Clint Murphy  00:03

Welcome to the pursuit of learning podcast. I’m your host, Clint Murphy. My goal is for each of us to grow personally, professionally, and financially, one conversation at a time. To do that, we will have conversations with subject matter experts across a variety of modalities. My job, as your host, will be to dig out those golden nuggets of wisdom that will facilitate our growth. Join me on this pursuit. If you’ve ever wanted to be a writer, or an online creator, this conversation is one you need to listen to. Every once in a while there’s a conversation I have on the podcast that people ask me what conversations have had a life changing impact on you. This was one of those conversations, the way that Cole approaches writing, category design and monetization of the full package. It opened my eyes up to what opportunities are available, and how to go after them and get them. Again, if you want to be an online greater calm, have a listen to this conversation. You’ll enjoy it. Cole, Welcome to the pursuit of learning podcast for my audience who may not have met you yet can you give us a bit of your backstory. And today we’re going to be talking about your book Snow Leopard, and we could talk a bit about the path that took you to this point in your life.

Nicolas Cole  01:52

I’ll try it, I’ll do the 30 second nutshell. I was a professional gamer as a teenager.  I played World of Warcraft very competitively. I don’t know if it was by choice or by necessity. Because I didn’t know that I had celiac disease, I have an allergy to gluten and by extension an allergy to like five other food groups until I was 18. So I grew up very sick, very malnourished, like fun fact is I wanted to play in the NHL, I grew up playing hockey, and I fractured my spine twice in high school by doing nothing cool. You know, I thought it would be like a breakaway goal and you know someone checks you from behind and like the first time I literally just slipped and fell in practice, fell the wrong way on my tailbone, was out for a year. And I think it was just because my bones were so malnourished because I like wasn’t eating and you know, didn’t know I had this food allergy. Spent all my time playing video games, got very, very good at World of Warcraft, went to college kind of realized I didn’t want to play video games for the rest of my life, got into bodybuilding, applied all the same things that I learned from gaming to bodybuilding, you know, went from being 100 pounds as an 18 year old with a crazy S curve in my spine to like 175 pounds and seven, 6% body fat just all in, all in six meals a day training with pro bodybuilders just all in for like six, seven years, then got introduced to the world of entrepreneurship, worked at an ad agency out of college.

I have a degree in fiction writing. So I learned a lot about I like to say I didn’t learn how to write in college, I think I learned how to read in college and I learned how to read my work out loud. I learned how to pay attention to my writing in a different way. But a lot of people think oh, you know, you’re a writer now or you’re a good writer, you must have learned that in college. And that’s really not true. I learned it by practicing obsessively, which is what I’m sure we’ll get into. And I worked at an ad agency out of college, my boss became a close mentor to me. He was a serial entrepreneur introduced me to the idea of entrepreneurship. Three years later, quit, went and started my own business, which was a ghost writing agency specifically for founders, CEOs, investors. It was called Digital Press. And in about two years, we grew that from me and one of my best friend’s on his apartment couch to 22, 23 full time employees and like 80 concurrent clients across, I don’t know 40 different industries at any given time. Everything from biotech to women’s lingerie.  It was like all over the place. And then after like two and a half years of running that company, I just realized that I wasn’t happy. You know, the services were very tough. ghostwriting was very hard to scale. It was very subjective, right.  You’re not selling a plastic widget you’re selling, hey, does your soul resonate with these words, you know, because you’re writing with and on behalf of other people. And these are really smart people, you know, we were writing with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, Olympic athletes, Grammy winning musicians, like, these are no joke people. And so making those people feel good about the words that are coming out of their mouths is very challenging. And so I just got burned out and ended up turning the business over to my co founder, and took a year off, coincidentally, pandemic hit, you know, sitting there going, Oh, I don’t know what to do. And I ended up meeting this guy, Dickie Bush. And, you know, we ended up, he had the idea, he had run one cohort of ship 30 for 30. I said, I think I can add a lot of exponential value here, he took a chance, you know, we went in as business partners. And now the thing has just completely exploded.

And at the same time, I also started another business called Category Pirates, which is me and two other guys, Christopher Lockhead and Eddie Yun. And we essentially spend all of our time and mental bandwidth and thinking on how to design and dominant new categories, you know, they they introduced me to this discipline of category design, I didn’t realize that I was an intuitive category designer my whole life. And since then, we’ve published something like 50, 55 mini books, and three big books on the topic of category design, one of which we’re going to dig into today called Snow Leopard, which is the first book specifically for writers through a category design lens, which is something that I had never heard anyone talk about. And it’s a bunch of mental models and frameworks that we’ve refined over the past year and a half. So 30 second bio turned into three minute bio. But that’s, that’s the nutshell.

Clint Murphy  06:58

It’s great. And we’re gonna dive into a lot of it and for the listeners, Snow Leopard, I’m in a fair number of I’ll call them social media masterminds, where we help each other, write, grow, engage and build, build businesses. And it’s a book I’ve forwarded a photo of to everyone in the group and said, hey, you guys, given what we’re all doing, you’ve gotta read this. And maybe we need to post less threads about Chrome extensions. But the I’m just kidding on that, because we can talk about why there’s some benefit to doing that every once in a while. But I want to dig into some of this fast because I love it. The parallels are uncanny. Growing up as a Canadian boy, hockey was in the blood, and I’m missing, I’m missing hockey practice today.  I’m coaching my youngest son now., the But wow.

So a parallel that I’d love to dive into there, because you hear a lot of parents tell their kids that video games are bad, that you shouldn’t play games. And when I was in my early 30s. I used World of Warcraft, late 20s, early 30s, I used World of Warcraft for a specific reason. I was keeping in touch with my my brother when I was out of country through the game. And then eventually I evolved into focusing on how to make gold. And the whole idea was to become wealthy and in the game, because in the real world, I didn’t have much capital so I couldn’t teach myself how to invest how to automate my money making etc. And this may resonate with you when I was when I was interviewed for the at the time, it was called the WOW econ hall of fame. The question they asked me was, why are you doing this in the game? And the answer was, if I can learn how to get become a millionaire in this game, I can learn how to become a millionaire in the real world. Because they both take the same skills, attributes, discipline, focus. And I don’t have capital there yet, but when I do, I’m going to apply what I do in the game. So one of the things you talked about whether it was hockey, whether it was your writing, whether it was the professional gaming, or the bodybuilding, was the focus and the discipline that you put into it. How has that been for you throughout your life? And how did you apply that to eventually your writing?

Nicolas Cole  09:40

It’s everything. I mean, it first of all, I always find it amazing. You know, for years I didn’t want to talk about no one like no one in my high school knew that I was a pro World of Warcraft player until probably like the last six months of me being in high school, you know, and even in College and I never really talked about it because I thought it was super nerdy. And I thought everyone was, you know, not going to understand it. And then when I did finally start talking about it, I started writing about my experiences in college. And it ultimately became a book, I wrote a book called Confessions of a Teenage Gamer. And it was my first book, it was a memoir about all kinds of the coming of age of, I grew up on the on the internet, like a lot of people look back on their high school years, and they’re like, oh, I remember my friends and I remember prom. And I’m like, I didn’t really have any of that I was sick the whole time. I didn’t have friends in high school, I didn’t, you know, I literally grew up and lived on the internet. And so, to your point, the internet and that game, for me became a mental model. It helped me understand what I needed to do to succeed, even though I wasn’t able to participate in the real world yet. You know, like you said, I don’t have capital for me, I like couldn’t go three hours without feeling like I had the flu. Because the whole American diet is based on wheat. And I’m allergic to wheat. Right, so if you kind of trace it through every chapter, and I still do this today, whenever I’m confronted with a challenge, I will often look back on my gaming years and go, What decision did I make back then? And where did that decision lead me and what’s the metaphorical parallel? You know, and one of one of the biggest ones has been, the reason I got so good at the game is because I didn’t try and make gold. You know, there are a lot of different ways that players could play the game, right? You could, you could be the one to play the Auction House and stat gold, you could be the one who goes, I want to do every quest in the game and kind of explore, you can be the one who goes I’m gonna raid five nights a week and get all the epic gear. I didn’t do any of that, I literally spent 100% of my time finding the best players in the world. And then playing with and against them for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours until I was as good or better than them.

And as a result, I was a very quote unquote, poor player, like everyone had more gold than me, a lot of people had better gear better gear than me. But if I would duel someone, or we would compete against each other, I would destroy them. Because I spent so much time honing my skill. And then this very interesting thing happened where, because I deprived myself of all the other external rewards for so long, and I just focused on the skill. The last eight months that I played the game, every reward in the game came to me, because I had reached the top and I was so good. And all of a sudden players were like, I’m gonna pay you obscene amounts of gold for you to carry me and for you to help me and teach me, right.

And so the same thing is true with writing. Like I deprived myself of everything for eight years. Like the story I always tell people is I deprived myself of internet for four years in my apartment after college, I literally did not own internet in my apartment, because I knew that if I came home from working for 10 hours a day, I wasn’t, I was just going to watch YouTube videos. I wasn’t going to practice my writing. So what did I do? I removed the option. And that’s how I wrote my first book. And people look at that, and they’re like, you’re crazy. And I’m like, yeah, because like, that’s kind of what’s required. And then after you deprive, deprive, deprive, all of a sudden, you were so good at this skill, that the whole world just goes okay, well, now we want to reward you for that skill. And so yeah, long winded way of saying I those experiences of the gamer and maybe it started earlier in hockey and stuff, but they they gave me the blueprint for everything

Clint Murphy  13:46

And it’s interesting what you said there because what people may miss, I was on the opposite side of you, I, I loved the raiding. But I didn’t have the capacity to read every night. But what I did do was say well, wait a second, I can automate my gold making. And I can trade on the auction house once they created the Auction House app, I can on a lunch break, I can corner some markets. And what that will allow me to do is guys like you, you’ll invite me on a raid, because I’ll show up with all the gear, all the potions, all the snacks and be like, hey, abundant mindset Here you go, guys, you’re focused on raiding you can have, like, whatever you need for us to have a successful raid, I’ll go along with you. And and so the key is you just focus on your niche, which is really interesting. And what we’re gonna talk about today, you focus on your niche and you say I go so deep in my niche that I can build the relationships with other people that surround me, so that we’re all better together and that creates the ability to leverage each other. The last thing before we dive into the book I want to talk about because you mentioned the bodybuilding. And I found it fascinating. You sent a link through the category pirates. And I might have replied back to you saying, like I rabbit holed this one. And it was about your first ever viral piece of content, which taught you wait a second, there’s something here. And I believe it was a Quora article on how to build a body. And you had a photo of I think you had a before and after photo. And then just here’s how I did what I did and that led to your first ever paid product, can you can you tell our listeners about that experience? And how that little light bulb that is now, I mean, it seemed from that moment on that drove a bit of your life goal?

Nicolas Cole  16:06

Yeah, I mean, to me, it’s the most exemplary story of everything I now try and articulate and share with people because I think there’s often a misconception when someone starts on there, and will just speak broadly, their Creator journey, whatever that means for you, you know, and sometimes that means making money, sometimes that just means writing or creating videos or sharing what it is that you know, or you enjoy, you know, it’s a broad spectrum. And what most people think, is that the people who are doing it and doing it successfully, know something that they don’t. And I know because I was there, too, after I graduated, college, and I took this job, I was an entry level copywriter at an ad agency, and between projects or on my lunch break, or, you know, while I was waiting for the train, or, you know, whatever, I just ferociously started going down the rabbit hole of these internet marketers, You know, and I was like, how are these guys making money selling ebooks or courses. Like it was such a foreign world, and it was also still really early. This is like, 2013, you know, and it’s funny, because even back then people were like, newsletters are saturated, courses are saturated, Ebooks are dead, you know. And I remember reading all that being like, Oh, maybe I missed the boat.

You know, here we are 10 years later, and still hot as ever, right? So the whole thing is still just really new in the world. And I was going down the rabbit hole trying to learn. I was like, I want to work for myself one day, and I want to be a writer, that was my dream, I want to be a writer, I want to write books. I never understood the publishing model, I didn’t understand how, as a writer, you go to a publishing house and you give away 90% ownership and your product, like the whole thing just didn’t make sense to me. So I’m trying to educate myself. And in an attempt to move the ball forward. I challenged myself to write one core answer every single day for a year, because I had kind of looked around and I was like, Okay, if, if video makers have YouTube, you know, and foodies and models and you know, athletes and what and fashion people, they all have Instagram, right? Where do writers write? And Twitter wasn’t really it? Yeah, Twitter’s really only changed in the past two years, people forget that. It’s it’s been floundering and trying to find its way for a long time.

And one of the sites that was really great for writers was Quora. And so I challenged myself to write on Quora. And it’s all the same, everything happened the same way that we articulated and share it now in ship 30, where we help people start writing on the internet, it’s all the same steps. What did I do, I started writing and publishing on a daily basis, what happened, started paying attention to the data, oh, when I write about these topics, people engage. When I write about these topics, readers don’t like it so much, you got to have some honest conversations with yourself, which topics are working, right. And one of the topics that I noticed was this intersection for me of life lesson. And at the time bodybuilding, because that’s like, what I was just the best at and I was crushing it and my transformation was really legit. And I wrote this Quora answer. And I think the Quora answer was, Is it possible to change yourself so much that you no longer recognize yourself? Perfect intersection of life lesson and I can weave in bodybuilding and I put that before and after photo, and it was super short. Rigt, and the way I I try and articulate this so that people understand is like, I didn’t want to write that day. Like writing everyday was hard, you know, and I finished working at my job and I was getting ready to go home. I didn’t have internet in my apartment. So I would finish for the day and then I would write my core answer at the office or at the Starbucks down the street. And I found this question I wrote it, my answer and 15 minutes. Put that before and after photo, and by the time I got home, it was on the front page of reddit doing a million views. And what happened was that showed me, all of a sudden, I started getting all these emails from people saying, what two questions What are you? What’s your workout routine? And what do you eat? And every email, like 95% of the emails were from one very specific archetype of person, the skinny kid who didn’t know how to put on muscle, which was me, right? This wasn’t everyone, it was like an 16 to 28 year old male ectomorph, who was super skinny, and had no idea how to put on muscle. And it was me six years ago, or six years before this. And all of a sudden, like, all these data points start revealing themselves. And I’m like, wow, if all I do is help that one specific type of person, and I answer those two questions, I think I’ve got something. Spent the whole weekend creating my first two paid products. Here’s what I eat, here are my workout routines, launched on Monday morning, and made my first five grand on the internet. And it changed my life. It completely changed the way I thought about scaling knowledge and what it is that people are interested in. And we can talk about, I made a bunch of mistakes thereafter, like that should have been my first $10 million business. I kind of whiffed it, because I was young and didn’t understand what I had. But that was the first data point, you know, and that’s what I try and help other people realize is, nobody has it all figured out. You start and then the data points reveal themselves.

Clint Murphy  21:50

Perfect and and so that’s a great launching pad to dive right into the book, because we’re going to work our way through all of this. And the starting point, because you came out of the gate swinging, which I loved in the book was that you say everyone wants to be a thought leader, but they don’t truly want to do the work. They want the outcome without the process. When you wrote that, where were you going with it? What were your thoughts, Cole.

Nicolas Cole  22:24

It’s everything, right? I mean, that’s every chapter. If I had a nickel for every time, when not when I was like at the peak of my bodybuilding phase. If I had a nickel for every time someone would come up to me in the gym and go, what supplements are you taking? Everyone wants the easy path, right? They they, they look and go, oh, well, you know, if you’re shredded, then it’s because you must be drinking a different protein powder than me. And the honest answer was when I was in peak shape, like absolute peak, and I’ve got the photos and receipts to prove it is like, I wasn’t even taking supplements. That’s the craziest part is I got to a point where it was 100% food for me. And it was that I was so disciplined. And I put the work in, you know, I was eating six meals a day. I knew down to the gram, every single thing I was eating, my workouts were finely tuned. You know, like I got to the point where if I ate one extra rice cake, or one extra scoop of oatmeal or one extra anything, I could feel it in my body, because everything was just so locked in. And I’ve maintained that level of focus with everything that I do.

I don’t I don’t write when I’m inspired. I write. And I treat writing like an athlete. And that’s the difference. And I firmly believe like, to me, it’s never made sense. Bouncing around a little bit. I grew up in a very artistic family. We all played musical instruments. My mom’s a voice teacher, I played classical piano for 20 years. My sister’s a violinist, like very, very musical family. My two brothers play instruments as well. And what I never understood was why the world of art and the world of athletics are seen as so different. Because they’re not, like I watched my sister practice violin for six hours a day for eight years straight. You know, that’s no different than a pro athlete. But we often think of them as different. We think of art as you do it when you’re inspired. Whereas athletics, you show up and you do it, you know, every day and it’s like a different mentality. And for me, the unfair advantage in the writing world is that most writers don’t treat it that way. They treat it like I write when I’m inspired. And so in the opening of Snow Leopard, this idea of everyone wants to be a thought leader. Everyone wants the shortcut right just hey, let’s go pay someone at Forbes to say that I’m one of the top marketers for the year. Right, it’s like, if it’s easy to get, it’s also easy to disregard. Nobody cares, right. And that’s an again, going back to gaming. Going back to bodybuilding. Like, I really don’t care about badges of approval. I really, really, really don’t care if I ever become a New York Times bestseller. I don’t care if some publication says I’m talented or not, the only thing I care about is putting me and someone else in a room and see who emerges. Because I’m so obsessive about it’s just the skill. And when you focus on the skill, everything else naturally unfolds. And so it’s this weird counterintuitive thing of the more you chase the external badge of approval, the more you’re just elongating the process, you’re just procrastinating. None of those things are what truly matters, because everyone at the top has those. And so everyone at the top doesn’t care about any of those things. So it’s this weird irony that exists in the world of quote unquote thought leadership.

Clint Murphy  26:06

The and and the interesting part about that and Cole, it’s one of the reasons I truly love that Twitter’s introduced this Spaces. And we get to have conversations with content creators to the extent that they’re willing to jump up on stage and have the conversations. Because what I what I often say to the audience is, hey, look, anyone, anyone on this platform can pay someone else to write their content, they can copy, post platitudes, and sound like a thought leader. And often that person on the other side of the keyboard, who’s telling you the top X things to do to get good at why is never actually done, why? It is not unless you get up in a room, to your point, you get in a room with them. And I treat spaces as the room. You get in the room, and you have a conversation with them and you ask them questions live. And you get at will is this person who has these accolades as a thought leader on this topic? Do they actually even know that topic? Can they actually speak to it? Can they actually coach you? Or are they just paying someone to grow so that they can then leverage that growth to get you to pay them to grow? Does that make sense?

Nicolas Cole  27:27

Yeah. And that’s why, you know, ship ship 30 for 30 is, I mean, at this point, probably the fastest growing writing community on the internet. We specialize in helping people start writing. So it’s the absolute beginner. And over and over and over again, right, you have to answer the same questions.

And one of the questions that gets asked constantly is, well, how is anyone going to read my writing if I don’t have any followers? Right, it’s just this like, immediate focus on I need and I need a lot of people paying attention to me first. And then I say something valuable, right? So you can already see the, the thinking is backwards. You’re like, I need the audience and then I say smart stuff. Not I say smart stuff And then I build an audience. And to me, one of the most ironic things is you have all these people that have these large audiences. And then you go talk to them, and you’re like, Yeah, you don’t really, you don’t really know a lot, you know, or you’re just saying the same thing as everyone else. And all of these, what, what, what often doesn’t get discussed is that this idea of thought leadership, think of it like a sport itself.

A lot a lot of times people think anyone can be a marketer, because we’re surrounded by marketing, right? Anyone can be a writer, because we all know how to speak. And there’s an element of truth to that. But it’s one of those, like, anyone can do it but not everyone can master it. You know, like very low barrier to entry, but very high barrier of mastery. And so that’s why for me, I love sitting in that barbell of I want to encourage everyone, I think everyone can start writing. I think everyone has something valuable to share. But don’t get it confused. Like just just because you did it for a day doesn’t mean that you automatically know or have the same skill as someone who’s been doing it every day for 10 or 20 or 30 years. Right, there’s a humility in that, recognize you have further to go. And so it’s it’s, for me, it’s a lot of like helping people unroot their thinking. And one of the false beliefs is being a thought leader just means that a lot of other people say that you’re important. A lot of other people say that you’re great. And that’s often not the case. Like if you are truly leading with your thoughts, right, this is the whole, this is the whole thing we’re trying to break down in the first chapter. If you are truly leading with your thoughts, then a lot of people aren’t going to understand what you’re saying. So it’s counterintuitive, right? Like, if everyone immediately says yes to what you’re saying, then you’re probably not saying something radically new and different, you’re probably saying something that everyone already agrees with, which is safe and non challenging. Right, so it’s this weird, like, I want everyone to love me. But I also want to be seen as different, but I want to fit in. But I’m different. But accept me. But I’m different. Right? It’s.

Clint Murphy  30:45

So now you’re talking about and, and we’re getting right into the meat. You’re talking about the concepts of obvious creation and obvious connections versus non obvious creation and non obvious content. Can can you take our readers through you have your your five levels that people go through on their Creator journey, starting with consumption, all the way up to you’re creating your own category, which is where we want to get people when they read the book is you are creating your category of one. But there’s, there’s the hierarchy that we have to take them through from beginner to master.

Nicolas Cole  31:31

Yeah, so okay, so this is going to be a little bit like drinking out of a firehose, but hey, you know, that’s the only way to stay hydrated.

So the level one is consumption. All right, so no matter what, and and this is probably the gamer in me talking, but it’s a belief that I have, which is, if you are using the internet, you are participating in the game. The game is the digital world. And the reason it’s a game is because you are only seeing things that people are choosing for you to see. Now that choice can exist on a spectrum, it can be a extremely deliberate choice. Hey, look at me with my Ferraris and my books in my garage, for example. Or it can be extremely unintentional, or unconscious choice, right? It’s just, hey, I’m just posting these pictures from our family’s reunion picnic on Facebook. In both cases, you’re still playing the game. That’s that’s the part that most people don’t really think about is like, even if you’re not trying to be a quote unquote, influencer, you are still playing the game, because you’re choosing to upload content to the internet. And that choice inherently means you are including some details, and you are excluding other details. Period. So level one is recognizing that you are a consumer and you are an unconscious creator. You’re just there, it’s like a fish in water, you’re swimming, and you don’t even know you’re in water. And the whole key, the whole key to the digital world is moving up the ladder and recognizing and, and becoming aware of the fact that you are surrounded by water. That’s the game. And when you start to realize that you’re surrounded by water, you move out of unconscious consumption, right? You’re just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, like, you know, shiny object, whatever grabs your attention consume to intentional consumption. So you see something and you start asking questions, right? Why is that working? Every time I see a Twitter thread go viral, I don’t just consume it. I literally sit there and ask myself, why did that work? Why are so many people attracted to that? What’s the hook? Why did that get the level of engagement that it did? Alright, I’m I’m intentionally asking myself questions so that I can get better at the game. So that’s level one. Now most people start and they go, Okay, I want to begin playing the game. But I don’t know how. And it’s much harder to start by going, I’m going to start I’m going to start sharing my own thinking, my own insights, my own knowledge, my own stories, right?

There’s a level of fear and hesitancy there, often times for people.  Sometimes they jump right in, but most people there’s, there’s an element of fear. So what’s an easier step? Well, level two is curation. It’s not your insights. It’s not your stories. It’s not your frameworks, it’s other people’s, and you’re doing the work of going hey, I went and spent 100 hours you know, looking through all this information, and I’m coming back with the most valuable so what are you doing, you’re saving people time and think of it like what whichever vertical you’re in. You know, we all had that friend in high school or college who was like, Hey, I went and listened to all the new music for this week. And these are the 10 songs that are like the bangers. Right? Yeah, that’s, that’s basically what you’re doing with knowledge, right? Hey, I went and read all the stoicism content. And these are the 10 quotes that are really the important ones. Right? Hey, I went read everything that there is to read about Excel. Okay, here’s the 10 keystrokes that really make the difference in Excel, right. And so there’s value in curation because you’re saving people time. And basically what you’re doing is you’re saying my taste is superior. And that’s great. There are some really successful curators I mean, Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday are probably two of the best curators on planet Earth. But it’s worth understanding what’s happening, right, Ryan Holiday isn’t a best selling author because of his insights. He’s a best selling author, because of Marcus Aurelius’ insights, and he’s just going, hey, so you don’t have to go spend 50 or 100, or 200, or 500, or 1000 hours, reading Marcus Aurelius’ meditations and going through and reading all this old stoicism stuff. I’m going to compress it into a book called The Obstacle is the Way, I’m going to make it really fun to read. And you can understand kind of the whole point in a couple hours. Right? He’s curating.  Same thing with Tim Ferriss, and there’s amazing value in that. But, right, there’s a big difference between curating and creating,

Clint Murphy  36:35

And, and there’s levels of that curation, right? Like, if you look at, if someone just says, Hey, here’s the top 10 websites that do X, that’s one level, when you look at him and stoicism in the books. It’s taking in all the stoicism, processing it all and saying, alright, what piece or what nugget do I want to give back to the people? And how am I going to shape it through my lens of all the different stoics that I’ve read? Or if Tim, all the 500 interviews I’ve done? How do I take that information and boil that into a book that takes all of the ideas, synthesizes it brings it together, pulls out the best stuff and gives it to you. So we have a range a range of levels of the curation?

Nicolas Cole  37:24

Yeah. And think of it like percentages, you know, it’s like when you cook a meal or a stew, and you’re like, Okay, well, 20% of it is white beans, and 20% of it is black beans, and 20% of it is celery and 20%. You know, 40% of its vegetable stock, you know, whatever it is. And I just did this the other day, because I’ve continued to ask myself and I want to refine these frameworks for me as well. You know, if you pop open a Ryan Holiday book, every chapter is the same. Every chapter starts first sentence is like, you know, the morning Abraham Lincoln woke up, he didn’t know what was going to happen. Right? What is that? It’s not Ryan Holiday story. It’s Abraham Lincoln’s story, right? Curation. And then you go through and you read the chapter and it’s 80% research and curation. Right, I went, I researched, I made sure I understood the timeline, I understand the the main events, I’m distilling it, I’m compressing it. and then the last 10, 20% is Ryan going, hey, and here’s why it’s valuable. Here’s my interpretation. Here’s my insight, right. So broadly speaking, you say okay, on the curation spectrum, it’s 80% curation, 20%, creation, totally fine. Some curators might be 50/50, some are 100% zero. You have to figure out what that balance is for you. But it’s still worth understanding. Like, what is it? Right, what at at the end of the day, what is that book? That book is research and curation? Great. Okay. Now, if you want to go do that, now you know what to execute as well.

So then level three and this is where you have people like Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferriss, you, they start, it’s the combination of Level Two curation and level three, what we call obvious creation. Obvious creation is I’m going to draw some obvious takeaways, right? So you tell a story. And then it’s like, what’s the takeaway? Well, the takeaway is, be kind to your neighbor. Right? The takeaway is, hey, you know, the key to stress is to not do too much. Right is it’s these obvious insights that you prob as a reader, you probably already know. They don’t require a lot of like deep thinking, you already know them, but you need to be reminded of them. So what’s the value of obvious creation, right? Obvious creation is like, hey, sometimes we all need to be reminded that, you know, like, if you really, if you want to be a top performer, you have to do what 99% of other people are willing to do. Does anyonr\e? Is there anyone? Yes, yeah. Does anyone not understand that idea? No, we all get it, right. But we need to be reminded of it. And so when you’re an obvious creator, it’s, it’s, again, it’s worth being honest with yourself and going, what is my value to other people? And your value is, I need to remind others of the obvious things that they are probably forgetting. And there’s pros to that. And there’s cons to that, right? Because people that consume that type of content, you have to ask yourself as a reader, as a consumer, how many times do you need to be reminded that in order to be in the top 1%, you cannot do what 99% of people do, right? How many times you need to be reminded before you take action. So the world of obvious creation is kind of this like, I like to think of it as this limbo phase, where most people as consumers, they sit in the obvious world until they reach a level of expertise that pushes them into the non obvious world where they start going down the rabbit hole, and they’re like, Okay, I get it. Now, I’m ready to put in the work. Now I’m ready to really understand what’s happening here. And then everyone else sits in the obvious world. And it’s like, I just want you to remind me that, you know, the key to working hard is to do one more. Okay, great. Just keep reminding me that over and over and over again, right? And that’s where you kind of get I’m just gonna scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.

Clint Murphy  41:46

Drink more water. Sleep.

Nicolas Cole  41:48

Yeah, that’s right.  The key to a morning routine is to wake up on time. Right? I mean, like, Thanks, right? But like, if you need to be if you need to be reminded of that five times a week, you have a different problem.

Clint Murphy  42:03

The and And then that brings us to the fifth level. And what’s that?

Nicolas Cole  42:10

So from obvious to so level four is the non obvious. So non obvious, then is you can you can tell as a as a reader, as a consumer, when you come across something non obvious, because your inclination is probably to scroll right past it. Because it’s asking you to think, and most people don’t want to think, right, and, and then there’s a spectrum of non obvious, some non obvious ideas are, you get it, but you’re like, I’m just not in the mood for it. And then on the other side, it’s, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. And whatever it is you are talking about is challenging some very core fundamental beliefs for me. So not only do I not want to consume it, but I want to wholeheartedly reject it. Right? It’s a spectrum. But non obvious would be and both have value, right? As a creator, you want some obvious to kind of bring people in, make it easy for them to get introduced to what it is that you do. But you ultimately want to get over to non obvious. So I’ll give you a great example. So for me if I’m educating writers, right, obvious, is staring at a blank page is really scary and really annoying. Solve it by using a template. Right? Okay, great. Like I get it, right. Just helped me fill it in, you know, or obvious, right? You. In order for readers to read your work, you have to hit publish. Yeah, obviously.

Clint Murphy  43:46

Which also goes viral, though, which is super weird. And we’re going to talk about the two different

Nicolas Cole  43:51

So like, why does it why does it go viral? Right, because so many people go, I don’t have to think to agree with this. So again, it’s a very subtle nuance. And people don’t they don’t understand that this is what’s happening. Like, the reason obvious content stretches so wide is because it’s so easy to engage with, for good and bad, right? And so if you live there, as a creator, yeah, you rack up a bunch of engagement, you rack up a bunch of followers, but like, Where are you taking those people? Right, you don’t have depth, you don’t have anything for them to continue on to. So it needs to be a part of what you do. But it can’t be all of what you do. Otherwise, you’re just you’re just farming metrics for the sake of farming metrics. The non obvious would meet would be me sitting down and going, like how do you write a book with so many different variables and like how do you juggle all of that? I have a technique called layering. And layering is where you start with the main points and then you move up this chain of all these different elements that you need to incorporate so that by the time you finish writing your book, you did it in a sequential way where you end up with this cohesive work, but, but buried within the cohesive work is like 15, 20, 25 different layers of logic and emotion. Right? The average person looks at that, and goes, What the hell are you talking about? Right, because it’s not as obvious. I’m like, hey, I need you to follow me down this rabbit hole. And I want to explain how this whole thing works. And right, and so the average person’s like, yeah, that’s not for me. But some percentage of the people you brought in with your obvious content, 10, 20%, ago, Whoa, I’m getting to follow you down the rabbit hole. Right. And so then that’s where you’re starting to move people from the obvious world over to the non obvious. And that’s where you start to build that trust. And ultimately, the goal of all of this, and this, again, took me 8, 10 years to understand is like, your goal is not to write something viral, your goal is not to write one best selling book, your goal is not to insert whatever your big accomplishment is, it’s not about one thing, your goal is to become known for a niche you own. Because when you become known for a niche, and not a, I wrote a book, or I made a movie, or I sold a product or whatever, right? When you become known for the niche, you now have an environment where you can create an infinite number of things. So if I’m known for the niche of writing online digital writing, right? If I know someone is interested in the niche of digital writing, I don’t write one book, I write 50. Right, I don’t create one product, I create 100 products, right, because as long as I know that that one person, or that that type of person is interested in that niche, that category of thing, they’re going to want more. Whereas if you if your thinking is, oh, I just want to write one best selling book, okay, great. You do it once. Now what? And what most people do, because they don’t have this framework, they go, now I’m gonna go try and create something completely different. But then they go change the category. And everyone who was originally interested in the first category goes, well, why did you go over there, I’m not interested in that category. And so this is what leads to creators in every industry becoming these like, one hit wonders, right, because they do one thing, and then they go, Well, I think it was me who made it successful. So if I individual go do anything else, everyone’s going to follow me. And no, everyone’s only going to follow you if you individual keep doing things in your niche. The goal isn’t for you to be known. The goal is for you to be known for a niche that you own. That’s the whole A-ha, and so all of these levels all get to if you get to that point, you are not only going to have a massive following, and make a massive difference. But you’re also going to make a massive amount of money. And if you don’t get to that point, then all you’re going to do is just hop between niches and categories, and not understand why, with your 400,000 followers, everyone’s not following you anymore. Because you changed the category, and they’re not interested in you. You are irrelevant. They’re interested in the niche that you were known in. And that one nuance is like what messes everybody up.

Clint Murphy  48:48

You know, this brings up the concept and I try to talk to new people who are becoming content creators on it. And It really drove it home for me. So over the next few months, I’m going to be honing in on it and focusing on it. It’s looking at it and saying, alright, what are my pillars? What will I be known for? And from a lot of people what I’ve heard max it out at three, these are the three things that I’m going to be known for. And so everything I write is going to hit on those three things. Now, it will veer out once in a while and people will come in, but it’s really how can I say something about these three things obvious and non obvious, over and over. So that when people think about X, they think about me and I become known for X?

Nicolas Cole  49:44

Yes. But so that that is where you ultimately end up. But I think there’s again, a very subtle nuance in there that leads people astray, which is again, what do I want to be be known for. And the brutal truth is like, it’s doesn’t matter about what you think you want to be known for. Right? Again, it’s like, it’s so hard for people to start the journey of creation. Without thinking about themselves, we all think like, Well, what do I want out of this? And the reality is, your success is not dependent on you. Your success is dependent on how many people are getting value from what it is that you do. So I a better way of thinking right is, or I should say, a different way of thinking is, who do you want to help? Ignore yourself, throw yourself out the window, who is the type of person that you want to help. Get more specific, more specific, more specific, more specific, right? And as you help that person, three things are going to emerge as these are the three things that are the most helpful for that person. And so inherently, you will end up being known for this niche, and you touch on those three things over and over and over again. Right. But how you get there isn’t? Well, this is what I

Clint Murphy  51:13

Yeah, it’s not you, it’s them. When it’s, you know, it’s taking a bit even of the Japanese concept of ikigai. It’s that combination and and you talk about this in ship 30. It’s taking that combination, because you have to hit both circles, and it’s the intersection, what do they want? What am I good at? What do I love doing? And what can I make money at and intersecting all of that? Because of what the audience wants is X. But you hate writing about X, and you’re not even that good at it. Your ability to deliver daily will probably be compromised over time.

Nicolas Cole  51:56

Yes, yes. And you have to enjoy it. Right? You have to find something that speaks to you. But I tend to find that people over rotate on the, what do I want? As opposed to starting with the Who’s the person I want to help? And what do they want, you know, just go talk to any, and you see it more, just because younger and younger generations, more and more of them want to be creators, more and more of them want to be influencers be YouTubers, whatever it is, go talk to them. And what you will hear is all what they want. This is what I want out of it. Right. And I shouldn’t just say it’s young people, because it’s everyone really, but like, it’s just, this is what I want. And what I try and help people realize is like, it doesn’t matter what you want. It matters a little bit. But all of the things that you desire for yourself, come from you helping other people. So you have to start with, what does that person want? What does that person need? And then over time, yeah, figure out well, so what aspect of that do you enjoy? You know, it’s got to be sustainable for you. But, like, ship 30 is a great example of I don’t know, if I had woken up, I don’t know, one day and said, you know, what are all the things that I want, I don’t know that I would have put at the top of my list like I want to, I want to help beginners start writing on the internet, you know, if I was purely looking at it through a lens of like, what are all the things that I value, and all the things that I like, truly want for myself. Probably would have been on there, but probably wouldn’t have been top three. But if I remove myself, and I think about who’s the person I can help, the first person that comes to mind is me in college. And like, I wanted to be a writer, right? And I had all these questions, and I had all these problems. And I was like, Wow, if I could go back and help that version of me. I bet there’s a lot of other people in the world that are where I was at that moment. And when I start there, all the answers reveal themselves. You know, but if I just start with Well, what do I want, right? Listen to what everyone says they all go, Well, I want to I want to make six figures from my laptop and I want to travel and I want to have freedom and I want to it’s like, well, that’s great. I want a yacht and a Ferrari. Right, but like, it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. What matters is who is the person that you want to help, who is the person consuming your work and how do you shift your entire focus to moving that person forward. And if you do that, if you are successful at doing that, you unlock all the other rewards that you also desire. But you have to start there.

Clint Murphy  54:51

And so, so much to unpack and even just that part because at some point on this creators journey, on this creation of categories, we’re saying, hey, I want to get paid for this. And one of the challenges you point out is that the goal is to get to x and be the category creator, on the way you have the non obvious creator. And that individual often tends to make less money than the obvious creators operating at their peak. And so part of the question becomes, how do we create this? If we truly want to be non obvious, which is a great, it’s a great goal, not all of us have it. But if that is the goal, is there room for a hybrid approach? Where and and I think I I know my answer and how you have Ship 30 Cole is that your obvious creation is generating enough money that you can build the non obvious content and go down the path towards the category creator?

Nicolas Cole  56:09

Yes. Yeah, I mean, again, it all, and this is a highly subjective question. It all just depends on what the person values and what the person wants. Some people go, I just want to make money. I don’t care about really impact. I’m not trying to push my industry forward. I’m not thinking about legacy, I’m not none of that. So I just want to make money. And those are the people that tend to spend their whole careers in the land of obvious, right? Because they’re just like, I’m going to tell you the basic stuff. And I’m going to tell you the stuff you kind of already know, but I’m going to remind you of it a gazillion times, and you’re going to pay me to do that. And obvious work is much easier to grasp for most people. And it’s also an easier entry point. Right? It’s it’s simpler problems, it’s problems that are more obvious. And where I went wrong for a very long time, because I tend to be more non obvious. I want, you know, one of my life goals is I want to be a billionaire writer. But at the same time, I recognize that money isn’t the my biggest motivator. I care actually a lot more about pushing the craft forward, I care a lot more about pushing the thinking forward. And so where I would go wrong earlier in my career is I would spend all this time focusing on non obvious stuff, then I’d be like, well, then why isn’t my income going up? Well, because non obvious work takes a long time for people to get, you know, I mean, we spend a lot of time as society, like barely moving forward incrementally on things. And the non obvious thinkers take 10,20, 30, 50, a 100, sometimes a lot longer, years, in order for everyone else to catch up. And so when you create non obvious things, you kind of have to walk into it assuming a 10 year horizon. Like Snow Leopard is a great example. Snow Leopard is 100% non obvious. Like every chapter of that in that book is pointing out something that like people probably aren’t thinking about.

Clint Murphy  58:21

And it’s like getting punched in the face over and over with Oh, shit. Oh, damn. Oh, how did I miss that? Oh, why am I writing this content? Over and over?

Nicolas Cole  58:32

Yeah, reading. I like to talk about it. Like, you know, part of my college education was reading a lot of literature. There’s nothing enjoyable about reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, nothing. That’s painful to read. But the reason you read it is because you’re not reading it for enjoyment. You’re reading it to study, you’re reading it to understand, right? And obvious content is reading for enjoyment or consuming for enjoyment. Typically, yes, right. It’s easy. It feels good. Right? But non obvious is like getting punched in the face. You’re like, oh, gosh, I read two pages. Now I gotta go rethink my life for a minute. And so I knew when we published Snow Leopard, that there’s going to be a lot of other writing books that are going to be super obvious, and they’re going to sell more, and they’re going to make more money and write all the same stuff. But that’s fine. And I hope or I imagine, or I bet that over a 10 year period, Snow Leopard is something that people are still reading, and they still value and they’re still they’re still learning from 10, 20 years from now. Whereas the obvious content that may be sold more in its first year has a shelf life of like two years, three years. Right? So they’re, it’s you have to they’re like investments, you have to look at them over different time horizons and Ship 30 is a great example. We teach, we help beginners, and it’s a lot of obvious content. But I’m also not naive to the fact that because it’s obvious, we probably are going to have to update the curriculum like every year, or every two years, right, because Twitter changes, LinkedIn changes, digital writing on the internet is constantly changing. So the shelf life is much shorter. Whereas Category Pirates, Snow Leopard, right? These are more frameworks, these are more ways of thinking, these are things that are more a little bit more timeless, I imagine that’s going to have a longer shelf life. Might not be forever, but it’s probably going to be longer than five years, 10 years. And so they’re different time horizons. And you’ve entered that. And what you said is a great point, you want both, you want the barbell, you want the obvious to attract a bunch of people into your ecosystem, but you want the non obvious to bring them down the rabbit hole. That’s how you both have an impact and also are able to provide for yourself as a creator.

Clint Murphy  1:00:57

And those can be in the same medium. So we’re bringing them in with obvious, for example, we’re bringing them in with obvious content about achievement. And then we’re writing something non obvious about, hey, here’s how to be an optimal achiever and taking them that extra step. And for the listeners who may not be making a clear distinction, what really jumped out at me, is when you start to contrast, different authors. And, what sticks out for me is when I when I read a non obvious book, and let’s say Thinking Fast and Slow,

Nicolas Cole  1:01:37

Amazing, non obvious book,

Clint Murphy  1:01:39

Versus The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, I enjoyed that read. But I don’t remember anything from it. Thinking Fast and Slow. I read that probably seven to 10 years ago. And I will still bring up to people that if someone is hearing a probation case, and it’s getting close to lunch, they’ve depleted their sugar stores, and they’re likely to find you, or they’re likely not to release you. So if you’re up for probation, you want to have your case read first thing in the morning, or directly after lunch. And that’s the type of thing that you read it and you say shit, I gotta tell people about this. Can you talk about how how that is one of the signs that you’re starting to get something non obvious. And one of the challenges is you may not get rewarded for it financially, for or even if you look at Daniel Kahneman, I think he didn’t win the award for that for 20 or 30 years before people are like, hey, this deserves a Nobel Prize.

Nicolas Cole  1:02:43

Yep. Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite examples. So Think and Grow Rich, as a book was published in, it was written in 1937. I don’t know if it was published that year, but probably then or the year after. That book sells more today than it did when it first came out. And why, you know, because it’s a non obvious book. Like if you’ve never read, Think and Grow Rich, it’s very, very far from the a lot like Go, go read anything obvious about getting wealthy, right, and then go read thinking Grow Rich, like, one of the chapters in thinking Grow Rich is literally like, deprive yourself of sexual pleasure, and allow all of that energy to build up so that you focus on your goal. I mean, like, wild shit, imagine saying that in like the 1940s. Right? And you look at projects like that, creations, works. And they benefit from time. They’re like a great wine, you know, they get better with time, you know, we’re going to be still reading, Thinking Fast and Slow. 10 years from now, 20, 30, probably 100 years from now. You know, but books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, amazing writer, you know, like, very successful, but let’s just this, the whole framework here isn’t like, this is good. And this is bad. Because I think that’s completely irrelevant. Like we all like different things. We all have different tastes. And ultimately, like, who are we to decide? Like, I’m not, I’m not going to pretend like my I’m the I’m the arbiter of who says what’s good and what’s bad. What I do want to help people do what they’re thinking is understand why things are working the way they are. And so when you look at a book, like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and everyone goes, Oh, it’s this insane bestseller, right? I’m not concerned with the fact that it’s a best seller. What I want to understand is what is it? And if you just strip it all away, right, what is it? It’s as obvious as you get, right? What’s the secret to happiness in life? Just don’t give a fuck. Right? I mean, you don’t, no one needs to be told that. And yet we like to be reminded of it. Right. And so understanding the differences between obvious content, non obvious content, gives you more freedom. It gives you the ability to create the things that you want to create in the world, and also helps you reframe your expectations. Right, I would really let myself down if I went and spent 10 years working on a non obvious thing, and then I share it with the world. And I’m like, Hey, why aren’t I selling a gazillion copies and making all this money? Well, because non obvious works typically have a longer shelf life and a longer tail wind behind them. It takes longer for the world to grab onto it. And we did all this research, we did a whole analysis of all the best selling business books over the last, I forget the time horizon, 20 years, 30 years, something like that. And then we put them all into these different buckets. And we have all of this and Snow Leopard, and we explain why obvious books work better. And where obvious content even more broadly, works better in the short term, and non obvious content works better in the long term. And so your expectations have to be aligned with what it is that you’re creating. Right? Don’t create something obvious, and then go, Why is no one buying it three years later? Because it was super obvious. And you have a three year shelf life, right? And similarly, don’t go write Thinking Fast and Slow and go, Why is it not a viral sensation after 30 days? Well, because it’s going to take people a while to get what you just said, you know, so all of this, I think is important. So that as a creator, as a writer, as whatever it is that you’re making, you’re not also getting discouraged along the way, you need to understand why what you’re creating is having the impact that it is.

Clint Murphy  1:06:53

And that helps you, let’s say you’re someone who’s writing on Twitter, and you write a thread and you feel like it’s got massive value for your audience and for people. And you put your heart and soul into it. You get 800 likes, and then you see one of the Microsoft Outlook or Chrome or Excel threads get a million like, in fairness. My most viral content was about Microsoft Excel. And it was I think, 26 million views in its, you’re, like, oh, like, how did 26 million people like that. But only 800 liked this thread that will change their life, if they do it. And it’s, it’s recognizing that obvious versus non obvious, and hey, this may strike 10 people so deeply that it moves them. And that’ll take time to grow. So keep putting it out there and figuring out but but recognize it’s likely never going to go viral.

1:08:01

Yeah, and also being okay with that. And I forget the exact numbers, but something like you know, Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck has sold north of 10 million copies, you know.  Thinking Fast and Slow as sold like a million. Right? And so it’s very, again, it all depends on like, which version of the game are you playing, this kind of full circle, right? Are you playing the Auction House? In World of Warcraft? Are you trying to raid and get the best gear? Do you just want to be the most talented player, right? And so the mistake that creators make, or the mistake that writers make as they go write something non obvious, something really smart, really unique, really different, really pushing people’s thinking forward. But then they go compare themselves to people playing a different version of the game. Why didn’t I sell 10 million copies? Well, it’s not because you’re not good. It’s not because you’re not talented. Which is where everyone goes, everyone goes, Oh, I must not be as good. No, you’re just creating a different thing. And the obvious stuff is always going to outperform you. Right? It’s like it’s like when someone really smart and really non obvious goes how do I get as many views on my content as Gary Vee has? It’s never gonna happen. Right? Because Gary Vee is an obvious machine. And he’s playing a different version of the game. And so you’re never going to have as many followers or likes or comments or shares as Gary Vee, but he’s also never going to have the level of thinking and impact that you’re gonna have. They’re different right? No, no one. I do you know a single person that has ever been like man Gary Vee’s framework on this completely changed my life. No.

Clint Murphy  1:09:51

No. And well, I mean, I have read or seen people say that and as soon as I hear them say that, I immediately discount what they’re likely going to produce. Partially joking there. But you changed your life. Okay. Okay.

Nicolas Cole  1:10:15

Again, and it’s not about is it good or bad? It’s, you know, do I like it? Do I not like it? You know, it’s just understanding why it’s working the way it’s working. And being really honest about that. And I feel like if that was our whole mission with this book is like, so many talented people get led astray, or they or they give up because they create something, and then it doesn’t have the impact that they expected. And they immediately jumped to the conclusion, I must not be good enough. I must not be talented. And that’s not the case. It’s just they’re different versions of the game. And you have to decide which version of the game do you want to play? It exists on the other side, too, right? There’s a bunch of people on Twitter that have half a million followers that talk about, you know, whatever, whatever big broad topic all day, but they don’t make any money from it. Right? And so, like, what problem do you want to have? You know, like, they have all the attention, right? But like, because they’re so obvious, and they’re so broad. They don’t have a niche, and they don’t know how to monetize that niche. And so it’s like, which one do you want? Would you rather have half a million followers, and talk about broad topics, but not know how to monetize and really have a hard time monetizing because of the nature of what you’re creating? Or would you rather have 10,000 followers, exponentially less engagement, but a super clear niche that pays you a quarter million bucks a year? Right? Those, those are two different versions of the game. And yeah, there’s people that end up having elements of both, but like, you only have elements of both, either if you’re really lucky, or you understand everything that we’re talking about here. And you create that intentionally for yourself.

Clint Murphy  1:12:11

Exactly. So So let’s dive into that a little, the so and what I love, because a lot of people that want to become creators, they don’t think strategically. I mean, that’s part of the problem is they don’t say, Well, where am I going to be? Where do I want to be in five years? How am I going to get there? What’s the path? So they can have that combo that you just talked about right there? And part of part of what you’ve done really well, is there’s an element of financial independence concepts in this book, because part of what you say is, you learned early on that you need to understand two things. And it almost comes back to gaming concept again, what does your party cost? Who’s the party four? Can you talk a little bit about that? And I’m going to tie one thing into it to make it a multi part question for you for fun.  So the other part about financial independence is that ties I think to that is you say, what is your ultimate goal is to make a difference first, and then to monetize the difference you make in such a way that you build a portfolio of intellectual capital that pays for the party without you doing anything, because then you do have the time to focus on the on the non creative, deeper work. And so I’ll pass back to you.

Nicolas Cole  1:13:37

Yeah, I mean, this is probably going to be a whole other book at some point, because there’s so many nuances here. But, you know, what is the party costs is just a fun way of saying, What’s your overhead? What’s your burn rate? You know, what are you paying rent? Or what’s your mortgage? How much you spend on food every month? What’s your discretionary spending, car payment, right? Add it all up? What are you spending every month, and whatever you’re spending every month is going to either limit or encourage very different decisions. You know, if you have a very high burn rate, you are going to be forced to make decisions to preserve that burn rate. Right, which is where a lot of people end up you know, you know, you graduate from school, you know, you get a job, you get promoted a couple times, all of a sudden you’re you know, you’re sitting in a little comfy, you get used to your style of living, sometimes people add leverage on top of that, you know, they they buy a house that is a bit over extended, you know, you spring for the sports car that like you can kind of afford, right? And all of a sudden you’re making a good amount of money, but the amount that you’re saving every month, and your total net worth in context of that is like razor thin. I remember I read really great, I don’t even remember what it was short story could have been a Reddit comment, I don’t even remember it was like 10 years ago, and this person was explaining how, you know, there’s these two different types of people, maybe it was a fable, maybe it was true, I don’t remember anyway, the the net of the story was one person’s making a million bucks a year, but spending a million bucks a year, and the other person’s making 200k a year, you know, but saving 100k a year. And on the surface, the person making million bucks is the rich one. But if your style of living is so close to your income, then you might be quote unquote, rich, but you’re not wealthy. And that distinction is massive, because that’s going to limit the types of decisions that you can make. Which leads to then the second part, which is, so who’s the party for? Like, why are you living that way? You know, is it to fill a void in yourself? You know, is it because you feel insecure about some other things, and you need all these objects in order to prove that you’re a human of value? You know, is it the way that you were raised? Is it what your parents wanted for you? You know, did you move to a town where it’s all super Keeping Up with the Joneses? Right? There’s, there’s all these decisions, why? Or there’s all these reasons why we make the decisions we do. And so you have to really audit for yourself, Why am I spending this much for a party, quote, unquote, for my life? And who is that party for? Why am I living that way. And so financial freedom is ultimately getting to the point where the things that you create, not only pay for the party, and, and then some, right, but you ultimately get to a point where you create assets, ideally, digital assets, but the analog version is typically real estate, right?

Clint Murphy  1:16:53

Real Estate, that’s, that’s the route I’ve gone.

Nicolas Cole  1:16:55

Yeah, you get into real estate. Why? Because ultimately, you own a couple properties. And then those properties pay you enough to sustain your lifestyle, which opens up all of this time. And so if you think about it, it’s a very simple equation, you start your career, and you go, I’ve got a bunch of time, but I have no money. So what do you do you sell your time to get some money. But then once you get money, then if your party is too expensive, then you’re just stuck. Right? So you have two options, you either need to make more money, to start to build a buffer, so that you can ultimately you know, take the leap, quit your job, try and do something different. Or you need to find a way to maintain the amount of money that you’re making. But reduce your costs so that you have some buffer and / or make the same amount of money for less time. So that you now have time to reinvest elsewhere. Right. And so ultimately, it’s this game of balancing capital and time, to the point where you’re not just trying to make more, but you’re trying to make the same or more while lowering the time investment, such that you have more time to either reinvest and build more, or enjoy your life. And all of this circles around like if you’re going to become a creator, understanding that a huge part of your decision comes from, well, if you’re working a full time job, and you’re barely saving anything, because you’re living right at your income level, and your burn rate is so high, it’s gonna be really hard for you to open up more time to invest in your creations in order to build more assets in order to free up more time, etc, etc.

Clint Murphy  1:18:45

And the one of the challenges for a lot of young people is there’s a lot of intention that has to go into that. And in school, they don’t teach you. To a large extent this, this whole concept is financial literacy, financial independence, online, we call it the fire movement, financial independence, retire early. But you don’t get taught these concepts you don’t get taught about lifestyle creep, saving your raises, putting your bonuses into investments, etc, etc. And so for young people who want to be creators, learning early, hey, I should have a budget, I should look at my net worth, I should project out a cash flow, and I should build a nest egg, I should start investing, I should build assets that pay me while I’m sleeping, so that I’m always making money. And then I have the freedom to choose how to monetize monetize, was a really important concepts to get out to people. So I love I love spending time on that in as we talk about the money, one of the important things and I think this is really where we’re going with this whole conversation. Is that to increase the value that we provide, one of the things you talk about is we need to make the access more private, exclusive and personal. Can you talk about that?

Nicolas Cole  1:20:12

Yeah. So how do you make more money? Well, there’s only so many levers you can push and pull on. And ultimately, what you’re going to run into is, depending on what vehicle you choose, you can only work so many hours in the day, you can only put forth so much effort, you can only charge so much, etcetera, etcetera. And most people start their journey by selling time. You know, they sell a service of some kind, that’s certainly what I did. You know, I sold my time as a ghostwriter. And then I tried to build some leverage. And by building a ghost writing agency and hiring other people, you know, so I’m hiring other people as a way of freeing up some of my time, and I did it for a bit, and then you reach a new ceiling. And that’s kind of the loop. The way that you charge more for your time, is you have to, you have to basically create levels of access. And levels of access means I’m giving you different experiences of working with me. So you might charge,let’s use some, whatever, basic math, but you might charge 100 bucks an hour for consulting, quote, unquote, but then you can only work with, say, 10 people at a time. So all of a sudden, you’re limited. And you’re like, Okay, well, I can’t work any more time. So I need to raise the cost. So you, okay, I’m gonna raise it from 100 bucks to 200 bucks. And then you’ve still got 10 people, and then you’re like, cool, I’m at my new ceiling, raise it to 300 bucks, right? And then all of a sudden, you get to a point where you’re like, No one’s gonna pay me above, say 500 bucks an hour. So what do you do? You know, you can either keep the cost or lower the cost and create a new vehicle. So you’re like, I’m not going to do one on one, I’m going to do one to many. Right? So ship 30 is one to many, like a cohort model, coaching, group coaching, right? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. If eight people on a zoom call or 800 people, it’s one to many. And you and you have to figure out the the ways that you manage those different experiences, depending on the number of people, right. And as you open that up, then when you have a one to many model, your individual time becomes even more valuable, because then you give people the option. So now you don’t need every person to pay you 500 bucks an hour, you go, Hey, I’ve got this one to many model that’s 100 bucks, you still get access to me. But you’re with a whole bunch of other people. But if you don’t want that, I work with five people at a time. I work with three people at a time. And it’s 1000 bucks an hour. So you need so you can raise the price because you need less people to say yes, you have another option, right? And that and that creates kind of an equilibrium in your, in your business. And so this like stack of what you can offer people. And I’m still in the process of creating it for myself, but a lot of the pieces are built. If you want to learn from me and internalize the way I think about digital writing, you can just go read my book, The Art and Business of Online Writing, it’s 20 bucks. That’s pretty much like everything that I have to say about the topic as of right now. But then if you want a different level of access, right, you go join ship 30 You get to learn from me and Dicky, and it’s one to many, right, and so you get to learn and hear it directly from me. But I can’t do individual consulting with everyone. So that’s why ship 30 is a one to many model. And it’s, you know, 700 bucks ish. But then there’s a small number of people who go, Well, I read your book, and I did ship 30. And the one to many model was great. It got me this far. But you know what, I need a heightened level of access. And because we have these other options, you can price way higher. Because you weed kind of the people out, right, it’s like either you are that person and you want to pay the ultra premium and you want direct access, and you want to pay for my time, okay. And if not done, the one to many model is what works for you. And ultimately, you want these different tranches, because there’s going to be different types of people with different types of budgets who have different wants and needs that are willing to pay you different amounts, even though what it is that you’re sharing is like ultimately the same. Right? Like everything in my book is what we teach in ship 30. And a lot of what we teach in ship 30 I’m just doing individually with other people, right but it’s it’s the access that’s changed. Not necessarily the information itself.

Clint Murphy  1:25:04

And so let’s take that a step further. Let’s say we want to become that category of one Creator. The way you talk about looking at it, you’ve already said, Hey, we have to look at it from the audience’s point of view, what they want from us. And one of the things you talk about is look at what their problems are. And when we’re trying to do this non obvious, this idea of obvious problems, non obvious problems, obvious solutions, non obvious solutions, and how we pair those up will determine where we ended up on that curve.

Nicolas Cole  1:25:50

Yes, so now, yeah, you’re getting into all sorts of different combinations, right? But you have obvious problems that are solved with obvious solutions. You have obvious problems solved with non obvious solutions. And you have the counterpoint, you have non obvious problems solved with obvious solutions and non obvious problems solved with non obvious solutions. That the ones on both sides, so both extremes are bad. You don’t want to solve obvious problems with obvious solutions. Because everyone’s like, yeah, I get it. Right. So it’s someone who goes, I have a hard time waking up in the morning and getting after it. obvious problem. You go, Hey, obvious solution, set your alarm. They’re gonna look at you like, Well, yeah, I’ve been trying that for 10 years. And that doesn’t work. Right? It’s It’s so obvious that we devalue it. Right? I have a messy house, obvious problem, obvious solution, hire a cleaner. Well, that’s typically why if you know, you clean houses, you have a pricing problem, you can’t charge someone five grand to clean their house, because we don’t value obvious solutions to obvious problems. Typically, as a society, right. On the other side of the spectrum, you have non obvious problems solved by non obvious solutions. So already a non obvious problem is a problem that most people don’t even know that they have. So you have to educate them. And then if you give them a solution that is like so out of left field to a problem that they barely even understand that they have, they’re going to completely disregard the whole thing. So stacking non obvious on non obvious is very unproductive. So you want to avoid both sides of the extreme. What you want is you want the combination, you want the barbell of both. So one of my favorite examples right now is obvious problem. I have a hard time sleeping through the night, a lot of people have a hard time sleeping through the night. Obvious solution would be like, turn the air conditioning on, you know, or obvious solution, take a sleeping pill. Right? A non obvious solution would be, hey, if you buy a temperature controlled mattress that pays a tent that you can set with a smartphone, and then it takes you into a deep sleep into the night and helps you fall asleep. You’ll sleep deeper through the night. A temperature controlled mattress. I’d never heard of that before. Right. So what did I do? I went and bought a $3,000 sleep temperature controlled mattress.

Clint Murphy  1:28:17

Are you using one?

Nicolas Cole  1:28:19

Oh yeah, it’s my favorite thing. It’s insane.

Clint Murphy  1:28:21

Ah, damn, it’s on my list to do it. Okay. Okay.

Nicolas Cole  1:28:24

Incredible, right? And so Okay, so listen to this conversation, right? I go, obvious problem, you’ll never believe this non obvious solution. And now I can’t help but tell you about how cool and unique and amazing it is. Right? Why? Because it’s super different.

Clint Murphy  1:28:41

And three or four or five people who think at a level that I’m very impressed by and listen to on a regular basis. They’re all big fans of it. And so you look at it and say, Okay, well, that’s an issue I have even one of the guys that work whose is meticulous about his health, he bought one recently and he said it’s just absolutely phenomenal. For his recovery, his performance, his training, he’s in his early 50s, and still riding a bike better than most of us would in our 20s or 30s. So, such a win of a way to approach it. So either pair up an obvious answer to a non obvious solution, or sorry, an obvious solution to a non obvious problem, or, or a non obvious solution to an obvious problem. Can you can you give an example of the first one, you’ve got a non obvious problem and you come out with an obvious solution and people are like, Ah, I didn’t even know that I had that problem. But your answer is so simple. I want to buy it.

Nicolas Cole  1:29:46

So, category design is a is a great case in point. You go to any company and they go we have a marketing problem. What do they want? obvious solution? Tell us the promotion. Tell us the marketing campaign. Tell where should we be running ads? Should we be running ads on Facebook? Right? obvious problem. Customers aren’t buying our stuff. Give us an obvious solution, please do we run ads on Facebook or Tik Tok? Right? non obvious problems. So you walk into that and you go, that’s not the problem you have, you don’t have a obvious marketing problem, you have a non obvious problem called you don’t have a category. Then the person goes well what’s a category, and I go thanks for asking, So what a category is, right? And now what am I doing? I’m educating you on the non obvious problem you didn’t know you had. And if you are successful at doing that, you just removed yourself from any and all comparison to every other marketing agency. Because every other marketing agency is going well, we market better than all the other marketing agencies. Right? But when you walk in, and you go, Hey, I’m gonna educate you on a problem you didn’t know you had. Well, what’s the follow up? Oh, now I understand that I have this non obvious problem, please help me? Where can I find help? Then you go, Oh, well, hey, we specialize in category design. Right? So if you had a category design agency, that’s what you would do, you would go educate people on the problem, and then what’s the obvious solution,  well pay us and we’ll do it for you. Right, so this is, again, it all comes back to what version of the game do you want to play? And for the vast majority of people, whether you’re an executive at a billion dollar company, or a creator, who’s just trying to figure out how to monetize your writing? It all depends on are you gonna play in the world of obvious or are you gonna play in the world of non obvious, and most people start in the world of obvious, and that’s totally fine. And that’s a great way to start learning. But your ultimate goal is to educate people on a non obvious problem they didn’t know they had, because when you’re the one who does that, you create the price you create the market. How much does it cost to solve my non obvious problem? Well, I decide that because I’m the one who decided you had that problem in the first place.

Clint Murphy  1:32:10

There is so much more to dig into, I could talk to you for days, but I want to respect your time and value. So there’s so much more listeners in this book that you need to read if you have any goal of being a content creator, of pursuing your own financial independence through what you create. So go pick up a copy of Snow Leopard, and Cole, Can I fire? We have a segment that we’ve added to the show called The fast four, four quick questions to end it. Let’s do it. All right. What’s one book you’ve read that’s influenced you the most in life?

Nicolas Cole  1:32:49

A personal favorite. I usually share this one is Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. It’s a fiction book. Incredibly timeless, one of my favorite writing styles ever. I think that book, reading it in college, like really was the nail in the coffin for me if I want to be a writer. I’m like, amazed and astounded by that book.

Clint Murphy  1:33:10

Oh, wow. I love it. I’ve got to pick it up now. What are you reading right now? If we look on your bookshelf, what’s the book in your hand when you’re done done with the writing today?

Nicolas Cole  1:33:20

Oh, man, it’s a good question. I can tell you I just picked up a book actually, two days ago, I don’t know where this came from called S P Q. R, a history of ancient Rome, by Mary Beard. And you know, the world is in a very interesting place right now. And I’m just kind of fascinated by everything that’s going on. I’m not going to pretend to understand half of it. But I’d like to and I’d like to keep learning and educating myself. And I feel like we can learn a lot from history and what’s come before us. And I forget why I got on this train but super interested in like the Roman Empire. How did it last for so long? Why fall? Yeah, and yeah, exactly. Why did it fall? And, you know, they say the average Empire survives for you know, 250 years. The US is coming up on you know, it’s you know, we’ve been around for a bit but let’s not get naive about we’re not invincible. And yeah, and you’re standing Yeah.

Clint Murphy  1:34:31

If you if you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to check out Ray Dalio’s work. He’s been diving he’s been diving deep into this and in having his team look at every civilization that rose and and fell and saying what were the dials on the way up? What are the dials on the way down? Where are we? Where is  x y. Today on all those dials, it’s absolutely amazing and scary, I’ll say In fact, the What’s one thing you’ve spent under $1,000? On recently that you can’t live without?

Nicolas Cole  1:35:08

Oh, man trying to look around my office under $1,000.

Clint Murphy  1:35:18

See with inflation, I might have to raise this number right out of the gate?

Nicolas Cole  1:35:22

That’s a good question. I don’t know. I don’t know how much air pods cost, but I just got the new air pods. And those are pretty

Clint Murphy  1:35:30

It’s the most common answer. I’ve heard it on a few podcasts and air pods is always on the list. And I concur. Airpods are a winner. Yeah, an absolute an absolute must. Okay, last one. This shows about growth, it’s going to be rebranded in the short term as as the growth guide. And so for you in personal growth. As you think of the listeners, what’s one habit mindset that they can change, to grow as an individual, that’s worked for you,

Nicolas Cole  1:36:05

I’d probably just echo where we started with this whole conversation, which is train yourself to let go of external rewards, as much as possible, you know, all growth comes from really committing to yourself. And anytime you compare to other people, anytime you chase someone else’s validation, you’re ultimately just leading yourself astray, and distracting yourself. And the more that you just focus on what you need to do, and what needs to be done, you know, that’s where all the growth comes from. And I have a framework for myself, I haven’t talked a lot about it, I’d like to write about it more. But I have this belief that we are always practicing something, every moment of every day, you are practicing something. And so if you’re short with your partner, you’re practicing being short with your partner. If you wake up late, you’re practicing waking up late. Right if you if you have bad spending habits, you’re practicing having bad spending habits, but it’s all the way down to micro decisions, you know, is like if you are practicing, not brushing your teeth before bed, you’re practicing not brushing your teeth before bed, and you get better at everything that you practice. Every everything that you practice, you’re gonna get better at. So if you’re practicing things that you don’t want to get better at, then you should stop practicing those things.

Clint Murphy  1:37:44

Wow, that’s beautiful way to end it. How can our listeners find you brother

Nicolas Cole  1:37:50

Twitter’s probably easiest these days NicholasCole77. But yeah, I just appreciate the conversation a lot. And you know, watching you go through ship 30 was amazing. And watching what you’ve done with it has been amazing, I have no doubt that you will continue down the rabbit hole of moving from obvious to non obvious and ultimately becoming known for a niche you own. You know, it’s one of the most rewarding things that you can unlock.

Clint Murphy  1:38:15

Yeah, and for those who want to become a writer, ship 30 is the first spot I send people will call us talking about when I when I was on Twitter, and I joined him in dicky and ship 30 I think Cole I was just over 20,000 followers. And I took it pretty seriously, and wrote a thread a day for about 75 days, we’re probably about seven months since I took it and I’ve probably written that’s probably 210 days, I’ve probably written 180 threads. So roughly. And it’s just the way you guys taught it. The challenge for people is in gonna go on a little bit of a soapbox, but I think you’d probably echo this. Because it’s a it’s a theme of where we started this conversation. So we’ll we’ll tie it to the ending, you get out of ship 30 what you put into it. And so when I tell people to take it, I say, sure. You can just take it and say you took it or you can take it and watch the videos. Or you can take it and participate in the community. Or you can take it and build your network. Or you can take it and actually do the exercises 70% of the time or you can take it and do the exercises daily, and do all of that. And the more you’re willing to do, the more you will get out of ship 30 It can be life changing. If you’re willing to do the work, and that’s everything I think, right? That’s life do the work. Alright, Cole.

Nicolas Cole  1:40:02

I appreciate you man.

Clint Murphy  1:40:07

Thank you for joining us on the pursuit of learning, make sure to hit the subscribe button and head over to our website, thepursuitoflearning.com where you will find our show notes, transcripts and more. If you like what you see, sign up for our mailing list. Until next time, your host in learning Clint Murphy