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Peter Bragiel wanted his own travel show. So, he got a camera and started traveling. At first, not much happened. Peter Bragiel just kept stowing the tapes away in a box. But, eventually, his adventures got bigger, and his videos got better. He's travelled the entire trans-Siberian railway, he's canoed the entire Mississippi river, and he even rode a tiny scooter, with a maximum speed of 29 miles-per-hour, across the United States. Peter's adventures are released on his YouTube channel, under the brand In-Transit TV. And Peter makes a living off of these travel videos. He's worked with brands such as Range Rover and American Express. He also learned Spanish using Rosetta Stone, as preparation for a sponsored trip to Cuba. (He ended up crashing a vintage car during the shoot. You'll hear about that, and what they did about it.) This week's episode is a great story about making dreams happen. How did Peter finally get the courage to publish his videos? How does he plan bigger and bigger trips? Why did Peter – w

Rejection hurts. Sometimes it hurts a little more than other times, but it still does hurt. But, rejection is a part of life. If you never get rejected, you’re not really trying. In 2016, I quadrupled my creative output. But, I got rejected harder and more frequently than any year before. I’m hoping for bigger and better rejections in 2017. I reviewed my 2016 rejections, and it didn’t feel good. I had to relive them all at once. But, it was a valuable exercise, and — if nothing else—you can take some sadistic pleasure in reading about them.   Sponsors http://kadavy.net/freshbookshttp://kadavy.net/treehouse Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/top-rejections-podcast/    

Hugh MacLeod (@hughcards) is a hero of mine, who helped me find my own path. It was 2004, I was sitting in a gray cubicle in Nebraska. And I discovered a PDF on the Internet called "How to be creative." I read it, and it was one of the most moving and inspiring things I had ever read. You know how sometimes you read something and you're like "yes! That's exactly what I was thinking! Except I didn't have words for it." This little PDF was like that for me. It was subversive, and edgy, and bold, and spoke to the non-conformist part of me that wanted to live outside of the template. And it had these brilliant little cartoons in it. They were all the same format. And small. Very small. It turns out they were all drawn on the back of business cards. Hugh MacLeod, the man behind this PDF had been drawing these cartoons for 7 years by this point. I came across his blog, called Gaping Void, and found more bold thinking and brilliant cartoons there. It was one of the blogs that inspired me to start my blog in 2004. I

I talked about minimalism with some of my guests. I talked about it with Craig Benzine on episode 39, and with James Altucher on episode 53. I'm not an extreme minimalist. I don't count the number of things that I own, trying to keep the number down. I consider myself to be a practical minimalist. I have just enough things to improve my focus, but I don't have so many things that it hurts my focus. I recently went minimalist when I sold most of my things and moved to Colombia. In this episode, I'll share just how being a practical minimalist helps me focus. This post originally appeared on Medium. You can find it and follow me at kadavy.net/medium   Sponsors http://kadavy.net/freshbooks http://kadavy.net/treehouse Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/practical-minimalism-focus-pod/    

Vinnie Lauria found his calling after backpacking around Asia. He had just sold a company. He had just gotten married. He feared that if he spent a year traveling, he'd run out of money, and he'd run out of momentum. He worried it would be career suicide. But his wife, Kristine, pushed him to seize the day. They sold everything, gave up their apartment in The Mission and hopped on a one way flight across the Pacific, planning to come back in a year. Throughout his travels, Vinnie kept doing what he does best. He was meeting entrepreneurs everywhere he went – Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, India, you name it – all over Asia. Along the way, he stumbled across a unique opportunity. He noticed there was a gap in funding for entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia. All of the Venture Capital firms were risk averse, and didn't invest with a Silicon Valley mindset. Meanwhile, there was an explosion of early-stage startups hungry for funding. So, with no investment experience to speak of, Vinnie partnered up with some frien

We're well into 2017 now, and I've been reflecting on 2016. It was a great year. In fact, I more than quadrupled my creative output.   I'm just talking about words published here. I'm not even talking about the weekly episodes I published here on Love Your Work. Almost every episode of Love Your Work so far has been in 2016.   I spent much of 2016 experimenting with some methods of optimizing my creative output, and I'll be sharing them today.   This post originally appeared on Medium. You can find it and follow me at kadavy.net/medium   Sponsors http://kadavy.net/freshbooks http://kadavy.net/treehouse   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/4x-creative-productivity-podcast/  

Noah Kagan first appeared on Love Your Work back on episode 41. On that episode, we talked about why discomfort is your compass, and learned that Noah even makes his bed in hotel rooms. I asked Noah to come back on the show because he had a blog post awhile back that I wanted to ask him about. It's called "my organization system," over on his blog, Okdork.com, and he talks pretty in-depth about how he manages his calendar week-to-week. I've been thinking a lot about managing mental energy throughout the week – after all, productivity – especially creative productivity – is more about mind management than it is about time management. So, listen to this show to hear, in-depth, how Noah optimizes his creative output by managing his mental energy. How does he get into flow? How does he juggle all of the details of running AppSumo and SumoMe? And how does he recharge? Noah is also joining the world of podcasters with his new show, Noah Kagan Presents. Noah interviewed me, and that episode should come out in a few

Over the past year, pretty much every week, I've released a new episode of Love Your Work. This will be my last episode this year. I'll be taking a break for a few weeks. We've come so far since exactly one year ago, when the first batch of episodes debuted. The show has now been downloaded over 200,000 times! If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may have seen some of the growth charts. The downloads just keep growing week after week. I'm thrilled that the show is resonating with people, and I appreciate the subscribes and the reviews. I've had a great time over the past year, and I've learned so much from our guests. The show is really taking off, so why am I taking a break? I thought I'd share my thought process. I think it will make a good mini-episode in itself. Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/see-you-next-year/  

There's this sort of productivity meme going around that you should make your bed. But, isn't making your bed kind of a waste? And isn't making your bed especially wasteful if you're busy? Here on Love Your Work, I've spent the past year interviewing some of the most successful entrepreneurs and creators. People like James Altucher, Jason Fried, Ryan Holiday, Laura Roeder, billionaire Steve Case, and many more. I wanted to get to the bottom of this meme. Today, on a very special episode of Love Your Work, we ask: do you really need to make your bed to be successful? Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/make-your-bed/  

One of the best ways to impact others, while making money, is through building online courses. And, if you're considering writing a book, developing an online course is a great way to validate your idea, and see if your advice works. But, building online courses can be totally overwhelming. It seems there's so much you need to know about developing it, and marketing it. Then, there's all of the technical nuts and bolts for collecting payment, and delivering the course. Like many things, your vision of what your online course could be can get in the way of you even starting. I learned the hard way just how much energy you can waste with things that don't add value to your course. And, what I learned can be applied to product development at large.   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/pre http://kadavy.net/freshbooks http://kadavy.net/video Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/8-things-online-courses/    

James Altucher doesn't need an introduction for many of you. But for the rest, James is currently best known for his book, Choose Yourself, which is a National Bestseller, and which USA Today named in the top 12 business books of all time. You can buy Choose Yourself at kadavy.net/choose   He also has a very popular podcast. The James Altucher show has featured guests such as Tim Ferriss, Dan Ariely, Peter Thiel, Coolio, and Jewel.   James has published well over a dozen books, and first made his name as a financial pundit, writing for The Financial Times, and TheStreet.com. He's also appeared many times on CNBC as a financial expert.   James has become a millionaire, then lost it all, multiple times. He's been an entrepreneur, a hedge fund manager, and even hosted an HBO show. He writes about what he's learned through the ups and downs of his life and career on his website, jamesaltucher.com. Popular articles include "How to be the luckiest guy on the planet in 4 easy steps," and "I want my kids to be drug a

One of the more subtle underlying themes of this show is that you should invest in yourself. There's a lot of noise out there you'll hear from others who want you to spend your money in ways that will benefit them. Ultimately, you have to be mindful in your decisions so that you're sure you're really investing in yourself.   I'll be talking about that a bit more in my conversation next week with James Altucher.   Look out for that episode to drop next TUESDAY. I'm going to release it slightly early so it doesn't interfere with Thanksgiving in the US.   For now, I want to share my own story of choosing myself. This is about the time that I almost went to business school. What I decided to do next defined the course of my career.     Sponsors http://wpengine.com/pre http://kadavy.net/freshbooks http://kadavy.net/video   Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/my-40000-diy-mba/    

Dan Ariely is a researcher on the forefront of behavioral science. He specializes in understanding irrational behavior, for example, why do people take less candy if you give it out for free, than if you charge a penny for all the candy you want?   Dan actively works to find ways to change behavior for the better using this knowledge. Dan is a professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. He's also the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, which helps companies improve well-being using behavioral science. Dan has also co-founded many companies, including a productivity app called Timeful. I worked with Dan on Timeful, and Google bought the company. Now, some of Timeful's features, such as "Goals" have been integrated into Google Calendar, impacting what must be hundreds of millions of people. Dan's numerous TED talks have been viewed nearly 15 million times. He's the author of three New York Times best-selling books, including Predictably Irrational. He has a new book called "Pa

The current productivity wisdom is all about getting things done. Now, productivity is about making creative breakthroughs happen. Getting Things Done brought us beyond todo lists and priorities, and made us think about breaking projects into actions, and giving those actions contexts. By considering the context of our todos, and by giving ourselves a place for the “someday maybes,” we freed up our minds from the overwhelming wave of clutter delivered by our newly-digital world. GTD was the killer tool of the knowledge worker. But, in an increasingly distracted world, where even knowledge work is threatened by technology, productivity needs to evolve once again. This article originally appeared on Medium. You can follow me on Medium at kadavy.net/medium   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/lyw http://kadavy.net/freshbooks http://kadavy.net/video Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/productivity-isnt-gtd/      

Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, has been on the show before. We had a little debate about digital distraction back in episode 21. Nir and I have both been exploring new book ideas independently, and practicing writing about those ideas, somewhere within that space. I've been leaning more into the productivity space, which you've heard a lot of on this podcast. So, we recently had a call where we discussed where we were headed, how we're testing out new ideas, and how we might position new ideas. We figured, just in case, we'd record the conversation, in case it would make a good podcast episode. And I think it will make a good episode, especially if you're an aspiring author who wonders how to home in on the right book idea. We'll talk about writing for Medium.com, and why it's such a powerful tool for testing out new ideas. I'll get very specific about my process for analyzing ideas I write on Medium, and how I decide what's worth pursuing further. We'll also talk about the p

If you have certain behaviors that you want to encourage in your life, you can be intentional about making them happen. Here's a trick I devised to make it easy to do things that are good for me, and a little harder to do things that are bad for me. This article originally appeared on Medium. You can follow me on Medium at kadavy.net/medium   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/lyw http://kadavy.net/freshbooks http://kadavy.net/video Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/make-it-easy-podcast/    

Jocelyn K. Glei is author of Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done. You can buy the book at kadavy.net/email It's an awesome book that I really wish I had when I was first trying to get things done with email in the working world. I've since gotten my email decently organized, just through learning the hard way. Still, Unsubscribe had some very useful ideas and tools for me, I'll be exploring it all in my conversation with Jocelyn today. Listen to this episode to learn how you can keep email from distracting you from your important work, how can you use it to move projects forward, to build relationships with influential people, and how can you use it in a way that will nurture the relationships that you do have?   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/lyw http://kadavy.net/treehouse http://kadavy.net/audible Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/jocelyn-k-glei-interview/  

Back when I was writing my first book, I was shocked how hard it was. I was spending all day just trying to get into that flow state. So, here's one way I've found to help make that flow state happen on demand.   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/speedy http://kadavy.net/treehouse http://kadavy.net/audible Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/yolo-blank-wall/    

Cards Against Humanity's Max Temkin (@maxtemkin) is co-creator of Amazon's #1 selling card game – actually the #1 seller in all of the whole Toys & Games category. It's a game for horrible people, and it's also America's #1 gerbil coffin. You've probably played it before. Max Temkin and his friends were self-described "nerds." They didn't play sports, they didn't have girlfriends, and they were bored. So, they played lots of board games. They played Balderdash so much, they couldn't even play it anymore because they knew all of the words in the game. They became game connoisseurs. They played so many games, they had to make their own. Cards Against Humanity started as PDFs you could download and print out. The game is still available this way, for free, on their website, but Cards Against Humanity has independently produced and sold their game, making millions in profit. Listen to this interview to learn how to make a good impression on notable people, how to be ready to act when luck comes your way, what

This week, I share you a story of failure. I know everyone seems to be obsessed with failure lately, and I always thought it was strange. I didn't usually look at things as failures, but as lessons learned. Well, in this case, I really tried for something, really thought I would succeed, and I really failed. Or at least I felt like it. In actuality, it could just be another lesson learned – another step on the path toward meeting my goal. This is an article that originally appeared on Medium. You can follow me on Medium at kadavy.net/medium   Sponsors http://wpengine.com/speedy http://kadavy.net/treehouse http://kadavy.net/audible Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/love-work-episode-44-failed/