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Things were not going well for Neil Pasricha (@NeilPasricha). He came home from work one day, and his wife told him she no longer loved him. Around that same time, Neil's best friend committed suicide. Neil needed something to lift his spirits. Something to remind him, every day, that there was something good in the world. That’s when Neil started his blog, 1,000 Awesome Things. At the end of each day, he wrote about one little awesome thing from life. Today, Neil has written several awesome books, including The Book of Awesome and Awesome is Everywhere. His blog, 1,000 Awesome Things was named Best Blog in the World two years in a row from International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, Neil is the Director of The Institute of Global Happiness, and he has a fantastic podcast called 3 Books, on which he’s interviewed titans such as Judy Blume, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Sedaris. Neil’s new book is You Are Awesome, and it’s all about resilience. In this conversation, you’ll learn: Neil says "You never kn

There’s an expression, to burn your boats. It originated with a military strategy. Hernán Cortés famously “burned the boats,” after arriving in the New World to conquer the Aztec empire. (He actually “scuttled” his ships. He sunk them.) I recently burned my boats, when I killed off a $150,000 passive revenue stream. The birth of a passive income muse In March of 2007, I was sitting with some friends on the cable-locked chairs and tables – at two in the morning – on the porch of a closed restaurant in Austin, Texas. We were doing the kind of thing that we did at the time, after a night of parties at the SXSW conference: We’d sit around and talk about our ideas. Facebook and Twitter were still fringe services – most of the mainstream world knew nothing about them. The internet seemed full of opportunities. The subject of my dating life came up. I was terrible at finding a girlfriend, but I was good at finding dates. I described in great detail to my friends the way I had optimized my process of online dating. I

How’s it going? Really, how are things going for you? If things are going pretty good, you might want to tear everything down, and start all over again. Nick Kokonas (@nickkokonas) is Co-Owner of The Alinea Group and CEO of Tock. The Alinea Group is a collection of restaurants Nick started with world-class chef Grant Achatz, including their first restaurant, Alinea – a three-Michelin-star restaurant that received the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2016. Alinea is also ranked in the top restaurants in the U.S. and the world on numerous lists, including World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Tock, Nick’s other company, is a reservation system for buying tickets to some of the best restaurants in the world. With Tock, Nick has completely re-thought the economics of restaurants, eliminating wasted seating inventory, and making available variable pricing based upon the popularity of reservation times. Nick is a truly original thinker. He’s demonstrated this on his appearances on some other podcas

Four years ago, almost to the day, I moved to Colombia. Four years ago, I decided to become a writer. Four years is how long it takes to get a college degree. Today, I’m graduating. It might seem strange that I didn’t think of myself as a writer. By the time I set out on this mission I had already written one best-selling book. But writing was still frightening to me. Every time I sat down to write, I felt a sense of agony and fear, and I wanted to run away. Today is my "graduation day" Now that I’ve dedicated myself to writing for the past four years, I feel confident in calling myself a writer. Since it takes four years to get a degree in something, I declare today, January 9th, 2020, to be my graduation day. Something to ask yourself as you listen to this: What transformation have you made? What commitments and changes and sacrifices did you make to make that transformation? My quest to becoming a writer took some big commitments, changes, and sacrifices – but by making these changes, I was getting somethi

This is the time of year when we make resolutions. Very few of us will actually keep them. The reason we can’t keep resolutions is that resolutions don’t work. We would be better at reaching their goals if they built habits, instead. BJ Fogg (@bjfogg) is a behavioral scientist at Stanford University. He specializes in “Behavior Design.” BJ has a new book coming out, right now in the beginning of 2020. It’s called Tiny Habits. I wanted to have him back on the show to announce the book. But then I realized that this episode on how to build good habits is so good that it’s worth running again. Here’s what you’ll learn: You need to pick habits with the right characteristics to be successful in building those habits. What are the components of a habit that will stick? What are the most common mistakes people make in trying to build habits? You've probably heard that it takes 21 days to build a habit. That's actually a myth. How long does it really take to build a habit? Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays Start

Socializing is good. But socializing as a default – out of some Fear of Missing Out – is not good. David's voice double fills in for him once again – and it's getting better. Image: Still Life With a Burning Candle, Pieter Claesz Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher RSS Email Facebook Messenger Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »     Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/art-staying-in-bestof/

Twelve years ago, David met Rob Hunter (@vegashacker) on Craigslist. They had both left their jobs at the same time. They were both determined to make it. So, David and Rob spent several months wandering from cafe to cafe in San Francisco. They put in twelve hour days, not making a dime. David says it was one of the most exciting times of his life. Today, David has this podcast, best-selling books, and lives in South America. Today, Rob is one half of Focused Apps, makers of hit iOS games including Hit Tennis and Emoji Me, which has more than 40 million downloads. Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your

Here’s an essay from a few years ago. It helps explain why David likes to step back from his work during the final weeks of the year. Puny humans. Also, for the first time ever, hear David Kadavy's voice double, created using Descript's "Overdub". Image: Pere Magloire on the Road to Saint-Clair, Etretat, Gustave Caillebotte Our Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondaysss About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher RSS Email Facebook Messenger Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »     Show notes: http://

I decided last December that I would be taking this December off. I like to give myself some space toward the end of the year so I can recharge, and come into the New Year with a fresh perspective. So, I’m reaching into the vault of more than 200 episodes, and pulling out some of my favorites – especially ones that are good for this time of year. This is a fantastic conversation with Sean Stephenson, and it takes on special significance this time around. Though what you’re going to hear is the only conversation I ever had with Sean Stephenson, I always felt a special connection with him. So when I discovered that he was born exactly one day after me, it seemed fitting. When this episode debuted, my mother sent me a text message. She said, “Listening to interview with Sean Stephenson on my walk. Very good. I was struck at the very beginning that he was born the day after you, and what a different experience his parents were thrust into.” When Sean Stephenson was born, he wasn’t expected to make it through the

In the 1840’s Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis noticed a pattern. He noticed that too many new mothers were dying of a fever. And it didn’t seem like a coincidence to him that many of these women who were dying shortly after childbirth had something in common. The doctors who delivered their babies had just performed autopsies. The death rate – by this fever – of new mothers, whose babies were delivered by doctors who had just handled dead bodies, was sometimes over thirty percent! That’s incredibly high, even by the standards of the 1840’s. The death rate of this clinic, where doctors performed autopsies and delivered babies, was so high that some women gave birth on the street, rather than go to this clinic. So Dr. Semmelweis performed an experiment. He tried one simple thing. This one simple thing dropped the death rate from this fever from the double digits to the single digits. Some months the death rate was zero! The one simple thing Dr. Semmelweis did: After doctors were done performing autopsies, before they deli

On July 4th of this year, I was finally hitting my stride. After a year of visa troubles, I had secured a three-year visa. I was finally back in the writing rhythm I had been in before my visa troubles started. Things had been fucked, and they had become unfucked. Little did I know, everything was about to get even more fucked than it was before. One thing that got me through the fuckedness that ensued – you’ll hear about it in this conversation – was that I had read Everything is F*cked, by Mark Manson (@iammarkmanson). In this conversation, you’ll learn: How can a book called Everything is F*cked possibly be, as the subtitle promises, A Book About Hope? Everything being fucked doesn’t require hope. Hope requires everything to be fucked. I’ve talked before on the show about living an “antifragile” life. Learn how to avoid having what Mark calls “fragile values." Mark says “if there’s no reason to live, then there’s no reason to not live.” How can what Mark calls “the uncomfortable truth,” be liberating, ins

You are what you surround yourself with. When your environment changes, your mind changes with it. We recently talked about how your environment can put you in a creative mental state, when we talked to Donald M. Rattner, on episode 201. But what about the objects you surround yourself with? They’re a part of your environment, too. The devices we use are a part of our environment, and the devices we use affect our mental state, too. We’re already pretty intentional about how we change our environment for the exact activities we’re doing. You cook in your kitchen, and you sleep in your bed. You wouldn’t sleep in your kitchen, so why do you meditate with your smartphone? Image: View Across the Bay, Juan Gris Thanks for sharing my work! Thanks to the 80,000 Hours podcast for syndicating my conversation with Rob Wiblin to their podcast. Thanks to the Traction Growth & Income podcast for interviewing me. Thanks to the Big Gay Author podcast for mentioning my interview with Robbie Abed. On Twitter, thank yo

Dan Ariely (@danariely) has more opportunities than he knows what to do with. As a James B. Duke professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and author of New York Times best-selling books, such as Predictably Irrational, he has lots of demands on his time. Dan has to say “no” to a lot of opportunities that don’t have a clear payoff. But, surprisingly, he also says “no” to a lot of opportunities that do have a clear payoff. That’s because, as Dan tells us in this conversation, he gambles with his time. He intentionally does some small amount of things that don’t have a clear payoff. In order to have the space and time for those gambles, he needs to say “no” to some sure bets. In this episode, we’ll learn more about how Dan gambles with his time. We’ll also learn: How did “gambling” with his time lead Dan to publish his exciting new graphic novel, Amazing Decisions: The Illustrated Guide to Improving Business Deals and Family Meals? The creative process for Dan’s new graphic novel is a

Over the past four years, I’ve been trying to “make it” as a creator. Yes, I was on my own for another eight years before that, but this past four years has been when I really doubled down on creating. To make the things I create not just a marketing tactic for some other thing. For the creations themselves to be the thing. Each month for the past two years of this journey, I’ve been reporting my income on my blog, kadavy.net. Sometimes, it’s been pretty embarrassing. These aren’t your usual income reports, where someone reports making six or seven figures in a single month. These are the income reports of a creator struggling to make it. This week, I’d like to give you a preview. This is a preview of something you get at some levels of Patreon backing. An audio version of my income report, delivered right to your favorite podcast app through your own private RSS feed. These income reports are where I think out loud about why I do one thing, or why I don’t do another thing. Hear how I build this business. Hea

Donald M. Rattner (@donaldrattner) is an architect, and author of My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation. I’ve talked a lot on this podcast about matching your work to your mental state. If you’re in the mood to do the work you’re doing, everything is going to be easier. But you can also match your mental state to the work. You can change your mental state so the work you need to be doing gets done. One powerful way to change your mental state is to change your surroundings. If you design your space to think more creatively, for example, you’ll do better creative work. In My Creative Space, Donald draws upon mountains of research from the field of environmental psychology, to show you how to change your space to change your creativity. In this conversation, you’ll learn: How has the field of environmental psychology shown how the spaces where you work can change everything from your thinking to your physiology? Research shows that the optimal light level for creati

If you had asked me when I first started Love Your Work why I was doing it, I don’t think I could have given you a straight answer. I simply felt compelled to create a podcast. Sometimes it’s through the act of creation that we discover what it is that we’re creating. This is a special 200th episode of Love Your Work. Over the past four years, I’ve been on my own creative journey in making this show. Today I want to reflect on that journey – share what I’ve learned along the way, and hopefully that will reflect some of what you’ve learned. I didn’t know for sure why I was starting Love Your Work when I first started, but if you were to ask me NOW why I started Love Your Work, I’d tell you that it’s because I was struggling with a conflict. It’s a conflict that you might struggle with yourself. On one side of the conflict is who you are expected to be. On the other side of the conflict is who you really are. The process of self-actualization – the process of “making it”, is a process of becoming that person wh

Scott H. Young (@scotthyoung) is best known for learning the entire MIT Computer Science curriculum, on his own, in only a year. He did it through “ultralearning” It’s a way of organizing your learning so each moment you spend learning is much more effective than it would be otherwise. If you’re like me, you love to learn new things. If you’re like me, you’d also like to learn more in a shorter amount of time. In Ultralearning, Scott shares how to break down learning projects into their component parts, and how to choose the most effective ways of learning each of those individual parts. In this conversation, you’ll learn about: How can “meta learning” – or planning your learning projects – make the process more enjoyable, and prevent burnout and procrastination? Learn why when you feel like you’re learning more, you may actually be learning less. Which is right for you? Free recall, or repeated review? If you’re like me, the term “ultralearning” may sound a little exhausting. Learn how you can apply ultrale

  If you’re going to get an edge, you have to be aware that the prevailing wisdom is almost always wrong. You have to know when to go against that wisdom. One place I’m glad that I went against the prevailing wisdom is in my decision to not buy a house – especially when I was in my early twenties. The prevailing wisdom was that a house was “the best investment you can make.” Instead, I decided to invest in myself. This post is from more than ten years ago, and it’s talking about decisions I made fifteen years ago, which makes this a fun episode for two reasons. One, I wish I would have had more confidence in my point of view earlier on. I was definitely onto something. I’m always struggling to trust my instincts, and this is a good reminder that my instincts have been right at least one time in the past. Two, I’m reading this as it was written ten years ago. Notice that my writing style has gotten much better – my writing was definitely not as audio-friendly, but I’ll be reading it as it was written. I wasn’t

When something bad happens, it’s tempting to think that you made a bad decision. But the quality of your decision making doesn’t always align with the quality of your outcomes. Sometimes you make a good decision, and you have a bad outcome. Even more dangerous, sometimes you make a bad decision, and have a good outcome (you'll learn why). Annie Duke (@AnnieDuke) is a former professional poker player, and a decision strategist. She's dedicated to improving decision-making skills around the world amongst adults and children. She’s author of Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. In this conversation, you’ll learn: We often think of life as like a game of chess. Why is it actually more like a game of poker? How do we separate luck from skill? Learn the most common mental error people make that holds them back from ever learning to make better decisions. Why do strong opinions make you dumber? Learn how to overcome “motivated reasoning” to make more accurate predictions, an

We hate to lose. But if we don’t take risks in life, we never win. The more we protect ourselves from loss, the more we stagnate. Like economist Tyler Cowen told me, if you want to be “dynamic,” you have to develop a thick skin. I’ve been thinking more and more lately about the importance of having a thick skin. The importance of being – Antifragile. I’ll tell you more about it in this week’s episode. Image from: Head of a skeleton with a burning cigarette, Vincent Van Gogh New Weekly Newsletter: Love Mondays Start off each week with a dose of inspiration to help you make it as a creative. Sign up at: kadavy.net/mondays About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is the author of The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast and his Love Mondays newsletter, David explores what it takes to make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher RSS Email Facebook Messenger Support the sh