Jason Fiefer

Intro:// Why you do what you do? Who are you without your titles, & without your designations? As an individual, whose problems, whose challenges are you solving. Are you solving other people’s problems or are you solving your own problems? What can an employee learn from an entrepreneur and vice versa? These are few of the questions we are going to reflect in this conversation. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast the xMonks drive. I am your host Gaurav Arora and our today’s guest is Jason Feifer. Jason is the Editor in Chief of the Entrepreneur Magazine, an author of book “Build for Tomorrow” and hosts two podcasts. Let’s take a dive and listen to Jason’s insights ☺ Outro:// I thoroughly loved this conversation. Btw, what are your key learnings, reflections or insights from this conversation. Do share that with me on my mail ID gauravinspires@gmail.com or leave a review and rate this podcast and I look forward to meeting you next week with another interesting conversation. Till then take care and stay tuned. 00:02 Thank you so much. Yes, it's such a pleasure having you here. 00:05 How it's a pleasure to be here. 00:08 pleasure is all mine, trust me. Jason, I've heard so much about you. I've heard so many interviews that you have been a guest on. And I've heard so many stories about to, you know, the way you started as a news, PayPal reporter, to being where you are today as the chief editor of entrepreneur dot show. entrepreneur.com. Just curious to know, who is Jason without his titles? 00:35 Oh, that's an interesting question, who is Jason without his titles, Jason is a guy who is very curious. And has always been interested in figuring out how to share something with people that they will find some joy in. That's really the through line, because I was just what I was doing before the fun titles. I mean, you know, prior to the titles that I had, have now, I was an editor at different magazines, and the thing that I am prior to that I was a newspaper reporter. And prior to that I was a kid writing a blog. And I'm, you know, the through line really is that I'm, I'm I, you know, I've just been, I've always been fascinated with communication with the ability to, to could put something into the world and have people react to it. And my career has been about trying to figure out what it is that I actually have to say, and who wants to hear it. And, and, right, it's, you know, it's like, it's like, being a good communicator really requires two things, it requires having something to say and then, and then convincing people that that that you're worth listening to. And there have been a lot of times in my career where I had something to say, but I hadn't been able to convince anyone that I had to think to listen to that I was worth listening to. And then frankly, when I first got to entrepreneur, I had the opposite problem, which was that I suddenly was someone who, just by my title alone, was someone that people thought they should listen to. And I wasn't sure I had anything to say, because I didn't have I didn't come from an entrepreneurial background. And so I was I was kind of intimidated by speaking to this audience, particularly once they thought of me as an authority, which I didn't think of myself at the time. And it took a long time to, to figure out how to be the thing that people wanted me to be, and how to do it in a way that felt authentic, so that, you know, it was really an extension of the work that I've always been doing. 02:57 This so interesting, in my mind, from what I'm listening is a dichotomy that, how can I be what people want me to be, and yet holding the platform of authenticity, I'll come back to that. But before that, I would love to hear from you. What was that moment in your life? When you were willing to let go of the identity that you were rubbed into, because very early, we learn as individuals that we have to tie ourselves with an identity as you are mentioning, as you mentioned, that I was a newsletter. I was a news reporter. And then I was an editor at then I was a blog writer. Similarly, a lot of things happened with me as well. I'm an engineer, I'm an MBA, I'm working on my banker. I'm, I'm a facilitator, I'm an executive coach. I'm a podcaster. Attached to advertise myself, it's so many identities. And the moment I start to reflect who am I without my identity, without Who am I without my titles? I suddenly feel so scared. What was that moment when you could actually cut that tie? and experience the freedom when you're talking about that? Jason is a curious being? 04:16 Yeah. i Well, look, I part of part of the foundation of your question is that you know, this thing that I share with people it's in it's in this book that I wrote builds for tomorrow, which is that I think that people need to find a way to identify the thing about them, that does not change in times of change, and, and separate their identity from the output of their work. The people far too often tie their identities very closely to the output of their work to the work that they do to the product that they make to the role they occupy which is all fine and make sense. But the problem is, of course, that all that stuff is very changeable. So that the second It changes, it doesn't just feel like a change to your work, it feels like a change to your identity. That is what feels so disruptive. So what we need to do and what I see entrepreneurs do very well, really some of them is to come up with, it's not a mission statement so much as it is a self description, a kind of a description of your core, in which every word is carefully selected, because it is not anchored to something that is easily changeable. So for me, you know, the line that I use for myself is I tell stories in my own voice. And that's those it's a very intentional word choice. I tell stories, not magazine stories, not newspaper stories, not podcast, not books, because of course, any of that stuff is very easily changeable. I, if I identified as a magazine editor, you know, my boss could call me up right now, while we're on this call, and he could fire me is certainly within his right to do that. And if he does, then, I'm no longer magazine editor. And if my identity as as a magazine editor, then I'm one phone call away from losing my identity. That's, that's a very dangerous place to be. So I tell stories, you can't take stories away from me, I could do stories in any number of ways doing it right now. And then in my own voice as me setting the terms for how I want to operate, I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in carrying the ball, I'm interested in really defining the space. So how did I get to that? You know, it wasn't a singular moment, I can't think back to a singular moment as a turning point, but what I can think too, were a number of times in which I was confronted with a dissatisfaction over something that I had always thought I wanted. So I spent a lot of time being a newspaper, wanting to be a newspaper reporter, and then being a newspaper reporter, and really loving the, the status of that and the identity of it. But then discovering that I didn't like the work. And then later, thinking of myself as a magazine editor, and being at magazines that I frankly, didn't want to be at anymore, or, or, or finally getting to do something that I thought I always wanted to do. I mean, I spent, I spent a lot of time thinking I want to be, I just want to be a Features Editor. And I all I want to do is edit long magazine stories. But I'll tell you what, once you learn how to do it, and then you do it 5075 100 times, you're kind of done with it. Like it's, at least I am, I want to do something else. And then I start to feel stuck. And it was in those moments where I was really forced just to think well, what do I what am I and my instinct wasn't to go through this kind of mental exercise, come up with a sentence. My instinct at first was actually just to produce different things. What else am I interested in? What else do I like I made funny viral websites. I, I poured a lot of energy into social media. But you know, these things just weren't that satisfying. And I think that was partially because what I was looking for was just another way to define my identity by some different output of my work. And it took a long time. But I remember at some point, thinking to myself, How would I describe myself if I didn't describe myself by my work? And that question was just very intriguing. And I remember asking friends to do it for themselves, and it would spark these interesting conversations. And I realised I'm, I'm onto something. I'm honest, other people don't do this very often. I haven't done it for myself, but it seems like a really valuable exercise. And I cannot even remember when I came up with the phrase, I tell stories of my own voice, but But it's something that I'm very, very glad I have. 08:48 I love it. I love it. What I'm picking up right now is that every time when I'm attaching myself to any identity is going to cause some kind of dissatisfaction now that this satisfaction has got some opportunity for us. Provided I'm willing to dig deeper into that and say, Hey, what am I attaching myself to? That's causing that dissatisfaction? And that could be a turning point in my life because that might give me the statement as you said, you may call it mission statement or not, but I really love it when you said that we need a mission statement in which every word is not subject to easy change in which every word is cool to us. I just love it. 09:28 You know it's funny I I travel a lot and I speak to executive teams or larger teams at very large companies. I mean, in the last week alone, I've spoken to teams in person or virtually at Pfizer, X Accenture, Google Aon, the insurance company and I do this this, this exercise with them. I you know, I have a way to walk people through it where I I set up this this. I mean, if you want to do it for yourself, I set up this scenario, which is that someone comes up to you at a party and asks what you do. And, you know, and what do you say? Well, the first thing that you're going to say is you're gonna talk about your tasks. And so the thing that you do every day the role that you occupy, so Okay, now let's run this scenario, again. Someone comes up to a party asks what you do, but now you can't talk about your tasks, like anything that you just said or thought before is off the table. So what do you do? Well, you talk about your skills, what you're good at, and so on. And, and then let's run it one more time. Someone comes up to a party, ask what you do. And now you can talk about your tasks or your skills, anything you had thought of before, is off the table. Now, what do you what are you left with? What on earth do you talk about? And that, you know, that's how we get down to this single sentence. And they give people examples from others. And I will tell you, when I first started doing that, I would say that I started doing that in talks, maybe, maybe, maybe a two years, a year and a half to two years ago is when I started doing that in talks. And I was nervous the first couple times I did it. And the reason was because I thought very, very experienced people who have accomplished a lot are going to find this to be a kind of infantilizing exercise, right? Like, they don't need to think about this. They, they, they're building giant companies, they're making more money than I am, they don't need to think about this stupid sentence is going to sound just, you know, like, I'm bringing children's homework to, you know, an adult party. But I will tell you, it is the thing that people comment on the most after my talk, they cook, they come up to me. And they tell me what they came up with for themselves. Because of course, as I'm running them through this exercise and explaining my own experience with it, they're thinking about it for themselves. And they've had some time to marinate on it. And, and, and they they're very excited to share the answer. And the answers are all really interesting. You know, I mean, I've heard people just come up and say, you know, what my my core is, I help sell companies, I help people achieve big things. You know, I, you know, I help I solve complex problems, just really basic core could not be more, more, more like down to the cellular level. And I think it is just, they are excited to think about it. They're excited to have come up with some kind of answer. And it really showed me that it doesn't matter at what level of work you work that you are probably not contemplative enough about why you do the things that you do. And spending any time thinking about that is time that you're really investing in your future, because it will give you an understanding of who you really are, and how your skills are transferable. 13:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's, it's like a walking on a tightrope, because it should not be very generic, that anyone and everyone can paint it. At the same time, it should not be to that cellular level that you're not being able to differentiate between the forest and the trees, right, the woods and the tree. So that's the kind of walking on the tightrope it is just in coming back to the statement that you made that how can I be what people would want me to be in the same time holding the authentic ground? How do these two things converge together? What's your take on this? 13:43 Hmm. I have always thought that the key to having a happy career is to figure out the intersection of what you're good at and what you're interested in. Because there are a lot of people who are really good at stuff they're not interested in. And there are a lot of people who are interested in stuff that they're not very good at. And I've experienced both. I have been good at being a newspaper reporter. People valued my work. But I didn't really like doing it. I was bored by it. And then I've been interested in in things I've tried writing screenplays, other good works of fiction I'm not good at that I was interested in it but it wasn't there wasn't it just wasn't the thing that I was good. So if you can find the intersection of the thing that you're good at and the thing that you're interested in, then you're on the right path towards some kind of fulfilment for yourself and also putting yourself in a position to create value for others. And that idea which I don't know occurred to me some long time ago, that idea I now just I find interesting and flexible right so I can take If that and then apply it to, well, okay, I'm in and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a communicator, I think the thing that I'm really, really good at is gathering and processing information and making it useful to others. And that's my core skill. And, and by the way, the reason that I, the reason for that, or for for that, for me is here's a kind of random philosophy of people that I have, which is that I think that all humans have the same skill, the same core skill, and that skill is pattern matching, that is a distinct human ability. The difference is that we're all naturally better at matching different patterns. So I am really good at seeing, like, gathering information, like I said, sort of gathering information, talking to people hearing things that I think are going to resonate with others, and then figuring out to share that information in a way that's very sticky to them. And, and to be able to, like, so create a comprehensive worldview to understand the stories so that I can I can, I can share them. But then I meet, you know, I meet other people who their skill set is walking into a failing business and stopping the bleeding, right stabilising a failing business, I can't do that. To save my life, there's no way that if there's a business that's failing that you would want me to walk in and be the guy to try to stop it. That's not my pattern match. I don't know how to look at the datasets. I don't know how to see how one company did it and then apply it to another company. i It's not me, that's somebody else. But the skill set is the same. It's pattern matching. And so once I understand my, my pattern, then I want to figure out, well, how do I, how do I use it in a way in which I'm creating value that I find very satisfying to create, and that I can see people respond to will, I mean, I created, I created viral websites that were funny that people laughed at, or they got angry at and they created news, and I had reporters calling me and you know, that was fun. But also it was so empty. Like, just there was zero people reached out to me as a result of me creating a funny viral website and said, you know, what, you changed how I think about work, or like, do you inspired me to do this different thing. And, and now I get those messages. And I gotta say, for me, and you look at that it says it a value judgement. Not everybody has to go around the world, like feeling like they're inspiring others. But for me, it just, it was more powerful. That was a more powerful response, then haha, that thing is funny. And so I found that for me, that's the thing that matters. I didn't know it mattered until I started doing it. But once I did, I really wanted to lean into it. 17:58 So what I'm listening is three things. One is, identify something that you're really good at, and identify something that you're really interested in, and identify something that can actually create an impact in the world. Something that can possibly inspire others, is my understanding, right? 18:15 I think that's right. But look, I I will refine the line you use to make an impact on the world. And the only reason is because that can sound so big, that it just sounds impractical or impossible. I you know, I, I, I hope I'm doing good work. I don't know that I'm changing the world by inspiring somebody. But as long as I but if I'm changing somebody, if somebody emails me and says You changed how I think, or you know, I mean, look, I'll get a gift, because it just got a DM from somebody today. So I'll just read it to you. Because this is this. I like live for this stuff. She wrote, it's just DM on Instagram. I don't know this person. I just wanted to thank you. I was on a podcast recently. And he asked me to tell him more about me expecting me to say I'm an event planner. Nope. I'm someone who loves to help people celebrate life. And I do so through event planning. So that clearly somebody who heard that exact message that we were talking about earlier, and it got her thinking that she she works in event planning, but no, she's someone who helps people celebrate life. And that by itself, that idea clearly inspired all sorts of thinking and action on her part. That's an incredible that's an incredible change to somebody's and in and you know it just in the menu of things that I have done. Have that's this work is the only time that anyone has ever reached out to me with those kinds of messages. And I have to tell you, that that just that to me that that people are reacting that way and I feel good about it tells me that I on that right intersection. 20:04 So to in fact, this reminds me of a conversation that had at NASA, when somebody asked a janitor, what do you do? And instead of saying that I clean the office, the gender responded, I help people reach more. 20:18 Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that before. It's a great, it's a great anecdote. I wonder if that's true. But it's a lovely anecdote. 20:25 And the patient should think I mean, I've, I've talked to they're going that they tell me what their mission is. 20:44 You know, I remember talking to Greg Weissman, who is the CEO of food stir is a company that makes baking mixes and other sweet goods. And they were going through a big change, the product was changing, and it was somewhat turbulent. And I asked him if he was disappointed by having to make some sacrifices. And he said, No, because it goes back to why do you start a business to begin with, and our business is to bring joy to people with upgraded suite baked goods. And you know, when he said that, I immediately I thought, that is just such an incredibly intelligent way to think about what you do every day when you show up to work. Because if you think are, we're in the business of selling baking mixes, well, what happens if people stopped liking baking mixes, you're pretty stuck. You know, what you're stuck doing now is trying to convince people to buy baking mixes. But if people don't want baking mixes, then you're just fighting, you're fighting, you're fighting a wave of an ocean wave, those you can't fight an ocean wave. So but if you if your mission is I bring joy to people? Well, people always want to wait, there's always, always ways to upgrade something. And so that gives you sort of so much more flexibility. If people stop liking baking mixes one day, it doesn't really matter. Go find whatever they want now, and then deliver that to them. Right that that that allows you to be more customer centric, because if you are defensive over trying to hold your position, then you are really just focused on solving your own problem. My problem is that people don't like baking mixes anymore. And therefore, the solution has to be convinced people who like baking mixes, that's not solving other people's problems that solving your problem. But if you are able to frame what you do in a way that is driven by the needs of others, well, then if people don't like baking mixes, then they must love something. Or maybe they're searching for something new to love. Either way, it's now your opportunity to solve that problem. 22:51 What a beautiful analogy, Jason, thank you. So since you are talking about entrepreneurs, and you do a lot of work with entrepreneurs, just curious. I do a lot of work with C suite executives, I do a lot of work with people who are working professionals. What is the one thing you can learn from an entrepreneur that if you could implement as an employee, it would be equally fulfilling? 23:20 Ah, the thing that strikes me most about entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs are what I like to call vertical thinkers. To tell you a little quick story that illustrates us. So when I my wife and I wrote a romantic comedy together, in I think it was 2018. And you know, we started working on it before I got to Entrepreneur Magazine. By the time it came out, I was editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. So everybody is like what why does this exist? Or the year what do you what is this book is nothing to 24:09 do. Part of my life they were so writer friends of mine, I have a writers friends of mine, they would say congratulations, so exciting that you wrote this book, you sold it. It's amazing. Entrepreneurs would say, Oh, that's interesting, what are you going to do with it? Because to them, the only reason to do something is because it is the foundation upon which the next thing will be built. It is the difference I realised between horizontal thinking and vertical thinking where we're most people myself included for a very long time. Were horizontal thinkers, which is to say you put something out in the world and then you move along you put something else out in the world, he moves along. And and you just, you just you don't really accrue whereas vertical thinkers make decisions is based on that action today leads to action tomorrow, knowledge today leads to further opportunity tomorrow. And this helps entrepreneurs filter opportunities. But it also helps them be mindful of how everything that they do, can be gathered together into a greater whole. I mean, this filters down in ways like big and small, it has helped me strategize how to develop my career by thinking about how the things that I'm going to do, should lead to specific outcomes later. But then also, you know, I, I encounter a lot of very impressive people and I always have, because it's the one of the pleasures of being in media. But for the most, most of my career, I didn't try to capture that information in any way, I would meet people, but then I would leave them and that would, that'll be it, we met now we aren't in touch. Now, I have a spreadsheet that I call good contacts. And everybody who I interact with, who is interesting, and who I think might be of some value in the future, they go on the spreadsheet. It's an ever growing body of contacts. And it is because I am always thinking that every single day, basically everything that I do can lead to something more tomorrow, it has to be vertical thinking. So that's an unnatural way of thinking, I don't think at all most people do. But I do think that the average employee would do well to think that way. Because it's not just about like, you don't have to do that and then leave and start your own business. That's not for everybody. That's it's in fact, kind of a crazy path to take, is to start your up as you do it only if you feel compelled, like you have to know a lot of people who build wonderful, fulfilling careers inside of companies. But I what would happen if you were more mindful about how the things that you're doing today, or building today, or the knowledge that you're gathering today will be specifically useful tomorrow, and you're running a kind of constant thought experiment about how you can better qualify yourself for future opportunities. Right now, that starts to give you a different pathway forward. And it also doesn't drive you into a place where you might feel stuck, because you're always thinking about what comes next. And you have some kind of plan or at least hypothesis about what comes next. It was a transformative way of thinking for me. 27:39 In fact, that that brings me to your book that you have written build for tomorrow, an action plan for embracing change, adapting fast and future proofing your career. Yes. An absolute delight to go through this book, JSON, and just loving every single story that you have poured into this every single page that you have written. Just curious, you know, there are so many changes happening in the economy, and especially in the world that we are living in today. No two consecutive days are similar. And here you are talking about future proofing your career. How does that fit in here? One, how can I anticipate what is the next wave which is coming in that I need to be ready for? How can I anticipate that? How can I make sure that I'm ready? So many questions? What's your take? 28:32 Well, you can't I I mean, you can't anticipate every change because it's just it's just beyond the capacity of a human being to do. We are very, very comically bad at predicting the future as human beings. So it's worth having a lot of constantly revised hypotheses about what's coming next. And where new opportunity is. And you should be exploring that and running little experiments to test it. But when I say future proof, I don't really mean that it's possible that you could find something right now that you will be able to do until you retire. That's that's that's not possible. Instead, what I'm really talking about is building yourself and whenever it is that you are building your enterprise, your career in a way in which you're anticipating that change will come. It will come in large ways and small it will come in pandemics and lost clients. It'll be it'll be everything. And the more in which you can orient yourself to the reality that everything that you do is changeable. The more you start to just build that reality into the way in which you operate today. You start to understand yourself differently in the way in which we've talked about defining your identity, but you also just start to make decision shins in which maybe you're, you're doing something that is maybe painful or inefficient now because you know that it's going to be more valuable later it's going to put you in a position that's going to be more more impactful later, you know, you are, you are reframing how you see changes in your life and your business as not loss, but as potential gain, and that the greatest opportunity available to you is to try to identify that gain before other people do, it's in recognising that when massive change comes, instead of just being so focused on how it is impacting you that people have new needs, and that their old needs may not be up to the task of providing what they need right now, which is actually an incredible opportunity for you. But you have to stop thinking about how to protect what has happened to you or what you have lost and rather start to think about what do people need now? And how do I provide that, what I offer is, is is, is hopefully a like a step by step guide of how to think through these challenges and how to think differently about yourself. Because future proofing, Look, you can't opt out of the future. So future proofing doesn't mean that you find something now and you stick with it. Instead, what it means is that you really understand yourself so well that you're sticking with that, and that you're finding new opportunities, where they where they are. 31:37 And I love the process that you have mentioned in that book, there are four steps that you have mentioned, the first one is pause when others start to panic, because you have spoken about that why do people panic, in remember the changes, changes that around them. The second step that you talk about is be the first to change before you have to write. And this reminds me of a beautiful code that says, Listen to life. Listen to the whispers of life, before we before life starts to scream in your ear. So as you are mentioning be the first to change before you have to the third point that you mentioned is lead the change to the new normal. And the fourth point is seize new opportunities that did not exist before. Yeah, just taking one step forward. Jason, I personally believe writing a book requires huge amount of efforts. And one goes through transformation itself. At the self level and identity level. There comes a moment in writing a book, when you find it extremely difficult to write. Because there are certain points that you are mentioning in the book, you have not been able to implement the same points in your life. Just curious. Which was that part? And this book did you find most difficult to write? And what shifts Did you undergo as the part of this process? 33:01 Well, the the part that I found hardest to write was not one part of the book, it was honestly learning how to write a book, it's a funny thing. I went into this with a pretty high level of confidence, because my entire career is oriented around writing. And, and I've one of the ways in which I think I have been able to thrive and have reached the place that I'm at is that I have been able to figure out how to communicate in lots of different styles. A lot of times I think people they find something and they consider it their specialty. And then they kind of stick with it. And the more in which you focus on doing one thing, the lesson which you're going to be in touch with how to do other things. And I never wanted to get there. So I have I have learned magazine writing in many different ways, right how to write for men's health audience how to write for a business audience how to how to write I, I've done comedy writing, I did newspaper writing, I did. I've done a lot of podcast scripting, and so on. And so that can be pretty versatile. So I figured well, getting into a book will be no problem. But my editor, Matthew Benjamin, at Penguin Random House in the US, he he told me once he acquired the book, he said, Well spend the next like two months or something writing the first four chapters, and then send them to me. And then we'll take a look at them. Is it alright? And I just like I kind of knocked them out real fast. And they said to him, and then we got on the phone. And he told me in a very nice thoughtful way because he's a great editor. But he basically was like, You have not written book chapters. What you've written are kind of random magazine, like long magazine articles and magazine articles. Do not just combine into a book you have to write a book. And I think that you need to think differently about the structure of the information that You have, and how to have the habit build upon itself and how to make each chapter feel like it's coherent with the next. And, you know, one of the things I really love that he did there was that he had me right. First, he didn't give me a whole bunch of instructions. He didn't give me some gameplan. Because that would have made me feel I suppose, like, I was out of control. This wasn't my project. And I just have to do paint by numbers to his idea. I mean, I'm not defensive about my work like that. But I could, I could see how that would be held people would process it. So instead, what he did was he just said, right, just do it. And then let's have something to work off of. And that feedback really forced me to step back and think more fundamentally, not just about the ideas that I have to express, but also about the way in which to express them. And what I started to do was then pull out incredibly successful books, not to look at the ideas that were in them, but rather just to look at how they structured the book. How many sections were in the book, how many chapters were in each section? How are the sections related to each other? How did the book progress? What did they do with the beginning and end of each chapter to make you feel like interlocked with the chapter that came before or after. And after looking at a number of these, particularly Greg McHugh ins, essentialism was was just had a had a structure that I found very appealing, I was able to step back and say, Aha, I now I understand how to orient my information in a way that feels like it's a book and not a magazine article. So that was that was hard. And that was really the education and learning how to write a book. And, and I'm really grateful for it, it helped me unlock a different way to tell stories, the hardest part to implement in my life. I it's very, it's very challenging question. I. I think that, you know, it's funny, as I was writing this book, about change, and the book is oriented around this idea that I call wouldn't go back, which is that you reach a moment where you say, I have something so new and valuable that I wouldn't want to go back to a time before I had it. I was trying to grapple with well, what is my wouldn't go back moment, because I was writing it. I was writing it during the pandemic. I mean, during the heavier days of the pandemic, and my family, my wife and two children had relocated from New York, where we live to Colorado because there was more space. My parents are out there, we were living with them. And, and I came to really like it out there. And I started to wonder as my wound go back, that we should move to Colorado, and I should spend my days biking and we made great friends. And my wife was not interested in that at all. And so we didn't move to Colorado, we moved back to New York. And but I wasn't fully satisfied where we were, it was a small space. And I just felt like there are parts of my life that I want. Different. And you know, what's funny is, what we ended up doing, about two months ago is that we moved to a very different part of Brooklyn, we were in a very trendy part of Brooklyn, where we could only afford a very small space, we move further out to a much quieter, more residential part of Brooklyn, nobody would call this area trendy, but we got a lot more space. And I found that this neighbourhood out here that I once would have just thought who would ever want to live there is actually a wonderful place to be. And the pace of life is a little bit different. And I really appreciate it. And I guess this is the wouldn't go back moment that that we got to it was really unexpected. But I was I was grappling with what is it? For me, it's a weird thing to know that something about your life is going to change but not know what it is. And I think the greatest thing that you can do is just be open to that it will happen and then figuring out well, what what should it be? And what sacrifices are you willing to make to get there? 39:11 Beautiful, thank you so much, considering the paucity of the time, a very simple question. And then I would ask the last question. So this question is, in your book, you mentioned you come from future? Yeah. If you can just share a sentence or two on this when you're talking about you come from future? 39:30 Yeah, sure you come from the future is is my way of saying there's a whole chapter on it, but I'll be really fast is basically my way of reminding you that you are the product of change. And we are all very concerned about new things. You know, you reach you reach you like you become you hit the age of 35. And suddenly, every new technology seems scary. And it's worth remembering that literally everything that we do was weird and new to somebody else from the clothing that we wear to the way that we can communicate to the, to our, our interests and hobbies and, and, you know, there was always somebody who said, Oh, that's That's it, that's it, that's not a good way to be you're though that that's a, that's gonna be damaging. But, you know, we are the product of exactly that. And we're okay. And that means that we're the evidence that the next thing can't possibly be that bad either. 40:24 Out of curiosity three years from now, I'm getting another opportunity to invite you again on the show. What, what kind of future have you created for yourself that you're super thrilled and happy about? 40:36 I don't know the answer to that, I often find that by the end of the year, I'm a little surprised.<> I would say the the linear path would be that in three years, I have taken some of the ways that I, I serve people outside of entrepreneur or newsletter podcasts, and I've turned them into more self sustaining businesses. And that I, I've I've developed, I've either turned them into recognisable platforms on their own, or that I have built something else that looks like that. And then I've built some, some partnerships that are going to be game changers. For me, I don't think that I don't think that in three years, I'll be a completely different person or anything like that. But I do think that I am in I like to think of myself as very much in the development stage right now. And then I think some of those, some of those beta products will hopefully be be a little more stable. 41:37 Last question. 41:38 Yeah. With all 41:39 the experience that you've been able to accumulate for yourself, Jason, having worked with so many entrepreneurs with different set of people, what do you know for sure, but 100% surety and certainty. 41:55 Probably not that much. I look back on my work from even just a few years ago, and I say that was subpar work or that was not delivering things nearly as well as I could now. But I've said it so often, and nobody has ever disagreed with me, which is that the most important skill anybody can have is adaptability. And I feel pretty confident that that will hold true. So that's that's, that's what I'm going to hang on to for myself to 42:28 thank you so much has been such a pleasure having you here loved this conversation. And I look forward to have you again on the show back sometime soon. Thank you. 42:37 I I appreciate that. And hey, everybody. If you want to find build for tomorrow, you can find it on Amazon or anywhere you get books. It's also available in ebook and audiobook. So thanks. Thanks for having me. 42:49 It's a must read. It's a must read. Thank you, Bill for tomorrow. Jason, thank you so much has been such a pleasure having you know, 42:57 I appreciate it. Snippet 1— Title—A Happy Career or A Happy Life? How can I be what people would want me to be in the same time holding the authentic ground? How do these two things converge together? What's your take on this? 13:43 Hmm. I have always thought that the key to having a happy career is to figure out the intersection of what you're good at and what you're interested in. Because there are a lot of people who are really good at stuff they're not interested in. And there are a lot of people who are interested in stuff that they're not very good at. And I've experienced both. I have been good at being a newspaper reporter. People valued my work. But I didn't really like doing it. I was bored by it. And then I've been interested in in things I've tried writing screenplays, other good works of fiction I'm not good at that I was interested in it. but it wasn't there wasn't it just wasn't the thing that I was good. So if you can find the intersection of the thing that you're good at and the thing that you're interested in, then you're on the right path towards some kind of fulfilment for yourself and also putting yourself in a position to create value for others. And that idea which I don't know occurred to me some long time ago, that idea I now just I find interesting and flexible right so I can take If that and then apply it to, well, okay, I'm in and I'm, you know, I'm, 17:58 (ye alag se lagega) So what I'm listening is three things. One is, identify something that you're really good at, and identify something that you're really interested in, and identify something that can actually create an impact in the world. Something that can possibly inspire others, Snippet 2—-Title- Every Human Has This Core Skill I'm a communicator, I think the thing that I'm really, really good at is gathering and processing information and making it useful to others. And that's my core skill. And, and by the way, the reason that I, the reason for that, or for for that, for me is here's a kind of random philosophy of people that I have, which is that I think that all humans have the same skill, the same core skill, and that skill is pattern matching, that is a distinct human ability. The difference is that we're all naturally better at matching different patterns. So I am really good at seeing, like, gathering information, like I said, sort of gathering information, talking to people hearing things that I think are going to resonate with others, and then figuring out to share that information. in a way that's very sticky to them. And, and to be able to, like, so Create a comprehensive worldview to understand the stories so that I can, I can share them. But then I meet, you know, I meet other people whose skill set is walking into a failing business and stopping the bleeding. Right. Stabilising a failing business, I can't do that. To save my life, There's no way that if there's a business that's failing that you would want me to walk in and be the guy to try to stop it. That's not my pattern match. I don't know how to look at the datasets. I don't know how to see how one company did it and then apply it to another company. It's not me, that's somebody else. But the skill set is the same. It's pattern matching. And so once I understand my, my pattern, then I want to figure out, well, how do I, how do I use it in a way in which I'm creating value that I find very satisfying to create, and that I can see people respond to. will, I mean, I created, I created viral websites that were funny that people laughed at, or they got angry at. and they created news, and I had reporters calling me and you know, that was fun. But also it was so empty. Like, just there was zero people reached out to me as a result of me creating a funny viral website and said, you know, what, you changed how I think about work, or like, do you inspired me to do this different thing. And, and now I get those messages. And I gotta say, for me, and you look at that it says it a value judgement. Not everybody has to go around the world, like feeling like they're inspiring others. But for me, it just, it was more powerful. That was a more powerful response, then haha, that thing is funny. And so I found that for me, that's the thing that matters. I didn't know it mattered until I started doing it. But once I did, I really wanted to lean into it. Snippet 3— Entrepreneur-Employee Equaliser What is the one thing you can learn from an entrepreneur that if you could implement as an employee, it would be equally fulfilling? 23:20 Ah, the thing that strikes me most about entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs are what I like to call vertical thinkers. To tell you a little quick story that illustrates us. So when I and my wife and I wrote a romantic comedy together, in I think it was 2018. And you know, we started working on it before I got to Entrepreneur Magazine. By the time it came out, I was Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. So everybody is like what why does this exist? Or the year what do you what is this book is nothing to 24:09 do. Part of my life they were so writer friends of mine, I have a writers friends of mine, they would say congratulations, so exciting that you wrote this book, you sold it. It's amazing. Entrepreneurs would say, Oh, that's interesting, what are you going to do with it? Because to them, the only reason to do something is because it is the foundation upon which the next thing will be built. It is the difference I realised between horizontal thinking and vertical thinking. where we're most people myself included for a very long time. We are horizontal thinkers, which is to say you put something out in the world and then you move along you put something else out in the world, he moves along. And and you just, you just you don't really accrue Whereas vertical thinkers make decisions is based on that action today leads to action tomorrow. Knowledge today leads to further opportunity tomorrow. And this helps entrepreneurs filter opportunities. But it also helps them be mindful of how everything that they do, can be gathered together into a greater whole. I mean, this filters down in ways like big and small, it has helped me strategize how to develop my career by thinking about how the things that I'm going to do, should lead to specific outcomes later. But then also, you know, I, I encounter a lot of very impressive people and I always have, because it's the one of the pleasures of being in media. But for the most, most of my career, I didn't try to capture that information in any way, I would meet people, but then I would leave them and that would, that'll be it, we met now we aren't in touch. Now, I have a spreadsheet that I call good contacts. And everybody who I interact with, who is interesting, and who I think might be of some value in the future, they go on the spreadsheet. It's an ever growing body of contacts. And it is because I am always thinking that every single day, basically everything that I do can lead to something more tomorrow, it has to be vertical thinking. So that's an unnatural way of thinking, I don't think at all most people do. But I do think that the average employee would do well to think that way. Because it's not just about like, you don't have to do that and then leave and start your own business. That's not for everybody. That's it's in fact, kind of a crazy path to take, is to start your up as you do it only if you feel compelled, like you have to know a lot of people who build wonderful, fulfilling careers inside of companies. But I what would happen. If you were more mindful about how the things that you're doing today, or building today, or the knowledge that you're gathering today will be specifically useful tomorrow, and you're running a kind of constant thought experiment about how you can better qualify yourself for future opportunities. Right now, that starts to give you a different pathway forward.