other people like it. And I think there's a little bit of a theme

there, so we'll take it later. But what about selling physical goods? What do you think it taught you as a kid. And how does that help you dictate? How do you see design and software today? Like, what do you think he taught you? That was all I had. It was all that was available. So it's not like I chose that. But what I learned was that if I like it, then I will enjoy finding other people who like the same thing. Like, I don't think, and I have, because I've had many jobs in my life, but selling stuff I don't believe in or selling stuff I don't like or selling stuff I don't think is any good is not very fulfilling. Sometimes I have to do it because you got to make a living. But like, I could tell very early on, if I was just fired up about it and excited about it,

like as an enthusiast, it's easier to sell something that you're already excited about. There was that. But physical stuff always still appeals to me very much. I mean, I make software for a living, but I crave, this is weird. I was going to say, I crave not making software for living, but I totally love making software. But I crave, like, I love architecture. I love the physical world. I miss that stuff, you know, when you're staring at a screen all day.

so I still keep myself quite busy with other things beyond software. But physical objects are cool. There's just a design to them. There's choices you have to make that are limiting. Software can sort of be anything, but a physical object has to kind of be a certain size, be a certain way. It has to be a little more understandable.

You can only pack so many things into it before it doesn't have any more room. There's something nice about the constraints of a physical object that I think I've carried with me into software because software, unfortunately, can become anything, which is a good thing and a bad thing, but often turns into a bad thing as products get more and more complicated over time because you can just keep shoving more stuff in there and that's what ends up happening. So physical objects don't have the same constraint.

So I think I'm like fundamentally attracted to that idea. And I think of software as if it was a physical object. And I think that helps. Well, I definitely wrote a note that eventually I want to hear what else is interesting in Jason's world. But you started kind of a web design agency 37 signals. But were there a job before that? what were some of the early things that you've been doing? And then what made 37 signals come to life? So I graduated from college in 96. So 95 is sort of when the internet, the internet we know

today kind of came into being. I mean, it had been invented earlier than that. But the graphical browser was like 95, 96. So I kind of grew up in that. A little bit before that, though, I was making software for myself again using something called FileMaker Pro. which was like a visual database-y thing where you could make software without knowing how to really code. But you got to put your own visual interfaces on it. And I made a tool to organize my music collection

because I had a lot of tapes and CDs and I would give them out to friends and I'd never get them back. And I'd forgotten who I gave them to and like, who has this one, who has that one? So I made this system to keep track of what I owned and who I lent it out to and all the different tracks on it and stuff.

And I put that up actually on this pre-internet on AOL, America Online. and I included a text file that said, if you like this, send me 20 bucks. Here's my address. It's like my home address. And I started getting some envelopes in the mail from people sending me 20 bucks. And I realized like, wow, I built this system for myself. Other people seem to need similar things.

They're willing to pay me for that. This is like a dream come true in a sense. I can make what I want and I can get paid for it. So fast forward a little bit. Then the internet came around in 95 and I just got fascinated by it. It kind of blew my mind. Before then I had a BBS, which is like a dietic. in thing where people could call in to your with a modem. It was like early, this is like,

late in these early 90s, early days. Yeah, yeah. So I was into like networking and computery things sort of, but the internet came and it blew my mind and I just learned. Back then, I had a huge advantage and everyone did, which is no one knew what the hell they were doing because this was all brand new. Nobody knew anything. But you could go to a website and go like view source and you could see how a website was made. And so I just sort of dissected these websites and learned how make things from the websites. I'm like, oh, I'll just save this file and mess around with it and see what happens if I change this and change that, and I learn that way. And that's how ultimately the web stuff started and eventually 37 signals started after I got out of college.

I've been working since I was 13. I worked in a shoe store and a grocery store, another shoe store, another place, and sold my own stuff and sold some software and made some stuff and whatever. I've always just stayed busy making things, selling things. It was just fun for me. But I think the web was the first time it really felt like natural. Like, wow, this is maybe a career. Maybe there's something here for me. I majored in finance. I didn't want to work at a bank.

I didn't want to go work in like some businessy thing. I just like did it because I felt like I could major in that and get away with it. And I was curious, Jason. Did you need to work all throughout? Or was it just part of the curiosity? Well, I mean, my parents made me start working when I was 13 because that's when I could get a job part-time. then that's what I did. I'm like, well, I work in the summers. Did I have to work? I didn't have any spending money in college unless I did something. My parents paid for college, but I didn't have any

money. So this is where I made my money. And then after college, my first job was actually, I took a job in San Diego with a guy who I was doing work for while I was in college as a website designer like freelance. And he hired me out of school to work for him as a web designer. So that was my first job. But I realized about, I don't know, three months in that I wasn't built to work for anybody else, so I quit, moved back to Chicago, and that's when I started basically freelancing as a web designer, which ultimately became 37 signals. I had bills to pay once I was out of college, for sure. I know. Well, that's when you started, and I got into Intel before I even knew one line of code. So it was very different days. Like you said, like everybody was just like frantically

trying to figure this thing out. So you know enough, I guess, web design and you're a tinker. Like, it's just very clear that you love to do things. What makes you? What makes you know? you start 37 signals. And again, for people listening, like, I think even the word entrepreneur didn't exist. Am I right? Like, at least I never heard of it. Yeah, it was like some French word. I'm like, I don't know what that means. I have no idea. I'm an entrepreneur. I mean, who knows? I still can't spell it. But yeah. Me neither. Me neither. So what made that start? Well, I was doing stuff for myself for a little bit. This is after I left that job in San Diego, I went back to Chicago, got an apartment,

started working on my apartment as a web designer. And I did that for about, I want to say a year or two. And then I realized I basically barely left my apartment, frankly. I was just in my apartment working and doing whatever. Like, this is kind of a lonely existence. I don't know. I mean, I had friends, but like during the workday, I was working solo.

At some point, I'm like, I don't know. Maybe I should go get a job. Maybe I should do this professionally with someone else for a while. I don't know. So I interviewed in a few spots and met a couple people who I really liked. One guy was named Ernest Kim, another guy was named Carlos Segura. And about a year later, Ernest is like, you know what? I was going to work for him at this place called Organic Online, which is a big web agency at the time.

He's like, a year later, he's like, I'm leaving this. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. What are you doing? I'm like, I'm still nothing. He's like, well, why don't we hook up, we both knew Carlos? Like, why don't we just start a web design company or an agency together? Fine. Let's do that.

Then I won't be alone. And I'll be with a couple friends and let's do this. So we just did that. I don't even know if we did it properly. We didn't like get a lawyer and like set up a contract. We just like said the both three of us, we each threw 10 grand in, which we had in savings to kind of get this thing going.

We worked out of Carlos's office. He already had an office doing something else, some graphic design stuff. We just like made it work. Now both those guys left a few years in. And so I was solo after that for a while until I picked up another business partner. I've been with him for 20-someodd years now.

But that's how it all just kind of evolved. And then we picked the name because Carlos, So do you know Nova, the show Nova? It was on PBS. Yes. Yeah, right? Science show. Yeah. So there was a show and they were talking about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, the SETI project. And at the time, it was like Carl Sagan and this other guy, I forget who it was,

was kind of running this thing, I think. And they were listening to signs of life and space, you know, and intelligent. So they were analyzing all these signals. And it turned out that there were 37 signals that at that point were unexplained and potential signs of life elsewhere. And Carlos just heard this 37 signals and goes, that's cool. The domain's available. What do you guys think? We're like, that's cool. We're going to have a name. Let's do it. So that's how that all started. It wasn't very deliberate. I've always been to go with the flow. Like, I don't know. Who cares? That sounds cool. Let's do it. You know, like, we don't need to overthink these things because I think at some point you talk yourself out of things. Like,

if I really would have sat down and go, what do we think of this name? Well, usually, companies don't start with numbers. That's a bad idea. And like, you could just talk yourself out of anything if you just... Well, you can procrastinate for months or years on and bring experts' advice and all of this just on the name. Like, I've seen that happen as well. So you have this name and eventually you start pivoting towards software, which becomes base camp. First of all, how did that come about? And I think just creating software is still gets really expensive, really fast. And you guys chose a different way and a different path to do it. Like, how did you pivot? Well, we were doing client work. So we were doing website design for clients. And we were getting

pretty busy. We were getting popular and it was great. And we had a lot of client work. And there was just three or four of us at the time. We're just like doing too many projects at once and lost track of what we were doing and who was doing what and when things were due and who said what when and client feedback word that guy. Who's got that? I don't know. Who said. And you're using email and phone and meetings and you just like lose track of stuff. And so we're like, we need a better way to track this stuff. At the time, Microsoft Project was the project management tool of choice. And I looked at that. I'm like, this is taking it from the wrong direction or the wrong angle. Like it was all about charts and graphs and statistics. It wasn't about communication and

keeping things on the record. It was just wasn't about collaboration in any way, shape, or form. So we decided to build this thing internally for ourselves. And as we began to build this, we began and to use it with our clients, it became very clear that there was a good product here. That, like, again, going back to the thing we talked about earlier, like, this is something we needed. And then you realize, oh, wait, they needed too. They're like, what is this thing?

Can we use this for our own projects? We're like, it's just this thing we made, I don't know. And eventually, like, you know, no, no, there's something here. So we fixed it up because, you know, when you use something for yourself, build something for yourself, it's a little rough around the edges, you put up with things that other people won't. Fix it up, clean it up, gave it a name,

called it base camp, put it out in the market. and then about a year, year and a half later, it was generating more revenue for us than our consulting client work was. So we slowly morphed into doing base camp full time once it could support us because it was just more fun, frankly. And it had more legs and we didn't have to find new clients

and deal with clients. It was just kind of like a, we'd have to find customers, but they're different than landing a project. But there's also something really scary about what you're describing, because to dumb it down to some people that are listening, and maybe I'm wrong, but you need to,

move from doing big, probably bigger consulting projects that will bring, I don't know how many dollars to start, right? And starting suddenly take, I don't know, whatever minuscule a month for a software product. Right. Yeah. Well, you know what? We didn't deliberately say we're going to make this base camp thing work. We just, we're going to make this base camp thing for us. Eventually we realized other people are going to want this. We didn't stop taking client work immediately. we feathered it in. We kept taking client work, and then Basecamp kept growing.

It was kind of like the scale. Like client work, Basecamp. And eventually it was like this, and then Basecamp was paying for us. So it could have taken three years. It took a year, year and a half. It could have taken five years. Or it could never have happened.

But we didn't plan on it happening. We just made sure that we still had money coming in. So basically our client work funded the development of Basecamp and the development of that business until it took care of itself. So it would have been scary had we said, okay, we think we've got something here. We have like no revenue coming in. We're going to shut down the client business and focus entirely on the software business. That would have been a mistake.

Instead, we're like, let's just keep doing the client work. It's bringing the money in. And then we'll just do less and less and less and less and less of it as this other thing grows. And I think that's the way typically to reduce a lot of that anxiety and fear and existential risk, frankly. I mean, had we not be able to make base camp work and if we shut down our client stuff, we could have been dead, like dead in the water, you know. So I think that's the way to do it. Transition slowly.

And I love that. And I think this ties nicely to some of the messages around artificial goals and the artificial goal trap that I think sometimes you talk about. Can you talk a little bit about how did you find those artificial goals? Because you're right. In general, advisors will tell you, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And we'll have these made up valuations and growth and metrics and all the cool stuff that usually never pan out, right?

So Jason, think us there for a second. Part of this is just ignorance, to be honest. I didn't pay attention to any of that stuff. We didn't take any money intentionally. We didn't need to take anyone's money because we had our own money coming in from our customers and then Basecamp grew to the place where it could support itself. So I didn't need anyone's outside money.

So we don't have anyone's expectations. When you take money, you also take expectations. I didn't take money, so I didn't take expectations. I just, like, or like, wow, this is amazing. Like, we're doing this thing and people like it. and it's paying our bills and paying our salaries and like, this is great. So there was never this goal like, well, let's get to this size or let's get to this number of customers.

It was just like, can we just keep doing this? This is great. Wow. How lucky are we? And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger over time. But it gets there on its own. We didn't take it there because we wanted to take it there. It just, that was the momentum.

And we rode it. We rode our own wave here, essentially. and that's where we are today still. 27 years later, we're just riding the wave of momentum and interest and people like it and they sign up. We still don't have goals. We don't have revenue targets.

We don't have expectations on how many customers we're going to have. As long as we're profitable, got to make more money than you spend. That's business. So for us, as long as we're profitable, we're good. So if we do better one year and not as well the next, that's okay. As long as we're still profitable,

even in the year we're not doing as well as the previous year. Gotta be profitable. We have been profitable every year for 27 years, and that is our only financial target is that. The rest of it is watch your costs. Be careful. Don't be an idiot. Take risks, but don't put yourself at risk.

And primarily, don't allow yourself to just get carried away because everyone else is spending money in this way. Or you see some competitor that's blowing a bunch of money on ads, and you think we have to do that too. Because if we don't do it, they're going to take our whole business away. And truth is, in most industries, there's plenty of room for plenty of. people to do plenty well. There are some zero-sum industries, but most are not, and you can just

do well and they can do well. And at the end of the day, I think your only true competitions are your costs. You've got to make more money than you spend. That's kind of it. We need to pause for a super brief break. And while we do, take a moment and share this episode with every single person who may be inspired by this because this information can truly change your life and theirs. Now, I want a check in with you. Yes, you. Are you driven, but maybe feeling stuck in your career or a fraction of who you know you could be? Do you secretly feel you should have been further along in your income, influence, or impact? Do you ever wonder how to create not just a paycheck, but the life you want was a paycheck, the thought leadership, the legacy, the freedom? Because that was

me, and that's exactly why I created the Leap Academy program, which already changed thousands of careers in lives. Getting intentional and strategic with your career is now more important than ever. The skills for success have changed. AQ, adaptability, reinventing, and leaping are today the most important skills for the future of work. Building portfolio careers, multiple streams of income and ventures are no longer and nice to have. It's a must have.

But no one is teaching this except for us in Leap Academy. So if you want more from your career in life, go to Leapacademy.com. slash training. Check out this completely free training about ways to fast-track your career, and you'll even be able to book a completely free strategy call with my team. That's leapacademy.com slash training. Too many people finish their workday, feeling frustrated, drain, and unfulfilled. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way, and you don't need necessarily a new job to fix it. Patrick Lentioni also have the five dysfunction of a team and more than a dozen other. bestsellers created the working genius assessment to help you pinpoint the kind of work that gives

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going to be, I don't know, the dot-com bust. And suddenly you have all these salaries and it's like there is a, oh, crap moment. Or maybe not. Jason, take me there. I will say for us it's never been that way, but there's a reason for that. Part of it is luck. Part of its luck and timing. We kind of launch this thing at the right time and early and built up a great, big customer base and all thing. But also, we kept our costs. I mean, we're small. We're still 62 people. That's it. I can tell you, that many of our competitors have thousands of people. Some of these are public companies, and I can see. They're like thousands and thousands of people.

Their marketing budget alone is like $100 million. Like, that's not who we are. We have 62 people at the company. We've had been up to about 80 some odd. We're 62 now. We've been smaller, been bigger. Here we are. And even in lean times, tough times, there were like dot-com bust.

And base camp launched in 2004. So dot com was like 2000, 2001. but as a consulting firm, that was a little rougher, but we still have, we'd like three people. So, you know, it's not as hard at three people to deal with things. It's hard if you have 30 and you got payroll you can't make and too many people sitting around and like that's terrifying to me. I never want to be in that position. It could always happen and maybe one day it will, but it hasn't primarily just because

we've kept our costs as low as we possibly can. We take very, very good care of people and pay top of the market, but we just have fewer people, a tenth of the people, less than a tenth than many of our competitors have. So that helps us weather the storm to deal with difficult times, to do a change. And we've been very fortunate in that respect. Now, did you always have this mentality or at some point it's like, oh my God, can I be this big company? Because there was this whole trend of take as much money as you can, grow as fast as you can. Like, there was this whole like wind was blowing towards that. Like, was there a moment where you said, you know what, this is just not going to be my path.

We'd never taken venture money. We did take one outside investor in 2006 as Jeff Bezos from Amazon. He bought a small minority share in our company, but the money went to me and David. David's my business partner. So none of his money ever went in our business. Our business has always been 100% funded by customer revenues. The money that went to us was not life-changing money. It was good money, but I would have had to work again.

But it took some risk off the table for us in that moment. it said, hey, if this thing's a total flop, at least we didn't go to zero. Like, we put a little bit of money away in the bank, and we feel a little bit more confident now that we can keep pushing in our own way. So there's a little bit of that. But we have maybe a couple times, like, slipped into this mindset. Like, what if we could be 10x as big as we are today? Like, wouldn't that be amazing?

And we'll, like, go down that road for a little bit. And then we just start stumbling over ourselves. Like, what that? This is not us. This is not who we are. The things we have to do to do that aren't the things we're. want to do. We try to be very self-aware, even if you slip sometimes, and go, that's not who we are. And so what? So what if we're 2x or 3x bigger? Like, does it really matter? No, it doesn't matter.

And to do the things to get there aren't worth it to us. Now, someone might go, you guys aren't ambitious enough and you're leaving money on the table. And I go, yeah, maybe you're right. And I just don't care. The point is, is that, in my opinion, you want to get to this place where, like, you're very comfortable with enough. Enough can be a very big business and a very good business. We generate tens of millions in annual profits. That's a great business. Now, could we do way more than that? Maybe we could.

I don't really care. We found our place and we get to serve our customers. We get to serve ourselves. We get to take care of the people we want, the way we want at a high level. We don't have any of the external pressures that most companies feel when they have to live up to some other expectations, when they have to show massive growth. I don't want any of that. That's like too, frankly, it's too hard. It is.

But I wonder if there's like a moment where you build that connection. conviction to say, you know what, this is who I want to be. I mean, I think that's probably always forming. I would say that in the last 10 years, we became very clear about who we are. I think part of this is just maturity and age and experience. And there were times, I think, the business was younger where we didn't know what was going to happen. And gosh, maybe we should take a bunch of money because who knows what's going to happen.

But I think now we're in this place where we're very stable. We understand the market. We understand our customers. I wouldn't know what to do with someone's money. We're not the kind of business that would even know what to do with it because we're not built that way. The place I've always tried to get, I've always wanted to build a business that I'd want to work at. So I've done that. This is the business I'd want to work at if I was looking for a job.

That's number one. The second thing is I want to build a business that I would not trade with anyone else. So there is no other business on earth that I would trade for mine. And if you do those two things, I think that you're pretty secure and where you are and who you are and what you're doing. And I think once you settle into being able to say that for, both those things. I think you're in a good place, wherever that is. That's how I feel at least. I love that. Do you remember the early days, though? Like, again, you were very lean. You were three brilliant co-founders starting to do, you know, whatever. I'm not sure we were brilliant.

We may have been very stupid, but we, you're giving me too much credit. Yeah. Well, you built something that I love. So you do get a lot of credit. And I think the transition from there's like money in the consulting business and it's moving slowly towards this. Like, it's a brilliant way to start funding this thing, right? But take me to the early days because software can also get really expensive to create. It takes time to market. It takes time or money to get the word out. Was there moments that were, like, terrifying? There was there moments, like, I don't know, can we do this? Like, how did it go? I know people typically don't believe these kinds, but there wasn't terrifying moments.

I understand what you're looking for. I wish I had some of that for you to share, but I don't. I really don't primarily because we've always been very careful about our costs. And I think this is just, I don't know why, but this is lost on people in the tech industry. People don't understand why it's so important to watch your costs. They just spend. All the talk is revenue, valuations, how much you've raised. These are all spending numbers.

But what are your costs? What does it cost you? to run your business. Like, we've just been very careful about that. So we haven't had that. I mean, I would say there's been moments when, like, we've had a few moments. Like, I would say there's one in about five years ago that we had, which was a pretty significant moment for us, which is we enacted a policy. This is back in 21. 21. Tell me there. Yeah. Take me there for a second. I mean, this is recent. We decided that we were not going to talk politics at work anymore because there was just an atmosphere, well, an atmosphere in the country in general, but an atmosphere at work where

people were just like, everything became political, nobody trusted each other, people were wondering which side are you on. And then people like had to work with each other who they just didn't give the benefit of the doubt to anymore. And a lot of conversations just became political. I'm like, this is not a, I don't like this environment. I don't want to work here anymore. I don't want to work at this place where we're talking this. Like, outside of work, it's all this. Can we just focus on the work that we do? We make software. Can we just do that? But it became very, it became very, difficult to do that. And so David, David is my business partner. David and I eventually decided we're not doing this anymore. We don't want to work here if this is the way it's going to be.

So no more politics at work. We're not talking about, you can talk politics all you want personally, whatever, but we're not mixing it at work. Sorry, not happening anymore. We made this big line in the sand, drew it, and 30% of the company quit over it, which was a big number. As 20-some of people at the time, huge. That was the first time where there was a real, existential risk. Like, are we going to lose so many people, so many critical key people that continuity is going to be impossible and like we're just toast? We became very, very close to that. So take me to that date. You announced this thing. I mean, it's still kind of on your shoulders if I'm getting this right. And you understand that people are leaving or they're freaking out or

whatever. And most CEO will probably panic at that point or maybe back paddle themselves or whatever. And take me even to the middle of the night. Like is that hunting you? Are you trying to figure this out? How is that? Like, I would freak out. Yes. There was a period of about a week-ish where probably if you were to take my blood pressure, it probably would have been like, I don't know, 190 over 95. I mean, bad. We were just like under enormous stress, fear. I mean, there was some feeling of shame. It was weird. It was a weird, really weird mix of like, oh, my God, did we just tank this thing?

Is this the end of our careers? And it was about a week of, I don't know what's going to happen. Not everyone quit immediately. People were pissed. And then we talked about this internally and had a couple calls with some people. And like all of a sudden like flies started dropping basically. Or that's maybe the wrong. Yeah.

Like, just like, oh, like, they're leaving. Oh, my God, they're leaving. These three people are leaving together. What is going on? And then we had more calls with like manager, internal managers and like just try to like, the leadership team sort of started falling apart a little bit. And some people were very strong and were totally committed to sticking around.

Other people weren't sure they were wavering. I mean, it was like the wheels were coming off for a minute. And it mostly was, I don't know what's going to happen next. It wasn't like, okay, that person left, which is a bummer, real big bummer, but like who else is going to leave now and who do we have left? And we have like a business to run. Like we have customers who depend on us right now still. How do we make sure things are still up? This did not affect our customers at all. We had no downtime, no issues whatsoever. But I'm like, this could flip and tip into that. David and I had committed early to we're not changing our decision. We're not changing our mind because we believe this is right. We're convinced. that we were making the right decision. But then it's like, well, okay, but do you want to be right or do you want to be in business? And we're like, actually, we want to be right. We want to be right about us.

We want to make sure that we are principled about this. This is very important to us. And if we do go down over this, we can live with that. Like, really, we did get to that place. But it was really rocky. I also began to make phone calls to every person who's still around. I also wrote up an apology internally and publicly, but not sorry about the decision. Because I wasn't sorry about the decision.

But I was sorry about how we communicated it. We communicated it publicly at the same time we did it privately, which is typically how we do most things, how we've done things historically. We were a very open company. We just like share pretty much everything publicly. But because this was such a complicated situation and we shared this publicly, what ended up happening was a lot of people, especially and Twitter began to pile on us, called us all sorts of terrible names, and put an enormous amount of pressure on our employees. Like, how could you work at this place with these name, name, name? And so it created this huge public pressure where people are like, wow, if I stay here,

is it going to ruin my career? Is my resume going to have a black mark on it? Because it's like, oh, there I was at this company during this time and I stuck around. Like, there's a lot of pressure. So I feel like had we done this again, we would have done the same thing, but we would have talked about it internally first, gotten very clear about it, fielded all sorts of questions, had a conversation about it, explain ourselves even more clearly about it. And then if people were going to leave, that's fine, but I didn't want, I know a number of people because they reached out to us after this, like months later who wanted to come back, who felt like, I felt like I had to do this for my career because I was worried about literally being like tarred and feathered and ruined.

And I totally understand that kind of pressure. I completely could empathize with their decision. but there was an enormous amount of public pressure. I think that's probably what I would have not have done again had I had the chance, you know. And at that point, by the way, the two of you, how do you help each other? Because you can also sink each other to be frantic, right? I mean, it's a really hard, volatile place. And I think sometimes one in one makes zero and sometimes it's two. But somehow you guys, like, made it together.

I mean, again, you worked with each other for a while. but this is a really hard moment. That's a great point that one and one can make two or zero. That's a great, actually great thought there. Well, David and I both really thought this was the right decision. So there was no wavering on the decision, which was that's the cornerstone of this whole thing. Like, had we really disagreed on that, that would have been,

because then someone could have been like, I told you, I didn't want to do this. Then you're down this, like, very dangerous dark road with your business. partner. So we both believe, so we actually kind of like almost like went back to back and like huddled with each other in a sense. Like we are, we are the core of this where we believe this decision was right. We also got a tremendous amount of support from other business leaders who wrote us privately. People would almost nobody would say anything publicly because they were also afraid. This was got to remember this time was a very interesting time in American history where

people were being just tarred and feathered for any little thing and the, which side do you, Like, anyway, long story short is we got a ton of support. Yeah, I mean, there was COVID and there was mask and there was like Trump or whatever. Like, there was just so many things together. Like all the things together. All the things. You know, it was just a lot of things. People were just exhausted.

So historically, we had these two meetups every year where we'd all get everyone together physically and get to see everybody and like share our humanity with each other. And we didn't because of COVID. And we weren't the only company, of course, everyone. But that was really missing. We hadn't seen each other for, I think, 18 months together. So you kind of drift apart when it's purely virtual, and then things, you know, politics creeps in, and it was a very difficult time.

Anyway, tons and tons of other founders, CEOs wrote us privately offering support saying this is the biggest issue they have in their company and they really admired the fact that we made this decision and that this was going to provide cover for other companies to make similar decisions. And it just, it was very helpful to have that support, even though nobody knew about it. It was all private, quiet support, but it was very helpful for us to know. And then a few people reached out who'd been involved in other sort of controversies and whatever and said, look, this is the worst moment it'll ever be. Time will heal this. Just hang in there, let things settle. I don't know if you know who Alan Watts is. Alan Watts is like a philosopher and a writer,

and he had this great thing about the best way to clear muddy water is to just do nothing. You can't keep agitating it. It's got to settle. Don't agitate any further. Just let it settle. And then you'll get clear water again. That was the advice we got and we did that. And it was actually, strangely, probably one of the best decisions we've ever made ever in the history of the company. Company's been a totally different place since then, a much better place to work, a much more productive organization. We've got people here who are committed, people who wanted to join us after this. So it's great for recruiting, ultimately, which we didn't expect at all. People are like running away from politics at the time and they'd know where to go because every workplace

is full of politics. So they're like, you guys have a place where I can do the best work in my life and not have to deal with all this stuff. This is great. So we built back up and made it work, and here we are. But that was an incredibly trying time. And I didn't sleep very well under enormous pressure, under enormous stress. I felt like I literally felt like maybe a couple times like I might crack psychologically almost. Like I was just under a lot of pressure.

And my wife was very helpful. Having kids was very helpful. All these things of like, you know what, there's more of this than work. I have a life outside of work. Had I been a solo founder in my early 20s with no relationship and no kids, like I think that would have been incredibly hard for me because that's like, in a sense, all I would have had. But having a family and like not dealing with work after work was very helpful.

And I'm sure it completely shifted the entire culture of the company, the hiring, the culture, the vibe, all of it. And I'm sure it's not immediate. So do you start seeing the scene? and it gives you hope? Or what's happening when to see that this is actually like a good thing and this is like just going to take us to a different level? It took a while.

The first green shoots, let's say, were when we, so we lost a bunch of people. So we had to rehire. And I was like, I don't know what's going to happen when we rehire. Does anyone want to work here? Do we like completely destroy ourselves? And we put out some job ads and got like exceptionally good people who applied. And they were excited to be here. because they were looking for a respite from all this political stuff, too.

Toxic, yeah. Yeah, like a retreat almost from it all. And so to fill a few of these positions with outstanding people was a huge boost for us psychologically. And to see that we had this thing stabilized and the people who were still here were very, very much about staying here and then having other people come in who were very much about it as well, we needed that.

We needed to make those first few key hires who were like all in. just to make sure that there were people who were out there who were still. Somebody is there, yeah. Somebody's there, right. Then it's just slow going and you're like, God, could this blow up again? And are some people who are still on the fence? Like, is there something we could do wrong to screw this over or screw this up? And we made it through.

And the other thing was, I will just tell you, having a few people want to come back, we didn't bring anyone back, but having a few people wanting to come back like a year later, two years later, three years later, it was just nice because it was a nice replay of like, you know, this was a moment in time where a lot of people weren't sure what was going on in the world and they went off and worked somewhere else and they realized like, this is actually, there's a really good place to work. And they came back for that. So that was, we didn't hire them again, but we've been in touch. And it was just, you know, nice to feel that a little bit. I have to be honest. It wasn't revenge. It wasn't revenge. That's always an ugly thing. It was more like a little

bit of satisfaction that, you know, we built a good place to work. And yeah, some people really disagreed with our decision. And I understand that I really, truly, fully, completely do. But also, we did build, we had built a great company, and I'm proud of it. And I'm glad that other people who've been here, left, saw it, and wanted to come back. That's incredible. What do you think? How does a leader build basically like almost like a thicker skin? Because, again, you went to a really hard time, but you're also very adamant amount making those decisions or whatever. But I think sometimes that, especially for people pleasers, right? I think some people are listening and they're saying, I want everybody to love me.

I can't go against the way, right? Like, how do you do that? I think you grow a thicker skin. Part of it is probably some, I'm okay with people not liking me. I'm okay with that. I have always been opinionated, which means that people aren't going to like me. I get it. So there's some of that to begin with.

Also, there's a recognition that as a leader, it's not my job. to make people like me. It's useful when people like you to some degree, but hopefully it's like more of a respect thing than a liking thing, because if it's just like a pure friendshipy-likey thing, it becomes kind of difficult to sometimes make difficult decisions. There's a shared respect that we have here. And some people certainly disagree over certain decisions, but I think people go, well, their hearts and their heads in the right place, or I still would say that about somebody else as well if they disagree with me. But like ultimately I have to make the final decision. And it's on behalf of the company, it can't be just to please someone. Because if it's pleasing someone but

hurting the company, that's the wrong decision for everyone else. That's the other thing to always think about is like, you want to make someone happy, but are you making everyone else unhappy? That's not a good trade or a good balance. So I'm always trying to think of like the company as a whole. And the other thing I tend to think about is whatever the decision is in the short term, how is this going to feel in a year? That's how I tend to think about things that are difficult because in the moment, it can be very difficult to make a hard decision because the immediate feeling is one of like, maybe you're scared, maybe it could be the wrong call, maybe it's going to be difficult, maybe a bunch of people aren't going to like it, you're going to hear about how they don't like it. All that stuff just

rushes at you. And then you just realize with some distance, you'll look back on that and go, I'm glad I made that call, even though it was hard in the beginning. So I tend to just try to like almost ignore is not the right word, but it's the right spirit of early pushback. because I go, I know, I get it. Like people change as hard and difficult decisions are hard and people may not have the whole picture in mind. Why did I make this call? And I try to explain as much as I can, but some stuff you just can't really explain

and it's a feeling. It's like, I just think this is the right call. So I just go like, okay, in 2027, you know, January 2027, well, I look back on this and be proud of the call. Well, I think it was the right call. And that's how I tend to make these. And if I, the answer is I'm very confident that's the case. then I'll make the call even if it's hard in the short term.

I like that. I wrote that one down. Take it. Yeah, it's something I came into recently. This is not like something I've known for a long time. It's something I realized, actually. I like that. I like that.

It actually came out of this controversy. Because I remember thinking like during this moment, this week or two of extreme stress and like, even though we're like all in on the decision, there's still like all the doubt that comes up when you're under that much pressure. I go, you know what, a year from now, I'm just going to like, yeah, of course we're going to be, happy. I can't imagine it's going back to the way things were. So that's where I got that

lesson from. It wasn't like a lesson I was looking for, but there's a lesson I learned. But I love that. And I'm totally stealing that one. And then in terms of like right now, if you're kind of looking at this pace of change, the last few years, I mean, it's been pretty mind-blowing, especially with AI and all the movement and all the things. And how do you see that for overall for you guys and all your different ventures and kind of, of how do you see the future, like for other leaders? Like, how do you think they need to navigate this pretty interesting wave? You definitely can't ignore it. Like, it's there. Yes, I think one thing that's important is not to get carried away. AI is here to stay, obviously. This is not a fad.

But it is moving so quickly that sometimes when something moves that fast, it's best to kind of just sit back for a minute and just see how it might settle out a bit. I remember when this first started really hitting maybe a year ago. Everyone built in, like, writing tools into their product, to help people write better and stuff. And I'm like, I don't think everyone should be building their own thing. Because I have a sense that this is going to be like built into the OS or built into the browser at some point where it doesn't matter what tool you're using. Like people have been asking about like dictation and stuff and like auto transcripts.

I think this is going to be something like Apple and Microsoft and whatever like build into their OS is. So it just works everywhere. You know, so I'm glad we didn't invest in the early days of the AI stuff because a lot of that stuff has proven not to be that useful. And a lot of engineering went into something that's now been replaced, that everyone gets for free, essentially. And I think there'll be more and more of that, frankly. But you also got to pay attention to it because it is very useful and very helpful. So I think the key is to play with it and get curious about it and to approach it with a degree of curiosity,

but not to chase it, especially if it's moving this fast, because you just don't know what it's going look like. There's a point where certain things settle in, which become a little bit more obvious. And then, like, it's pretty clear to me that, like, interfacing with these things via some sort of a chat interface is probably going to be around for a long. It just feels like a natural way to communicate. Now, there'll be other things that you can do. But asking questions via natural language seems like the real breakthrough here, actually, and that's something to pay more attention to. Telling software what you want from it, not just choosing a bunch of things because they exist, pulling down menus, pressing buttons, but just like, can you just give me this? Because this is how

want it, that's going to stay. And so you start to think about how do we incorporate that into our product and how do we do that kind of stuff. So I think you've got to meet it with curiosity. Don't get carried away. Don't dive in too early because you're almost certainly going to be obsolete. The thing you're going to build is going to be obsolete very quickly. Let it settle in a bit and then I think dive in, which is what we're doing now. Incredible. So tell us what are you doing now, Jason. I mean, you have FaceCamp and hey, and I think there's new stuff coming in that I saw a little bit. So tell us a little bit. Well, we just launched a new product called Fizzy. So it's at F-I-Z-Z-Y dot do, which is like our fun take on conbon, which is a, you know,

con bond is like organizing things with cards and columns. And it's been, it's been around actually since the 40s. But Trello, many people have heard of Trello made it popular, I think, in 2010, 2011. And as tends to happen, it's been a long time. That's a long time ago. Most products just get harder and complicated and more clumsy and over time, right? So what ends up happening is like there are no simple, great con bond. options anymore. Everything's just like overweight and complicated. So we wanted to build something that

was like straightforward, simple, colorful, fast, and we put that out there in the market. So that's fizzy. Great for organizing any sort of thing. And that's out now. But the thing we're working on right now is Base Camp 5. So the fifth major version of Basecamp, we've done Basecamp, which we now call classic, two, three, four, which is a handful of years ago. And now we're doing five, which will be out this year and been putting in a ton of effort into making five the best version of Basecamp we've ever built. I'm incredibly pumped about it. We've been using internally for a while. Got a few more months to go and to your point about the AI stuff, like really starting to dig into how we can incorporate AI into Basecamp in a useful way and not just like a check the box. We have AI way,

but like how is this actually going to be useful for people? So trying to incorporate some of that, also incorporating AI into our internal workflows to make us more efficient in certain areas. So it's a fun time, I like releasing new products. I like improving things. So like I'm excited. This is going to be a great year to get Basecamp out, which is our, Base Camp's our Grand Slam product. Like we've had hits and base hits and triples and stuff, but Basecamp is the big thing that propels the whole company. So I'm excited to get the new version out and hopefully people like it. I'll take you back to Jason interest then because you alluded to it in the beginning. And I'm just curious, like, what do you do when you're not working around the clock and you have

your family? Well, I've got a family. You got two kids, got a wife. We, you know, my kids are like 11 and 7, so they're still relatively young. So there's a lot to do, just like living, you know, a lot to do. Driving around and activities and just hanging out and stuff. But I would say one of my other, besides that, all the family life stuff, like, one of my real passions actually has become architecture and, like, restoring old houses. I just found myself loving to do this.

Now, I'm not doing the work of the swing and the hammer and the nail stuff, but I'm deeply involved in the decisions and the design and the ideas behind it. So we're doing a project right now, which I'm really excited about, like bringing an old house back to life, something built in the 20s, actually, which is really fun. I'm learning drums. I've been learning drums for a while. I try to, not as good as I should be. I need to find a good teacher. But I'm working on that. I'm also trying to learn how to draw. I draw interfaces. I draw like software, but I don't really know how to draw. draw and I want to learn how to do that. So I've been trying to figure out some time to find some time to do that. I've been reading a lot. I just, I don't know, I like, I'm finding myself as I'm, you know, I'm 51 now, been in the software industry. Hey, just like me. Hey, how about it? I've been in the software industry for a long time. I'm staring at a flat screen a lot of the day. And so I'm really valuing three-dimensional objects and three-dimensional people and like

being outside in the world and interfacing with nature a lot. And I find a lot of joy in that. I still find a lot of joy in building software too, but I really want to end my day at five and do other things. Oh, that's incredible. So if you needed to meet yourself back in time, what would be one or two things that you really wish you knew earlier? You know what? I don't wish I knew anything. I got to be honest. I've always found that question. It's a fair question, by the way, but I've always found it to be, first of all, I wouldn't have listened to myself. When I was 21, 18, am I going to listen to some 50-year-old guy? Tell me what's important about the world? No, no way when I listened to even myself, right? Also, that's absolutely positively true. And the other thing is, is that,

like, what I know now, you have to discover things. There's some things that's probably good to know, like, be polite and shake someone's hand and look them in the eye and, like, some of the basic things, and be on time and be reliable. And if you say you're going to do something, do it. Like that stuff. But a lot of the stuff you learn that's important beyond that is stuff you actually have to experience to learn. You have to do it to know it.

You can't read about it. You can't hear about it. You can't just believe it to be true. You've got to do it. So I wouldn't have wanted to tell myself anything because I don't want to skip over the steps I had to take to learn the things I had to learn. Is the honest answer.

That's it. That's the answer to that question. It's like I wouldn't have listened and I don't want to know because I wanted to learn, not know those things. Okay. What about you? I mean, what about you? Do you have anything? I do.

I do. So I think for me, two things. One, I think that I thought that if I spent so many years learning electric engineering and doing coding or whatever, then this is the only thing I'm allowed to do for the rest of my life. And if I'm getting out of that, then I'm a failure, right? I failed at it. And I think I held myself back for no reason because I probably would have done some taking some action earlier. And I think the other thing that I think I learned the hard way is that I wish I got more help for more people and I was better at asking for help. Like I think I kind of had this like, I don't know, maybe it's like an Air Force mentality or maybe it's an Israeli mentality. I know it all. I don't need to ask anybody. Like I will figure this out. And the truth is, I I think it took me longer. Yes, you're right. Some of these scraping of the knees I needed to do on my own.

But I think if I could have leaned on more mentors or more help and more coaching and more whatever, like, why wouldn't I? Like, but I didn't even realize that's an option because I was, take it down. Like, I wasn't, like, I didn't really understand. You're self-reliant. There's like, there's a self-reliance. So are you Israeli? I am.

Yeah. So, like, I know so, I know so many Israelis. We are a character. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I know so many Israelis, including some of my own family. And they all have something very similar, I would say. Like, I'm going to just, I'm just stubborn. I'm going to figure this out myself.

And like, you know, so I get it. I totally get it. I mean, I have that in me as well. So I get that. That is a good one. I just wonder, would you listen to yourself? This is always what it comes back to for me. Like, now you know that you should have known that when you were younger.

but would you have listened to yourself if someone random told you that? Maybe random, no, but if it's somebody that I really respected, I think I would have listened and I don't think that I was even open to asking. So anyway, that's cool. Jason, like I took tons of notes. I learned a lot about muddy waters and all of it. And thank you for inspiring and sharing the story. And for what you do is Basecamp, I love it.

and just continue changing the world and, you know, having fun along the way because it's all about that, too. Thank you. I appreciate it. This is a really fun conversation. And yeah, I think that wouldn't leave people with that, which is, like, I think in general, people take business too seriously. And there's something about, like, business being the serious thing because there's money involved and, you know, people's careers and stuff. But, like, I think at the core of it, it still has to be a fun thing to do. And I think you'll do better work if it's fun work to do. And it doesn't mean not treating it seriously and taking it seriously the craft of it. But being so uptight about it, I don't think it's very good for you. So I think it is a good idea just to make sure that you're enjoying as much as possible what you're doing.

And I think you'll build a better business that way. The other thing I would say is a lot of entrepreneurs, especially when they're starting. And I remember this when I did it when I was starting to. So here we go with advice for people. But like I remember trying to like, you know, I'm new. I'm one person like, how am I going to get these gigs? You know, I'm competing against other people. and you had to kind of like make up this story.

Like I used to use the word we. It was just me. I was a web designer. I'm like, we design things this way. You know, like, and you're like, maybe I just had to do that for myself. I don't know. But there was a sense of like trying to act bigger versus just being who I was. And I eventually realized like the we didn't, wasn't necessary.

But I felt like it was in the beginning because I had to be like a company in the whole thing. So it takes time to learn those lessons. Yeah. Well, and tears to having fun, Jason. I'm all for it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

What a conversation. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Like this was, I got chills. I wonder if you had to. So if you did, let me know. Like, I can't wait to hear from you. Write us at podcast at leafacademy.com. Like, I can't wait to hear from you.

And what I want to do is I going to do the weekly review reading. So we are going to read a review. We're going to go to Apple Podcast. and again, remember, if you loved it, please let us know. Like, I can't tell you how much it means the world to me. And I would love to pick your review and read it here out loud. So I am going to read from D.S. Brown, connected and inspired. Love Ilana's energy and the heartfelt connection and the amazing guest.

We need more of these conversations and voices to empower and reinforce the mindset that we either have or striving to have. Thank you. Thank you. This means the world. So thank you for the kind words. Thank you for the review. And again, if you love the show, please review it. It actually really, really helps us bring amazing guests and do share it with others. So now we are going to go into YouTube and look for your comments. And remember every single week, I look at your comments. I choose a question that we had in the comments. And I want to bring it here so that we can all become the best version that we can be. And this is my way to give this to you. you because my mission is to empower and help 10 million people reinvent and leap their career

and live not just a paycheck, but the life that they want with a paycheck. So let's go. And one of the questions that came from, I think it's Mia, she's asking about how do I know where I want to go next, right? So we heard this conversation and it's not easy to decide where you want to go next and to go there with conviction. And one of the biggest thing that I learned on, and and I called it the square focus. And basically, life is in phases. In different phases, different things will be important for you. And what's really, really important is for you to really know yourself, not what other people

want, but what you truly want from your career, from your life. And this is about your must-haves. And sometimes what we really need is pay, whether it's because we need the money, it gives us confidence. I just wanted more than my husband. Like, it actually doesn't matter. why you need this. But sometimes all we need is the pay. And this is the big focus. Sometimes it's growth. We just need to feel like we're growing, we're learning, we're getting more responsibility,

a bigger title, sometimes even fame. And all of it is okay because you can have it all just not at the same time. But you need to know that growth is your focus right now. Sometimes it's impact. So the impact means that I need to feel like I matter, like I make a difference, whether it's in a company, whether it's society, it's the world, it doesn't matter, but I need to make sure that I matter. I leave a legacy, whatever it is, right? And sometimes it's balance. And balance means that, you know, maybe you're taking a leave for parents or for kids or for hobbies or for whatever it is, but you want to focus on having a lot more balance in your life. Now, no job or career will give you all four. Okay, if you think you have all four, don't ever leave, then you're good.

but each one, each career choice will give you two of these. The beautiful thing is that's going to change every year or two. So you don't need to think what you want to do for the rest of your life. All you need to think is right now, at the moment of now, what are the two must-haves that I have to have? And basically, what are the two that I'm okay with compromising on? Because once you have those must-haves, you can start making much more elaborated intentional and strategic decisions about where your career is going and make sure that it's very aligned with what you truly want, not what society expects from you, not what other people

want from you. So I hope this helps. Remember, it's the four elements of focus, the magic square focus. It's either pay or growth or impact or balance. Choose two of these. Make sure that the other two you can compromise. And let's go change some lives and create an incredible life of fun and freedom and legacy. See you in the next week. Again, remember, share it with anybody that you can. And if you do want,

go to a website. There's free training to really help you grow your own career, whether you want to reinvent yourself, whether you want to fast-track to leadership, you want to land a new job, you want to start a business, or you want to create a portfolio career. We have some great training for you. So go check it out and I'll see you soon. Remember this episode. It's not just for you and me. You never know whose life you're meant change by sharing this episode with them. And if you love today's episode, please click the subscribe or download button for the show and give it a five-star review. This really means the world. Join me in helping tens of millions of individuals reinvent their career and leap into their

full potential. Look, getting intentional and strategic with your career is now more important than ever. The skills for success have changed. AQ, adaptability, reinventing and leaping, are today the most important skills for the future of work. Building portfolio careers, multiple streams of income and ventures are no longer a nice to have. It's a must have, but no one is teaching this except for us in Leap Academy. So if you want more from your career in life,

go to Leapacademy.com slash training. Check out our completely free training about ways to fast track your career. You'll even be able to book a completely free career strategy call with my team. So go to leapacademy.com slash training.