The Most Important Skill To Learn In The Next 10 Years With Devon Eriksen

Who Is Devon Eriksen?

00:00I just finished a conversation with Devon Eriksen, who recently blew up on Twitter and social media with his harsh truths and deeply articulate insights. He is also the author of a new science fiction book titled Theft of Fire, and this is the first fiction book that I've read in almost ten years, and I think that is a testament to the quality of this conversation as a whole.

00:25Now, I came across Devin after naval rather. Conte reposted one of his tweets and I was instantly hooked. I followed him, I continued reading his content and it was incredible. He was saying the things that I knew deep down, but did not know how to articulate.

00:39Then, naturally, I instantly bought his book. I burned through it, and now we're here. So in this conversation, we talk about how to futureproof yourself going into the age of AI, what's wrong with the current school system and how people learn skills as a whole?

00:52Why agency is the most important trait you can develop to become free? Why intelligence is not a good predictor of overall success, how to find direction in life and remove dangerous, self-limiting beliefs. How Devin left his career as a software engineer, built an audience and became an independent author and creator, and much more.

01:11I hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Devin Erickson.

Education, Intelligence, And The Future

01:23I want to start with that very first post of yours that I came across, and it was you responding to, Yuval Noah Harari, like a clip of him saying that nobody knows what to learn because nobody knows what will be relevant 20 years from now. Yeah.

01:39And then you started it with. That's because this dude doesn't know what education is. Yes, indeed. That that caught my attention immediately. Yeah. And you went on to say this, in my opinion, the seven liberal arts of the modern world are logic.

01:51How to derive truth from known facts, statistics, how to understand the implications of data, rhetoric, how to persuade and spar persuasion tactics, research, how to gather information on an unknown subject. Parentheses. Practical psychology how to discern and understand the true motives of others.

02:08Investment how to manage and grow existing assets and agency. How to make decisions about what course to pursue and proactively take action to pursue it. This will set us up for the entire podcast. So I want to start with this question. What do you find wrong with the current education system?

02:30And why are we not teaching what you call these liberating arts? Well, the root cause. Of what is wrong with the education system is that a third party is paying for it. You know. We could go on all day, sort of nit picking the symptoms. But that is the disease.

02:50And when when something is being paid for, the person who pays. For it is the. Is the customer and it is the customer who gets served. So when you don't pay for. Your education. When the government pays for. Your education. Through money that it has.

03:10Taken from other people. Then the government decides on some. Level what you are going to learn. And you do not have so much. As a veto power. Because if you if you pack your bags. And go somewhere else to some other college. You're getting the.

03:31Same. Thing because the government is paying for. That either through these kinds of education grants. Through the. Stafford Loan program. You're not. Writing the. Checks so you don't. Decide the. Curriculum. And when somebody else decides.

03:49The curriculum. That you are going to be. Educated from. Then they are going to give you the. Education that is going to make you useful to them. Not specifically the. Education that is going to make you useful to. You. And this is something that Cicero talked.

04:07About when he talked about education. And I would. Highly recommend giving. Those bits of his writings a read. Because we don't really have an organized version of what Cicero would. Have considered education. You know, the what. We call education today is mostly actually.

04:35Training, and that is the kind of education that in Rome would have been given to slaves. A slave is essentially a human machine. Where he's. Property. He's going to spend his whole. Life doing one task. So you give him job training. Job training is not education.

04:58It is preparation to. Do a specific task. If in in that era of history, if someone was a free. Man, a. Roman citizen with the full rights. Thereof, who could. You know, carry weapons. And do all the things that Roman citizens could do. He was expected, it was expected that he would probably need to be able to do many.

05:24Different things in his life. Because he would be acting in. His own. Interest. He was not a slave. He did not exist to serve. Someone. Else. He existed to benefit his society, but also to serve himself. And hopefully the two would align. So that meant that you couldn't teach.

05:45You couldn't possibly teach him everything. He might need to know. Because you had no idea. What he might need to know. He had no idea what he might need to know. So you taught him how to train himself. You taught him how to learn. And education is not about how to do a task.

06:11It's about how to learn a task. And we do not have systematic education in this society, in the modern West, about how to learn and educate yourself, because the people who are determining what. Goes into education. Are really more focused.

06:31On. Okay, what's going to make this person a, a useful. Worker. For the moneyed interests. That I actually serve? Exactly. Beautiful. With that, it seems like agency is a massive part of that equation. The last art, so to say, is yes, could be the glue between it all.

06:53So in your eyes, what what is agency and what is the importance of it in. Well agency is is really. Sort of. The, the one most. Rare factor that determines highly successful people in life. You know, if we look at someone like Elon Musk, we can say, oh, he's very smart.

07:23And clearly he is, you know, IQ probably 150 plus. But there are lots of people banging around. With 150 plus IQ. Thousands upon thousands. Of them in the United States alone. And a lot of them are. Cloistered in academia. And they come. Up with these sort.

07:46Of post-modern. Esque papers. Or maybe. They're doing something. Slightly more useful, like physics. But they don't get this magical. Effect where everything they touch turns to. Gold. And that's because the bottleneck. Is not intelligence.

07:58Intelligence is only one of the. Things that is needed for success. It's necessary, but it's not sufficient. And intelligence is a very narrow thing. So what agency. Is. Is it is the tendency to initiate action. To achieve your goals. And we don't solve the world.

08:24With. Intelligence. We don't look at the world and think very smart thoughts. And oh, I understand everything now. That's not how it works. Because when we. Look at the world and we think very hard. We get a few things right and we. Generally get most of it.

08:43Wrong. And then what we do is. We. Try something, we have our guess, we test it. Some of it fails, maybe it succeeds, but usually it fails. We refine that. Guess and try again. So what raw and what applying raw. Intelligence to the universe is missing is that feedback loop.

09:07And what agency does what this tendency to initiate action, what the belief that you will. Eventually be successful, which is what agency is. What it does, is it makes us willing to take. Risks. And it makes us resilient to failure. Because if you're trying something that really is, is an achievement worth having that somebody hasn't done before, the first time.

09:40You try it, you're going to. Fail. No matter how smart you are. You're going to get. A lot of things wrong. So you have to keep trying again until you eliminate all of the. Errors from your model or from your plan. And you can't do. That with pure.

09:59Intelligence, because intelligence is just. The ability to. Analyze. It doesn't give you data. It doesn't tell you what the universe is like. So you have to go over and over and. Over and over again. And you have to you have to have this notion if you're going.

10:22To do that, if you're going. To persist. In that, you have. To have this notion that, gosh, this problem is too hard for me to. Solve right now. But if I keep at it, I will learn how to. Solve it. And I will succeed. Notice that word learn.

10:34You have to teach yourself. Education is teaching. Years is learning how to teach yourself. Then when you go and do a hard task, you have to learn how to do the task. If you don't learn how to learn, then you can only do things that somebody.

10:58Already understands how to do. Absolutely. So what's special about. The Elon Musks of this world. Is not intelligence. It's intelligence coupled with a very high. Degree of agency. Yes. And what that reminds me of specifically with Elon or people in general who have who like the thought of achieving a very high goal.

11:23But since it seems impossible to them, they just write it off as if they can't do it. Elon, on the other hand, has this massive vision. He knows that it's not possible right now, and it wasn't before, but he built the steps. Yeah, he's going to.

11:37Make it possible. Yes. And this is this is why I think. Agency is so important. Because you can't make. Yourself more intelligent. Intelligence is biological. I know. That in some of your videos you disagree with that, but. I think I talk about it.

11:56I think you're defining intelligence. More broadly than I am. The narrow, sort of narrow band analytical ability, IQ type. Intelligence. You can't. Increase that. That is that that is determined very. Early on in your biological development.

12:15And it is a physical and. Chemical feature of the brain. There's not much you can do about that. But agency is a skill. You can learn it. And more importantly. You. Can teach it to your kids. You can raise your kids with the correct attitude that is going to enable them to go out and do cool stuff.

12:44That is hard. And fail and fail and fail. And fail until eventually they succeed. So it's about beliefs and it's. About emotional resilience. Yeah, yeah. So for those who haven't watched the video, I kind of I tried to paint a connection between Susan.

13:05Susan Cook Reuters, stages of ego development and intelligence with each of those levels. And so the way that I thought about it in this sense, when I read your article and what is intelligence and you're defining it as the ability to tell stories.

13:18Yes. What that brought to my mind, maybe intelligence wasn't the right word for me to use, but, perspective and the ability to collect, integrate and widen your perspective to notice more opportunities through some kind of skill or self-development.

13:35And so with that, the way that I think about it with perspective is that kind of increases your ability to maybe not tell a story, but to create a story because you can see further. What do you think about that? Well, I think I think that the concept.

13:55Whether you call it intelligence, defining intelligence broadly or whether you call it something else. Is is about effectiveness. The question you're really. Asking is what makes an effective human being? Correct. A human, a person who can go out.

14:12And accomplish. Significant goals that contribute both to his. Own life. And to his. Entire civilization. And I think we would both. Agree that. IQ. Is not enough. Because we are constantly. Birthing people with high IQ. And a lot of the time.

14:43When you read about somebody who has, you know, an IQ of 180 or 200 or something, and we enter the view of them for a magazine or something. You never. Heard of this. Guy? Like, who the fuck is Chris Lange? Why do I care? You know. And the only reason we really care about intelligence is because it's a component.

15:06Of getting things. Done. And I think what's very important is to. Realize. That there are other components of. Getting things done. That we as a civilization, could be making a much better effort to teach to people who are born. With this high IQ.

15:24Thing, instead of just shoving them into government schools. And then, you know. Shoving. Them into you post-graduate education and then saying, gosh. Why is the only thing that's coming? Why does academia produce nothing? But, you know. Criticism of old literature.

15:55Because it was written by dead white males or, you know. Michael Foucault considered doing rationalizations. For how he wants to sodomized young. Boys. So, you know, it's it's because we have not we've we've confused the condition of necessity.

16:16With the condition of sufficiency, you know, for. This kind of groundbreaking. Civilization progress. High IQ. Is necessary. But it's not sufficient. And we are not grooming our high IQ. Children for success. And that's where the what education really.

16:37Is comes in. Yeah. So in that case where if you want to take a stab at it or if you have some idea about it, how education could start to shift to shape that thing. But more importantly, you mentioned that the one of the most important things you can teach your children is agency.

17:00Yeah. Is that the first step is on an individual parental level. Yes. Yes, yes. Because if children have agency, then even if there's. Something you miss, they can address it themselves as an adult because they believe they can. And I like to.

17:21Characterize agency. As belief in the. Existence of hard. Problems. Nice. What do I mean by that? Well, there's there's three kinds of problems. There's easy. And these are the. Things that we can. Do. The moment we turn our. Hand to. Them with the intelligence, the skills, the.

17:46Knowledge, the resource sources that we already have. You know, if. You wanted to go. Down to the store and and buy a carton of milk, that's an easy task. You already know. How to do it. You already have the resources. You already have the techniques.

18:03So there then there's impossible tasks. Things that you not only can't do with your. Capabilities and resources. But things that you don't know how to. You don't know how to overcome the distance between you and that. And there's no meaningful attempt.

18:24If I told you to eat a bicycle, you wouldn't try. Yeah. Because, you know you can't do it. Your teeth don't work that way. You know you're not. I'm not going to be able to hype you up with enough motivational speeches that you can tunnel to Java.

18:44You can't. You can't dig through the center of the Earth. Some tasks are impossible. So the trick is to raise children who believe in. A third category of tasks. Those are hard. And those are the tasks where you can't do. This right. Now. But you can learn if.

19:07You keep trying. And the way that we educate children in government schools erodes this ability. Because what is the definition of success in a government school. Well you got an A on the test. That means that you answered all the questions with a which, which all were selected for having a difficulty determined by.

19:29The lowest common denominator. And you didn't make any mistakes. So if you are raised in this government school environment and if you are sent to public school. In America in your childhood. You spend almost as much waking hours there. As with.

19:50Your parents. So this really shapes people's personalities. You know, your definition of success is avoiding failure. Except in the real world, the real definition of success lies on the other side of a whole lot of failure. Yeah. So when you create a and so-called educational environment that makes children risk averse, and especially when you do it to high IQ children, you are crippling what you are psychologically crippling.

20:37What could be the next generation of hyper productive people. Right. So in that case, with I'd like to summarize that in my own head as the greatest mistake is no mistake at all. Yeah. And in that case, for people that have already gone through this school system who are at least have the curiosity to listen to this and actually be open minded to it.

21:03Yeah. What is something that they can do or think about to practice this? The agency, the how to learn. Well, start thinking. About your own emotional make up. Start thinking and trying to. Notice ways that you are risk. Averse, that you are too afraid to.

21:33Do something where there is something you want that lies on the other side. And you know, you can watch a. Bunch of. YouTube. Shows about your success and motivational videos and whatever. But the first thing. You have to realize is that. Is that belief in your.

21:52Ability to succeed is like a muscle. It has to be trained. You don't. You don't go into the. Gym and binge 300 on the first day. So what you can do is you can first. Be aware of. This, and you can make a plan. To where you. Can set yourself goals that are achievable, that are things that you can't do right.

22:17Now. But they're achievable in steps. And lifting is actually excellent for this. You know, lifting weights is excellent for this. Because you go in as. A beginner, you. Pile a bunch of weight. On the bar. You lift it till you can't lift it anymore.

22:29And then the next time you go into the gym, you can put on like three or. Five more. Pounds, like, wow, I got better. And this, this is not only making you stronger, but it trains you in the belief that if you work at something you. Can't do.

22:51Now, you will eventually succeed because you have to teach yourself to believe in the. Possibility of success. And you have to teach yourself not to be ashamed of the distance between who you. Are and what you can do. And who you want to. Be and what you want to be able to do.

23:23Because if you are a shamed of that, if you allow yourself to be ashamed of the, a small amount of. It can motivate you. But a lot of it will make you avoid the very kinds of. Tasks you should be seeking out. In other words, you. Have to go do something and give yourself permission to suck.

23:46Yeah, give yourself permission to suck at it. Awesome. With. Okay. So tying this back around to I have so much to talk about, but, in terms of agency intelligence, the connections between those making mistakes, looping back to the original post by Yuval of people not knowing what to learn.

24:19Yeah. Is it possible to know what to learn, or is it just a process of making mistakes until you cultivate enough vision through that to move in your own direction? Well, I think the further into the future. You have. To look. The harder it becomes to get everything right.

24:40So I might know. What I need to learn in the next two months. I might have some. Idea what I need to learn in the next two years. I don't have. Any idea what I'm going to need to learn in the next 20 years. Yeah. I'm going to find that out as I learn.

25:03What I need to learn in the next. Two years. So if you decide in the beginning when this child. Is, you know, five years old or whatever, and he's entering kindergarten. This is what this child needs to learn. No, you're. Going to get it. Wrong.

25:18Because the world is going to change. In order to follow a moving target. You have to. Have a feedback loop. So what you want to do, the way you want to structure. How you learn. Is not, I make the best plan at the outset. No. My plan sucks because I don't know anything yet.

25:42I need to I need to get moving. I need to get moving and learn as I go. And so, you know what we really need to be cultivating in children and calling it education is the tendency to move and the ability to learn as we move. Yes. Get started.

26:12Figure it. Out. Get started. Do something. Time in the market beats timing the market. Yeah. You're not going to get it. All right? You're not going to be perfect. You know you're not going to make $1 million in your first year as an online content creator.

26:27You know, you're not you're not going to be the most popular. Show on YouTube, but you know. You're not going to write a book no matter how good it is. That sells a million copies in its first year. When no one's ever heard of you. You just have to get going.

26:48You just have to move forward and make your mistakes and learn as you go. And agency is the willingness to do that.

AI And What Makes Us Human

27:02Beautiful in Of fire. When Marcus is describing the the the robot guard spiders of Miranda. Yes. After being attacked multiple times on the ship, he describes them. Or it may not be them exactly, but the artificial and the quote is simple, reactive, predictable.

27:23Artificial stupidity. Yeah. I feel. How do I set this up? With the talk of intelligence and agency and this artificial stupidity and people going through this regimented education system that many could say leads to that definition. What makes us human?

27:50What is the thing that if we're so afraid of this artificial intelligence and what it is right now. Yeah. How how do we make sense of our own place? Okay. So I think that the reason people are afraid of artificial intelligence right now is they don't really understand what artificial intelligence right now is.

28:24We do not. Have an artificial. Human. We do not. Have something that can replace a human or do the things that a human can do. Because what the defining. Capability of a human. Is the ability to look at your environment. And say, I need to learn that.

28:43And then go learn that and do it. So we can make an artificial. Intelligence that can play chess better than. Us. We can make an artificial. Intelligence that can draw better than, well, not all of us, but certainly draw better than me. I can't draw.

29:04I haven't devoted the time to learn. I've had other. Priorities. But, you know, these are task specific machines, and they're no more a threat to our. Central humanity than a. Machine that can lift. More than we can. It's. And, you know, I'm sure that a lot.

29:30Of people in the, in. The industrial. Revolution thought, oh, no, you know. Human beings are obsolete because machines. Can now lift and move more than us. And it's it's not true. What human beings do is. Navigate their environment and learn things and decide what to learn.

29:49It's that executive function. It's that ability to tell ourselves stories, to look at the universe and say, oh, all these things I see fit together into a story. And now I'm going to tell myself another story, which is my plan, and I'm going to make my plan happen.

30:10And of course, a plan is a list of things that don't happen. But that just means you have to make another. Plan midway. Through and eventually you hit the moving target. If you if. You have your feedback loop running and you can chase. It, but when I call these things artificial stupidity, when I call these.

30:30Machines artificial. Stupidity, they have a sense. They are essentially, yeah, a robot with a neural net that's been trained on. One set of tasks. Okay, I'm going to protect this person. And there's numerous instances in this story where they do something very counterproductive.

30:48To Miranda's real goals. Because they only know how to do this one thing. They can't think about the broader context of. What's. Going on. And so a real human being is able to outwit them, despite the fact. That. He doesn't have the. Speed.

31:11Or the strength. Or the. The the processing speed that they have. You know, because he's able to understand the broad. Context that he's operating in. And to act. Appropriately. You know, the. Real when you were talking about. Ego development in this other video, you know, one.

31:38Of the things. That jumped out at. Me is I don't see these as. Levels. You move through. I see them as tools you. Add to your toolbox. Because even someone on what you would call the highest. Level of development, you know, you're you're. Philosopher king.

31:50Or whatever. If you drag him out and you stick his head in the. Horse trough and you hold him down. He's going to act on ego development level one, I want air, I'm going to fight you. And that is not a regression or a failure. It's just he's pulling his earliest tool out of the toolbox.

32:15Because that's what's appropriate to the situation. So, Marcus, the human real. Intelligence. Versus the robot, the artificial stupidity. Marcus can decide what tools to use based on his understanding of the total. Context. That he's in. You know.

32:34The robots only have the tools that have been provided to. Them. By this neural. Net training data set. And they're unable to say, okay, my whole paradigm no longer applies. So I need to learn to do. Something totally different. They can't make that jump.

32:56And the way this ties. Back to. What we see with artificial. Intelligence right now is that it is this kind of artificial stupidity. And what it's revealing is, you know, our research into artificial intelligence has actually discovered. Natural.

33:17Stupidity, because what it's revealed is that a lot of people are only functioning on the level of this, this chat bot. I, a lot of people are only functioning on. The level of ChatGPT. You know, because either because. They're dumb. Or because that's how we've educated them.

33:38Right? Interesting connections. We have. We have tried. We have created an education system that makes human beings into single purpose tools. And then we feel threatened when we can build computer, single purpose tools. But human beings did not evolve to be single purpose tools.

34:06We evolved to be navigators of an ever changing environment, and we need to recapture that ability and rediscover that capacity within ourselves and stop looking to our society and to our so-called leaders for what we're going to do next. Take responsibility for our own lives.

34:30What do I need to learn? What do I need to do? What are my goals? What is important to me? And then we won't feel so threatened by artificial intelligence because artificial intelligence won't do it. It can't do any of that. Yeah, I like the distinction there.

34:47Where humans being natural generalists, they shouldn't be the tool because they build the tools. Yeah, the cheetah is perfect for its niche. But then you put it in another environment. It doesn't survive. Same with the polar bear. But the cool thing about being human is that we are in all of the environments because we created the parka or the coat or whatever it may be, so we can survive in that context.

35:14So I being a tool to help us survive better in some cases. Do you see that being used as mainly a a tool for the person to get work done more efficiently or just be more productive. For the foreseeable future? Right now, obviously. It is at least.

35:44Theoretically possible to make a software entity that can do the things that humans can do. Because if you. Were to take a human. Brain and scan. It and simulate the physics of. Every atom of it in a vast supercomputer of the size of a solar system.

36:04Then this would be able to function. Like a human brain. Functions. There's nothing magical about meat. So I'm not saying that that a truly sentient artificial person. Is not someday. Possible. What I'm saying is. That what we have right now.

36:29Is a tool that does certain types of thinking. Like processing. And that's going. To be very useful. And we. Could use it and we can maybe even to some extent. Integrate with it. Where the, the line between. Us and the tool starts to blur as we incorporate these capabilities into ourselves technologically.

36:48And that's fine. But what a human being. Is really for is that executive. Function is deciding. What do I want? What are my. Goals? What do I wish to achieve? Okay, how can I do that with the tools I have? And if I can't do that with the tools I have.

37:17What kind of new tool. Do I need to create? And when you are able to navigate. Your life on this level, then. ChatGPT. Doesn't feel like a threat. To you. You know, if you are, for example, an artist. You know, people prompting, Dall-E through ChatGPT is very threatening to you.

37:53Oh my God, you know, How will how will I get work? I am an artist and all of these authors are making book covers out of AI art, and they're stealing bread from my mouth. And, you know, we need to boycott them and shame them so we don't do this.

38:16Well, the problem you. Have there is that. You have defined yourself. As a tool. Don't be a tool when you say, I am an artist, that is a self limiting belief. Because you have defined yourself in terms of this one capability, and now you are threatened by the existence of a tool that has that same.

38:45Capability. Because you have reduced yourself to. The level of a tool. Right? I'm noticing in terms of that identifying like identification with something that's rather narrow. I'm noticing a few connections here between different worldviews.

39:05And one, the thing that I've been most interested in after following you for a good amount of time is just that it's your worldview where I've where I want to talk about, and cap after this. Yes. And give a brief intro to that because I'm a newbie to it.

39:27But before that, in terms of how you make sense of the world, is there any guiding religion philosophy, some way of making sense that already has a label, or do you kind of just have your own way of thinking about it? Well, again, self, you have to beware of self limiting beliefs.

39:49So I would describe. My views as somewhat anarcho capitalistic. But if I call myself. An anarcho capitalist. You know, I can do it sometimes for convenience. We don't want to fight the great linguistic crusade. But if I do it so consistently within my own head, then I have made my.

40:15Then I have made. That my identity. And then I am unable to critically examine anarcho capitalism. Yeah. And to critique it as a tool and say, does this or. Doesn't this serve my goals right now? And this is one example. You know, so I, I describe myself a lot as an anarcho capitalist or a libertarian.

40:41And I get other. People who describe themselves as libertarians. Doing the. The sort of the, The favorite hobby. Of libertarians, which is calling other libertarians, not real libertarians. Yeah. Because I say, well, I would like to see seed oils banned.

41:07And they're like, right wing. That is a statist position. No. You have identified with a political. Philosophy. To the point where you are thinking about how to serve the political philosophy, not how to achieve your goals. The political philosophy was made to serve you, not the other way around.

41:30So the reason I describe myself as. An anarchist or a libertarian. Is that I want to see people be freed. And when I understand that, that is my motivating goal to see people having control. Over their own destinies. I can say, well, you know, does what move in this specific situation allows people.

41:59More control over their own destinies? Which is more important, the freedom to poison people or the freedom to not be poisoned? Right. I think that's one of the things there where we can go over some of the principles of Ancap. But yeah, with that, you are.

42:22The nuance here is that the thing that makes a person most free isn't always absolute freedom. It's not. It's having those limitations like the seed oils. As an example, if someone doesn't have the choice or they don't know, then that's not inherently freeing.

42:38Yeah, yeah yeah, political philosophies. Have to be understood as. Tools. Not as. Goals. You know, we. Don't we don't do classical. Liberalism. To achieve a classical. Liberal society. We implement ideas. From classical liberalism. Because it is good for people's.

43:08Quality of life. Because it is. Good. For the economic. Productivity of society as. A whole. But any tool that you have that you're using to do part. Of a project. You have to know when to set it. Down and when to pick up another. Tool. So any time you say to yourself.

43:26I am an artist, I am an author, I am an anarcho capitalist, I am a Republican, I am a Democrat. I am a communist. You know, I am white, I am male. You know, all of these things are useful ways to describe. Yourself. But you have to be careful with them because any of these can become self-limiting.

43:59You know, even even something like I am male. Well, it's a biological fact, but I'm writing the sequel. To Theft of Fire right now. Yeah. And Miranda, for part of the book is a point. Of view character. So now I have to write from the perspective.

44:20Of a. Woman. And the fact that I am male is the truth, but I have to set that tool down and pick up another tool of, oh, this is my mental model of how women work and how it what it feels like to be one in order to achieve the task that I want to achieve.

44:47So one of the biggest reasons why people are unwilling to. Take risks and try new things. One of the biggest things that can be a real risk to someone's agency are these self-limiting beliefs. I can't do that. I can't. Try that because. It threatens my.

45:05Sense of identity. My sense of. Who I am from where I get my sense of value. And if you're running around saying, I am an artist and I am worthwhile because. I am a great. Artist, then you're not only threatened by I. That can. Draw. You're also.

45:30Threatened. By doing things that aren't art. Because no, you're an artist. You know it. Yeah. Ultimately, we are not a tool for doing any particular task. We are here to navigate our own lives in a way that makes sense to us. And what what it really means to develop.

46:02As a human being. Is to have this toolbox, have the ability to. Expand the toolbox. And be able to express whatever part. Of our capacity. Helps us to do. What we. Want. Yes. So when I say when I say. I'm an anarcho. Capitalist, it that's that's not about the.

46:27Methods I want to use. It's about my. Goals. It's about. I want to eventually make government obsolete. And get rid of it. I know there are certain things we do. With government now that we don't know how to do in other ways. So I need. To build a new tool.

46:47Or I need to help my species. Build a new tool. We don't have all the tools yet. It's a long term goal. It's a hard problem that we will fail and fail and fail. And fail at until eventually we learn how to. Succeed. Yes, really? Well said. And that ties it back to we can't do it now.

47:07But exactly. We can build the tool. So the entire argument of yeah, oh, that's not possible. Or like that's crazy for thinking that way. It's an ideal that we're working towards to and building the tools so that it becomes possible. And at that point, in terms of what you want or what that goal is, it's a goal that once you achieve, it may change when you realize, okay, this was a mistake.

47:33Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And we have to develop all our technologies along the way. We as a species recently figured. Out how to do money without a. Government. Yeah. But we haven't yet figured. Out how to do criminal justice without a government.

47:45So we need another tool. Yeah. What's it going to be. I don't know but let's, let's work at it.

How Do You Find Fulfillment?

47:57Yeah. On that point of doing what you want, it reminded me of a common thing that comes up with my audience or even young people, anyone in general. If let's take an example of identifying with a goal, something that you really want to achieve and that you love and you want to dedicate your entire life to, let's say art is or art or being an artist.

48:22Yeah. With how the world is changing. Do you see that as a worthy goal to pursue, or would it be a different kind of goal? The question I'm asking here is the underlying question is how does one find fulfillment in what they do, if what they do may not be relevant or allow you to survive in the future?

48:51Well, the simple. Answer the base level answer to this is. Whoever. Said you had to do one. Thing, whoever said. You had to do one thing with your whole. Life. I have done many different things with my life, and each one of them has been very fulfilling at the time that I was doing it.

49:12Our wants change. And that's. Okay. And we. We leave behind some of the. Goals we have achieved. Or the goals that we. Abandoned because they weren't quite right. For us. But we take with us all the learning and all the learning how to learn that we picked.

49:32Up along the way. So we. Become deeper, richer, more developed characters as we as we go through this process. So even if you. Learn to draw and then an eye comes along and draws better than you. You still learn. Something from that process.

49:56You've still learned how to learn to draw. You've you've. Learned how to. Pursue an ambition. You've learned a. Lot about. Envisioning a. Scene and creating. It that you can now. Do with AI. Tools. So that's the simple answer. But there's a deeper.

50:14Level answer to this, which I think is a little more difficult to grasp, but it's it's very important. Is that what is the. Real reason why you had that goal? Why did you want to be an artist? Did you want to. Give vent to a creative. Impulse?

50:37If so. There are lot. There are still lots of ways to do that. Did you want to entertain people? Did you want to show the world what exists. In your head? Did you want to be famous. And make a lot of money? That's just as. Good as any other goal.

50:58That's that's fine. You know, that's not shallow, you know. What is it that you wanted. Out of that goal? What is it that you wanted to experience in your own life, in your. Own psyche, that made you decide, I want to be an artist. I want to be an author.

51:20I want to be an entrepreneur. Because when we. Boil it down, most of our goals are about. The core things. That make us happy. You know, I. Spent. Many years as a software engineer, and I was. I was told I was. Very. Good at. It. I was I had a lot of other software engineers saying, wow, how did you figure that out?

51:49But I always found myself having this sort of friction with. The people that I worked for. And I always experienced them as very shortsighted. You know, we need to. Be building this or that thing for the next five years, for the next ten years.

52:10And they would be like. Okay, here's a list of. Features that we need to get done by our next two month release. Cycle. And why are you going off the rails building all this, you know, foundational cryptography toolkits to support our next five years of programing?

52:36You know, just write the login page or whatever. And what I realized was that eventually. Was that, yeah, these people didn't trust. Me because I did. What was good. For them rather than what they said to do. But also that I was giving vent to a creative impulse.

53:02And it's like. If I had said, well, my life goal is to be. A really great software engineer. I would have been stuck. There. It would have been a self-limiting. Identity, belief. And eventually, you know, it took me some time. I got gray hair, but, you know, I eventually figured it out that.

53:26I'm doing this because. Software is the ultimate set of Lego blocks, and I can create. Things. And I want to create things. I want. To bring new stuff out. Of my imagination. And into the world. But working as a. Software engineer, they. Don't want that because.

53:48You know, they. Don't want to. Most people don't want. To take. Risks. Most people don't want to do greenfield development. Of something that's never been done before, because that's scary unless you have a whole lot of agency. And then it's still.

54:05Scary, but you could. Stand it. So I was like, what is my real goal? No, my real goal isn't. I am a software engineer. My real goal is I want to be creative. My real goal is I want to imagine. Something. That no one has. Imagined before. And make it real.

54:27So I said, okay, I'm going to. I'm going to retire early, and I'm. Going to start writing science. Fiction. And it's tremendously. Satisfying. And now. It's. Blossomed out into some of the political opinion writing and the sort of the. Sort of the philosophical musings.

54:45That people find interesting. But it's it's all I take. Something out of my brain and I show it to people, and I go. Look! And they go, oh. And that is that is what I really wanted. Out of being a software engineer all along. So maybe if you're if you're, you know, you're you're skills that form your identity run up against.

55:16This dead end. Either because the skills. Have become obsolete. Or because they aren't serving. Your real purpose. You sometimes have to stop and say, well, what is. My real. Purpose? What is it that I. Wanted out of this? And how do I find some way to get it that is more directly.

55:39Related to what I really want? Yeah, so that was the one of the what was the thought process there? Unless I was it of choosing to do the fiction writing instead of, let's say, indie hacking and building, a tool that you could share in a similar way if you had the same audience.

55:56Because I felt like. Ultimately stories meant more to me. When I started doing this self-examination, I realized that there's something that, there's something that a lot of people think that sort of genre fiction is this very frivolous thing.

56:18And this is something. That this attitude that you see in a lot of these sort of, you know. Sigma, hacker grind set, bro. It's sort of like, yeah, I haven't read a fiction book in ten years. I only read tech manuals. And, well, that's how you lose the culture war.

56:41That's how you lose the culture war because stories. Are the DNA of societies. And you know, we. Think about it. Elon Musk did not grow up. Reading little House on the Prairie. You know, I don't know for sure, but I bet he grew up reading, you know, Heinlein and Niven and Parnell and then he went.

57:15I'm going to make that real. Yeah. You know, if you think about the if you think about. The history of the 20th century as a. Whole, all the. Inventions of the 20th century. All this stuff that humans. Figured out in that 100 year period. Named for.

57:34That didn't happen in science fiction before. They were real. I can't well, yeah, maybe you could do it if you. If you search the internet enough. Yeah, but the point is that this is a hard task. So, you know, science fiction is, is in some sense very important to our future because it is this technology that allows us to.

58:06Think about things. About but about new. Technologies before they're real. It allows us to decide how we feel. About true artificial intelligence. Before it. It's real. It allows us to think about how we feel about genetically. Engineered post humans.

58:23And what we. Want to do about that possibility. Before. It becomes real. It allows us to lay the. Groundwork. For how we're going to deal with. New technology. And it fires our imaginations. To create. It. So I felt like, yes, science fiction is entertaining, but it's also important in ways that people don't realize because, you know, people don't.

58:57People don't. Start these tech startups and, you know, build. Reusable. Rockets and. You catch the first stage with a giant pair of mecha chopsticks, and then somebody sticks a. Microphone in their face and he says. Well, you know, I was really influenced by the writings of Marcus.

59:18Aurelius. And Nietzsche. No, he's like, I read Ringworld. Yeah. Story. These are important because they appeal to the part of. Our brain that does the actual thinking. Intelligence is stories. Consciousness is stories. So stories influence.

59:35Us in important ways.

Fiction Is Important. Stories Are Important.

59:43Yes. On that subject. We previously talked on the call prior to this call about how Theft of Fire was the first fiction book that I'd read in the first in the last ten years. Yeah. And you asked me why that was. You asked me, was that just because there weren't any good books out there?

1:00:06Yeah. And when I thought about it, it's. Yeah, nothing really grabbed my interest. So over those past ten years and with a lot of the things that we've talked about with the education system, the stories being put out there, how dangerous is that and why?

1:00:25Why is it happening? Yeah, it's it's very dangerous. And I, I completely. Understand why you haven't been reading fiction, and I don't mean to mock you for it. Because, you know, you talk to you for 30s. And anybody can realize. You are an.

1:00:42Alpha male type with a four digit testosterone level. You know, that's readily apparent. And if you were to go to a bookstore and try to find some fiction that appeals to an. Alpha male with a four digit testosterone level, you ain't going to find much.

1:00:59Right? Because and I think what happened. There was that. Was this attitude. That I have just been denouncing, where conservatives and, People who were interested, who were pro Western civilization, they somehow decided at some point that art was for sissies.

1:01:28That because a lot of artists. Were, you know. Sort of long haired, noodle armed hippies, that art must be for long haired, noodle armed hippies. And we are going to cede that entire. Battlefield to them. But see children read stories. Children read.

1:01:55Fiction. And if they're not reading your culture's fiction. Whose fiction are they reading? You know, and this hit me one time when, out of sheer. Curiosity and boredom, I was watching one of Steven Crowder's YouTube shows. And, you know, he says conservative stuff, and he, he talks about politics.

1:02:24And, It's all okay, I guess. But then he does this. Weird thing where he says, I don't read fiction in this one particular show. He goes, I don't read fiction. And he said it like he was proud of it. Right? He said it. He said it like this was a point of pride.

1:02:39Like. I am a serious. Person who doesn't go into frivolous. Pursuits. And then he starts talking about how that's childish. And then he does. This cartoon voice like. Tell me a story, daddy. And it's like, you moron, you moron. You sit here whining about how you're losing the culture war, and then you go on this whole rant about how culture is for sissies.

1:03:05Well, why do you think you're losing the culture war? You know, if you if if you if if your children say, tell me a story, daddy, and you're not telling them a story, then who is? Yeah. And what values will your children absorb. From that story?

1:03:34So any political philosophy or any cultural. Philosophy. That doesn't have art and stories. Associated with. It that doesn't have a coupled artistic esthetic is doomed because it will not be. Able to propagate. Itself. So, you know, it's like, yeah, there's enough there's very little fiction for you as an.

1:04:01Alpha male type with a four digit testosterone level. To read. But if we don't have that, there isn't going to be a next. Generation of you and people like you. There's going to be a. Next generation of. Guys. Who are. Very high. Anxiety and low agency, and.

1:04:26Nothing feels. Right. And they don't feel comfortable in their own skin, and they decide they're going to put on a dress and call themselves a woman. That's where this comes from. Yeah. Is we haven't we. You know, generation X. We. Stood by and let this happen.

1:04:40The boomers made it happen. But we as a society have not created. Or maintained. The the cultural and artistic scaffolding. For a. Healthy, strong. Robust masculine identity. Right. In that sense, did you when you wrote Theft of Fire? And even when you right now do you did you feel a sense of responsibility with that in contributing some new way of looking at the world, or potentially some unpopular way of looking at the world because of how many of your values were baked into the book and or in the writing?

1:05:27Yeah. Well, when you write, you're essentially. Tying a rope to a bucket and you're throwing it into your subconscious. And you're dredging it across the bottom. And you. You take up that. Bucket and you pour it out on the table. And so it's.

1:05:46It's a very psychologically. Vulnerable act in some ways, because. The fiction. You write is who you are. And I. Felt like. You know. This, I want when I'm showing other people. You know, who I am inside and making it into a story. Obviously, I want other people to approve of this and like it, but also it has to make sense.

1:06:12It has to resonate. You know, the. Goal. Of writing. Is, is to communicate something. In a clear and interesting way. If it's not clear, they won't understand it. If it's not interesting, they won't read it. So the responsibility. I felt was okay.

1:06:33I need to be clear. I need to be interesting. I need to entertain people. And it has to. Resonate with who they are. So I wasn't setting out. To convince the world of any particular thing. I was just saying. This is my story. The responsibility.

1:06:51I felt was to make sure that it was a story people. Would like. And when I, I think, yeah, I think, I think there's. A lot of, of. Unfulfilled. Hunger for these kinds of stories right now because, you know, we're. Sick. Of post-apocalyptic despair.

1:07:19You know, we're. Sick. Of fiction, which is a thinly veiled excuse for discussions about pronouns. You know, science. Fiction used to. Be about how we were going to go out and conquer the galaxy. Yeah. And I think, I think we're we're ready to do that again.

1:07:38We're ready to work toward it. You know, there's a. Whole bunch of. Stuff. We don't know how to do that we're going to need to learn. But we're ready to start doing. That instead of sitting. Around and whingeing about how everything is unfair.

1:07:53So we need stories that that that have that attitude. Yes. We're going to loop. We're going to naturally loop back around to this. But I want to read a quote from Theft of Fire. I'll go straight into it. It was the equal share thing. Guess I got that from my dad.

1:08:11He talked about ownership a lot about his plans for us, said the reason most people spend their lives, spend their whole lives making someone else rich is that they sell their time, get paid for the hours they spend on the job. See if you're running a business and you make some money, you can reinvest it.

1:08:29Buy, buy more equipment, hire more people, scale up. But if you're selling your time, no matter how much money you earn, you can't buy more time to sell. It doesn't scale. Was this belief also a part of your decision to write the book and contribute in this fashion?

1:08:46Yes, yes. On the topic of ownership as well. Yeah, I'm not too sure I. Yeah understand. That fully. Yeah. Well, when you the basis of all. Civilization is property. Rights. Which we should probably call investment rights because the basic idea is that you invest in something, you own it, you have the right to control it.

1:09:16Without that, there's no civilization. Because when you're a plains ape, there's nothing to own. There's nothing out there but a rock, a few sticks and some grass and. Things only become worth having when you take material from the environment, and you invest your time and effort into it, and you start chipping out spear points, and no one is going to do that.

1:09:45If someone can come along and take it from them, you know, and their, their, their effort is wasted. So property rights are civilization. Civilization is property. Rights. That's fundamental. Any political philosophy like communism that goes against that.

1:10:06Is anti. Civilization. So when I talk about this, it's like, okay, we've gotten into a rut right now where a lot of people sell their time because they are low agency. I am. Afraid. Of starting a business on my own. I am. Afraid of putting my.

1:10:30Effort into something that I am going to own and try to make money off of. I want a guaranteed paycheck. So I. Am going to go to someone who. Buys my time. Directly, and then. How to. Monetize that is their problem, and I don't have to worry about that.

1:10:55And I can feel safe. But that makes you dependent. And it prevents you from getting. Ahead because you only have so much time. And no matter how much. Money you make, you can't buy more time to sell. So when you sell your time, you may be safe.

1:11:22Because it's somebody else's job to figure out how to. Pay you. And, you know, usually it's not too safe anymore. You know, gone are the days where people worked for the same company for 50 years. But when you do. That. You can't you you you can't see that.

1:11:40Same level of success of, oh, or I own something, I'm going to double down on it. You can't get that exponential growth. You know, when I write a book, I can sell many, many copies of that book. I can sell as many copies of that book as people are willing to buy.

1:12:01And I can. Sell all sorts of stuff associated with it. I can leverage that attention. Because, you know, when you get an. Audience, you start to realize that some people. Love your stuff so much that they want to pay you, they're happy to pay you.

1:12:19They're like, you know, here's $10,000. Put your put my company in your next book. Wow. Okay, cool. I'm down with that. And but you can never you can never. Get that until you start. Until you take. That risk. And start making something. That can scale.

1:12:43You know, I write a book. I can sell it over and over again. You you make these. These videos and content that helps. People think. About. You know, the philosophy of. Business and how to be successful. And people can watch those over. And over and over again.

1:13:02You produce it once with a limited amount. Of time, and it can make revenue for you. Forever. And you know, a lot of. People, you know, sort of the socialist leaning types. Think this. Is a bug like, you know, you know. He only did three hours.

1:13:26Of work and he's being paid. Tens of. Thousands of dollars for it. But really that's a feature because we want. Everybody. To be doing things that require. Very little effort but have tremendous. Value. And so capitalism rewards those people.

1:13:47You know, if you can figure out how to spend four hours shooting a video and make a lot. Of money off it. Or can figure out how to spend you three hours a day working. On something and make, you know. 800. Thousand in a year or whatever it.

1:14:06Is, then what that means is you've figured out how to efficiently produce something. That has a lot of value to. People. And when you sell your time, that means that you've taken this safe route, which solves that equation. Well enough to keep you.

1:14:28Going. But it's maybe not the best or most. Profitable thing you could be doing with your. Time. And, you know, don't get me wrong, somebody has to. Do a lot of these tasks that anybody can do. You know, that. We we we need we need certain things done that.

1:14:52Maintain civilization. But I think there are. People out there. Who have the potential to produce amazing. Things. And they've been raised. To be afraid. You know. Imagine if Elon Musk had been raised in a way that made him. Timid and nervous, because it's very possible to do that to a child if.

1:15:28You're not paying attention or if. That makes you feel good, or if you are a fearful person yourself. And think of the loss to. Civilization. Not only the fact that it was a loss to civilization, but that we would never have understood what we'd lost.

1:15:53We had never. We would never have seen it. So I think there are a lot of people. Out there who have. Wonderful. Things in law. And they're selling their time, you know, for minimum wage, making sandwiches or whatever.

Perception And Relationships With Money

1:16:15On that topic, with the way that people are raised, I was personally, I don't know how I overcame it, really, but I was raised in a mormon household, so LDS, very strict religious, do what you're told. We're going to church on Sundays. Put on your slacks, put on your white shirt, pass out bread, all that stuff.

1:16:40With that. My parents were they made a decent living middle class, but they were very focused on. Hey, you need to save your money. You need to invest. You need to get a job. You need to go to school. You need to do exactly these things. And after speaking with a lot of other people and it's just a general thing that you can observe, is a lot of people have a bad relationship with money, and so it prevents them from even thinking about making more.

1:17:11Or they'll see those, the mega billionaires and make an assumption of, oh, that's shallow, that's corrupt, that's evil, whatever it may be. So they write off even thinking about starting a business, no matter how small scale it is. In terms of perception of money, how do you view that and making a lot of it?

1:17:39Well, the the attitude you talk about. Reminds me. Of the discussion we had a little bit about a little bit further back about the sort of self-limiting identity. Beliefs. You know. I am not a billionaire. I will not be a billionaire. Therefore, I need to formulate my.

1:18:07Beliefs and my identity in such a way that I am prevented from feeling bad about that. And so. I can formulate. Beliefs like. Oh, they must have done. Something immoral to get their. And therefore I am not in the place that they are, because I am not immoral, and I can take pride in that.

1:18:41Or oh. They had a tremendous amount of luck. Therefore, it's not my fault that I didn't have that lock or, you know, there. Parents provided. Them with a certain amount of wealth and access that my parents. Did. Not provide me with. Therefore it's okay, you know, that that.

1:19:09So all of these sort of identity. Beliefs are. Designed not to, not to help this person prosper, but to prevent them from. Feeling bad about not. Prospering. And we will always work hardest. On what our real goals. Are. If we are focused. On.

1:19:29Defending our sense of. Identity and who we are right now, and not feeling bad. Then we won't be focused. On these external goals of how do I get ahead? How do I make myself better? And it may be very true that to reach sort of billionaire.

1:19:58Level, you have to be very lucky or you have to have the right parents. Or you need all other all sorts of other help. You know, thriving is a team sport. No one prospers in a vacuum. But at the same. Time, this self-limiting belief isn't just about, oh, I'm not going to be a billionaire.

1:20:19It it prevents any kind. Of getting ahead. It prevents any kind of striving. It prevents any kind of saying, I am. Not as good as I would like. To be. Therefore, I am going to make an effort to. Become something. That I am currently not. This goes back.

1:20:44To giving yourself permission to. Suck at something. Yeah. You know years. Later you have to be, you have to be a business that's just struggling. To break even. Before you can be a. Business that makes a huge amount of. Money. If you are so ashamed of being the business that.

1:21:07Is struggling to break, even, then you'll never get where you want to go. I just. Finished my first year as a professional author and congrats. You! Thank you. And I. Will disclose fully. That you know. I managed to break six figures, but I did not make as much as I.

1:21:26Made as. A software engineer. And I have to remind myself not to be ashamed of that because this is the first year. And if you don't give yourself permission to start. Out. And suck at something, then you're never going to reach the point. Where you're good, you know, you're never going to build that audience or whatever it is you need to do.

1:21:49To achieve the success you. Want to. Achieve. You have to give. Yourself permission to not be there. Yet. And if people start. Making. Excuses, you know these ego defending beliefs. For not being there yet. Then that makes them feel better in that place, but it prevents them.

1:22:13From progressing beyond it. So. You know, money. Is a measure of fucks given. And when you start out. Not a lot of people are going to give a. Fuck about you. Because they haven't heard about you. But if you say to yourself, well, I don't want a lot of money, what you're saying is, I don't want a lot of.

1:22:32People to give. A fuck about me. Yes. And if you say, well, you know, if if you have a lot of money, then you must have done something evil. Then you're saying, you know, a lot of people only give. Most people only give a fuck about evil people.

1:22:51Like what? No. No. Money is just a token that says I care. About this thing. And it's how. It's what we use to persuade to people to care. So if you're making money, you know, assuming you're. Not robbing banks or something or hitting the lottery or.

1:23:15You know. Defrauding people or whatever. Then when the money starts to come in, that is a signal that people care. About what you're doing. It's a signal that you're on the right path. It's it's the way people tell you. What they like and what they don't like.

1:23:36So when you when you hit on a formula. That starts to. Earn, that's not you being selfish. It's you figuring out what people like and giving it to them. And that's so personal. Right. Because the people, the thing that I find funny, even before I was doing this in this business and I'm sure you have to when you would go and look at someone else's promotion like of a book or a product, you'd always see the comments like, oh, you shouldn't be earning money from this, or you're like, this is a terrible product, whatever it may be, but it's extremely profitable and they're doing extremely well.

1:24:26And it's just those people that don't give a fuck about that one thing. Yeah, but they're in this reactive state and just don't realize that. Right? So they. They're say they're objecting to the fact that somebody else. Cares about something that they don't care about.

1:24:39Yeah, they're they're essentially saying that everybody should act in accordance with their priorities, not with their own priorities. It's sort of one of the most, if you dig into it. It's one of the most. Anti libertarians, sort of anti humanity sentiments that you can think of like, you know.

1:25:00People shouldn't. Spend their money how they want to spend it on what they care about. They should obey me, you know, oh,

Becoming An Author And Audience Building

1:25:12who died and put you in charge. Yeah. To expand on the audience part, that's something I talk about a lot, because I really I started off as, in terms of business as, like a freelance web designer. And then when I got on social media, I was doing cold outreach before that to land clients and local marketing and other things like that.

1:25:39Yeah. When I started to figure out my formula for social media stuff and really see the power of building an audience, there was like, no turning back for me, right? Yeah. With you having incredible success for a first year of theft of fire, that's insane.

1:26:00For first year and how much you've grown. I mean, I talk to these creators every day. That's abnormal. That is absolutely incredible. So with that, as you've been growing, has there been any unique characteristics of the creator economy or building an audience that you didn't see before that now you see as.

1:26:20A very viable thing for a lot of people. Well, I can talk. About what I've learned along the way, which I think this sort of ties into is that. As I don't like. The term content creator. I don't either. And the. Reason. I don't like the term content creator is it focuses on what you're making, you know, oh.

1:26:56I'm a content. Creator. Well, you know. If you if you paint something and you show and you burn it or you shove it to. Draw, you're a content. Creator. You created some content doesn't do you or anybody else any good as an. Author, you know.

1:27:17Both of fiction. And nonfiction, short and long form, but as as a guy who writes. Interesting. Things for a living. What I am, my primary thing that I'm doing. In my business. Is building. An audience. And an audience doesn't mean how. Many people follow you on Twitter, because there is an account on Twitter called Why You Should Have a Cat.

1:27:48And you know. He posts pictures of cats and he's got 2 million followers. And you know, that's great. People like cat pictures. But that is not they're not following him. They're following the. Cats. They like cats, I like cats, I follow him.

1:28:05But the point is that an audience is building. An audience. Is about. Trust. And audience is a set of people who trust you, where if you come out. With something, you know, like if I write a book, they're going to say, well, I'm going to spend 20 hours reading this book because I trust Devin, that I'm going to enjoy it.

1:28:36Or if you come out with a video that spends 45 minutes talking about, you know. Success and some, you know, obscure philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and how these tie in. Together. You've you've created enough. Value for them in the past that I that they say I am going to devote 45 minutes of my time to.

1:28:56Watching this. So really, what you're doing. Is you're. Creating a, you're creating this, this group of people who know who you. Are and they. Trust you. And in order to be in order to build. Trust, you have to be trustworthy. You have to act with integrity, and you have to act with these people's best interest at.

1:29:26Heart. Because they are not stupid. They know when you're trying, when. You're just interested. In what's good for you. They know when you're trying to scam them. They know when you're trying to do something that 60 other people. Have done better, and you're just going to try to jump on the bandwagon.

1:29:52So you have to be. Trustworthy and create real. Value. And some of it you have. To give away for. Free so that they sample it. And they say. This guy makes good stuff. I'm going to pay him because I want there to be more of this stuff that I give a fuck about.

1:30:10So and that is the mistake. That I see a lot of content creators making now. I focus mostly on on fiction authors. But there's a lot of indie. Fiction authors. Who some of them who whine. A lot about not having. Success. And then you look at their Twitter feed, and every single.

1:30:34One of their Twitter posts. Is some. Iteration of by my book. Yeah, by my book. It's a good book. And none. Of it is. Let me say something interesting. Right here, right now to you. For free to prove. That I am an interesting person. Who. Can entertain you if you if you buy my.

1:30:58Paid products. So, you know, ultimately if you're, if you're on the. Internet and that's how you make your money. Your product is you, your ability. To be interesting. Your ability. To be informative, your ability to be entertaining. Your. Ability to.

1:31:21Make something where people spend some time. Paying attention to it and they walk away saying. I liked that. That was a good use of my time. I want more of that. So there's no shortcut. There's no. Here's the six bullet points to a successful internet influencer business where you can make millions of dollars going to cafes and taking pictures of your food.

1:31:52You know, that's that's bullshit. You know, people will click. On that stuff, but they don't care. They don't care because it doesn't provide any value to them. You have to actually. Make something that people like, and, you know, you have to actually be someone.

1:32:12Who's who's able to give. Them a good experience, and you have to. Prove that to them, and you have to. Not whine about that. You know. Oh, my books are selling really, really. Is that right? Something interesting. Yeah. The way that I think about it with building an audience specifically is.

1:32:35Bringing back in the topic of agency. And if you want to write a book or you want to make music or you want to do whatever creative challenge you want to do, you want to build something and distribute it, but you don't have like you don't want to give up control of that thing to a publisher to a record label, to someone else who can give you the resources to make some money from that thing, but also take a large portion of it themselves.

1:33:03So the way I view social media now is where most of the attention is. Attention and social media are a tool to get eyes on what it is that you built or created, and you have to approach social media for what it is, which is media media that people like to watch.

1:33:24But now it's different from mainstream media because it's one person. Media companies in a sense, all creating content to attract people that they like individually. With that. What in terms of what did you ever want to go with a traditional publisher or the Manhattan?

1:33:49I've heard you say Manhattan before, but I'm not. Yes, I'm. I think that's just referencing. Yes, Manhattan. The word Manhattan emerging from my mouth is not a compliment, right? It is not intended as one. I, I considered it. When I, when I first, when I finished my first novel, I wanted to weigh all my.

1:34:12Options. And, I realized that. You know, the during the. 20th century, there was a real need for. Publishers. Because. You needed you needed to do offset. Print runs, which typically had a five figure cost associated with them. And you needed to financier.

1:34:44So a, a publisher was. Essentially a venture capitalist during that time. You know, they were going to they were going to pay for your printing. They were going to give you in advance. They were going to enable people who were just starting out to make a living as a writer, and then they were going to make back their money on the ones that took off.

1:35:02It was a it was a working, viable business model. That provided. Value for everybody involved authors, publishers and. Readers. So there were two things. That broke that. And the first was the internet, and the second was gay race, communism, because you had a whole bunch of people who, you know.

1:35:33All these. Publishing companies that were now sort of conglomerated together. With offices in the same. Ten blocks of Manhattan, going to the same parties, you know, participating in the same social circles. And they became less and. Less interested in what people wanted to read and more and more interested in what they thought people.

1:35:59Should read. And so they were no longer. Providing a. A valuable function to the audience, because the function that publishers. Provided to an audience was. We are going to gatekeeper. This media for you and filter out all. The trash. You know, but.

1:36:27They were no longer filtering for quality. They were filtering for aligned political opinions. So they did not provide the benefit to the audience. And then, lo and behold, their business model started becoming less pert, less and less profitable.

1:36:43I wonder why. And then. The advances started to go away, and the. Promotional. You know, spending especially for new authors started to go away and they started getting rid of their mid. List and their a mid list is. An incubator for your future A-listers.

1:37:08That's what that exists for. So gradually, because they weren't they weren't able to serve a. Purpose for. The audience. They also lost the ability to serve. A purpose. For the authors. So nowadays I don't think book publishers really serve any purpose at all.

1:37:33For most, for most. Genres and types of books. I think that's true. And as I started. Looking for agents and looking for publishers, I realized. This. I mean, I was offered some. Publishing deals at certain points, especially when, when I got out there on my own and people figured out I could sell.

1:37:53Yeah. Then then they came knocking and I was like, what use are you to me? Yeah, I can have a direct relationship. With my audience where I. Can be more responsive. To them and I can be more appealing to them. And I can get better feedback.

1:38:13About what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. Directly. From. Them, not. Only from what they say, but from their. Actions. And what do I need this middleman for? What value do you offer? And I've had. A lot, a lot of pushback, from this attitude at things like science fiction conventions and such, I had, I had.

1:38:43I said that I. I said something like in one conversation where, I don't think publishing houses at any value for new authors. And he absolutely blew up. And threw a temper tantrum and called me a sociopath for some reason. And I later. Learned that he was an editor from a major.

1:39:04Publishing house. So I was standing between this man. And his bread. But of course, he had this self-limiting belief. I am an editor from a major publishing house. And, you know, but I very quickly learned that the value wasn't there. It was just this useless.

1:39:25Buffer in in the relationship between author and audience that. That actively disrupted. The quality of the feedback loop. And, you. Know, there was the moment there was a particular. Moment where I decided that I was going to be self-published, and that was when, my editor, who I hired myself.

1:39:52Enthusiastically, shoved some sample. Chapters from my book in front of a. Sort of an acquisitions. Guy from one of the major publishing. Houses. And he looks at this. Folder, he reads like the first 3 to 3. Sentences. He holds it out to me like.

1:40:11This, as if I had offered him a. Dead spider. And he says. Rewrite it in third person. You do know how to write in third person, don't you? In more or less that tone of voice. Yeah. And I realized that this this. Man. Had no idea that prospect.

1:40:37Of intents are tools in an author's toolbox. And I would have had to teach him how to correctly employ these tools. And why theft. Of fire is written in first person present. Tense and the precise technical craftsmanship. Reasons why that unusual choice was made.

1:40:59If he could even be taught because he had the. Self-limiting belief. I am an editor with 20 years of experience. Well that's great, you repeated the same mistakes for 20 years and called it experience. Go. You and I realized that this was this was this industry was full of.

1:41:22People who were very. Full of themselves and who were very full of self-limiting identity beliefs where I wasn't going to be able to get. Them to look at things in a new way. I had to go and. Prove that I could. Sell. And so I. Did. And then they came with the.

1:41:42Publishing deals, and I said, well, you know, this deal you're offering me isn't very. Good, because the only additional feature that this offers to me is you get paid, you know, from my perspective, that's not a future, that's not a feature.

1:41:54You know. I, you know, there were people who. Offered me, like, a $5,000 advance. To sell. Them the audiobook. Rights. Like, really? Wow. And so I'm like, no, I'm going. To do a Kickstarter. So I did a Kickstarter to fund the audiobook. I raised.

1:42:19I think, $43,000. Nice. And, and, thank you to all the Kickstarter. Backers out there. You're amazing people. And I was able to get three very talented. Professional actors, one for each major role. And just do it with. All the bells and whistles.

1:42:40And, So we're going to put out the audiobook pretty soon. All the major recording is done, and I think we've produced something really special. And it just confirmed, again. This belief I had. I don't need. Someone to give me permission to.

1:42:58Create. I can just. Create things. And if they're. Good enough, people will be. Interested. You know, that's that agency. Again. You don't wait for someone to say you can create do so. You say, I can create and I will do so whether you wish it or not.

1:43:27And there are so many new authors who are so much in doubt about whether their work has value, that they will offer up 80% of their earnings to, you know, to books or something in exchange for what basically amounts. To a pat on the head. Yeah.

1:43:49So, you know, if if there are any aspiring authors watching this, I'd like to. Speak directly to you for a moment. I know you're afraid. I was afraid to. Everyone is afraid. You know, you you stay. Afraid even as you start having success. And the fear is constant.

1:44:08But you don't know if your. Work has any value. And maybe a few. Of your friends have read it and a few of your relatives have read it. And there are some other people who leaf through it and said, yeah, wow, this is really good. But you know.

1:44:25You're not sure if that's true. Or if they're just trying to be nice. So you're in this difficult place where you're trying to sell something, but you don't. Know what its actual value. Is. Well, I'll tell you something. The way you find. Out.

1:44:43Is to try to. Sell it yourself. Because if it actually. Has value to people and you start getting out there and flogging it and persuading a few people to read it. If it has value, then they will start. Saying, wow, this is really good and recommending it to their friends.

1:45:03It won't be a fast process, but it does work. And that is so much better. As a measure of value than whether some acquisitions guy. At a publishing. House is going to compliment you. Because they don't know what sells. They don't they don't have any special magic knowledge or insight that you do not have.

1:45:32So people are out there, they want good stuff and they will buy it if you have the courage to offer it to them. You know, it's. Not your decision. Whether your work is good enough. It's theirs. Give them the opportunity.

Wrapping Up And What Is Upcoming From Devon

1:45:57To make that decision. That is a great way to end, because I was going to ask, what's your advice for aspiring authors that want to reach that? So we'll end on that because those beautiful I think we touched on a lot of great topics. In terms of the audiobook, you said that's finished recording.

1:46:19Yes. Is there I know we're dealing with other things. Is there a date that it may be pushed back to or that you're hovering around? We are our sound editor. Is booked up until about January, and that was because we were unable to book at the time that we wanted to.

1:46:39Complications from my wife having cancer. So that was that. It is what it is. So we're looking at. Maybe changing there. But, you know, maybe we want to stick with that. So it's it's probably. Going to be first quarter of next year. And then.

1:47:01Also. Working on the sequel again. You know life has intruded. So there have. Been some delays. But we're looking at maybe spring of next year for the sequel. And this is. This will be the second. Book in what is planned out as a for book. Series.

1:47:21Awesome. I'm very much looking forward to both of those because audiobooks are my thing. So not only was it like the first time I'd read a fiction book in a while, but I very rarely read unless it's like a physical book that I just burn through.

1:47:34And so. I think, I think there. Is a big future in audiobooks, and I think there is a big future in a certain type of audiobook like this, this high effort, high production value kind of audiobook. Because they started. Out being called Books on Tape, and it.

1:47:53Was just like somebody read the book. Onto tape. Yeah. Because you know, you wanted to be able to listen to the book. And there was. There was nothing. Beyond that. It was just kind of kind of somebody reading the book out loud. And what we're starting to.

1:48:11Discover really resonates with people is good narration and. Moving over into. It. Being an audio production with real acting and. Something. Akin to a sort of a 1930s radio play where they're really trying to make it. Into an. An acted piece of.

1:48:37Media. And I went. With that, and I went and I found some, some really very, very talented voice actors. Who I really felt. Like. I went from saying, oh. I suppose I should do an audiobook to. We're going to. Make something special. So, you know, all.

1:49:02The roars. Are done. We're just waiting on sound engineering. But I directed every moment of it personally, and we had a lot of fun with that. And we're very proud of what we put out. So I think I. Think it's either I'm completely delusional.

1:49:21Or this is going to be good. It's going to be good. That's one last thing that I respect is it seems like in every piece of content, even on Twitter, like something that could be as short as a one sentence tweet on Twitter. There's a lot of quality and thought that goes into it.

1:49:40Then same with the audiobook. It seems like that's a driving factor in your decision making. Yeah, it goes back to the. Integrity. Thing. You know, you can't you can't. Just try. To to cheat people. You can't you can't just you take pictures.

1:49:59Of your food and put it on Instagram and pretend you're a success. You have to offer them real value. And I try to proceed from the assumption that people are smart. Yeah, because I want an audience of smart people because smart people have more money.

1:50:18Yeah. It. All right. So with that I'll have links to everything in the description, the book, the Substack, the Twitter account, all of them are great. Follow them. Hopefully I'll follow up with you on how that goes because I actually want to.

1:50:37Yes, absolutely. And then outside of that, anything else you want to plug? Website general things that people can find. Well, I'm not sure I want to. Plug it yet, but we may have. We may have a another special. Collaborative project in the works with those voice.

1:50:57Actors. Oh, cool. So. Okay. Yeah, if you do it, if you do, let me know. I'll put those. Yes. Sweet. Devin, thank you so much. I got more out of that than, you know. So very excited to get this. Thank you for. Having me on. It was. It was. It was a really good conversation.

1:51:20I love doing these things. And it's it's so good to be able to talk about what I do. To interesting. People who really have, have been there and have an insight into what that whole journey is. Like. Yeah, the audience will benefit a lot from it too.

1:51:39So thank you.