Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Jonas Koffler: Hustle Your Way To Success | Career | E45

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

Success = hustle X luck X your unique talents!⁣ Tune in to learn how to find your POP (Personal Opportunity Portfolio) with Jonas Koffler.⁣⁣ This week we're yapping with Jonas Koffler. Jonas is the co-author of HUSTLE: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum, and has been featured in outlets like Time, FastCompany, Business Insider, and NPR among others. He is a serial entrepreneur and hustler with ventures that include the digital health and mental wellness startups Lada Labs and Radical Wellness Inc. Jonas is also a stroke survivor.⁣ In this episode, Hala and Jonas discuss how to develop a healthy POP, why we should rethink Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule to mastery to support becoming a multi-faceted and talented worker and how we can manufacture our own luck. They also dig into what Jonas has learned from his near death experience, and why mental wellness has become his purpose in life.⁣⁣ Fivver: Get services like logo creation, whiteboard videos, animation and web development on Fivver: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrcpa⁣ Fivver Learn: Gain new skills like graphic design and video editing with Fivver Learn: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrlearn⁣ If you liked this episode, please write us a review!⁣ Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety⁣ Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap⁣ Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting⁣ Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail]⁣ Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/⁣ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala⁣ Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com

Hey, young and profiters. If you're an avid listener of our show, I would like to personally invite you to Yap Society on Slack. Network with other professionals who listen to Yap, chat live with guests, and share your projects with the group. We'd love to have you. Go to Bitley slash Yap Society. That's BIT.L.Y slash Yap Society. You can find the link in our show notes. This episode of Yap is sponsored by Fiverr. I've been using Fiverr for years. In fact, I got the Yap logo made on there. and if you've seen my cool audiograms with animated cartoons, I get those images from Fiverr too. They have affordable digital marketing services and over 100,000 talented freelancers to choose from.

The best part is that it's super affordable. If you're interested to give Fiverr a shot, hit the link in our show notes. Did you know that the rate of reviews plays a huge factor in YAP's Apple Podcast ranking? If you listen to YAP on Apple Podcasts, but never gave us a review, we would greatly appreciate if you left one

and took a few minutes of your time to share your feedback. This will help us secure sponsorships and remain a free resource to you all. Thanks in advance for your Apple Podcast Review. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm your host, Halitaha, and today we're speaking with Jonas Koffler.

Jonas is the co-author of Hustle, the power to charge your life with money, meeting, and momentum, and has been featured in outlets like time, fast company, business insider and NPR among others. He's a serial entrepreneur and a hustler whose ventures include the digital health and mental wellness startups, Lada Labs, and Radical Wellness Incorporated. Jonas is also a stroke survivor. In this episode, we discuss how to develop a healthy pop or personal opportunity portfolio, why we should rethink Gladwell's 10,000 hour role to mastery to support being a multifaceted and talented worker, and how we can manufacture our own luck. We also dig into

what Jonas has learned from his near-death experience and why mental wellness has become his purpose and life. Hey, Jonas. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. A pleasure speaking with you, Hala. I'm very happy to be here and eternally grateful for you having me. Likewise. I can't wait for this interview. You know, I've heard you on other podcasts and you have such a great message. So looking forward to this chat. Let's start off by introducing you to our listeners in a really fun way. You have this concept. It's called pop. you cover in your book Hustle that you co-authored with Neil Patel and Patrick Valskofowitz. Hopefully I said that, okay.

Blaskowitz. Vlaskovitz. So POP stands for your personal opportunity portfolio, which you recommend as a framework to profit in life. So tell us what different entrepreneurial adventures are you involved in and what makes up your pop right now? Sure. So, I mean, I think there are a couple ways to think about it. but as a guiding framework, it's a way of organizing and making sense of the effort and energy

you put out into the world, whether it's artistic projects or creative projects, entrepreneurial projects, or intellectual projects, however you may look at it, the idea is to continuously build and grow and add value into this portfolio, much like you would, you know, an investment portfolio. So the idea is that it's something that you have direct physical control over, right? You're growing your basket of how you invest in yourself. And it's an interesting way of looking at the world because it's incredibly empowering on the one hand, right? And the other side of it is that you uniquely are in control of it. So you can adjust, you know, quote unquote to sort of actively manage your own portfolio, so to speak. And you don't have to put your future

in the hands of other people. That's the unique differentiator. And how does that apply to my own life? Well, you know, we're constantly and continuously growing and changing and shifting the things we focus on in our worlds. And so for me right now, just to name a couple of projects, one is a documentary film called We Care Here, which is about musicians and mental health and community in Austin, Texas. Austin, the live music capital of the world, is also undergrowing this incredible growth right now

and a higher cost of living, and that impacts musicians' abilities to support and sustain themselves and their creative pursuit. And so this is putting a lens on a very distinct locality and a very distinct situation wherein Austin is wonderful and it continues evolving, but how does it evolve in a way that is supportive of the cultural root or heart, if you will, of the city and in a way that honors the tradition, so to speak, without losing its soul, right? And that's a tough thing when you're trying to sustain growth and also attract technology and these disruptive forces that have both incredibly positive aspects, but also some negative aspects.

So it's that story and looking at. looking at how musicians can continue thriving amidst these shifts, right? Cool. That's one thing. And then the other is a new startup called LaudeLab. And Laude Labs is a mobile development and software company that is focused on looking at how we can better empower individuals and communities to live healthier, more active lives and engage with people like mine. And so that's what we've developed our technology around.

that's what we're continuing to suss out and figure out how we can better serve people. So that's very early in its arc and we'll be launching our beta at some point in early 2020. That's excellent. And we'll be covering, you know, both of those projects and more detail later on in the interview. First, let's get some idea of your background. So in your own words, you had a lot of weird jobs throughout your life. So tell us about some of the things that you worked on and some of the different jobs that you've had over the years. Sure. So mapping or hewing to this idea of the personal opportunity portfolio without knowing it, the constant act of self-discovery, right, know thyself, is revealed when we put ourselves out and we try things that are uncomfortable, that bring us discomfort, that challenge us in unique and sometimes owner's ways.

So that could be anything from working as a stone mason or digging ditches or something physically very demanding of our bodies, right? A lot of us are out of touch with our bodies because we're so trapped in our heads and staring into a screen of electrons for 23 hours a day, right? So it starts with an arc in various physical labor and then transcends into, long or short, into creative endeavors and being a musician and a filmmaker. and then working in technology and startups and having some health setbacks and so forth, including a stroke that informs what you're capable of, when you need to step back and slow down a little bit, and then to continue on a path of learning and growing, such that you're able to work with incredible people, including, in my case, some moguls in different industries, entertainers who have pulled up some incredible artistic feats and then always asking the question, do I feel sustained here and supported? Do I feel like

I'm making a meaningful contribution? And then, you know, looking at new ways to push yourself. So that's manifested in many, many sort of different careers, if you will, or many lives, if you will, in the cat-like sense for me. But the key here has been this idea of doing something that moves you. So for me, it's asking, you know, asking the questions, you know, am I maintaining that movement toward a goal, right? Bettering my life in ways that I can and ways that challenge me is I think the worst thing we can is to settle. And I think, you know, you know that.

You love what you do. You can hear the passion and the curiosity in your voice, in your interviews. So, you know, for me, it's very much that. Yeah. So you had all these jobs. At what point did you take control of your life and decide that you were going to be an entrepreneur and have, you know, it sounds like you do like multiple projects. You always have multiple hustles going on. At what point did you say, I'm going to stop doing a nine to five and I'm just going to be the owner of my life?

As far as a distinct point of departure, let's call it, I think that was probably, I mean, the seed was planted very early on. I had the blessing of being able to work at a startup very early on, become a product manager in my 20s. And I think growing the confidence where I could put myself out there, that probably happened, you know, my early 20s. I think the clear point of wanting to become an entrepreneur and understanding on the one hand, the incredible liberation that you reap from being an entrepreneur is something that takes time

to sort of blossom in your life. For me, it was probably late 20s when I kind of got the entrepreneurial itch. and then, you know, post-stroke, and then have kind of parlayed that in different ways. But keep in mind, you know, being entrepreneurial is not, you know, in my mind, it's not that you're a pure entrepreneur. You may vacillate, you may at one point be working for yourself. And especially in this dynamic economy we're all part of now, you know, it's not uncommon to you have some kind of entrepreneurial pursuit or project you're working on either

individually as a solo artist or in collaboration, but also you may maintain a job that really gives you meaning and challenges you and also helps sustain the physical frame. It pays you a decent amount of money and you're part of a mission that you really believe in. So I think for me, you know, entrepreneurship has been great. But at the same time, I'm very open to collaboration with companies and with individuals. So it's a, you know, it's not one path. It's actually many, I think, baked in if that answers the question. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about your stroke. You've mentioned it a few times. It happened when you were 26.

It left you temporarily blind, loss of some verbal capabilities, and I'm sure you can explain it better. I'd like you to explain, like, what happened with your stroke, but I also wanted to just connect it to a point. I had Robert Green on my show, and he's the author of 48 laws of power. And we talk about this law of death denial. And in essence, this law is about humans not facing reality, humans avoiding thoughts of death, we fear death, and that we're all in this death denial, this constant death denial.

And Robert suggested that we should accept our deaths and think of our deaths, keep death on our minds, so that we live with more purpose and urgency to realize our goals. I believe your stroke was a near-death experience. So I'm wondering, like, does that resonate with you? And, you know, could you explain more about your stroke and what happened and how it's altered your life since then? Sure, happy to do so. So I do agree very much with the point that Robert and many other perennial philosophers have surfaced and shared. And the idea is very simple that, and especially in our society, we are in age-denying,

death-denying, in many cases, illness-denying culture. Well, you know, guess what? We're all going to die. We're all marching that same path forward and indeterminate future when at some point the bus runs us over, right? It's just going to happen. So it's important to make that point. And there's a lot more to it having lost one of my younger brothers to suicide in the last year, plus.

I can comment on the pitfalls of that denial. And I also think that it's a very important point to make, which is that life is incredibly short. It's ephemeral. And for us, as unique individuals, and I would argue spiritual beings having a human experience, that the stroke for me was, in fact, a way of God. God stroking me and saying, hey, you need to take better care of yourself. That's my interpretation, right?

Universe or energetically, however you want to define God, for me, it was a very clear indicator that, hey man, your life is not, you know, you're not aligned right with health. You need to step back. You need to check yourself. And so for me, it was a great humbling experience, and I think we need more humbling experiences because they bring us back to what really matters in terms of priorities and values and how we should orient our lives, right, if we want to enjoy life and sort of nurture ourselves and so forth. So that was the experience. It was an eschemic stroke as opposed to

hemorrhagic. Schemic strokes typically are more short-lived. There are given today's stressors and other compounding factors are a number of younger folks who are at risk and suffering from these types of experiences and setbacks. And, you know, on the New York Times article that I wrote, it solicited or it generated a hell of a lot of responses and emails and so forth and calls that that I had to deal with from other young people who have been suffering from similar symptom. And so, I mean, I think the lesson here, Tala is like, you know, you need to know to listen to your body and to your mind and to not be so sort of gung-ho about it

or cavalier. Clearly that was one like bifurcating point in my life. You know, it was time to make a, to take a right turn, so to speak and to slow down, put the brakes on. So that's one of the lessons

without something too cliche. I think the important thing is also understanding that it's actually okay to slow down, right? There's all this emphasis on like pedals to the metal and don't stop. And that's great. But it's actually more, about and much like you would with a company for your career, it's really kind of the, it's

hustling fast and slow, right? There are times when you have to move quickly and you have to work to get things done, you know, if you have deadlines, et cetera, but there are also times when it's important to step back and create some white space on the calendar, so to speak, when you can plug back into health and taking care of yourself and being around people who love and support you and vice versa and doing things that get your mind off of work. So, I mean, all of that is sort of, you know, some of the lessons learned. But I think the biggest thing is, the extent that, you know, Robert Green, as we open with, was discussing, like, this idea of death denial.

Well, there's also this denial that many of us really are far too focused on work. And if we're at the point where it's 99% of our lives, you know, we're going to be suffering, whether we know it or like it or not. So, you know, it's, I think it's, for those listening to this, it's worth taking a moment and stepping back and thinking about gratitude for all the things that aren't work in your life and maybe spending more time or carving out in your calendar ways to accelerate those things that aren't work and put your heart into taking care of some other people. And if you're not going to take care of yourself, at least start there.

Yeah. What were the events that led up to your stroke? For my understanding, you were working a job where you were working like 70 hours a week and you were taking naps instead of sleeping. So the circumstances were such that, you know, look, you're in a startup mentality, you're young and ambitious, and there is this invisibility cloak that you drape on yourself every day. So the challenge was if you're not sleeping well, you're working crazy hours, and then you're also sort of moonlighting with the dream of becoming a film director, something has to give. And in my case, the circumstances were overcaffeinating, not sleeping, not eating well, exhausting myself to the point where, you know, I thought I'd recover at some point on my own terms.

And the thing that we need to, again, be aware of is that we have human limitation. Yeah. And sleep is probably, you know, there's a multi-billion dollar industry now around sleep. It should be unsurprising to us, right? Well, why is that? It's because we're so out of alignment with that. idea that, you know, seven to eight hours of sleep a night is actually required. It just is. And, you know, you can caffeinate yourself to the point where you think it isn't, but you need your

rest. And at the time, I didn't think I did. And it's very simple that, you know, given stress of work and stress of not resting and so forth, those stressors are going to compound and bite you in the ass at some point. And in my case, it bit me in the brain. And, you know, I was, very, very fortunate to recover to the extent that I have. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a theme that, you know, especially younger people, they think that they're invincible, but you're really not. And getting your rest is important, you know, like you said, seven to eight hours at minimum. I actually have an entire episode around this. It's called Unlocking the Power of Sleep with Daniel Gartenberg. It's one of our most popular

episodes. If you guys are interested, check it out. It's number 12 on the playlist. So what was your process of recovery like? I read that you used. yoga and meditation and you used to do complex math problems. So I thought it was really interesting if you could just explain how you basically cured yourself. Well, I wouldn't, I don't know if I characterize it occurring, but what I would say is, you know, very simply, you need to explore or test the parameters of your mental capacity, especially when you've had a TBI or traumatic brain injury. So this idea that you can regenerate the neural tissue, right? Neuroplasticity. able at some point to challenge this idea that, you know, your brain is permanently damaged. For me,

it was, okay, I'm young. I understand, and I did, look, I studied neuroscience. So, you know, that made me that put me in an advantageous position. But I didn't know what I was capable of or what I, you know, what I had lost at that point. So the articulation challenges, right, as a linguist, like, okay, well, language actually really matters. It's important. It's a priority for me. I have to be able to convey my thoughts effectively. But if I don't, if I lack the word, if I don't have the capacity to verbalize what I'm thinking, which was actually the problem. I could, I could think of an idea, but I couldn't convey it, right? It wouldn't leave my lip. Do you follow? So I had to start very simply. One was to read old books that I'd enjoyed, but maybe I, you know, because the damage

I had experienced, I forgot or start learning new words or re-learning language. which that I had lost. That was one aspect, and one part of the brain, so to speak, studying physics, reading physics, or trying to work through complex math problems, as you mentioned. Actually, it's incredibly stimulating. I recommend it, by the way, you don't have to suffer a stroke to work through complex math, even if you're sort of more verbally oriented, it's always good to challenge your brain and to revisit calculus or trigonometry, whatever moves you in that regard. It's a fun exercise to do. But in my case, I love physics.

So those types of things. One specific task that are activity that I found fun and challenging was to find polysyllabic words and to spell them backwards. So, you know, I would do that often, no, arachnophobia, Czechoslovakia, were two of the big ones that I would just repeat over and over and then add additional words until I could get up to 20 or 30 words, spelling them backwards at a time. And then I knew, okay, well, my brain is still kind of working. So this is good. This is encouraging, right? Sort of like doing a system check on a rocket ship. You know, are we all systems go? You know, what can be repaired, what can be fixed,

et cetera. So it was that kind of thing. And then from a more metaphysical or energetic standpoint, my girlfriend at the time would do Reiki on me. So energetic therapy, yoga and meditation were instrumentally important. Why? Because they slowed down and taught me how to use breath work, right, as a healing tool. So understanding that most of our days are spent using breath as a very sort of passive, unconscious experience. But instead, if you make it a more active and conscious experience, so maybe taking, you know, spending literally 30 minutes or an hour a day, just breathing, right? If you can do that, it really has a profound impact on your thoughts and feeling, calms you, it removes anxiety. It also can be

very energizing and very centering. So all of those things are incredibly important, especially for busy professional. I applied then. I learned that early on. And I was very fortunate in that regard. So again, well, yeah, the stroke was a setback. But was it? I think in many ways it was a tool of empowerment. As crazy as that sound. Yeah. You know, that's so inspiring. And you should be so proud that, you know, you went through such a traumatic experience and came out almost better as a result. So you should be very proud of that accomplishment. And for everybody listening, I think a key lesson in this is just take time to slow down, you know, take half an hour out of your day, take an hour out of your day just to breathe, to meditate,

to think about things, to enjoy, do something fun, whether it's working out or talking to somebody that you love. Make sure that your life is not only about work, not everything is about being productive and making money sometimes it's just about enjoying your life. I think that's a really important lesson in all this. So let's move on to your book Hustle. It's split into three parts, the heart, the head, and the habits. I'm not going to spend the whole interview on this book because there's a lot to cover,

but I do want to give my listeners key takeaways. Let's start off with the heart, which is all about following your own dreams rather than others. And one of my personal mottoes is that hustle and heart sets you apart. So I'd love to hear your perspective on heart and what that has to do with hustle. Sure. So the premise is this. It doesn't start in the head. It actually starts in the heart. And what we mean is that the heart should be one of the huge pieces that guides us or moves us forward. If you think about what really drives you and motivates you deep down, I think everyone wants a sense of validation or recognition or respect. those things are vitally important, a dignity.

And the piece about the heart, the theme is very simply packed up in the first unseen law of hustle, which is do something that moves you. Right. So this idea of movement, energy, physical manifestation, that only comes from the heart. The heart pumps our blood through our body and oxygen, allows us to do the things that we need to do on a daily basis. but so many of us are out of touch with that and frustrated. And so I think the thing is to start at the center, which is the heart. And the heart of life and the heart of the experience is to do something that charges your

life with a sense of energy, enthusiasm. And for us as entrepreneurs, this idea that we can actually change the world, right, in our own small way. And that all is baked into this idea of doing something that moves you. So for those who are feeling stuck, tap back into the heart, get out of your comfort zone, and start doing something that moves you, and maybe just place some small bets on yourself. That's the main thing. Just get moving. That's the heart idea. Yeah. In the book, you guys use an analogy that suggests that working for another person or

company is quote unquote, renting your dream. And you can't rent and own your dream at the same time. For me, I'm essentially renting and owning at the same time. I work full time at Disney and then I have a side job of running this podcast. So what are your feelings of side hustles? Yeah, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees.

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annual plan. That's 30% off in 2026. Again, that's framer.com slash profiting for 30% off. Framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. Sure. I mean, again, it's this idea that, look, it's okay to start small. Anything that you do that begins to propel you forward, like any small step you take, whether it's a simple conversation, whether it's, you know, blocking an hour of time to write every day, whether it's doing some kind of project and collaboration with others, that puts you in motion, right? So the idea that the end-all be-all is ownership of your dream. Yes, fundamentally, you uniquely as an individual should be unapologetically ambitious about taking ownership

of your dream and your life. But ownership may require you at times to be a little patient. And if that means working for other people or working on something that you may not be 100% enthusiastic about, that's okay. It's a stepping stone. It's a lesson and a learning curve that you will undertake. And the important thing is just to keep your head clear about that, right? The clarity you gain from it. So, you know, one thing that I recommend there as far as the ownership piece is for where you are right now,

it's just to you sort of try to block your life or break it up into yearly goal. And look, that's a much longer conversation. But the point is, don't overthink the why. The more important thing is just to start doing and moving toward these goals or objectives that are important to you and hold yourself accountable, right? That's the important thing. And then, you know, the other thing that I think is really important about this ownership idea is that you have time, right? At least to the extent that, you know, you understand how time works. You have time to do this.

You're going to have some time to do the things you want to do. But don't put it off at the same time. time, right? So there's sort of like the idea that within any day or week or month or even year, you will have time to explore things that are important to you. That in and of itself is an expression or statement of ownership, right? It is a declaration that I am going to pursue these things. And you know what? Even if you're working for a job that you hate, you can still carve out time that you need. And I imagine any enlightened boss or manager will say, you know what, you should be exploring that. Go allow yourself to do that. As long as you're accountable and

responsible for the work you're doing, like we are here to support and ensure that we inspire and encourage other people to move forward in their lives. Why the hell else will we be here? Totally. Yeah, I'm on the same page. I think that there's sometimes in life you've got to juggle both, but I think everybody's end goal is to ultimately get paid for what they're passionate about and have complete ownership of their dreams. So I'm totally on the same page. So let's move on. to another topic. Your book mentions Malcolm Gladwell and how he popularized the work of psychologist Kay Anders Erickson, who said that world-class achievement in any field could be had by anyone who dedicated 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. He called this the 10,000 hour rule, which

many of us have probably heard of, basically saying that you can master anything if you put in 10,000 hours of work. But you guys who wrote this book, you were opposed to this idea. And And you also proposed an alternative. So can you just talk to our listeners about that? Sure. I'm happy to challenge Gladwell. I actually have a funny anecdote about Gladwell. Gladwell is a uniquely talented, exceptional,

arguably one of the best packager of ideas out there. Okay? And he's a fabulous storyteller. And I enjoy reading his work very much. And I'm actually a fan of outliers. However, the science behind the 10,000 hour rule has largely debunked this whole notion of like, you know, it's 10,000 hours to get good at something.

Here's the issue, okay? Number one is if you're, if you don't know what you're capable of, right? You should not commit to doing one thing too early in your career or your art. You should instead try a lot of different things. And in doing so, you determine what you have talent for and how you want to invest your time. The 10,000 hour rule is not only sort of untrue and misguided and dangerous for most people, but it can be a great limiter. So the thing to remember is for a lot of us,

because talent is unequally distributed. You may be good at 10 things you're unaware of right now. Seriously. And many of us have all of these hidden talent. The challenge for us and what hustle is really about is this notion of surfacing our hidden talents or surfacing our human potential. But most of us get stuck in this trap

of just trying one or two or three things. And that in and of itself is a prison. So what I would say is this, 10,000 hours is, you know, it's a huge amount of time. So instead, why not start with a few dozen or a few hundred hours to get adequately good at something that you can sustain yourself with? Meaning you can make money from, right, whether it's a professional pursuit or it's an artistic pursuit or whatever. So it's not simply about mastery. Pursuit of mastery is a false goal. And you can waste a lot of time focusing on this, what we call the master's.

of mastery in the book. Instead, I think the more important thing is that you figure out what you're good at, where your talents reside, and then focusing on those things. So that maps back to the whole idea of the personal opportunity portfolio. For each of us, I think it's worth, again, this self-reflection activity, which is to say, here are three buckets I want to wrap my professional life around at this moment, because we're going to change constantly and evolve throughout our lives. One is writing. Okay, I'm a decent writer. Okay. I can tell stories. I can ghostwrite a bestseller. I can, you know, work on a film script, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, that's great. I have this skill set. I've applied it. Here's how I'm sustaining myself. Two, I'm a good marketer, right? I'm just saying anyone hypothetically when you think about it. I've done X, Y, and Z, or three is I am exceptional about understanding how to grow and scale business, right? So, and here are three examples of that. And I can start constructing this portfolio around these talents. And the proof, as we speak about in the evidence of that, the track record, if you will, of how I've done those things. So don't commit to

only one thing. Unless you're going to be, you know, there are certain cases where this might apply. There are a few exceptions, right? Chess, a chess master in the sense of like a Casparov, right? Or a uniquely talented pianist, like my nephew, right? Who's also now picked up trumpet. So there you go with the 10,000 hour rule. There are. exceptions, but in general for most people, we can pursue a few different talents, a few different pursuits, a few different reflections of the things that we're really good at. Those will sustain us. We'll not only be adequate, we'll actually be very, very good at them, and we can pursue them throughout our lives and continue adding skills and adding other ways to express our

talent instead of just pitching-hulling ourselves. So that's the danger of the 10,000-hour rules. If you want to, you know, more research, just look up 10,000 hour rule debunked. And you'll see that the very scientists who looked at this, you know, from whom Bible-based work, largely debunked the idea. So don't get trapped into thinking that. It's a control system. I would instead encourage people to liberate themselves and think about uniquely, what am I good at? What have I not explored?

What are some new ways to figure out what I'm good at and start there? Yeah. And I think that's really great advice, especially in today's gig economy world. There's so many freelance opportunities out there in so many ways that you can make money online using skills that aren't necessarily a hundred percent perfect yet. There's so many different levels of job opportunities out there that you can explore and make money off of even if you're not, you know, the best person in the world at a certain skill. So I think that's great advice. How does luck and risk play into all of this? So this is really kind of interesting and few sides of the, I wouldn't say the same coin per se, but there's a lot there.

So when we think about, well, handle a lot for a second. Let's start with kind of risk. The whole idea of risk is that for most people, risk is really the deciding factor in one sense of confidence and one sense of confidence as well. Risk is a hugely important and often overlooked, let's call it, an attribute. for a skill, if you will. To engage in risk and to develop an appetite for risk is actually a really good thing. It's critically important, especially,

especially for entrepreneurs from a survival standpoint, but also sort of a learning and growing standpoint. And so I think one of the things that I want to focus on when it comes to risk is this idea that, while risk can be overwhelming and terrifying for most people, that if you don't take it, it can be the biggest determinant of your disability. dissatisfaction in life. Most of us, I think, are afraid of failure and therefore won't put ourselves out.

We don't want to see ourselves fail. We don't want to deal with the connotations of failure around our identities and so forth. And instead, I would say, if that's you, the better way to think about risk is to start with very small examples, small feet or small challenge, small bets that you place on yourself. So you don't have to take massive risk. We're not asking you to run through a wall of fire and to jump off a thousand-foot cliff with no parachute. Like that's ridiculous. And no one should do that. But, you know, maybe it's as simple as asking questions of how you work, how you do work every day.

Are there better ways to try things, right? Or, you know, maybe it's challenging your company or yourself to take on a new project in innovation. And you know, it's things that you can, you're willing to fail at because if the other side of risk is exquisite. Meaning if it works out, you're going to gain so much. Even if it doesn't, even you fail, you're still going to, you know, you're going to learn a hell a lot. And that's what I encourage people to think about. When it comes to luck, we have kind of a theory about luck. That is that luck is a component of our DNA and it bubbles up from deep within our bone matter when we need it.

And so the idea is this, that life is not about being lucky or unlucky. Life is about continually striving toward things that are important to you and surfacing luck. Be the DNA in the process. And so luck is sort of the survival mechanism, survival tool. We baked luck into and broke it down into four different components, right? And this is largely based on the work of James Austin, who's at Stanford. But the idea is simple, that there is a very, there's sort of a constant stream of we call dumb or random luck. It's the luck of, you know, it's Thanksgiving and you're, you're looking

for the elusive turkey and you drive into a whole foods that is packed through capacity and a parking spot opens. You walk in the door and you're greeted with the last turkey available. And guess what? You get it. That's the first, sort of random or dumb luck, right? The second level of luck is the luck of motion. That's hustle luck. And this is the luck that you manifest generate simply through movement. you know, back to this whole idea, the first unseen law and hustle, which is do something that moves you. When you get out, move around and take things up, which to us is essentially what hustle means, you're going to surface possibilities that you can see before, here before, and find before. That's the luck of motion. The third level of luck is called hidden luck.

And hidden luck is a little more sophisticated. It's the luck of creative synthesis. It's being able to take two disparate ideas, concepts, or some secret knowledge that only you know, and connect it in a meaningful way that makes sense and adds value in the world. And the last component of luck, which is the luck that I think most people should embrace is this idea of quirky luck. It's our individuality. It's the luck that defines who we are, the luck that people characterize us with, right? It's the things that make us who we are, whether it's, you know, it's dressing in a certain way or speaking with in a certain way or, you know, having some attributes like using a sense of humor for Christ's sake, right? Or being able to take or willing to take some risks and do the

things that that set you apart, not to be an asshole, but to be a decent human being, but also be willing to be unconventional and to be yourself authentically, fully, right? Not simply mimicking, you know, Steve Jobs at the black turtleneck and jeans and speaking tech parlance. No, it's being yourself. That's the key, for key luck. And if you do that, guess what? Be yourself, people are going to like you and they're going to respect you. And so it's an incredibly empowering force.

Yeah. I totally agree. I think that all those different levels of luck are super interesting. So thanks for sharing. Let's move on to the second pillar of your book, The Head. Could you just summarize the key takeaways about that principle? Sure. I mean, the idea is that if the first law of hustles do something that moves you,

The second law of hustle is keep your head up and look for opportunity. That's kind of having a strategic lens, right? A tactical lens on life. So being able to put yourself out and to connect possibilities and to think in ways that are unconventional and think in ways that will benefit you by creating opportunity or generating more opportunity in your life. So again, moving away from the notion of complacency or being inured by conditioning that you should settle. Things are how they are and they won't change. Instead,

looking at the world as this blank, infinite canvas of possibility. So whether that means that you and I have this podcast and five minutes after we get off, we hatch a new idea for a new media platform. And then we build on that, right? Or we test it out and try and see where it goes. Or it's being willing to, you know, simply listen effectively. I don't think people listen enough these days, right? Listen to conversations and think about ways that you, you know, simply listen. You know, you can enhance or add value in the world or help someone else out. Those are the ways that you apply this head layer by looking for opportunity and listening in, you know, maybe places that you typically wouldn't go.

You know, so it's not simply networking. It's being effective in a way that uses your talents and allows you to leverage your, your abilities to help other people or companies in the world. That's the head layer. And then let's move on to the habits, which we sort of touched on. it demonstrates how to spot opportunities and create your own luck. Sure. So, you know, if you've got the first two down, right?

So if you're doing something that moves here, it's the heart layer, right, following the force for good, if you will. And you've, you've then moved on to allow yourself to take risks and small bets in the head layer. Then it's about focusing on the personal opportunity portfolio. But the habit layer is not about breaking old habits and forming new ones alone. I mean, there are countless books on those topics, but instead thinking about the habit of building into the four components of the pop.

And so the pop, again, is the personal opportunity portfolio. And so what is it? So the key piece there is seal the deal and make it real. What does that mean? It means turning an opportunity into some kind of concrete transaction or some way to create optionality, meaning upside growth in your life. And the basic idea is pop is about building. into four different things, right?

The first piece of it is the potential. So the opportunity of increasing your capability. That's the first thing. The first layer. The second layer is the people layer, right? The opportunity of community. So that means building your relationships in the world in a meaningful way, attracting more people to your platform,

figuring out how to leverage your relationships to add value to other people's lives, not only your own. You've got potential in people. And then you move into the actionable project layer. and this is the opportunity of creativity. This is where you put your skills and talents out in the world and your network and so forth, and you build things that are meaningful, and you're creating some kind of legacy. And then that ties into the final piece of the personal opportunity portfolio, which is proof.

So forget about the resume. The resume is a dead 2D version of your life. Instead of thinking three-dimensional, the opportunity of increasing your credibility by pointing to things that you have done or help create in the world. That's proof. It's the most important aspect of this thing. And so if you do it in a correct way, leveraging potential people and projects and proof,

you're going to create a very virtuous or harmonious circle where you're continuing adding value and increasing the perception of what you're worth in the world. And that's what it should look like. So if you think about it as sort of a pie cut into four big quarters, each of these is equally important. And I think the thing to keep in mind is that it never stopped. So moving away from complacency again and thinking about how can you explore these different pieces

and how can you constantly evolve and grow into them, the book gets much more in depth in each of these. But the basic idea is that you're not a static being. You're being whose identity is going to change over time. Your capabilities are going to change over time. Your relationships and network are going to grow over time. and your proof, your body of work, if you will, if you're an artist, is going to continuously grow over time. And so it's worth being mindful, aware that you're constantly putting, you're investing your time and energy and intellectual capabilities and so forth into this thing. So you might as well, you know, again, back to the stream ownership.

Like if you're going to own it, really own it. But invest yourself in these different pieces. Yeah. That was a great explanation. Thanks so much for that. Let's move off of the book and onto another topic that I know. is near and dear to your heart, and that's mental wellness. So why is helping others improve their mental health your purpose in life nowadays? So this is, you know, I would argue the sort of

the challenge of the time. Well, the epidemic. It's largely, I think, caused by a fractured or fragmented experience of humanity. I think, and part of this is a product of technology, but also part of it is this acceptance that we can't be empowered. I think we need to be more empowered and more in touch of community. And I think that starts with a couple things. One is focusing on belonging. So many of us are so isolated nowadays that it creates an incredible and palpable anxiety and depression and addiction and sort of any array of problems that we deal with.

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Even if it's challenging for people, it's like take a minute and actually listen. That really helps, especially to your friends and family. If you can't start there, then I don't know where to begin, but you get out of our ego mind and say, you know what, there's a big world around us. And I think the other side of it is many of us are in denial. You know, Green talked about death denial. But I think this sort of the illness denial is that many of us, again, are functional, but we're not healthy, right?

And so for society to be better, for us to prosper and to flourish, then I think, you know, we need to spend more time thinking about how we can do a better job of taking care of ourselves and others. And so the whole mental wellness thing for me was, look, you know, I was acutely aware and sensitive to, you know, those suffering around me

as, you know, when I was young growing up and had kind of a chaotic upbringing myself. And I knew that this would be a theme or a concept, current in my life, which is to say, okay, how can we deal with the issues of sort of suffering? How can we help people be stronger, more confident that they can take care of themselves and can be there for other people? How do we help foster this sense of belonging community? Because we know, based on the research, that helping people to develop a better sense of confidence that they can change their lives for the better, it can transform, is one piece. And the other

piece is having a healthy social network. I'm not talking about Facebook. I'm not talking about technology at all. I'm talking about physical people that they can reach out and talk to you every day, at least call on the phone and be there for is absolutely paramount to our well-being. And so, you know, again, this deals with the real, right, diving into the theater of the real, not the fake, not the artificial, but instead saying, if you have friends of yours who might be suffering or if you're concerned about, don't wait. reach out and make sure that you engage with them and see what you can do in small ways. It may be as simple as just listening.

I certainly, you know, at times as an entrepreneur, you know this. You deal with stress that feels at times insurmountable. And in many ways, very alienate. So it's like, how can you plug back into the little things in life that really matter? And in this case, it's a big thing because it's relationships, it's knowing that you are loved, it's knowing that people care about you and vice versa. That really matters a lot. And in this fast-moving fragmented world, it's very easy to overlook that.

So that would be one of the things that I would want to emphasize. One of the companies I co-founded called Radical Wellness Inc., you know, our entire focus was to help people deal with not acute, but chronic issues around anxiety and depression and mental health. And I don't think this is an issue that's going away anytime soon, you know, the general sense of like, you know, we need to do a better job here because there are a lot of people. suffering. It's not an easy thing that we can, quote unquote, cure, but it is certainly something that we can place more attention on, that we can be there for other people, and that we know there are any number or array of healing modalities that work, whether it's talk therapy, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy, whether it's simply getting out and being more active physically, spending more time in nature, cleaning your diet up and choosing, you know, making better choices about

what you put into your body to begin with. Sleep we've already talked about. All of these things are part of this wheel of health, if you will, that are critical and that people need to be focused on. Yeah. So how do you think that improving our mental wellness will help progress humanity? Do you think that this is completely necessary for us to positively evolve as a species? So, yeah, I mean, the short answer is, of course, if we're fragmented, alienated, disconnected, in many cases, you know, we've given up or we're so cynical. Like, how is that good for society? How is that good for any individual, right? Think about like the sick mind. No, I mean, the whole point of life is, I would argue, is to be present, to be in a place

of love and concern for yourself and others. And if you can do that, then of course you're going to help the world become a better place, right? What's the opposite of that? Is it, it's fear and hate, how is that moving us forward? Yeah. Right? That it just fundamentally doesn't work. So, you know, the question is, who is responsible? Well, uniquely, as individuals, we are responsible for our own well-being. But then beyond that, it's like we're responsible as sort of family units. We're responsible at community, at a community level. And we need to engage in the dialogue and not deny it. Right. We're responsible at, in the business community and taking care of our people. right? And it's not just, you know, front line. I'm talking about, you know, there are many

executives who suffer horrific, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness and so forth. So we're all part of this. This is part of being a human. To move society forward is to embrace empathy, to listen and show that you care, to embrace other people, to actually care about helping people feel better. And if you can't help me point them in a direction where they can get better care. There's so many ways to make a small difference. And I think that the simple thing that I want to do is to say, look, we can all do a better job. I'm not saying that it's going to be easy, but we're all in this together. And that's what we need to remember. Yeah, that's a great message. So tell us about Lada Labs and your upcoming documentary, We Care Here, Film. Sure. So a lot of Labs is a

as a mobile software development company, we're focused on empowering health and wellness and both at the individual level and also at the community level through shared experiences. And so we're, you know, very early stage. We've developed our MVP

and we'll be launching in early 2020 and are currently raising funds and we've been bootstrapped for some time now. But we're very confident this is a good space. It's essentially, when you think about health and wellness as in industry, it's a $5 trillion space. Wow.

People's needs will continue to be unmet until we've come to a point where we think that by giving people better options as far as taking care of themselves and better options in terms of activities and community, that we can help solve some of these needs. But again, we're in a, what I'd say is a fragile time to the degree

that we believe people need better outlets because there's too many people suffering. And that's one argument. The other argument is that we think that technology can be better used to help people feel better about themselves and to feel better about life. And so those are some of the things that we're thinking through as we weave technology and kind of our brand experience

into a launch. Now, we may be pivoting along the way. We don't know yet. But I think, you know, if you think about some of the apps out there, whether it's meditation space or mindfulness, you know, headspace and calm, or we've already talked about the sleep space, you know, Casper and some of the others out there. Like there's, there are innumerable things that we can do to enhance the quality of lives for people. And I think that's fundamentally of importance to me. It's part of my personal mission.

And when you talk about ownership, if I can leave a legacy where I've helped improve people's lives from a health standpoint and a sense of well-being, then I've done my job. Mm-hmm. That's awesome. And then you have an upcoming document. entry, when does that come out and what's that about? Yeah, so with my brother, Alex, Alexander, who's the director and producer and Don Harvey is our executive producer, and we have some incredible members of the team as far as advisors go, you know, from Lewis Black, go founder of Southwest to Elizabeth Avelland, who is, you know, producer Robert Rodriguez's partner.

Our focus, again, is to help tell the story of the shift in one city's cultural. and focus and economy and looking at the different factors that are so hard to deal with when you're trying to honor the tradition, but also to move forward, you know, and so that will be out. We hope in the spring we'll probably do a debut at South by Southwest and then go to the festival circuit. But we care here, film.com is where people can visit and find out more information. So far, we're, I think, say, three quarters of the way through production.

and then we'll go into post in the next eight weeks or so. That's awesome. Jonas, starting this episode, I'm starting a new tradition on young and profiting podcast. I'm going to end my interview with the same question for every guest. And the question is, what's your secret to profiting in life? I think the main thing is, you know, as I was talking about, this idea of, you know, being willing to know thyself. Well, what does that mean, right?

the idea that the essence of our experience in life is self-knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom and exploring who we are constantly living, learning, and growing is the way that we profit the most in life. Forget about the economic consequences, forget about any notions or ideas about other priorities. It is knowing thyself and becoming a better person because of that. I think that's the key. I love that. And where can our listeners go to learn everything about you and everything that you do? Sure. Just visit Jonas Cothler.com or go to Coughler pictures.

Either one of those works. You can always tweet at me at Jonas Coughler and or sign up for my email. I'm happy to do that as well. But keep focused on what matters to you. That's my lesson. Know thyself. And I think if anything, don't be afraid to do something that moves you. Thank you so much, Jonas.

This was such a great conversation. Appreciate it. My pleasure, and thanks so much to you and your team. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to leave us a review or comment on your favorite platform. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting.com and check us out at youngandprofiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on Yap Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or youngandprofiting.com for the registration link.

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