Think Like A Game Designer - Kyle Thiermann — Deadlines, Mentors, Curiosity, and the Craft of Connection (#94)

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

About KyleKyle Thiermann is a professional big-wave surfer, journalist, and creative director whose career bridges storytelling, advertising, and adventure. He’s written for Men’s Health, Surfer, and Outside Magazine, and helped shape campaigns for brands like Patagonia, Yeti, and Mudwater, with his ads and viral spots reaching over 100 million people. Kyle is also the author of One Last Question Before You Go: Why You Should Interview Your Parents Now, a deeply personal exploration of family, curiosity, and conversation. In this episode, Justin and Kyle dive into the fear that drives creativity, the lessons of surfing six-story waves, and how to use curiosity and courage to build a more meaningful creative life.Think Like A Game Designer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Ah-ha! Justin’s TakeawaysDeadlines create gravity: Surrounding yourself with people you respect and setting clear deadlines are two of the most powerful tools for getting things done—it is the engine of creative work, which turn ambition into action and ensure you finish what you start. Proximity is an accelerant: Kyle’s learned, both in the ocean and in his creative career, that the fastest way to improve is to surround yourself with people already doing the thing you’re learning. Mentorship and shared goals create a rhythm of steady progress that’s hard to find alone.Better questions equal better understanding: We’re trained to have answers, but not to ask better questions and that’s where understanding truly lives. Whether you’re exploring a design challenge or rebuilding a relationship curiosity has the power to turn conversation into insight. Kyle’s book about interviewing his parents is a masterclass in curiosity.Show Notes“The power of deadlines and more specifically, the fear of disappointing people I respect has driven my career.” (00:04:55)We start by talking about the writing group where Kyle and I met, guided by New York Times best-selling author Neil Strauss. Together we dig into how essential structure and accountability are for any creative project including the value of mentors, peers, and most of all, deadlines. If you’ve listened to this podcast before, you’ve heard me say it: deadlines are magic. They turn vague ambition into finished work.“Find the people that are doing the thing and hang out with them as much as possible.” (00:15:58)Kyle connects his life as a big-wave surfer to his creative process, showing that fear and mastery follow the same pattern. Whether you’re paddling into six-story waves or starting a new creative career, the fastest way to grow is to surround yourself with people already doing what you aspire to do. Mentorship, proximity, and shared accountability accelerate progress more than any course or tutorial ever could. “Copywriting is much more like stand-up comedy, where you’re trying to take an idea and distill it down to its most essential form that’s going to get someone’s attention and connect them to this thing that you are selling.” (00:34:49)Kyle compares copywriting to stand-up comedy and it’s a perfect analogy. Both rely on timing, clarity, and emotion. Every word has to earn its place. For designers, writers, and storytellers, the lesson is simple: your job isn’t to explain, it’s to distill. When you can make someone feel something in a single line, you’ve revealed its essence, making it easier for your audience to understand, and therefore, to buy.“We’re taught to have the right answers, but never taught to have the right questions.” (00:51:56)Kyle wrote a book about interviewing his partents. His book grew out of realizing that curiosity—especially toward the people closest to us—is a learned skill. We train for answers, but not for questions, and that leaves entire parts of our relationships unexplored. As Kyle discovered, interviewing is about transforming judgment into curiosity. Asking better questions of our parents, our collaborators, or ourselves is how we rediscover the people we thought we already knew.* Kyle’s Upcoming Book: https://geni.us/onelastqbeforeyougo* Kyle’s Website: https://www.kylethiermann.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. In today's episode, I speak with Kyle Tierman. Kyle is a professional big wave surfer. He is a journalist and copywriter published in men's health surfer outside magazine. He's a creative director and advertising guru who has worked on brands for Patagonia, Yeti, and Mudwater. His advertisements and billboards and viral commercials have been seen by over a hundred million people.

He is also the author of a book that is launching today, November 18th, 2025, called One Last Question Before You Go, Why You Should Interview You Should Interview You? your parents. Now, Kyle is a bit of an unusual guest for this podcast, but honestly, he has so many great things to share. Kyle and I were part of a book club together, a writing group that was allowed us to create our respective books. His is getting published a little faster than mine. And we talk about that process. What was valuable about working with Neil Strauss, how deadlines are magic, how to manage the fear of putting something out in the world, including things that are very personal. Kyle tells some stories about how his family was conned out of millions of dollars via conspiracy theories and some of the trauma that that led in him

in the book as well as in this podcast. We talk about the process of creating effective advertising for million-dollar campaigns and multi-million dollar campaigns. We talk about the value of bad ideas and the step-by-step process for overcoming the fear of writing on your own, how to work in groups, how to overcome the fear of a giant six-story tall wave coming your way and the overlap between all of those things. We also talk about the importance of being able to have real conversations and ask good questions. For those of you out there that maybe don't get along with some members of your family or we're right around Thanksgiving time, maybe you have an opportunity to have some better conversations. And we talk about how to do that, how to build

relationships even when you don't agree, how to dig deep and learn about the people that you care about before maybe it's too late. Honestly, getting to have this conversation with Kyle was such a great thing for me. It has motivated me to have those interviews and those conversations with my own parents. And there's been some great lessons that I know I can apply to my own company and to my creative projects and how I market and reach new audiences in a way that's genuine and valuable. So I know you're going to get a ton of value out of this. So without any further ado, here is Kyle Tierman. Hello and welcome. I am here with Kyle Tierman. Kyle, it's awesome to get to chat with you in this context.

I know. It's been a little while since we've seen each other via Zoom. It's great to catch up. Yeah. So we're going to bounce all around the place. But just to give the audience some context, you and I met in a writing group with Neil Strauss as we were working on our respective books. And part of the impetus to have you here is that your book is actually going to print very soon. And so that's the, you want to give people that at the, let's just get that out of the way at the top of the hour here. And then we'll start diving into some more fun stuff in your background and talk more about the book later. Yeah, yeah. That was a formative experience, man.

Having the structure of someone like Neil Strauss to be able to give feedback and guidance through the initial stages of just speaking personally of my book was invaluable. I don't know that my book would be done if it weren't for that writing group. Just the structure, you know, it's like if you, everyone in that group had done writing, which I would equate to like jogging on the beach. And then suddenly you're put into a multi, an ultra marathon setting. And all of a sudden you need to start thinking about nutrition when you do an ultra marathon. You just think about stretching. You need to think about all these other things that you don't need to really worry about

when you're doing like a little 3K. And thankfully we had Neil Strauss, a, uh, someone who's, done many ultra-marathons in his life in the writing world. Yeah, and there's a few things that I've learned, you know, one, of course, having the guidance and support of someone who's, you know, been there before and knows the path and knows a lot of the pitfalls was amazing. But as you mentioned, structure. And I think, you know, the fact that there were deadlines, so the fact that there is, you know, I've often said like deadlines are magic, right? You know that you're going to be reading or the group will be reading a section of your book next week. You get it done, right?

You know, whereas if it was just like, ah, I got to write, you know, I have no, consequences and I have nobody checking on me. It's a lot harder to force yourself to go through the, you know, what's a pretty big lift of finishing a book. Yeah, the power of deadlines and more specifically the fear of disappointing people I respect has driven my career. So much so that now I will, you know, as an example, I'm writing a piece for Surfer's Journal right now that has kind of a loose deadline on it. And I've been having such a hard time finishing the piece

because the editor was just like, oh, you know, yeah, you turn it in some time in December. And I find that my efficiency goes down like 80% because I can just torture a single paragraph for an hour and a half. And just yesterday, I called

a friend of mine who's a writer who's really good. I'm a little afraid of what he thinks of me. And I said, hey, will you look at this draft next Friday? They said, of course. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, okay, I'm on the hook now to send this draft. So it's really useful to understand the power of deadlines. It feels like one of those fundamental concepts, almost like compound interest,

that just changes the way you perceive the entire world. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so it's one of those things. No matter what your creative project is, like I always encourage you, like find a way to create deadlines and then put teeth around those deadlines, right? Like what you said, have somebody that you respect and say, hey, will you look at this a week from now? Or scheduling a review or, you know, something where you know other people are going to be holding you accountable, it is the best. If I could, I think if the single one tool I would choose to make you have your dreams actually come true.

I think that's probably the best one I can think of. Yeah. Yeah, the slight fear of disappointing others is how we reach greatness. Yeah. And let's talk about fear for a second here because I think. This is, when I think about the impediments to creative work, right, that fear of embarrassment, that fear of failure, that fear of not being enough and not being able to kind of get it done is, is I think the thing that blocks people the most.

And I think there's an interesting, you know, what we're seeing as a corollary to that, which is like, how can you use your fear to your advantage, right? How can you make it to the fear of not trying and not doing and not doing the next thing, like drives you towards the goals you want rather than prevents you from moving towards those things you want. Yeah, absolutely. And for me, I have, I was really lucky because when I started, I was not a writer growing up. I was not really even a reader growing up. I loved, I loved stories. I loved watching movies, but my parents could not get me to read a book. I think one of the, I think maybe the only book I finished and loved before I was 18 was Enders game. And I just read

that book like 10 times. Yeah. That's a great book. Great choice. hit something in me. And, you know, I remember when I was maybe 10 years old, this is kind of fun. Orson Scott Card came to bookshop Santa Cruz where I grew up. And I remember my dad taking me to the signing. And I remember asking him a question and being so nervous to ask Orson Scott Card a question. He answered very thoughtfully. And it was, it was very fun. But it wasn't actually until, yeah, I was in my early 20s and was, I had a housemate in this old surf shack that we stayed in. It was just this great surfer and was starting this local surf magazine. And we were kind of talking about how surfing in Santa Cruz, it's kind of like a religion.

Like everyone surfs. It's very high value. you know, if you think of like Texas football, like Santa Cruz surfing, like all the surfers or the cool kids in high school, people spend way too much of their time in life just pursuing this thing because that's how you find status in the small town. And we were talking about how a lot of people that we noticed that were pursuing pro surfing were kind of going to end up jobless at 30. Like living in their parents' garages and no one was really talking about that. And we're like, that would be a really interesting story to tell. And he said, well, I'm starting this local magazine. Maybe you could write this article. And I did. It was called The End of the Ride is ProSurfing a Dead End career.

And I remember what was interesting about that is it was a really frightening creative project. Because I was really afraid of what other people were going to think of me. And that fear I've now learned is when I know that I'm onto something creatively. like when it's really like oh this is scary to do i feel like i'm walking a bit of a tight rope and there's stakes attached to it and thankfully um the editor at the magazine she was really experienced and really thoughtful and she worked with me she gave me deadlines and um she held me to a high standard and i remember writing that article having it come out and feeling this kind of power that i had never felt at any other time

in my life. Just like to say it exactly like I wanted to, to feel the stakes of it, to have the deadline and to submit it, it became a really addicting feeling that I'm still chasing. And so, and now prior to or during the writing of this, you actually were a professional big wave surfer, right? This is that window. And that's kind of how you, was your first career kind of focus? Yeah, I technically still am. I still surf for Patagonia. I still love riding big waves. It's, it's incredibly fun. And growing up where I did in Santa Cruz, we were really close to one of the best big waves in the world, a place called Mavericks that a lot of people will recognize where the, it's sort of a bethometric anomaly. So Bethametry is the bottom contours of

the ocean. And it just has this reef that comes out of really deep water and will jackwaves up to the size of six-story hotels. And, and, you know, the size of six-story hotels. And, And what's unique about Mavericks is that it breaks in basically the same spot every time. So unlike a wave like Nazare that people also maybe be familiar with, where you really need to tow into those waves because they're all over the place. You just can't, you can't sit in one spot and have the wave come to you, where at Mavericks, what's unique is you can have a Nazare-sized wave that you know where it's going to break, so you can position yourself and paddle into to that.

So I just grew up with all those people. Yeah. Yeah. And so I want to, I want to pause here, right? Because I talk a lot about fear in my podcast. I talk a lot about fear and creative work. And for the most part,

my advice is like, you know, the fear is an illusion and the bad things that are going to happen to you are not really a big deal. And once you're on the other side of them, you'll realize they're not a big deal. That's true for any writing a book or starting a company or doing anything. But these waves,

it to me, as the not surfer, I did, I have learned to surf, but nothing like what you do. That sounds actually terrifying. It seems like something you should really be afraid of because if you think so badly, you die. So I would understand your relationship to fear when it comes to a six-story wave coming down on you. Is it just like no big deal and you just grew up with it? So whatever you don't think about it? Is it that, you know, like I'd love to understand fear in this space where there's, there's, from my perspective, at least something that's really worth fear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't be falling off the size of a six-story building and be like,

this is just an illusion. Let's read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilward again. But it's the same fundamentals. It's the exact same fundamentals. And I've, writing this book was a really scary project for me because I got into some very personal stuff with my family, surfing big waves is a very scary process. And even though there's a difference in what you're doing, for anyone working in the creative field who's felt that, it is, in my opinion, the exact same feeling that arises in your body. And there are many parallels to how you can overcome that fear. so I can tell you a few ways that kind of

absolutely if someone who could someone if you have tactics that work on on a six story not falling off of a giant six story wave and surviving that they got to be able to help people with the other creative blocks they might have so yeah what do you got the first is to um find people in that world like I know it sounds really simple but like find people who do the thing that you want to do who are better than you and make it somehow worthwhile for them to show you the ropes.

Like that really has always been my tactic. Whatever I'm trying to learn new skills, you see someone who has that. And for me with writing, how I met Neil Strauss was I said like, hey, let's go surfing together. Like, I think I could give you some pointers.

And like, I can't show them anything about writing, but like with surfing, I had this little thing that I was, like, hey, let's go surf. And I find that most of those kinds of people are very willing to give if you can just not waste their time. So when it came to surfing big waves, too, my housemaids, it was the same guy who started that magazine. I remember I was 17 years old and he was known as as someone who went about big wave surfing a very responsible way. And that's what I wanted to to do. There are because there are people that are just insane and there are people also that

train for it. And he seemed like one of those guys that really trained for it. So I asked if we could maybe do workouts together. And we would just do these short sessions. We didn't go surf the wave immediately. It was just about these really short training sessions and working up to that eventual big wave. Finding those small security. successes for me, from surfing the small waves in Santa Cruz to then getting my first big wave board. I think that was a really big one. And then eventually leading to that day of surfing Mavericks that I remember was terrifying. But once you do it, you survive it. And ultimately, you build the identity to think of yourself as a big wave surfer or as a creative or as a writer.

and that's when the ultimate habit shift starts to happen. But it's a slow progression. And the biggest, to whittle that point down to just one thing, it's find the people that are doing the thing and hang out with them as much as possible. Yeah. So a couple of follow ups here, right? I think that the note about, you know, build up small successes over time, you like, you know, find those opportunities to increase your identity as the thing

you want to be, I think is massive. When it comes to, you know, finding. mentors or other potential advisors adding value to their life and showing you're not wasting their time. I would guess that there's people in our audience that maybe have a little bit of imposter syndrome there and are saying, well, yeah, sure, you're a pro

big wave surfer. You've got all these accomplishments. Of course, you can go approach someone like Neil and it's fine. But well, I'm just, you know, I'm just me. I don't have that. Like, what would you say to somebody like that that had that fear? I think that you'd be

it's like you ever seen someone who has a broken down car and they're on the highway and say like need gas please help most people are not going to stop if you see someone on the side of the highway that's pushing their car down the street everyone will stop and help like you'd be amazed at how many really high level people are willing to help if they see that you're doing that work like show them that you're doing that work like that and that was what I did with big over serving I'm like hey I'm going to go train in the pool do you want to come yeah I'm going to come it's not like hey will you come to will you do it with me because if you're not I'm not like you need to have the mindset like I'm fucking going to do this with or without you will you help that'll make it easier right and that was

the same thing with Neil like I told him like look man I'm going to write a book I am a writer like I'm young and it's where I want to get to is still way ahead of me but it's it's happening with or without you man and like that mindset I think is what is it can be really attractive to to people because they see that they're not going to waste their time on thing that's fantastic and I will say yeah from my own experience right I've I've had this exact same thing I get people asking me all the time for advice or to help with their game or to hire them or whatever. But when I see somebody that's actually like, hey, here's the thing I've made, here's the prototype, here's the work I'm doing.

Like, you know, if you have time to take a look at this awesome or I'm just running, I'm moving forward with this here. My response, just immediately as you were saying, my response, it resonated exactly what you're saying. I'm way more likely to go and help because, again, especially for someone who's a professional and really like far along in a field, they are passionate about the field. They want to be able to talk about these things. They love talking about these things.

And so if you can show that you're going to be the kind of person that's going to listen and going to be motivated and driven, then you know, you talk about also like how you build your identity, right, as you succeed. And for the people who are at the top of their field, their identity as a successful person is already established. But then, you know, that process of mentoring and helping others and wanting to have an impact takes over too. So you become the kind of role that can help there.

So that's really great. Totally. I mean, the final thing I'll say on that is I remember distinctly, my. editor at this local magazine Santa Cruz Waves telling me you'd be amazed how many writers will submit a story to me young writers I will edit the article for them you know bring it back with a bunch of murderous red lines through it and say send me a new draft and I'll never hear from them again that is that that's the moment right where because the first fear is maybe I'm not good enough to be this thing that I want to be so deeply,

like so deeply I can taste it in the back of my mouth, like, oh, this is all I want. And to get signal from the outside world that maybe you're not there is painful on a soul level. But it's so necessary to getting good, right? like that is the process and I found that one thing that was at advantage to me when I got into writing was this knowledge that it that is like the the feeling of failure is what's moving you forward so to really get to know that feeling and get to know like oh wow these to the point where now if I get a draft back and it's got a bunch of red lines to it my almost in me my first feeling is fuck you and my second feeling is like thank you so much that's amazing like i've trained myself to know that this is how you get better if that's what you're really at if what you're really after is to get good not to just be recognized and get famous like

that's the process um yeah yeah no i've been uh god okay so i'll share because you just resonated with me so much because I, you know, I went through the same writing group together. I got feedback from everybody in the group. I got feedback from Neil. I got so many things. And I was like ready with my book. I think I even mentioned on previous episodes of the podcast. Like, we're moving forward.

I'm going to get this thing ready to publish. And then I got feedback from James Clear, who the author of Atomic Habits, who is an incredible writer also. And I was very fortunate to be able to have him read my book. And there were several good things in his feedback, but also that massive red line, that massive like, nope, this isn't there. This needs to be just. And that, as you were describing it, I felt it so viciously, because that first

feedback was like, oh, my God, this is months of work. Like, this is months of work that I have to go do now. But also, you know, okay, that sucks. And it took me, I'm not going to lie, it took me a couple weeks to process that. Yeah. And then once I got to the other side, I was like, you know what, this is awesome. This is an incredible opportunity. I've now had multiple legends in the industry I've been able to get feedback from.

And this is a great. So my next process over the next couple months is, is working on revising that. And a big part of it is so many of the lessons also that we're talking about here, right? How do you make your small wins possible? How do you learn to love losing? Like my book is all about applying the principles of game design to life. And that's exactly the things in games, right?

I try to, as a designer, I'm trying to give you lots of little wins along the way and, like, give you a trail of breadcrumbs as you're moving to your final boss. And you try to make the iterative process because you lose all the time in games. You die in a video game or you lose a game monopoly with your family. and you don't like cry about it and go home, at least hopefully not usually. You learn and you try it again. And like how do you make life more like that?

And so these are these lessons are resonating with me super, super well. I want to just push a little further on this too because everything that you've said is incredible stuff that obviously I strongly resonate with in terms of how you get yourself, you know, acclimated to fear and re-approach it and use it to your advantage. But I still feel like there's got to be another puzzle piece here because as ready as you are with that first time,

that big wave is coming to you. I feel like there's got to be something else there. There's got to be like, is there like a, is there a breathing exercise? Is there a focus thing? Or is it just once you're in the moment, adrenaline takes over and the fear is gone. It's all about the lead up. Like what is it, what is it in that moment? Take me into that space.

Sure. Yeah. Mavericks is the way that that's the big wave that's very famous that I have a lot of familiarity with. And thankfully surfing is one of those ways. It's a sport that can take you around the world to some very far-flung destinations. That's one of my favorite parts about it is just the culture of travel in surfing. But we'll talk about maps for a sec, which is now north of Santa Cruz.

And it's a very rugged area up in Halfman Bay. It's really foggy a lot of the time. There's this big foghorn that's always blaring when you're walking out along this dirt path. And then it's a long paddle out, you know, so you're not just like in the waves. You know, you're on the beach. You're paddling through successively bigger whitewater for about a half an hour before you make it into the lineup. Pretty often on those days, there's a lot of boats in the water out in the channel. So it feels a bit like a media event, which it really is.

Sometimes there's helicopters flying over. You have professional surfers flying in from all over the world, and many of whom, or, you know, heroes that I grew up with. So it's, it's an intense environment and it's very easy to start to feel like you're looking at yourself from the outside. I don't know if you ever had those experiences where, like, you meet a famous person and all of a sudden you're thinking about yourself from a third person. Like, you're like, it's like, you say something.

And then all of a sudden, you're like, that was so stupid of me to say that. Why did you say that kind of? But like, for me, a lot of what I try and do, when I'm out there is to reconnect myself to just the feeling of being in the water. So I'll always, I really like paddling. I really like, I'll dip myself underwater, kind of flush my wetsuit. So I feel that like cold on my skin. This is actually a Tim Galway practice.

He wrote the inner game of tennis, which was a book that applied specifically to tennis, but then had hugely broader applications. And he talked about thinking about the bottom of your feet when you're on the tennis court, which just really grounds you down into a tactile feeling of like I'm doing the thing and I feel it in my body. So I really always try to get into body sensations when I'm approaching surfing.

And then when I'm out there, there is, and I think that this is an element that you're kind of speaking to like maybe there's got to be something else when all of the lights are green and it's ready you're ready to go on a really big wave and it's really scary you do need to

or at least I need to I like fuck it is just the like you just need to go for it like where you stop thinking about it and you're just like I am absolutely going to go on this wave. And it's a very kind of, it's a primal instinct, you know?

It's like trying to tackle someone. Like you're not thinking when you're trying to tackle someone. And that's a, it's a quite a fun state to get into because we spend so much of our time up here in the head and just getting down into it and then actually pulling it off is, it's quite an adrenaline rush. And that's why it's not for everyone. I mean, surf in the big ways, it's like,

it's a very small amount of people that actually, enjoy doing it over years of time. Yeah, yeah, but I think there are, I think there's a lot of value, and I appreciate you really making that concrete and visceral for us. I think that there's a lot of value in finding these visceral, physical challenges and moments that can help you both overcome fear and feel exactly that, like get out of your head, right? I am a very analytical person by default as a gamer, as a business owner.

I'm always like trying to break everything apart. But a lot of my best ideas, a lot of the best parts about how I'm able to show up really come from those periods when I'm able to get out of my, out of my head. And so people don't have to go surf a giant big wave to do this, right? You can do this getting into an ice bath. You could do this pushing yourself in a 5K or whatever your limit is, you know, where there's something that's like harder for you. Like when I used to run cross country and do a lot of running too, you just get out of your

head, you're just fully in the rhythm of it. And there are different tools like that. And I would like to kind of bring that up because a lot of the people, again, a lot of people that are listening don't necessarily make that connection between the, you know, the physical things and and the kind of mental work that a lot of people do. And I think they really are and that they serve each other. So I think whether or not the big wave is for you, there's a lot of lessons there. Yeah. And just to sharpen up that point, I think that one of my favorite, you know, there's a lot of things that we talk about that are going wrong with culture right now. and one of my favorite things

that I think is going right is people are really starting to recognize the connection between the mind and the body and there's no longer this idea that you can only be an athlete or an intellectual like you see people

who are some of the best brains in the world who are also really incredible athletes and they're using their bodies in profound ways. And when you ask them about that, they tell you, whether it's Michael Lewis or Malcolm Gladwell, like those eyes are amazing athletes.

They say that when I'm working on a problem on a book, I'm going to go for a really big run. And I've always felt a lot of connection with that idea. Because growing up, I had a lot of energy. I couldn't sit still as a kid. kid, you know, everyone wanted to put me on Ritalin. My mom just said, no, I think we need to get a trampoline. And I've all, you know, without exercise, my book wouldn't be done. I will very

often wake up, pretty much every morning, do a workout and then sit down for a writing session because it just gets me out of my way. Yeah. Yeah. And I used to, this is, the culture point is a really great point because for me it was exactly this right when i was growing up it was like when i had to exercise it was like a chore that took me away from the things that i really wanted to do right i really wanted to be gaming or doing whatever like i or you know working on different things and the exercise was like this thing that took me away and i have since completely 180 on that and like be you know every hour i spend exercising is like a three x multiplier at least on like the work the quality of work that i'm able to do and the energy i'm able to have to

have and bring to the other things in my life. So, yeah, that shift is so, so important. And it's, you know, again, every little step makes a huge difference. If you are someone who's on the couch, just starting to walk every day is a big deal. If you have never lifted any kind of weight, some amount of that will make a massive impact of your life and then just keep, you know, gradually scaling it and you'll see the impacts, right? It just, it was a, it was such a game changer for me.

And it wasn't, frankly, even all that long ago that I realized it. So definitely, uh, grateful for that. What got you into, like, what was the, what was the, what was your, get out the door kind of exercise that got you from zero to one. Yeah. So for me there was, there's a couple different moments, you know, in my life.

You know, one, as I succeeded in my magic career and was still like very out of shape, about 40 pounds heavier than I am now. And I would, I was like in my early 20s and I was like throwing my back out like regularly. You know, it was just like I was and it took, it was just this kind of moment where I'd come back

and I'd won, actually won the world championships. and I did everything there was to do in that arena. And I was like, this is it. I have achieved everything. And I got, I came back home to my apartment. And I just, I felt I exhausted. And I had my, my room was a mess. And I saw myself in the mirror.

And I just saw like something I wasn't proud of, right? I just saw something that I was like, I couldn't, it was, I was able to, for the longest time, kind of put it away and not have it be like something that was a, I could say, oh, well, I'm working on this. I'll get to my health later. I'll get to my health later. And I just was like broken down that I had just thrown away so much of my life in that point. And for me, it was running. Running was the thing. I could just go and I could just get out and just start running. And that allowed me to just kind of turn off my brain and start the process and start the process. And then I made a non-negotiable every day. And I saw the transformations. And then that got

me to be, at the very least, starting that journey. And then years later, I got connected to a community that had, like, legitimate real exercise experience. And I could join the gym with, like, and finding other people, this is the other, like, trick to this, right? Is like, if you're in a community of people who are default couch potatoes and default not doing this thing, that's going to be your default. Right. The easiest way, you know, surround yourself with people that are like, they're hanging out on the beach or they're hanging out going to, you know, doing physical activities. And their norms are like that, you by default will, like, move to that norm. In the same way you had, you know, the cool kids were all surfing, so you became a surfer, right?

If I, where I was, you know, all the cool kids were just playing magic or I don't know if we were actually cool, but the kids I hung out with were playing magic. And so I, you know, I gradually found more people that were, you know, inspiring in that sense. And that helped, that helped push me to where I am now. That's great. I want to, I do want to shift a little now from the physical world to a little bit more of the, of the creative and writing world because you've, you know, you mentioned kind of how you got started. as a journalist and then you you wrote for a bunch of magazines and then you started you became a creative director and wrote advertising copy for some pretty big companies you mentioned Patagonia is also sponsor of yours mudwater which I'm pretty sure

I found your advertising and you got me to buy it as a at the one we got we got yeah the first of the mushroom coffees yeah or the first one I encountered anyway what got you into that space and like was it just kind of a natural evolution of writing or, you know, what, what, I'd be curious to learn about that phase of your, or that, you know, side of your, your life. Sure. Yeah. So I, uh, will, yeah, I started with, with journalism and I then got into my advertising career through copyrighting. Um, a lot of people might not know what a copywriter is when I tell them I was a copywriter and still am they're like well is that like legal stuff no it's basically any writing that you see on a brand

whether that's no just do it with Nike or it's a commercial that was written or it's the copy that you see on an email like all of that is done from a a copywriter or it's a concept for a really big campaign. And what I like about copywriting specific and advertising generally is that when you have, you know, compared to an article, right, where let's say you're writing three or four thousand words for an article, you're taking an idea and you're expanding it out into all these different beats. Copywriting is much more like stand-up comedy where you're trying to take an idea and distill

it down to its most essential form that's going to get someone's attention. and connect them to this thing that you are selling. And that was really fun for me. One thing I did not know about myself until I got into my advertising career is how much I enjoy collaborating with other people. Writing a book is sort of a solo endeavor. I mean, you're getting feedback,

but it's a lot of lonely hours. Doing journalism is very solo. Writing a commercial is a team sport, and you're getting so much feedback throughout this whole process. That's one of my favorite things about advertising is you get into writer's rooms, you know, where there's three or four people and you're all coming up with ideas

to try and get attention around a product. The way that I go for it, if you're going to. No, no, yeah, I'm interested. Yeah, you're getting into the details of it. I want to, you know, you mentioned a couple of principles around, you know, what makes copywriting or good advertising copy. different from other types of writing, you know, which, you know, as the analogy, just stand up comedian and kind of distilling things down. But yeah, how do you approach it when you're sort

of, okay, how do I, you know, I'm trying to sell, you know, mushrooms or I'm trying to sell whatever clothing, right? How do I get now, get somebody's attention, create a campaign? Like, I'm really interested in the details of that sort of thing. Absolutely. It's a, I love talking about it because it's a it's a misunderstood art. Uh, because so many people have been served bad advertising and advertising that is lying to you, advertising that is annoying you, and that's bad advertising. Like the goal of, just like there's bad stand-up comedy, right? But the goal of it is to change someone's mood state for the better as quickly as

possible while getting them to understand the benefit of what it is that you are selling. and you maybe only have about two seconds to do that, the way that I approach every creative brief, and I now have a small creative agency that I run with a friend, is to look for a core insight. So what I will do, and you can apply this process to your own business, you can apply it to any other business,

is you open up a, it could be just a Google Slides. And the way it works is, I learned this from an agency I worked out called Humanaught, where you prompt yourself with two questions or two statements. And then you finish the statement. The first statement is, do you ever notice that dot, dot, dot, dot? Wouldn't it be funny, weird, or interesting if dot, dot, dot, dot. So let's take Mudwater.

Mudwater is one of the first brands that I started, and it's a coffee alternative that's like this chai mushroom drink. You ever notice that the whole world's addicted to coffee? Wouldn't it be funny, weird, or interesting if we created coffee like a drug, like all these other drugs, right? Isn't it weird that we have all these drugs in the world

that we say not to do, but there's this socially accepted drug called coffee that virtually everyone is on? What if we pointed that? inside out. And we're like, hey, do you drink coffee? If you do, you're on drugs. Okay, well, that's, there's, there's something kind of funny here. What if we did a whole kind of campaign around like drug use, right, and getting people off of coffee and onto this other thing? And all of a sudden, you have ideas, right, that are kind of coming out of this core insight. But you do that with, I mean,

the way that we do it in our writer's rooms for any brand is you come up with, maybe, every writer is told to bring 20 to 30 different insights and then ideas. And then you bring all that into one Google Doc. And by the end, if you have three writers, you've got 90 ideas on your first session. And it's this huge creative playing field then to build a campaign out of. But it all starts with that core insight, all starts with noticing something weird. Okay. So to get more granular here, that this is, so you already know the thing you're trying to sell. in this case. And so your your ideations obviously are all around that.

So you, is there a, is there any step before that where they're saying, okay, this is, you know, these like, I've heard people talk about building their brand identity or the like,

you mentioned that you want to change someone's mood. Is there some like emotive state you're trying to hit? Or is it just this funny, weird, or interesting is the key here because you just need to get someone's attention. Generally, people don't, care about the product that you're selling.

It's an inanimate object. There's no emotional state that people feel around it. So what you're trying to do as quickly as possible is get someone to see something that they don't care about and connect it as quickly as possible to something that they do care about. So you're bringing, you're kind of bringing these two things together and smashing them together as as quickly as possible. So pretty often with advertising, you're taking different worlds

and smashing them together to get people to care about something. Liquid death is an ultimate example of this. They're selling water. Water, there's nothing that interesting about water, right? Heavy metal, wait, that's really weird. That's so far away. We're going to smash these two ideas together and all of a sudden, boom, you get this huge brand. So it's a lot of stochastic thinking, right, and taking this thing and then just letting your mind wander with word associations, with other ideas that are sort of loosely connected to the thing. And then when you smash that together to your product, it's very illogical exercise. There's not a lot of logic to it. And then you can come out with campaigns. And if you look at a lot of ads,

they're all kind of done through this core insight methodology. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, right? I mean, when I think about like brand building in general, right, across the board, it's, you know, there's, you know, when I hear brand X, it is, I naturally associate it with things, you know, ABC, right? And like your goal in advertising or is to, you know, push those things together. or I often describe it as making a promise and that people can expect for you to deliver

and you build that over time. It's interesting. When I think about it, in the gaming space, I would say that there's a, you know, you will rely on the different tropes that people care about within that, right?

So they'll care about, you know, whatever the theme could potentially draw people in or some specific thing about the mechanic or some, you know, environment that you're going to be in, that feeling you're going to have

when you're actually there, playing the game and so it's interesting to think about bringing this uh you know to uh to to whatever a powder you know powder caffeinated thing or whatever it's yeah yeah people don't yeah people don't yeah people don't care about that but they yeah but they may care about drug culture right that is you know so then you bring drug culture into this thing that people maybe don't care about and all of a sudden they're like oh that's kind of funny i like these guys um but that yeah that's the method of doing it. And it's actually really informed my book writing.

A lot of copywriters I find are not great long form writers because it's so glib. Like it's just so, it's one-liners. You know, it's really like just funny one-liners. And then book writers or long-form writers, I think, can kind of forget people's attention span and then they start going so deep on this one idea that it's they lose everyone so it is a bit it feels a bit like jujitsu and karate to get good at both of those things and um it's very much it very much informed the book that I wrote to using short sentences that are really punchy and grab your attention with these longer sentences that can kind of go a bit deeper and one thing that

you know, I was really challenged to do through our writing group and Neil Strauss called me out on this, a bunch is like, don't be glib. Like, you can't write a book and just have it be this pizzazzy, like, beep bath. Like, this is so funny and cool. Like, that is very common among advertising. If you get an ad email, it's not someone like burying their soul to you. It's just like, hey, this is kind of funny thing. But if you get caught in that frequency and you're not willing to really put something on the line which I think more book writing is all about and like you can get caught in a something that feels superficial and that was really hard for me with with this book process was to actually be like okay don't don't subvert vulnerability with a glib joke here

like sometimes you don't want the joke you're hiding behind the joke like you need to just say it deeply how you feel and that then gets back to the scare like when does it feel scary what's what feels scary for you to write and that was a a big part of my process with the book was pulling out jokes and then and saying how i really felt and letting some of the writing be angry without a punchline at the end yeah yeah no that makes sense you know for me it wasn't uh wasn't humor that was my deflection but it was you know just more abstract principles right i'm very much like, you know, it's like, okay, here's the principle, here's the lesson, do the thing. Congratulations. And I was also pushed to the writing group. It's like, no, you have to actually

like make this real. Like you have to like show like, like, why is this a book that only you can write and what are the things that like, you know, make this real for you. And so I had to tell very, you know, I started tell very personal stories about, you know, some of the biggest failures and pain points in my life. And, uh, I was not prepared for that. Uh, it was very difficult. Really? Does. Yeah, makes it makes it a much more, a much more powerful book. at the end of the day, but it also was a much more powerful, I don't know, I guess, process for me, right? Being able to kind of be willing

to be vulnerable and being willing to work through some of these stories. Some of them I hadn't even fully processed myself. I found that process of writing to be a little bit therapeutic on my side and from the audience of reactions of those that have read early draft of it. It's clearly, those are the things

that actually stick with people. Like, people care about real stories, real emotions, the real version of you. Yeah. And that's and I think that that's one of the powers of writing and what keeps me coming back to it is so often when I'm talking, I'm sort of one degree away from what I really mean. And if I had a few more drafts, I could like, I wish I could say it better. Like, that's what I really meant. And with writing, it allows me to go through it enough times that I can really say what I mean. I remember in an early draft I had when I

when I just said, okay, I'm going to write the book about my family that is true for me, you know, and what's true is that I had a really close relationship with my mom, and she fell to a bunch of conspiracy theories through my teens, and it totally fractured our relationship, and I had to then use the interview process over these past couple of years of just understanding who she is better and digging into a lot of resentment that I felt for her and a lot of resentment that I felt for her husband, my stepdad, for getting her into this kind of stuff. And there was an early draft that I wrote that was so fucking angry. Like, it was just,

I let it out. I was just like, I'm going to write this like it's my journal. And just giving myself even the permission to be a total petulant asshole allowed me to then find the lines that were true about that. And then I could say, okay, go through the drafts, okay, is this necessary or is this just mean? And it allowed the book to have the kind of breath that I'm now really proud of and was able to balance those characters in ways where I could see both, you know, the darkness and the hard stuff as well as the light. But if I wasn't, if I had just written the book in like a glib, like, be, Bobby, hey, this is so fun.

Like, it wouldn't have been nearly as useful a process for me. I think I still would have been hiding in some way. Yeah. So let's dig into the book a little bit because, I mean, we talked about the power of stories and the power of being able to kind of tell your story and to write it. And your book is literally about giving that gift to your parents, right? This is one last question before you go, the ability to interview your. parents and really dive deep, which my guess is very few people do by default. And so, you know, what for those out there that, you know, might be interested in this and

of course, you know, to read the book when it's available, but this, why would people approach their parents in this way? What's the, some might feel pretty awkward. Like, kind of let's walk us into this idea in general of interviewing your parents and what that might look like. Yeah. Yeah. It started for me because I've had a podcast for a long time.

I had my dad on my show. He's this old filmmaker. It goes to the flea market every weekend. Hagler, you know, he's never bought a new, new t-shirt in his whole life. Like, it's just a classic, classic deal. Like, I never got a haircut. I never paid for a haircut until I was maybe 20 because he, when I was a kid, had purchased a suck cut from the flea market.

I don't know if you know from Wayne's World, like a floby. And he didn't want to like, he just thought it was such a waste of money to take me to the barber. So I would get this vacuum cleaner powered haircut. And then all my friends started coming over so they'd like line up and he'd suck cut everyone's hair. I'm just like, I'm just a classic dude. And he's a good storyteller.

It sucks as it cuts. And it sucks, and it cuts, exactly. And so I had him on the show, and he's a good storyteller, had a fun time. And I got a bunch of emails from people who said, hey, I'd love to interview my parents. Like, that seems really interesting, cool. Can you, like, give me some tips and tricks? That was an interesting insight, right? So that was a, if we're thinking about this from an average,

perspective, that's what, you know, you'd call a little signal boost, right? You said something, you did something where it's like, oh, there's interest around this. I got a bunch of emails around this thing. Maybe I can take another step with it because people want to know more about it. And he, my dad said something to me that really stuck with me where he said, he's like, yeah, that was a really fun podcast. And also, you know, if we weren't recording, I don't think you ever would ask me those questions. And it just was like, oh, fuck. Like, that's so true. Like, I don't ask you questions. Like, you're, you've lived this crazy life. And the only reason I was asking you questions is because I had me on my pot. Like, I feel bad. And isn't that interesting

that we don't really, we're not really taught to ask our parents questions about their life. That's not a skill that is culturally, um, encouraged and and that got me down this line of thinking like isn't it we know to the like you ever notice that dot dot dot it wouldn't it be weird interesting if that to that isn't it weird that we grow up and we're so encouraged to have the right answers to things and we're tested on having the right answers and we're never tested on having the right questions whenever like that's not a skill that you get out of high school having learned like let's take a class in question asking but for me man like that is if I've had any success in my life it's just from

being able to ask better questions that's what's allowed me to have some interesting people on my podcasts what's allowed me to get into cool job experiences is just just like that feeling of like, I don't know, and I'm willing to just sit here as an empty cup and figure out how to ask questions. And as you know, as a podcaster, there's a real method to pulling stories out of people. A lot of times we say like, hey, do you have a good day? Yes. Cool. That's it. Boom. But there's a lot of techniques that you learn about how to bring someone into a story or a moment and I developed a lot of those skills so I then I'd had all that kind of stuff thinking right and I was like well okay well maybe I'll just do like how to book

on um on question asking and then there was this big kind of elephant in the room which was man I feel like a hell of a lot of pain and resentment and anger and just like unresolved feelings about conspiracy theories and like having it become so close to home like you know the it's all in the book but like I mean my parents lost millions of dollars to getting duped into these various conspiracy theories and it hurt and I and maybe I can use some of these the skills of question asking and apply it to this really personal narrative so that was ultimately then where I was like, ooh, I think that this could, I might be willing to dedicate the next three years of my life to writing a book about this. Yeah. Yeah, incredible. And yeah, I've gotten

a chance to read some of this. And I can attest that these are stories worth, worth sharing and absolutely fascinating. I think there was a there was a nugget in there as well that, you know, the seed for this was, you know, you just, you know, put stuff out there and it interviewed your dad. that you got feedback immediately, you know, from your audience or from the world. And I think that that's like just something to be, you know, one, just putting a lot of things out there because you never know what stuff is actually going to resonate. And two, being open to where that, you know, where things come back and where it's worth pursuing based on things that you overlap with, you know, your interest and the audience that's

out there and can lead you to, you know, I'm sure five years ago there or whatever, this was, this was not on your radar. you've had such a fascinating career that's jumped around so many different things to see this, you know, I mean, well, maybe it isn't, but it just feels like it's got to be the most personal thing that you've put out there. Is that actually? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, it's, it's weird because, you know, I've, I'm now in the promotion state of this book, right? It's, it's a month for, I don't know when this is coming out. but like I finished the book a little while ago so it sort of feels like someone else's now and it and I feel like that is really healthy like there was a point where I was so close to the story that it was just like I don't know if I can put this out there

this is so like I would I would not be able to sleep some nights because I'm like I can't believe I'm that this is going to go out there like oh my god my mom's going to hate me oh my god this is like just the scenarios of thanksgivings moving forward oh my god and

thankfully this says a lot about my mom a lot about my stepdad but they like to book and they support it and they recognize how they recognize how important it is for me to put this out and that says just it says a tremendous amount about who they are as people that we can disagree about

what we believe to be true in the world, but still hold love through that. And that's really the point of the book, right, is that we are going to disagree with our parents about so many things. And family estrangement is so common because we so often we'll just have completely different visions of the world and there's no convincing one another of our version of reality. So the question is, can we still maintain loving relationships through that?

And I think that, you know, there's a calling people out is all the rage, right? And calling our parents out. And I don't know about you, but I love being called out. That really makes me feel so warm inside. But the idea of like sitting down and asking thoughtful questions about their lives is it's a, it can be just good for relationships. Like I don't know how else to put it, but I think that there's a, a lot of unnecessary suffering between families.

And there was an article written in 2024 in the New Yorker about family estrangement. And it was one of the top 10 most read New Yorker articles of 2024. It's just such a common thing that we are unable to kind of get through our stuff. And as a result, we become strangers to our own parents. So my hope for the book is that this can, you know, it's not going to solve any problems that you have with your parents,

but it can maybe crack the door open to a bit more curiosity. And I think that that is how relationships improve. It's through question asking. It's not through telling people how it is. Yeah. I think that's, I think it's a very powerful frame. And I think, you know, like we're facing a loneliness epidemic, you know, certainly throughout the country and many places around the world. I think that ability to, you know, we're all very divided, you know, whether it be politics or

whatever world events or AI or whoever knows what other thing is that you should be freaking out about. But that, you know, just taking the time to understand where other people are coming from and listen and recognize that, you know, the story you're telling yourself is just a story and other people have different stories and just trying to understand and be able to relate to that, even if you don't agree, is really powerful. I know it's something that's changed my relationships, not just with my family, but with my partner and friends and people within my, you know, that I work with,

that ability to sort of ask questions with open mind, reflect back what you hear, make sure that they feel heard, you know, create that space is one of the more important skills to just, you know, I think doing life well, let alone, you know, getting along with your parents at Thanksgiving. Yeah, I think that too, I don't know if you've experienced this, but for me, one thing I was forced to grapple with is how much I would regress in maturity when I would be around my parents. I would come home for Thanksgiving

and I would turn into a 16-year-old again. Like such a petulant little shit. And the process of interviewing them and asking about these moments in their lives and college and it forced me to get out of the state of child and into a state of journalist. And you're my subject to I'm interviewing. And just practicing.

getting into that state, even just for a little bit, you know, you don't need to start your own podcast to learn how to interview someone. And it's a really valuable skill. It's just learning how to conduct a long-form interview. And it's not rocket science. You know, just learning what a good question is. I'm happy to talk about any of that. But I think that it's just a skill that is very valuable for more people to learn. Yeah, let's just let's leave people with a couple, a couple little tidbits, right? Just obviously more of this is going to be in the book. Let's say, you know, a couple things to be a, you know, a better interviewer, ask better questions that they could bust out, whether it be with their parents or at their next social gathering. What would you, what would be your top, top three?

Sure. So the one is from a guy who I interviewed for the book named Charles Duhigg, who wrote a very popular book called The Power Habit and then later super communicators. And he has this concept called deep questions. So the idea is don't ask about the facts of someone's life on their own. Ask also how someone feels about their life. So rather than, oh, you know, so if I asked you where you went to medical school, the next question should probably be what made you want to be a doctor. So all of a sudden you're getting out of just this happened, this happened, this happen,

and you're getting into someone's relationship with that event. including your parents um the second is try and get into um more specific questions so this comes into research right like you did this for our podcast you're asking more specifically about moments in my life that allow me to get into that that moment specifically so let's say with with your parents um one thing that's really interesting to talk about too is is what culture was like when they were in their early 20s, right? So if you, with my mom, I asked, you know, where did you went to Berkeley school? Tell me about what the culture was like at Berkeley during that time, because you're going to get informed as to what the world was like when their adult reign came online. You know,

Morgan Housel talks about this with finances, but depending on how the economy is when you are in your 20s, that will affect your financial appetite for risk for the rest of your life. So learning about what the world was like when they were in their 20s is also what Meg Jay from the defining decade talks about can give you a window into how they see the world now. And man, the culture is changing so fast, right? Just asking about whether your parents grew up in the 1960s or 70s, like getting into some of those details can be really fun just to think about like, man, it was quite different,

even just 40 years ago. So that was some of my favorite parts to ask about. And then the last thing that I would say about questions and this kind of gets into the theme of this podcast is they should be a little, at least some of the questions should be a little uncomfortable to ask. Like you should feel like a sense of maybe heat when you're bringing it up. A good interview shouldn't necessarily feel comfortable all the time. One of the guys in the book who I know you've had on this podcast and he's just, I think, a lovely human is Derek Sivers. And he told this story about being with his grandfather when his grandfather was on his deathbed. And he said the whole time he was with his grandfather, he had this big, unaskable burning question

in his brain. He just couldn't ask it. And the question was, what's it like to know that you're about to die? So then at the end of their time together, he said, okay, I'm just going to ask it. And the moment he said, what's it like to know that you're about to die? His grandfather's face just lit up. And he said, it's wonderful. Everything else in my life has been beautiful. And I think this is going to be beautiful too. I'm so excited. And then the next day, he died. And Sivers said,

ever since that moment, I make a habit to ask the bold question because that's how relationships get closer. It's from that little bit of risk. So I would encourage anyone who might be willing to or interested in asking their parents, or interviewing them to take a little bit of time, maybe do a 10-minute journal session and write down questions that might be too bold to ask them.

I love it. I love it. What a great... I think that's going to be a great place to wrap this one up. I think that's... Actually, my dad is coming back into town tomorrow, and I've committed to applying some of these principles to go through this process with him. So you've already impacted me, and I know you're going to impact many others. Thanks.

So thank you. Thank you. It was really fun doing this show with you. And one thing I had been wanting to say to you that I didn't get to say is I read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow this year, which maybe some people in this world will know. It's a book about game designers, and it is maybe my favorite book of all time. Have you read this book yet? I have not.

Oh, my God. And people who are gamers, tomorrow and tomorrow is such a fantastic novel about these two young game designers that... It's really a book about creativity. It's about how to deal with the highs and lows of making a big game, which they end up doing. So that's my...

That is my book wreck for everyone out here. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, It is just a wonderful read. Okay, great. Well, I'm buying that right now. So in addition to buying what I recommend as a book to you buy, which is one last question before you go, why you should interview your parents, which is when it's available for pre-order now, we'll have a link of the show notes and it's launching November.

November 18th. Yeah, it's available for pre-order now. November 18th is the launch day and we're going to do a big store tour at Patagonia stores. all around the country. So if you happen to be in one of the cities, like please come out, would love to meet you in person. Well,

okay, then you know what, since we already did the wrap up, but I'm interested since you added an extra thing. Like, you know, I didn't really dig into the whole marketing and launch side of this.

Because I think that part's also fascinating too, right? Like how are you, you know, touring Patagonia stores, something pretty unique to you. Obviously you're on a podcast, you know, this podcast,

not exactly your audience, kind of a different vibe potentially. What, how did you approach, You know, you said you're a different persona. The person that wrote the book is over here. Now, the person that's marketing the book is over here. How does marketing, Kyle, approach this project?

And, yeah, maybe we can spend a few minutes on that because I always find that part really fascinating. I love talking about this stuff. So, yes, let's do it. I, going back to what I said around feeling a bit like it's someone else's book at this point is an intentional choice. And it's intentional because when I am hired by brand to sell one of their products to do an ad campaign around what they're doing, part of the reason that I'm hired is because I'm not too close to that product. If you're a founder of a company, whatever it is that you have built is your baby. And you have such a close perspective to this child, you know, that it's impossible to,

it's really hard to see it from another perspective. And I think that's why the line that advertisers use is you can't see your label from inside the bottle. When it comes to marketing a deeply personal book, I have had to pull myself away from that material. And Tim Ferriss talks about this a lot where he won't let himself think about the marketing until he's done with the creative process. And I really took that to heart because I think it's just so easy and so seductive to start thinking about the marketing stuff while you're in the deeply creative part. And I have had to not think about this until now, I guess I've been thinking about it more

for like the last four months as the book's done and now I am in my mind I am selling someone else's book because otherwise it's just too you know if I get rejected from a podcast or if a news outlet doesn't want to interview me like it just feels too painful like oh maybe I'm not good enough they don't like it and and to depersonalize the experience of marketing allows me to just go out there like I'm selling someone else's thing So that's from a psychological perspective now. I feel like it's someone else's book. Yeah, but how do you do you do that, right?

Like, how do you get yourself to that place? Because as you said, you can't see your own label from inside the bottle or like, you know, I feel this a lot. As an entrepreneur, like I love my games. I love the products I put out there. My relationship for them is not the same as my customer's relationship to them and what's going to sell it. Like, how do you, is there some process that gets you out, gets you to do the thing that previously other people have to hire you to do for their project? Hmm.

I would recommend just as best you can pretend like it's someone else's just for shits and giggles pretend like it's someone else's

and then write down a bunch of really bad marketing ideas for this someone else's project whatever that and write down like

50 bad ideas like I had an idea just this morning where I was like maybe I should burn the whole first draft of my book like almost do it like a ceremony like because you have all these pages of old drafts right so like maybe I should take it to the beach and just like burn it and that would be a funny marketing idea okay maybe I should get uh what if I got like professional athletes to interview their parents so like I'm just thinking loosely about marketing from like a perspective of like it's okay to have bad ideas. around this thing. But creativity is a game of tonnage. And when it comes to marketing, this thing, I just want to have a boatload of potential marketing ideas and allow them to be bad. So that's one thing I would say, is just do those, do a writing session. You're writing how much bad ideas. Then when it comes to what I'm actually doing on like a tactical, from a tactical standpoint

the last few months I've been spending a huge amount of time finding people who I think will enjoy the book and offering to mail it to them and not asking for anything in return because one thing that is really hard to do is to pitch yourself on all these like podcasts and most people I think get just a time

of they just get so many requests and it doesn't feel good to get those requests all the time. So the way that I'm going about it is much more of like a head, love to mail you a book, no questions asked, no expectations, but if you like it, we'll see. But just to try and be more generous, like have marketing feel like an act of generosity rather than an act of like, Give me, give me, give me, if that makes sense at all. It really is a, but from a mindset standpoint, like, thinking about this as like one of those, those candles that you like light up into the sky at night and just it sets off. And it's like, if people want to see it, that's great.

But it's not, there's no demand that you read my book. Like there's and there's no expectation that this should be the most important thing in your life. So I know that that is more of an energetic thing, but I think that's one thing I'm really trying to hold through this process is think of it as an act of generosity. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's so powerful. I mean, I can absolutely relate to that. It's the same advice I give. When people are like playtesting a new game that they've done, like you really need to pretend like it's somebody else, like some bizarre other designer or an alien that's come down with this.

thing and now how do you evaluate it and what do you do with it um taking a disentangling your ego from the outcome and then yeah this idea of like being generous which i think is really the key to to great marketing right is not just like i'm trying to get people to buy my thing or pay attention to me but i'm like trying to find the people for whom this thing will be actually valuable make the most valuable thing you can find the audience who will find the most value in that and then just you know put it in front of them give them that thing but that's all you can do right so i've heard that I've heard that something like 90% of book marketing is just word of mouth. Like there's only so much you can do to try and create this little sonic boom at the

beginning. But at the end of the day, it's going to be people who either want to talk about it or they don't. And one line I heard about art recently that I really liked is the deeper it goes within you is the further it travels into the world. I love that. Like, and that's the point of like going into that really scary spot early on that you really don't want to do is that later on it has the potential to travel out a little bit further. Yeah. Oh, that's a much more beautiful way to say the thing I was going to say, which is no amount of great marketing will save a terrible product. Which is, you know, listen, you have something that's great. People want to share it.

People want to expand it. people want, you know, that it is a, it is transformative and a gift. And so most of the time that I found, you know, I've spent a lot of time trying to think about how better, to get better at marketing, how to better reach audiences, you know, all of those things. And I what I found most often is just, you know, do good work, try to serve the people that you want to serve and keep getting better at that and putting yourself out there and opening up more to what's what you're capable of. And it's, it tends to work out. Can't exactly. explain why or how or when, but that's what tends to work, work the best in my experience.

And people should listen to you because you're, you're doing it and you've done it. Like, I know that sounds stupid, but like, you should listen to this guy. There you go. Listen to me. You're listening to this podcast, probably they have some interest in that already. So hopefully that's, this is serving them. But I also think that people should listen to you, Kyle. I'm so impressed.

by, you know, the time we've gotten to spend together, the gift that this book is, and I really do mean that. I mean, this is such a powerful frame that, you know, for anybody that gets to build that extra bit of connection to their parents, to their family, gets to ask the questions that you might never get to ask, right? I'm very lucky. I have both my parents are still alive, but they are, you know, they're getting old, right? And for some people, they've lost that opportunity already.

And so I think for everybody out there that has that chance to build that. connection and you're going to help them do that. So I'm grateful to get to help spread that message as best I can. And thanks for coming and talking about it. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platforms, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listener reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews, along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry, and

compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast, Think Like a Game Designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at think like a game designer.com or wherever find books or sold. You know,