Every podcast host asks me 'What's next?' I always dodge the question. Here's the real answer I've been avoiding.

One question I've been dodging for years.

Winter Me was too cold. Spring Me wanted to enjoy the weather. Summer Me was too hot. 'Future You' isn't coming to save you.

“Future You” isn't coming to save you.

A friend paused his newsletter and podcast after ten years. His reason shook me: it no longer brings him the feeling of 'aliveness.'

You've changed.

A tiny Champagne bar in Healdsburg seats twelve people and there's always a line. They have no plans to expand. On purpose.

Small by design.

A consultant at a mastermind was doing $1.3M a year and wanted to 'scale.' The room's advice surprised him.

The case for anti-scale.

We squeezed into two bar seats on Valentine's Day without a reservation. When the bartender handed us menus, I noticed something that changed how I think about business.

Get out.

When problem-solvers run out of problems, they manufacture fake ones. I've been doing it every morning at 5:30 a.m. for a year.

Synthetic purpose.

Some mornings I wake up and think, what the hell did I just do?

The machine or the life.

The most successful people I know don't have better habits. They have something slightly wrong with them.

I'm a crazy person.

Everyone says the market is saturated. But when I look around, most people aren't even doing the basics.

Nobody's even trying.

A sushi speakeasy that seats eight. A hidden door. A chef who changed careers at 40. One person can change everything.

One person away.

My boss told me to move to San Francisco in two weeks and fire the entire sales team. I'd never even visited the city.

Nobody is coming to save you.

The self-help industry sold us a cure for a disease we don't have.

Sweat the small stuff.

When I was 27, a friend asked me point-blank how much money I made. My answer — and my reaction to her answer — taught me something I've never forgotten.

Thief of Joy.

I found a two-and-a-half-year-old email from someone explaining in four paragraphs why I'm a terrible writer. I never forgot it.

Essays

Ambition

Freedom

Tradeoffs

Work

Mindset