How To Stand Out as a Writer in the Age of AI (2026) | 138

[00:00:00] David: A lot of people wanna be heard more than they have something to say.

[00:00:03] Nathan: Today’s episode is with David Perell, the host of the How I Write podcast, and he’s one of the most prolific creators I know.

[00:00:10] David: I published something every day on the internet for five years.

[00:00:13] Nathan: I bring him on to dive into does writing still matter?

[00:00:16] What parts should you focus on? And how do you stand out in such a crowded world?

[00:00:20] David: When you find something that works, just go really hard on doubling down on it.

[00:00:26] Nathan: David Perell has taught thousands of people how to write.

[00:00:30] David: I want stories, I want examples, and I want takes. When people can’t write, there’s three reasons.

[00:00:35] The first reason is they don’t have any good ideas. The second is you do have good ideas, but you don’t have the courage to say those ideas. Then there’s the third category.

[00:00:43] Nathan: One of the most interesting things he talks about in this interview is tying timeless ideas to timely moments.

[00:00:50] David: Pick up the New York Post, USA Today, The Journal, The Times, and just do a quick scan of what are the big news stories.

[00:00:57] That’d be the first thing. And then the second thing that I would do is- This is one of my favorite episodes I’ve ever had on the show.

[00:01:03] Nathan: I hope you enjoy it too

[00:01:08] David, welcome to the show.

[00:01:10] David: It’s great to be here. It’s also good to see you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in, like, four or five years.

[00:01:15] Nathan: So something that you’re obsessed with is writing- Mm-hmm … and the craft of writing. Mm-hmm. And I feel like when I came into the space, I was just like, “Oh, writing is just a means to communicate ideas and, and all that.”

[00:01:25] And then I started spending more time with people like Mark Manson, like you, and others, and I was like, “Oh, you’re, you all are obsessed with the craft of writing and the exact…” Not like, does this paragraph communicate my meaning? Mm-hmm. Does that meaning provide value to the reader? But like, no, did I say this in the best possible way?

[00:01:42] Mm-hmm. Does it inspire? Does it make me feel something, and all that? Like, how do you think about the craft of writing and your obsession around it?

[00:01:49] David: Yeah. What I am absolutely obsessed with is taking an idea that I think has a lot of potential. I’m almost like an investor in ideas. Okay, yeah. Do you know what I mean?

[00:01:59] Like, I’m like a seed stage investor in ideas, and I’ll find an idea that I think is really interesting, either one that I had or one that somebody else had. And I love to take an idea that’s a little bit messy, but that’s really insightful, can reach a lot of people, and then basically shaping that idea in all sorts- Mm

[00:02:17] of ways so that it can pierce through the culture. Uh, or teach people and be kind of clear and concrete and easy to replicate. And in that way, I’m almost like a comedian. I, I’m, I’m, I’m always kind of working on bits. Do you know what I mean? Right. Like, I’ll see something. I’m like, “Okay, what’s the bit here?

[00:02:34] What’s the, what’s the thing?” And we can talk about exactly how I do that, but I’m just… I cannot stop doing that.

[00:02:43] Nathan: I love it.

[00:02:44] David: Cannot stop doing that.

[00:02:45] Nathan: So this idea of a bit.

[00:02:46] David: Yep.

[00:02:46] Nathan: Right? Like, I went to the Comedy Cellar two nights ago- Oh, cool … and got to see, like, some workshop things, like, s- that were, you know, really polished.

[00:02:53] And like, you nailed that. And others where you’re like, “Okay, that might have been, like, the second- Mm-hmm … or third time you ever told that story on stage,” and it clearly has something to it, but it didn’t work- Mm-hmm … in that form. W- is there an example of s- of an idea, something in your writing that you, that started as- that raw, like we’re just testing it in front of the 100-person comedy c- you know, comedy cellar, and then turned into, like, the polished bit?

[00:03:18] David: Yeah. I’ll tell you the one that I’m working on right now is… So I’m working on a film. Mm-hmm. Uh, it’s called Modern World. It’s a series. So think of-

[00:03:26] Nathan: It’s… I- I’ve watched the first… Is it a pilot? Yeah.

[00:03:29] David: Is it a pilot? A

[00:03:30] Nathan: short

[00:03:30] David: film.

[00:03:30] Nathan: I’ve watched the, the pilot’s fantastic.

[00:03:31] David: Thank you.

[00:03:32] Nathan: Five and a half million views, I believe.

[00:03:33] David: Five and a half million views. So proud of it. And so we said, “Okay, we’ll do that. We’ll try to make a TV series kind of like Planet Earth.” Mm-hmm. Like cinematic, educational, uh, really beautifully done, like Planet Earth, do a lot of series. So we’re working on the first series now. And one of the things you find, like when you go to an art museum, right, and you read the caption, is they just say a lot of gobbledygook without actually saying anything at all, and they use all this jargon.

[00:04:00] Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And so as we’re working on our scripts, the two people I’m working with, they flew out, we went through 160 pages of scripts, and we basically put every single piece of jargon on trial for its life. Mm. We basically took it to court and we said- … “Did you commit the crime or did you not?”

[00:04:18] And we were super, super hardcore about just saying anything that sounds like something you would read on one of the gobbledygook walls at the Met or the MoMA, whatever, we’re just gonna take that out. And if you can just talk about things in plain, simple, and clear language- Mm-hmm … it’s really hard to do because- Yeah

[00:04:39] you realize that you’re leaning on the laurels of a lot of jargon, a lot of other people’s ideas. But if you do that, the world becomes a lot more accessible to people, and it’s just easier to understand what-

[00:04:50] Nathan: Mm-hmm

[00:04:51] David: what it is that you’re saying. You know what I mean?

[00:04:53] Nathan: Yeah. So you’ve taught thousands of people how to write-

[00:04:57] David: Yep

[00:04:58] Nathan: through Rite of Passage. So what are the things that matter the most if you’re talking to a creator who’s like, “Okay, I wanna start to obsess over the craft of writing”?

[00:05:06] David: Yeah, so I would say that when people can’t write, there’s three reasons. Okay. Okay? So the first reason is they don’t have any good ideas- Mm

[00:05:16] which is super common. A lot of people, they wanna be heard more than they have something to say.

[00:05:21] Nathan: Yes. Look at me. Super common. Why? Oh, I don’t

[00:05:26] David: know. Super common.

[00:05:26] Nathan: I don’t know why, but still look at me.

[00:05:28] David: I mean, I was there too. Like, when I- Yeah … kinda came out of the gates, I was like, “I want an audience.” Mm-hmm.

[00:05:33] “I’m audience-building,” but I actually didn’t have anything that needed to be said. Mm-hmm. And in retrospect, honestly, I think that’s fine. Like, there’s not a big deal- Right … but for a lot of people, when they’re like, “Why aren’t people reading my stuff?” It’s like- Mm … you don’t have any good ideas. You know what I mean?

[00:05:50] And I was there. So that’s the first, you don’t have any good ideas. The second is you do have good ideas, but you don’t have the courage to say those ideas, okay? So that can be a political thing. It can be something that’s a little bit unpopular to say, something that’s a little bit weird, you know, something that’s a little bit weird.

[00:06:07] Like I remember when Sean Perry came on my writing podcast, How I Write, he goes, “I’m trying to get really good at storytelling. Like storytelling- Mm … and communication, that’s like the big skill I’m working on.” But it’s like kinda weird to say that you’re working on storytelling- Right … something like that.

[00:06:20] Fairly benign, but also, yeah, it’s like a little bit cringe to say that you’re working on that. But all power to him, that’s like the thing he’s working on, right? So then there’s people who they don’t have any good ideas- Or they have good ideas, but they don’t have the courage to say them. And then there’s the third category, which is people who don’t know how to write.

[00:06:38] Mm-hmm. That is pretty common, but most of the people who are listening to this, they’re probably actually decent on the they-know-how-to-write category- Yeah … but they struggle with the first two. But then the other thing even more is with Claude, with Grok, you know, name your AI… Well, not Gemini. It’s not gonna be good at writing.

[00:06:57] That’s just not Google’s DNA. But name your AI. It’s basically gonna make the communication part a commodity, so then the really hard part is how do you find the good ideas, and how do you develop the courage to say the good ideas that you have?

[00:07:11] Nathan: For you, what was… what happened between the early stages where you’re like, “I want attention and an audience- Mm

[00:07:18] but I don’t have something to say or I don’t have the life experience to draw from,” to now, like, I feel like you have a lot to say, and I follow h- you and, you know, thousands of other people do for your ideas and your take on the world.

[00:07:30] David: You know what it is, is writing forces you to be more observant.

[00:07:34] Nathan: Okay.

[00:07:34] David: It just forces you to be more observant. Like, I’m just always looking at things and I think a lot of that is because of years and years of basically saying, “I need things to write about, therefore- Mm … I need to observe the world more carefully.” And that could be the way that flowers are displayed on the street.

[00:07:54] It can be the way that an elevator in one skyscraper is different from the elevator in the other skyscraper. It can be an incongruence between the way that somebody dresses and the way that they speak. Like, whatever it is. And honestly, I wish that I did this more, but the best practice that I’ve found…

[00:08:12] And it’s actually, we kind of have some notes coming into- Yeah … this podcast. And I said, “You know what, Nathan, I’m gonna send you some notes. What I’ll do is I’ll just go sit down at a restaurant and I’ll eat alone.” I love eating alone. Mm. I do it all the time. Um, and what I’ll do is I’ll have a piece of paper- and a pen.

[00:08:31] And basically, in the duration of that meal, I’ll just try to fill out an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper, and there’s no phone, and it’s just there, and I just squib- scribble down notes, notes, notes- Mm … notes, notes. And what I try to do is basically think of mining my own mind, okay? So, I think it’s John Mayer or Ed Sheeran, one of them is on the Zane Lowe Show, and talks about how a lot of times creativity is like a spigot of water.

[00:08:59] And what you do is you turn on the faucet, and at first, it’s kind of dirty. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. But later on, the water does get clean, but you have to let the dirty water out first. Right. And then later on, the clean water comes out. And if I can just fill out an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper at a restaurant, what I realize is all the thoughts that were basically subterranean in my brain, they’re not conscious thoughts that I had today, but they were thoughts that I had today, and I just hadn’t really brought them up to the surface.

[00:09:34] Nathan: Mm. I think there’s so many things in everything we consume, and then what we feel and think and all of that, that all goes by so quickly.

[00:09:41] David: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:42] Nathan: Like, something that I used to not be able to do at all, um, and now I’m much better at, is noticing when I feel something-

[00:09:50] David: Mm …

[00:09:51] Nathan: and then being able to, like, rewind my inputs and thoughts, ’cause I’m like, “What was that?

[00:09:55] Was that the… Uh, okay, I’m feeling frustrated-

[00:09:58] David: Mm-hmm …

[00:09:59] Nathan: or jealous or whatever.” And you notice that. Like, you, like, you know, there’s, like, a feeling in your chest or whatever and, like, where is that from? Is that… And you realize, like, oh, I’ve just consumed so many random things, whether it’s an Instagram feed or X or conversations or Slack or anything like that.

[00:10:12] Being able to rewind it and be like- Oh, it’s this. This is what I… You know, it was three minutes ago, that was the thing that I reacted to, and it’s still sitting in my subconscious. Mm-hmm. And it’s a similar thing to be able to then say, “Oh, let me draw that out and see what that is.” So that’s it from a mental health perspective, but it applies the exact same way in creativity, to pull out these ideas, to sit with them, and make the, like, m- make the invisible visible.

[00:10:40] David: Mm-hmm. And you were talking about, your, your, your earlier question is like, how exactly did I do it? Mm. I mean, the prescription here is if you sit down and you, every day, force yourself to write something, and it’s not enough to just write it for yourself. Like, I actually don’t think that journaling takes you all the way there.

[00:11:00] The real discipline is putting it out in public. I basically published something every day on the internet for five years. Mm-hmm. And that was two newsletters every single week on ConvertKit. I had Monday Musings, I had Friday Finds. I was tweeting a bunch. And if you do that week after week, month after month, year after year, you just develop your own opinions on the world, and what happens is you find yourself making observations in passing and almost noticing your own awareness of things.

[00:11:33] Right. Like, when w- when, when I was walking down, here’s a good example. And like, if I was funnier, this would’ve been such a good comedy bit, is like New York and parks. So we’re walking by this place called Greeley Square. It’s across the street- Mm … from the Macy’s, and there’s this, this, this, this park And it’s not a park.

[00:11:52] Like, it’s on 6th, it’s 34th, but, like, it’s also a park. You, you know, for New Yorkers, we’re like, “This is a park.” And so there’s these people, and you look at them, they’re like, “Oh, yes, I’m in the park.” There’s, like, these nice flowers around. They have this chair. And they’re like, you know, I’m just sort of imagining them thinking, “It’s so nice to be in the park.”

[00:12:11] And, like, 50 feet away from them is a jackhammer, like- Right … shhh. And I was like, that is the most New York thing. You know what I mean? Like, these people are delighted, delighted to be in this park, and so was I. I was like, you know, I gotta walk through the park. Lo and behold, there’s a jackhammer 50 feet away.

[00:12:30] And it’s all this sort of stuff. Like, I don’t know if that’s one that I would use. Mm-hmm. But, like, even here sitting talking to you, I’m like, oh, I, I had all these observations that I didn’t realize that I was having, and it’s in the act of conversation and in writing that you become aware of your own awareness- Mm

[00:12:46] of the world.

[00:12:47] Nathan: I’m thinking about stories like that, ’cause you could use that in a whole bunch of different ways. Yeah. It could be an introduction to your newsletter. It could be whatever else. You know, it’s about the idea of contrast. It’s about the idea of, um, like, what you’re acclimated to. Mm-hmm. You know?

[00:13:01] In the chaos of, of New York, maybe even the tiny little not real- really a park with the jackhammer is still- … more peaceful- Right … than one block over. Uh, one of my favorite spots is right here on 27th. There’s just one of the pass-through, like, in the, in the street. I know

[00:13:15] David: exactly what you mean. Yeah.

[00:13:16] Nathan: And it’s just this green area.

[00:13:17] It just passes through the middle of the block, and I’m like-

[00:13:20] David: My first internship in New York, my first college internship, I worked on 30th and 6th, so I’d always go there. Mm-hmm. There used to be, there used to be this amazing sandwich shop- Mm … where you’d get a grilled cheese you dip in tomato soup, and I’d always eat it there.

[00:13:32] Nathan: Yeah, and it’s one of those things where the- It’s, there’s nothing special about that spot if it was somewhere else. If it was in Boise or if it was in, you know, wherever else. Like, we were talking to Austin and we’re like, “Oh, it’s this amazing, like, bit of nature in Austin.” Be like, “You mean it’s like trails by the river?”

[00:13:48] And you’re like- Right … “No, no. It’s-” No. There’s

[00:13:50] David: like 100 square feet.

[00:13:52] Nathan: But-

[00:13:53] David: But we relish

[00:13:54] Nathan: it. But in New York, it has the contrast, and so you could tell that story in so many ways. What I’m curious about is how you capture and curate these, because there’s… Like, it’s sitting in a notebook like this or, or that sort of thing.

[00:14:06] Yeah. Like, how to bring it out again later. Like, Ryan Holiday has his note cards where he has- Mm-hmm … you know, a, a big clear plastic container and filled with note cards that turns into a book. Is it something that you do?

[00:14:19] David: Not to the degree that Ryan does it. Most people don’t do that. That note card system is absolutely awesome.

[00:14:23] What I did do, which was great, was Tiago Forte was my business partner- Yeah … for many years, and his Building a Second Brain course changed my life. Mm-hmm. I remember I took it August 2017. I was in my apartment in Brooklyn, and I was living… The landlord was this Yemenese couple, and they would always yell at each other.

[00:14:43] And I was like, “Why are you guys always fighting?” And they’re like… You know, I go knock on the door. Like, “Is everything okay?” They’re like, “Oh, we love each other.” That’s just sort of how they talked. Uh, and I remember j- sort of watching his Building a Second Brain lectures with them fighting in the background.

[00:14:56] But that was big for me from probably 2018 to 2023, sort of capturing ideas and all that. Now, I basically do one of two things. I’ll put stuff in Otter- Mm-hmm … and then there’s sort of like a messy filter search from there, and then I’ll just use, like, ChatGPT or Claude, and I basically just do a voice note, and then I get it to do an outline at the top and then turn it to prose at the bottom.

[00:15:23] Not super fancy, but I love doing that. And that is a piece of advice that I have, is if you’re struggling to write and just get ideas out, just yap. Mm-hmm. Just yap into your phone. Go for a walk. It’s a lot easier- Yeah … when you’re walking and moving your body. And one thing that works well as well is, um, something called 60, 20, 10.

[00:15:42] So say that you have an idea Try to explain it in 60 seconds. Mm-hmm. So then you just get the full idea out, and then now do it again. Do it in 20 seconds, and then do it again, and do it in 10 seconds. And the mind is very, very good- Mm … at compressing information. But don’t try to skip to the 10. Right. Try to go to the 60, and then just try to work your way down like a staircase.

[00:16:04] Nathan: Yeah, the, the guys at Ultraspeaking, I’ve seen them teach this, uh, and they call it the accordion method.

[00:16:09] David: Mm.

[00:16:09] Nathan: Where you start long, 60, 90 seconds, something like that, and it’s just like, just explain the idea.

[00:16:15] David: Right. ‘

[00:16:16] Nathan: Cause there’s so many things that I have in my head that I’m like, “I could write about that,” but, like, I haven’t, and it’s bouncing around, or, like, a reaction to a quote or whatever, and so it’s like, explain it in the long version, get shorter.

[00:16:25] David: Yep.

[00:16:26] Nathan: And then what they do is they come back out to longer again.

[00:16:29] David: Yep.

[00:16:30] Nathan: And so, you know, maybe you get down to the ten-second version. You’re like, “How could you explain this in 10 seconds?” They’re like, “Well, try.” You know, and you have a very, you know, the high economy on your words. And then when you go back to 30 seconds or something a little longer, then you’re like, “Oh, damn.

[00:16:43] That was actually pretty good.” Yes. Exactly. How do you think about the market impact of writing and what that means, like the market reaction to writing?

[00:16:53] David: Hmm.

[00:16:54] Nathan: And h- how, how it affects the quality, ’cause you’re saying don’t, don’t just journal. Like, you have to actually bring these ideas into the world.

[00:17:02] David: When you say the market impact, do you mean, like, the book publishing industry?

[00:17:06] Nathan: I think

[00:17:06] David: the- The money that you can make from writing?

[00:17:08] Nathan: Let’s start with the reaction from the readers, and then we’ll go into what actually sells, whether you’re, whether you’re being paid through attention or cash.

[00:17:16] David: Yep. I am so pro market feedback. Mm-hmm. And I basically think the audience is always right.

[00:17:23] Nathan: Okay.

[00:17:23] David: I basically think- David’s hot takes … the audience is always right. Like, I think if we’re writing, people wanna read what we’re saying, and I think most of the time- Things that go viral just are better. Mm. I just do believe that. Now, there are obvious exceptions. Okay? There are obvious exceptions. And part of the reason I’m saying this pretty strongly is geared towards more beginner writers, because they love, they love the excuse of, “Oh, I wrote something great, but you know what?

[00:17:58] People just weren’t that interested in it.”

[00:18:00] Nathan: The algorithm suppressed my

[00:18:02] David: ideas. It’s… Oh, my goodness. Don’t get me started on that. That is so fake. That is not true. Um, no.

[00:18:08] Nathan: Well, like, uh, I, I don’t know about X right now, but I feel like Instagram and TikTok right now, especially Instagram, are, like, the purest meritocracy on can you hook and hold attention?

[00:18:18] David: Yes.

[00:18:19] Nathan: And so in America, we’re like, “We want everyone to have an equal shot no matter how,” you know, like, whether you’re rich or you’re, you know, pulling yourself up. But, like, all of that, like, you should have access to it. And Instagram’s like, “Okay. The best ideas, the best packaging, the best hooks. Like, if you can hook and hold attention, you win, and we will give you- Yep

[00:18:38] it doesn’t matter if you have 2,000 followers, we will happily give you two million views for the best ideas.”

[00:18:42] David: Yep.

[00:18:43] Nathan: And it’s so hard.

[00:18:44] David: So i- i- i- it’s, it’s so hard. And so let me say a few things. One, the best video I’ve ever made was How Did the World Get So Ugly? Mm-hmm. It was the pilot for the Modern World.

[00:18:57] It is the most popular video I’ve ever had on YouTube, and I think the YouTube algorithm is fiercely efficient in that one. Mm-hmm. Okay, so let’s put that over here. I also think that the best things I’ve ever written have been the ones with the most staying power. Market is super efficient over there.

[00:19:13] Now, there are some really important caveats here, ’cause I don’t just wanna come across as some sort of, like, hard line person on this because it is, has, does have some subtlety. If I were to write today about some insider information that I have on where Taylor Swift is gonna get married and we’re still not quite sure, or a take on, for example, the New York Knicks, everyone’s talking about that.

[00:19:36] Yeah. You could basically think of it as currents in a river. Mm-hmm. Okay? So, um, San Francisco Bay, uh, where I grew up, there’s different parts of the San Francisco Bay where the current is stronger. Oh, yeah. Right? I learned how to sail-

[00:19:50] Nathan: The internet works the same way … in

[00:19:50] David: San Francisco Bay. It’s a- Did you really?

[00:19:51] Nathan: Yeah. It’s quite a challenging place because of all of these

[00:19:53] David: currents. Because of that. Exactly. Yeah. So the internet also has currents, okay? So sometimes it is better to do a 6 out of 10 job. When I say better, you’ll get more views doing a 6 out of 10 job on a 10 out of 10 current than doing a 10 out of 10 job on, like, a 3 out of 10 current.

[00:20:10] Right. Okay? So what I will say is that there are certain currents that you can pick that just have less velocity to them. Mm-hmm. And insofar as that’s the case, then I do have sympathy for people who are saying, “You know what? The algorithm’s just not rewarding me,” and stuff like that. But- By and large, better stuff does do better.

[00:20:31] But it is true, like one thing that is a shame about whether you wanna call it the internet, whether you wanna call it the human condition, is that a lot of the fastest currents are nonsense and the slop of the day. But then also, I will say, there are certain things that you can be really interested in within the question that you can ask is, how do I frame this with a faster current?

[00:20:52] So I’ll give you an example. I’m really interested… Actually, I’ll give you a super specific example. So Okay, so if I said to you interior design has gotten boring. Yeah. Okay? Like, interior design has gotten boring. Um, like, I don’t think that a lot of what we build now is super interesting. Mm. Like, I find this to be a little bit bland.

[00:21:14] Yes. Okay? I find this to be a little bit bland. Agreed. Now, I would call that, like, a 4 out of 10 current idea. Mm. Okay? So how would we take this idea and turn it into, like, a 7 out of 10 current? One thing you could do is pop culture, okay? So let’s flip this around. This is the Home Alone house.

[00:21:32] Nathan: Right.

[00:21:32] David: Okay?

[00:21:33] Everyone knows this house. Yep. The Home Alone house. You know, I love this movie, right? It’s a fun house, right? You know how they remodeled it? They remodeled it to this, okay? Yeah. It’s the same house. Right. So what I did was I just moved this into a higher current.

[00:21:52] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:52] David: Takes the same idea, and then it can spread farther.

[00:21:56] Nathan: Yeah, ’cause you have… Not only is it something that is, like, a m- a more ubiquitous take that we can relate to in some ways, but it’s like, oh, I… You know, someone would be like, if they were shopping for a house, they might be like, “I don’t know. The 2024 house is, is nice.” Exactly. Like, it’s got the wood. It’s got some contrast.

[00:22:10] Like, like, it’s not bad. But then when you contrast it to not only what history had, but then something that e- all of us can relate to.

[00:22:21] David: All of us c- because if I just said, “This is a house from 1990,” versus, “This is a house from 2024,” there’s less current on that idea- Right … than this is the Home Alone house- Mm

[00:22:30] from 1990, and then this is how they remodeled the Home Alone house- … in 2024.

[00:22:37] Nathan: And then every- like, you always think about content that can make people feel something.

[00:22:42] David: Yeah.

[00:22:43] Nathan: And people are gonna feel something about that, ’cause they’re li- some version of, like, either nostalgia from watching the movie, remembering where they were when they watched it, maybe where they were when they showed their kids the movie the first time.

[00:22:53] They might feel anger at, like, are you effing kidding me?

[00:22:57] David: Yeah.

[00:22:57] Nathan: That you took the

[00:23:02] Home Alone- A righteous indignation. Yeah. You, you took the Home Alone house, and you turned it into that? Like…

[00:23:05] David: I know. It’s such a betrayal. That’s how I feel.

[00:23:07] Nathan: Yeah. And so, yeah, like, it not only elevates the current, but it also elevates the emotion around it.

[00:23:13] David: Yeah. Mm. So I have sympathy. If you’re doing a lower current thing, I have sympathy for, hey, people just aren’t reading my stuff, but also I challenge you- Mm-hmm

[00:23:21] to find a higher current frame for your idea.

[00:23:24] Nathan: You know, Ryan Holiday writes about this in his book, Trust Me, I’m Lying. Mm. And he calls the term newsjacking. Hmm. And so whatever’s happening in the news- Yeah … how do you hijack it with your own idea? So an example is, um, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

[00:23:39] Yep. They, uh, built a company, Basecamp.

[00:23:42] David: Yep.

[00:23:43] Nathan: And in something like 2005 or 2006, uh, Jeff Bezos invested in Basecamp I kn-

[00:23:49] David: that’s how he got rich, right?

[00:23:50] Nathan: Yeah, exactly. That’s wh- that’s where he built it all, right? And it’s just like David and Jason are famous bootstrappers, like, they have no primary capital in their business, and it’s always been their thing.

[00:24:00] But it’s like this weird thing that, like, I think Bezos owns, like, 20% of the company. Pff. And, and he just bought the shares directly from them, and, and, and all of that. And so maybe 2015, somewhere in there, Bezos becomes the richest man in the world, and so everyone is talking about it. It’s like the Knicks or Taylor Swift’s wedding right now.

[00:24:19] David: Right.

[00:24:20] Nathan: And so I knew the story of how Bezos had invested in Basecamp, ’cause they had talked about it before, but they rewrote that and said, “Here’s the story of how Bezos bought shares in our company,” published at a time when everyone was talking about Bezos being the richest person in the world, and it, you know, the article got hundreds of thousands of views.

[00:24:40] And so they, they put it in a 10 out of 10 current for X at that moment and, and it took off. And I th- feel like Ryan, in particular, is so good at saying, “Here’s all the things that I wanna talk about, and then here’s the things that they could be adjacent to And it shows up in a big way. Another example is, um, when I was writing a lot more threads on X.

[00:25:04] I’d written one about how Ryan Reynolds is the greatest marketer of our generation.

[00:25:08] David: Did you wrap it around his soccer?

[00:25:10] Nathan: Uh, so this was before… That hadn’t taken off. I, I published that thread. It, I don’t know, picked up a million views, something like that, so it did really well. And then, like, uh, and he followed me from it.

[00:25:23] Mm. And he only follows like 1,000 people, so, you know, just throwing that out there.

[00:25:27] David: Big deal.

[00:25:29] Nathan: Uh, I need X to not go away because that’s my only connection to Ryan Reynolds. That’s your one claim to fame. There we go. Yeah, exactly. Um, I imagine an intern on his team followed me, but we won’t get into that.

[00:25:38] But, um, then, like six months later or a year later, uh, Ryan sold Mint Mobile to T-Mobile for, like 1.3 billion, and so I just tweaked the very beginning of that thread, republished the whole thing, and it w- it, and so it just had the hook of the news. You know, Ryan Reynolds just sold, uh, you know, for 1.3 billion.

[00:25:59] Here’s why he’s the greatest marketer alive today or whatever.

[00:26:01] David: Bingo.

[00:26:02] Nathan: And th- then it did, like three or four times as many views because I, I took something from my archives that I already had- That’s such a good example … and threw it right in front of a major

[00:26:10] David: current. That’s exactly it, right? Like, if you can take an idea and tie it to- Mm-hmm

[00:26:15] the current of the day, just put it in a faster current, you’re gonna be good. I mean, if you’re on… You could be competing against the Olympic rowing team, but if they don’t have a current behind them- … and you’re in a little raft boat with your buddies drinking some Bud Lights, but you’re in a San Francisco bay going out-

[00:26:36] to the Pacific Ocean current, you’re gonna beat the Harvard team. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And if you really internalize that, you just realize, oh, there’s small tweaks that I can make to whatever I’m doing that can help me hit the airwaves of the internet.

[00:26:52] Nathan: If we go back to the skill of observation-

[00:26:54] David: Yeah

[00:26:55] Nathan: and tie it into currents.

[00:26:57] David: Yep.

[00:26:57] Nathan: Right? Because we have to… If we’re heads down in our writing, this is all I care about, then we’re not gonna notice any of the currents going on. Like, what are the things that make a difference in identifying currents? ‘Cause there’s also some… You know, if I were to… Now, I love Taylor Swift, so I’d probably find some way to tie this in and be authentic to my brand, but you know, like, you can take a random thing and you’re like, “And here’s how…”

[00:27:18] David: Dude, I love Taylor Swift, too. Yeah. I love Taylor Swift.

[00:27:22] Nathan: So you could- There’s definitely currents that you could attach to- Well,

[00:27:25] David: here’s, here’s- … that would be detrimental … here’s very- But how do you select them? This is very tactically what I do, is I, I’ve never done this. I usually do this intuitively, and actually talking about this, I’m like, “Wow, I can do a better job of this.”

[00:27:37] The two things I would do is I would pick up the big newspapers of the day. Mm-hmm. The mass newspapers. You know, pick up the New York Post, the USA Today, The Journal, The Times- Mm-hmm … and just do a quick scan of what are the big news stories. That’d be the first thing. And then the second thing that I would do is I would look at my own Twitter feed, and I’d look at the explore page.

[00:27:57] Mm-hmm. Try to de-personalize some of those things. Yeah. See what’s there, and then you could basically ride one of those waves. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you did that, it’d probably take five, six, seven minutes, then you would have a pretty intuitive sense of what the currents are. Yeah. Like, don’t over-intellectualize this.

[00:28:12] Mm-hmm. Like, just kind of scan, browse, and then you’ll know. And then the question is, how do you tie that together?

[00:28:18] Nathan: Either your own unique take on it or ideas that you already have- Yeah … that, that tie in.

[00:28:24] David: Yeah.

[00:28:25] Nathan: Yeah, and I think there’s going to be currents that- elevate your brand, right? So in, in, uh, the Basecamp case, you know, everyone’s like, “Oh, Bezos is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of, you know, the century.”

[00:28:37] And so that’s an, a brand elevating move. Um, and then there’s probably, you know, if you’re like tying… There’s probably other people that, if you’re tying it to-

[00:28:45] David: Well, I remember the Ryan Reynolds example’s really good, right? ‘Cause if you talk to me about Ryan Reynolds today, I’d be like, “Nathan, why are you bringing up Ryan Reynolds?”

[00:28:52] Mm. But like Mint Mobile transaction happens- Right … that’s in the current, right? Yep. The other thing you could do is just start thinking ahead of the currents, right? Mm. So we’re recording this, uh, June 19th, 2026, okay? So we’re two weeks away from America 250.

[00:29:06] Nathan: Right.

[00:29:07] David: That’s a current. Mm-hmm. That’s a current.

[00:29:09] Like from- And

[00:29:10] Nathan: you know it’s coming. You,

[00:29:11] David: you, you know it’s coming. You don’t have

[00:29:12] Nathan: to open the newspaper and be like, “Oh, America 250,” right? So from

[00:29:15] David: June 28th to July 4th, that is a current that’s coming. Right. Right? Then you have The Odyssey, right? Mm. So like Christopher Nolan’s big movie is coming out, okay?

[00:29:26] Go back in the Christopher Nolan archives and say, “Okay, what do I wanna pull out from Christopher Nolan? What do I wanna pull out from The Odyssey? Ancient Greek?” Mm-hmm. Okay? Like- … talk about a low current thing, right? Yeah. That’s about to- Like that is a one out of 100. You know what I mean? But ancient Greek, if you can tie to The Odyssey- Mm

[00:29:46] when the movie comes out, now you’re like an 82 out of 100 current. Right. Same idea. Like we should go up t- and talk to all the ancient Greek scholars after this- … and be like, “This is your chance, Professor. This is your chance.” And that’s how I think about it.

[00:30:01] Nathan: Right. Okay, so you me- you brought, brought up America 250.

[00:30:04] David: Yeah.

[00:30:05] Nathan: Um, t- a very practical example that came to mind for me. So, uh, my book, The Ladders of Wealth, is coming out early next year.

[00:30:11] David: Oh, sweet.

[00:30:12] Nathan: And in it, so I have these four ladders that you navigate and you learn the skills- Yep … to build wealth over time. And the opening example that I use in the book is Benjamin Franklin.

[00:30:21] David: Mm.

[00:30:22] Nathan: And so I talk through how, like his career arc matches perfectly to the four ladders. Mm. And the exact skills that he learned and all of this as he goes from, like being entry-level working in a print shop to owning 60% of all of the newspapers in the colonies, right? Like it, it’s this insane path and you can map it out perfectly.

[00:30:42] So in the next two weeks, people are going to be obsessed with the Founding Fathers, the Constitution- For sure … like all of the stuff. And so, how Benjamin Franklin’s career maps to The Ladders of Wealth, like is a 3 out of 10, 5 out of 10, you know, idea normally. But it, to your point, it’s a 10 out of 10 idea right around the 250th anniversary of the, of the United

[00:31:05] David: States.

[00:31:05] And here’s… And, and, and let’s go back to the Ryan Reynolds point, ’cause it was so good. What did you say? All you did was change the frame.

[00:31:12] Nathan: Right.

[00:31:12] David: You didn’t rewrite the entire thing. All you needed to do was change the frame. And what people need is- Clarity on why are we talking about this right now?

[00:31:23] Nathan: Mm.

[00:31:24] David: Why are you talking to me about Ben Franklin owning- … 60% of the newspapers right now? I’m not interested in that. Mm-hmm. I could care less. Oh, July 4th, America 250, something I can talk to my buddies about at the barbecue this weekend- Mm-hmm … as the fireworks are going off above me. Okay. Bring it on. Tell me.

[00:31:44] And all you need to do is change 100 words, and you just get- Right … a radical shift in somebody’s interest- Yeah … in whatever it is that you have to say.

[00:31:51] Nathan: Yeah, and I think what’s standing out to me the most is I was overestimating how much work this was.

[00:31:58] David: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:58] Nathan: But when you said, like, “Look at the calendar.”

[00:32:00] Right. “Look at the newspaper,” you know, ’cause there are these things, like the newspaper you’re, like in that moment, you’re like, “Okay, what can I write today that reacts to, like, JP Morgan just did this,” you know, or, or that sort of thing. And it’s like, and that, that feels so reactionary, but you’re like, you know the movies that are coming out.

[00:32:16] You know? Like, just look ahead at the next, at the remainder of the year.

[00:32:19] David: And here’s the thing that’s so liberating about this, is that you can jump on currents. The idea is, if you’re gonna write about popular fast-moving currents- Mm … “Oh, well, I gotta only write timely things,” but that’s not true. Because you can have that Ben Franklin story, which is- Mm

[00:32:40] literally in your book- Yeah … which is the most timeless thing ever, but just by tying something that’s timeless to something- Mm … timely, that’s all you gotta do. But the crux of what you’re saying doesn’t need to be a timely thing.

[00:32:52] Nathan: Right.

[00:32:53] David: It doesn’t need to be ephemeral. Mm. It can be something that stands the test of time.

[00:32:58] Nathan: So, like another example is I have a piece that I’m working on that I don’t have a title for it yet. It’s working title is Be Like Taylor.

[00:33:04] David: Mm.

[00:33:04] Nathan: And it ties in Taylor-

[00:33:05] David: What do you admire the most about Taylor Swift?

[00:33:07] Nathan: Oh, so much. I mean, her business acumen and her marketing and-

[00:33:09] David: Yeah …

[00:33:10] Nathan: but how prolific she is as a creator.

[00:33:12] David: Totally.

[00:33:12] Nathan: Right? Like, that is upstream from everything.

[00:33:14] David: Yep.

[00:33:15] Nathan: And so I contrast Taylor Sheridan and Taylor Swift. So basically, like what do they all have in common? Um, incredible marketers, you know, all this stuff. Incredible business people. But really upstream most is writing and their obsession with great scripts.

[00:33:30] You know, like Taylor Sheridan comes from the screenplay world. He’s a writer first. And then you get into downstream from that, the business moves that they made, uh, whether it is Taylor Swift bypassing, you know, the d- the distributions going straight to the theater companies for, um, each of her shows.

[00:33:50] David: Is there a good biography of Taylor Swift?

[00:33:54] Nathan: Not that I know of

[00:33:55] David: I feel like a lot of the information about her is very scattered

[00:33:58] Nathan: Yeah. But, like, in this example, and I don’t think anyone’s ever contrasted these two Taylor, so that’s, like, moderately interesting. Yeah, yeah,

[00:34:05] David: yeah.

[00:34:05] Nathan: If I were to drop that today, it would do well. But if I were to drop it-

[00:34:09] David: The day the album comes out

[00:34:11] Nathan: the day the album comes out, around her wedding, any of those things, it would do very well.

[00:34:16] David: Right.

[00:34:17] Nathan: And so even just thinking about that timing makes a big difference.

[00:34:20] David: But then the other thing that you can do is, as you’re thinking through the piece, you can have a section of the piece that you drop-

[00:34:26] Nathan: Mm-hmm

[00:34:26] David: when the wedding comes out, a section of the piece that you drop somewhere else, so then you can kind of- release little bits as you’re working on it- Mm-hmm … just when Taylor’s in the news. Because you’re thinking about this. Like, I bet, say that today is Friday, June 19th. Say that today it comes out Taylor Swift is getting married right now.

[00:34:43] We were in the podcast. We missed- … the wedding, right? It’s like we go outside, “Taylor Swift’s getting married. Oh my God.” Like, you would definitely have some take just right off the noggin- Right away. Yeah … to basically put onto the internet, and yeah, it’s just about a kind of, uh, kind of a chord awareness for the internet.

[00:35:02] Mm. You know?

[00:35:03] Nathan: To the World Cup right now.

[00:35:04] David: Yes, another one.

[00:35:05] Nathan: Obviously Messi just scored a hat trick in the World Cup.

[00:35:08] David: It was so fun

[00:35:10] Nathan: to watch. It was amazing. Right, but

[00:35:11] David: you- It was so

[00:35:13] Nathan: fun to watch. But there’s an example. Like, we could tie this into the World Cup as well, ’cause you watch Messi play, and you’re like, “Is he half asleep?

[00:35:18] What’s he doing?” Hmm. Right? The team is doing all of this stuff. He’s … Like, he- Have

[00:35:22] David: you seen that video where he basically does nothing the entire time- … and then scores, like, 12 goals and, you know? Yeah. It, it’s like he just k- kinda stands there- … just kind of wallows, and then it’s just game time, and he’s like, boom.

[00:35:33] Nathan: Someone described him as, you know, he’s a, he goes from normal citizen to, like, sleeper cell agent. Yes. You just activate him and he’s … Right? And so if you think about these ideas, you have these ideas, and you have all the skill, and it’s just sitting there, right? And then when the moment is perfect, just you sh- you’re ready to strike.

[00:35:51] And you, you either pull the piece from the archives and rewrite it, or you write it fresh, and you put it out there, and it’s perfectly timed to score, you know, your hat trick for Argentina in the

[00:36:01] David: World Cup. Exactly. With one caveat, to stay on the soccer thing, is Messi’s out there kicking a soccer ball every day.

[00:36:07] Like, you gotta- Correct … get in the reps so that you can have the ability to jump when it’s time. To deliver on that, for sure. And the answer is not, “Oh, I’m just gonna put away the keyboard and chill in my hammock- Yeah … and then I’ll be ready when the lights come on.”

[00:36:21] Nathan: Yeah. Yeah, he’s in the game. Yeah. And doing all the reps.

[00:36:25] I love it. Okay, we, we had some good, good current examples. We gotta drop this episode quick so it’s still current.

[00:36:31] David: If we publish this in August, no one’s gonna listen. Yeah, exactly. One out of 10 current.

[00:36:37] Nathan: Oh, man. Um, okay, something else that you talk about a lot is what you consume.

[00:36:42] David: Yeah.

[00:36:43] Nathan: I think that a lot of creators are saying, “Oh, I can’t consume this content, because then I will just be plagiarizing someone else,” or- Mm

[00:36:51] and you’re the opposite. You’re, you are consuming as much as possible.

[00:36:54] David: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:55] Nathan: How do you think about consumption as it relates to, like, the ultimate quality of your output?

[00:37:00] David: Uh, it’s changed a lot, because- I can’t read like I used to, to be completely honest. I just feel like the internet just nuked my brain.

[00:37:09] Um, I also have less of a desire to read right now. Yeah. I’m just s- in a very outgoing phase of my life. Okay. Um, so a lot of what I consume is the city of New York. Mm. I would say the city of New York is the main thing that I consume, and I love consuming through walking around and talking to people and being at social events.

[00:37:28] Like, that is my main kind of consumption right now. And with that said, I think that when I think about consuming, I think that you just need to be fishing in different ponds, okay? And that is what’s gonna help you find different ideas. And my favorite place to look right now is I love museum bookstores.

[00:37:53] I just- Mm. Art museum bookstores are so good. And what… I’m just in a phase right now where I’m obsessed with art history, and what art history lets you see is it’s like this cross-section of society and art. There’s a quote that I really love that style is the external expression of the inner spirit of an era.

[00:38:16] Style is the external expression of the inner spirit of an era. Okay. So when you look at art, what you’re actually seeing is the his- like, the spirit of that time, their values, their beliefs, their views about good and evil, um, what the good life was versus what the bad life was, God, atheism, whatever it is.

[00:38:36] It’s, like, in art, but it’s, because it’s talking about art, it’s not talking directly about religion and politics or geopol- you know, the history of the day, whatever it is. It is kind of getting to that in a oblique way, and all this to say, um, it’s a really good entry point for me to learn about the world, and you don’t need to go consume art books.

[00:38:57] Mm-hmm. I just find that art museums are so fruitful with their bookstores because they’re very uncorrelated with the rest of the stuff that I find, and I think that whatever it is, you need some sort of uncorrelated way of thinking about whatever it is that you do.

[00:39:15] Nathan: And so when you are going through, are you taking notes?

[00:39:19] Are you-

[00:39:21] David: I just kind of-

[00:39:21] Nathan: Snapping photos? You’re, you’re just- I

[00:39:23] David: just kind of- … experiencing them … pick them up. Like, on my, let’s see, on my table right now at home is I have Ralph Lauren’s In His Own Words. Mm-hmm. I have a book called The Metropol- uh, The Metropolis of Tomorrow, written in 1924 by, I think, a guy named Hugo Ferris, kind of an architecture book.

[00:39:41] I have a history of the Met. I have, um, a book on kind of Gothic drawing and architecture, so that’d be like, I don’t know, like, 9th century to 15th century, like, how they actually drew the Gothic styles. And I don’t know, I just sort of flip through them when I’m lounging around. I kind of have this long couch with these two pillows that I’ll kinda sit on as I just, like, putter around.

[00:40:01] I don’t take notes, I just kind of- Mm … look at things. I just sort of look at things. And, um, but I’m always kind of, like, looking for weird little niches. You know what I mean? Of like, what is the weird kind of super obsessive thing that I can kind of get into? And, uh, just following that, following that, following that.

[00:40:19] Nathan: Yeah. I think that y- what you consume and what you borrow from says so much about the end result. Mm-hmm. And most people who are trying to build an audience, get attention on the internet, are consuming ideas and borrowing from their immediate peers-

[00:40:35] David: Mm-hmm …

[00:40:36] Nathan: who are writing threads on 10 ways to do, you know?

[00:40:39] David: Right.

[00:40:40] Nathan: To do X, and it’s like, okay, yeah, it, it, it shows up what your inspiration is.

[00:40:43] David: The answer’s certifiably not, “If you wanna do well on Twitter, just consume everything on Twitter, and then regurgitate what you’re consuming on Twitter.” You need something else- Mm-hmm … to be pulling from, and that can be anything.

[00:40:57] There are a million ways to find what that thing is, and that thing for you can change. But I do think it’s worth having a kind of- recurring voice in your head that says, “Okay, get away from the herd, get away from the herd- Yeah … get away from the herd,” in whatever way that is for you.

[00:41:16] Nathan: My simple example is when I was learning design, learning web design, everyone w- had these, like, CSS gallery websites, and so you could see what the trends were.

[00:41:25] This, like, these, like, beautiful sites that everyone would copy and get their inspiration from. And so the herd just moved to follow different trends, and I both loved it, ’cause I was like, “Oh, I wanna be as good as they are,” and I hated it, ’cause I’m like, “I’m never gonna get there copying them.” But I needed design inspiration, and so I would go to the clothing stores.

[00:41:42] Yep. Because the textures of fabrics-

[00:41:44] David: Yep …

[00:41:45] Nathan: you know, every, I don’t know, Banana Republic or J. Crew or whoever, right, they’re, every, they’ve got the spring collection, the summer collection. They’re doing full new graphic design for it every single time, their tags, their all of those things. And you’re like, “Oh, if I just borrow your typography instead of the typography from the famous website, you know, of the day,” then it feels unique and original, ’cause I’m going from a clothing store to a website, right?

[00:42:11] We’re, we’re switching media types, and no one is thinking of it as copied or borrowed.

[00:42:16] David: Design is the perfect example. Mm-hmm. The perfect example. Their design… Here’s the thing. I like talking about design and visuals, because you can see it so clearly.

[00:42:28] Nathan: Right.

[00:42:29] David: But the same thing is true for writing, it’s just that writing takes a little bit longer to see that there is a homogenous style that is always changing with the times.

[00:42:38] So right now, what’s the homogenous style? Short sentences, a lot of copy, like, copywriting has really infiltrated- Yeah … the culture. Um, a little bit sort of like TED Talk-y, you know what I mean? Like, “If you just do this one weird trick, it’ll all work out for you, son.” You know, that’s sort of like the current copy.

[00:42:55] But in design- A- as you look at design history, you can just look at a poster and be like, “That’s a 1969 poster,” right? Mm-hmm. Like, think of all the kind of psychedelic- Yeah … um, you know, Summer of Love type posters, or you can look at this poster and say, “Okay, that is Paris post-Toulouse-Lautrec in 1913.” Right.

[00:43:19] And you can see how homogenous- Mm … the design styles of the time are. And so you were talking about, okay, one thing you can do is you can leave the world of digital design and go into fashion, and then the other thing you can do is just go to different time periods, right? Like, I was just at the Tennis Hall of Fame last weekend, and I just took a bunch of photos of…

[00:43:39] There’s, like, these really cool old Virginia Slims tennis ads, and they’re just freaking great. And I took a bunch of photos of them, saved them in my mood board. I use this tool called Cosmos that I absolutely- Mm … love. I love Cosmos. And then I just sort of save it there. And then the other thing I do is I was, you know, for, for, for clothes, to get super concrete on this.

[00:44:00] Actually, right before this, what I did was I went to, uh, the World Cup store. I was gonna buy some, you know, some, some gear. Team USA’s playing today, and, um, my parents live in Holland, so I was like, “Get, get a Dutch jersey.” So I walk in, all new stuff, and I’m just like, “I hate all of this.” I don’t like-

[00:44:18] Nathan: This could be so good and

[00:44:19] David: yet-

[00:44:19] anything in here. The new tea- Team USA jerseys are just terrible. Yeah. The new Holland jerseys are so just, like, uninspiring. So I’m like, “What am I gonna do? I’m gonna go vintage.” Mm. “I’m gonna go vintage.” And so, you know, I call my vintage friend JD, and I was like, “Hey, where do you recommend I go? Send me three vintage soccer stores.”

[00:44:35] And so what I’m just gonna do is I’m just gonna travel back in time, you know, find some, like, 1988 Team USA- Yeah … jersey or, like, pick up some Olympics thing, and, like, that’ll be cool. It won’t have the same kind of homogeneity that, like, all the jerseys there were homogenous in the same way, right? Um, and once again, it’s like finding different pools to swim in.

[00:45:01] Like, even when I buy clothes, I have a vintage guy in Brooklyn who worked for Ralph for 10 years, and I just go to Sean. Mm. And I just walk into his store, and, like, that’s where I begin all my searches. I don’t even go to new stores. I don’t buy new clothes. It’s worse for the environment, and it’s way more homogenous, and it’s more expensive.

[00:45:20] And it’s like that for everything. It’s that for ideas. It’s that for design. Mm. It’s that for everything, ’cause it’s all the same. Every medium is exactly the same. The, the exact same thing happens everywhere.

[00:45:32] Nathan: Mm. I love that. You bring such a unique style to everything y- that you do.

[00:45:36] David: Thank you.

[00:45:36] Nathan: Something that I wanna dive into is your podcast.

[00:45:39] David: Yeah.

[00:45:39] Nathan: How I Write.

[00:45:40] David: Yeah.

[00:45:41] Nathan: When- It came out, I feel like you were so differentiated ’cause you’re going so deep.

[00:45:47] David: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:47] Nathan: And you’re like, it was adjacent to the, like, the business and, you know, nonfiction writing world that you and I have both spent a lot of time into, in, in. But, like, you’re just obsessed with the craft.

[00:45:59] Mm-hmm. Like, what made you say, “Okay, this is the show that I wanna make”?

[00:46:04] David: Well, uh, so I had a f- podcast before called the North Star Podcast, and I probably did, I don’t know, like, 150 episodes, and then I took three or four years off podcasting, and then I really had my chance to, you know, really aim before I fired, and that’s exactly what I wanted.

[00:46:24] I wanted something that was distinct and different. I wanted something that was pretty legible. Like, how I write is a very legible thing. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, I understand what your writing show is. Um-

[00:46:34] Nathan: Yeah. I’m like, “What, what am I gonna get out of this podcast?” I- it’s pretty clear.

[00:46:37] David: Yeah, exactly. The other thing that I like doing is I really like looking at old formats that have either no longer exist that used to be popular that I can bring back or something where I can shift the medium.

[00:46:51] Okay. So I love doing that. Mm-hmm. So with how I write, there’s a wonderful series of author interviews on the Paris Review, and they’ve interviewed the who’s who, right? Marshall McLuhan, and, uh, so many of the- Yeah … you know, Robert Caro, Joan Didion, all those sorts of people, right? I should not be struggling for writers’ names that hard.

[00:47:13] That is, like, what is going on here? It’s Friday morning.

[00:47:21] That was humiliating. You good? Like, dude. So anyway, they’ve done all the, they’ve done all the writers, and I was like, “Okay, I love this series. They have these interviews that are really in-depth, you know, probably take you 40, 50 minutes to read,” and I was like, “What if I did that for the internet?” Mm. Okay?

[00:47:39] What if I, like, Charlie Rose-ified it? And I was like, “I feel like that could work.” And so that’s what I did, and that’s what I do now.

[00:47:47] Nathan: So you put in a level of production value that I feel like is beyond so many other shows. You’re doing these custom sets. Like, w- w- from the production side-

[00:47:57] David: Mm-hmm …

[00:47:58] Nathan: what are you looking for when you’re building out a set and figuring out, okay, how are you going to-

[00:48:03] David: Yeah, so I-

[00:48:04] Nathan: like, set a c- your show has a vibe to it, and so I can immediately see, ah, this is…

[00:48:08] David: Yeah, so I like, I have a bit… What I always go for is I want classic but not stuffy.

[00:48:17] Nathan: Okay.

[00:48:17] David: And I want- That to be balanced with warmth. So it just, you see that all over the place. So the way that we grade the color just is- Mm-hmm

[00:48:27] a higher temperature. So it’s less like one of those street lamps with really white light- Yeah … and more like the color of a candle, right? Mm-hmm. I wanna get closer to that, not overdo it. Um, so there’s a consistency in terms of color grading that we’re really intentional about. Then in terms of the spaces that I go for, I really like carpets.

[00:48:46] Mm-hmm. Um, like this, sort of this Persian carpet type look that you can

[00:48:50] Nathan: see. Two people on our team are, uh, obsessed with rugs. So Haley, who you met- Yeah … and then our CEO O’Brien, they’re, they’re both … They’ll be like, “Well, uh, so, you know, with the Iranian government and this, all the rugs came in before this year.”

[00:49:03] And then you’re like, “Oh, wow, you, you two are, like, deep in this world.” So there’s a bunch of fun rugs in Kit Studios New York.

[00:49:10] David: Yeah. And then I want just high quality production. Now what’s changed is I When I started, I was like, “I wanna go absolutely all out on that.” Mm-hmm. I’ve kind of pulled back on it. I do think that there’s diminishing returns in terms of cost.

[00:49:24] The other thing that’s really nice is, this is part of the reason why I moved from Texas to New York- Mm-hmm … is it used to be, I mean, last year I flew 93,000 miles. I was at 31 different airports, just mostly working on the show, and that’s ’cause I was filming just all over the world, having to set up sets- Right

[00:49:40] in different places. Um, I remember when I interviewed Tyler Cowen, we just had a blank gray room. We set up a full set, got it shipped, everything shipped in, set it up, then decomposed the set, shipped everything back. So I mean, I went pretty all out on it, and I needed to when I was traveling. Now I’m here, I just record in my apartment- Mm-hmm

[00:49:59] and, uh, that’s pretty dialed in. But I actually wouldn’t say that set is incredible. I’d say it’s like a seven or eight out of 10. Yeah. And really what I wanna do is I just wanna, it’s kinda like this, like, I wanna communicate that there’s been some thought. And people are very good at intuitively looking at the aesthetics of a thing and all of a sudden coming to a bunch of conclusions about that.

[00:50:20] Right. And I wanna work with that grain rather than against it.

[00:50:23] Nathan: So when you talk about, first like for the Tyler Cowen episode- Yeah … what would you spend to

[00:50:30] David: build out a set like that? I wanna say, well, that one, that one was kind of a good deal, right? ‘Cause the trade is I did it for Tyler Cowen and I did it for Alex Hormozi, and I got the spaces for free.

[00:50:40] Mm-hmm. Right? So I usually spend between $1,000 and $1,500 per episode on a space, so I just took all that money and put it into- Mm … the set design rental.

[00:50:53] Nathan: Yeah. Okay, so you’re not spending a crazy amount of money. It’s, I mean, when you do it every single week it adds up, but it’s not like this is ridiculously over the top.

[00:51:01] David: No.

[00:51:02] Nathan: Yeah. And then, but then you backed off a little bit.

[00:51:06] David: Yeah. ‘

[00:51:06] Nathan: Cause you real- like what, what came into that? ‘Cause I think a lot of creators were, were trying to push the envelope in all these a- areas all at once, but then you realize like, oh, some of these have diminishing returns, or…

[00:51:17] David: Yeah. I think it’s just important to have a good set- Mm-hmm

[00:51:21] that works out well. But really what I’ve invested my time in is editing and content. Mm. Like, the thing that’s gonna take me to base camp- Mm-hmm … is a good set. The thing that’s gonna take me to the top of Everest is great content.

[00:51:32] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:51:33] David: You know what I mean? And- Then it’s just a matter of I work with a researcher for every episode, so I get about 30, 35 pages of notes.

[00:51:43] Yesterday was 40 pages of notes for a guy named Harlan Coben who just came on. Oh, wow. Um, then I go through it. I basically, sort of like what I sent you, I put the episode into different sections. Mm-hmm. And then I have kind of direct quotes, super specific things, and then I tell every guest right before that I want three things from you.

[00:52:03] I want stories, I want examples, and I want takes. Okay. So stories, I wanna hear stories of just from your life that’s really gonna… The ear loves a story more than the eye. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The ear loves a story. Right, think of the bar. Right. Think of an Irish bar. Me then, yeah. Um, second thing is I want an example.

[00:52:18] I don’t just want to hear that you like stories that have about family that emerge from a fight. I wanna know in this book, how did you do it, and in this book, how do you do it? And then also takes. I wanna know what you believe that other people don’t believe about the writing process. Mm-hmm. And if I can just get those three things from you over and over and over- Mm

[00:52:40] then that’ll be good. And then what we do is we do three or four passes of editing after. So I have- Yeah, when I heard this- … my editor-

[00:52:47] Nathan: Like most people just hand off the editing and they’re like- Yeah … “It’s good to go.”

[00:52:49] David: I go through every single episode. I watch every single second at 1X speed. I have notes on my right side, or like on the right side of the screen, where I have interview notes for myself that I’ve collected over the years.

[00:53:01] Mm-hmm. And that’s just my game film. If something, I asked a bad question, I gotta sit through it. If I interrupted someone, I gotta sit through it. I need to watch what I’ve done, where I messed up, what I did well, have a visceral sense of that, and then the next time I film, boom, like I gotta implement that, be better at my craft.

[00:53:19] Mm.

[00:53:19] Nathan: Okay, so the first take, or the fir- the first edit, you’re looking for how you did as an interviewer, and you’re looking for the best moments in the, in the show? Like

[00:53:28] David: w- So this is exactly what happens. So, uh, interview ends, and I need to then send, I do a voice note for my team- Mm-hmm … of exactly what I’m thinking about.

[00:53:40] So this section was boring. You know what? We got into it about- Mm … 16 minutes. I feel like that was when it was really good. There was a good section at the end, which was about psychedelics and drugs. Let’s actually bring that up to the- Mm-hmm … beginning of the episode. This is just gonna be a better hook for the frame.

[00:53:54] I also think that works better with the packaging. Um, this person’s gonna introduce us to, uh, this person and that person. Here’s their email. It’s just like for the team- Yeah … it’s everything you need to know. So then the editors, they see that, and I’ve basically given some high level direction on what to cut.

[00:54:10] So they do a pass, and they look for two things. The first is sections that are boring. Like, I’m like, “When were you bored?”

[00:54:18] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:54:19] David: No tolerance for boredom. When were you bored? And I want you to cut that, but I don’t want you to cut it fully, just move it to the end. So what I do when I get it, I see the full interview, then I have a black screen that’s like 10 seconds, and then I have- Mm

[00:54:30] everything after, so I can watch what was cut, choose to keep it out, see why it was bad, or bring it back in if I wanted to. ‘

[00:54:38] Nathan: Cause you might see there’s a version of this- Exactly … that actually could be good- Exactly … if we edit it differently, put it in a different spot, any of those things. Right.

[00:54:46] David: And ex- exactly.

[00:54:49] And then the other thing that I do is from there, then I’ll watch the full thing, and I just pay super attention to when I’m bored, what I’m not interested in. And then what comes from that is I’ll have like a section of clips, which will then, for a clips editor, here are the ones that you should do, um, good takes for how we wanna frame the episode.

[00:55:07] Okay, here’s the YouTube packaging, like title, thumbnail, here are some ideas, and then interview notes for myself, like you did well here, you didn’t do well here.

[00:55:13] Nathan: Mm-hmm. Do you have the packaging, like ideas for the packaging before you go in to do the interview?

[00:55:19] David: For everyone I’ve talked to, that is best practice.

[00:55:22] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:22] David: Best practice. Like, you gotta do it, and my advice for other people is to totally do it, and I absolutely hate doing that. I absolutely hate doing that. It kills the vibe for me. Mm-hmm. I h- I, I feel like I narrow my range of motion, and it’s just one of those things, like you wanna be optimized until you hate doing something, and then just- Right

[00:55:40] don’t freaking do it.

[00:55:41] Nathan: Yeah. If you optimize for joy and energy- Yeah … like, it’s gonna show through in the episode.

[00:55:45] David: Yeah. The worst thing that could happen is for me to hate doing the show.

[00:55:49] Nathan: Yeah, exactly.

[00:55:49] David: You know what I mean?

[00:55:50] Nathan: Why? Yeah. You’re, you’re in full control, and you’ve created something that you don’t-

[00:55:55] David: Yeah

[00:55:55] Nathan: love to do. So the, the prep and research process, if you were giving yourself advice from, you know, a couple years ago, like when you were just starting the show, what would you say about, like, okay, this is what you gotta do on the prep and research?

[00:56:07] David: Have a game plan.

[00:56:08] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:56:09] David: Have a game plan. Like, go in with a game plan of what it is you’re gonna talk about, and tell the other person what that game plan is- Mm

[00:56:16] if they want it. And the other thing that is really helpful in podcasts is, I would say one in five episodes, I just don’t click with the other person. Mm. And I, I gotta work on this. Then I kinda, kinda go into a fight or flight mode a little bit, and then I get stressed out, and then they get stressed out, and I would really like to be not just a podcast host, but a person- Mm

[00:56:41] that other people step in my presence, and they feel a sense of peace and relaxation- Yeah … while also having my drive, and my intensity- Mm … and my passion. Like, I’m, spend a lot of time thinking about how do I cultivate both of those? And all this to say about the advice, one thing that I do have is quotes.

[00:57:01] For example, do inspirations, like a kind of fire round, but I have things that I can kind of fall back on if my mind goes blank, kind of like what it just did when I was thinking about the authors. Mm-hmm. Like, my mind me- went blank there. Sometimes that happens when I’m doing a podcast, and I’ll usually have two or three kind of like- escape valves- Yeah

[00:57:20] where I can go and I’ll say, “Okay, we’re gonna do a fire round. These are your favorite authors. Tell me about what you learned from Hemingway. Tell me about what you learned from Seamus Heaney.” Mm-hmm. And they’re like, I already know what their favorite authors are. They’re like, “I’m primed,” you know? Um- And you’re like- That’s really helpful

[00:57:34] Nathan: if so, you could change the energy of the conversation- Boom … ’cause you, ’cause you’re

[00:57:38] David: just like- 100%.

[00:57:39] Nathan: Tell- I know you love this thing, tell me about it. And you’re like, “You want me to talk about the thing I love for the next 30 seconds?” Exactly. “And do…” Yeah. Of course, I can do that.

[00:57:46] David: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:57:48] Nathan: Hmm. Okay, so that- that’s the prep and the editing.

[00:57:52] There’s a lot, like, there’s layers to this. So, like, Vanessa Van Edwards told me- Yep … that she did 70 hours of prep when she was going on Diary of a CEO of, as a guest.

[00:58:00] David: Yeah.

[00:58:01] Nathan: And so, and that’s, you know, you’re talking 30, 40 pages of notes and research going into these things. I think people don’t realize h- these top creators, how much work they’re putting in.

[00:58:13] You know, or even, like, this is a little embarrassing to, to admit, I don’t watch most of my episodes after, like, after I finish recording them.

[00:58:20] David: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:21] Nathan: Right? And so I, you know, I’m sitting here and I’m taking notes. I’m like, okay, I gotta, I gotta go through my own game tape and, and realize like, okay, what went well?

[00:58:28] I just did an interview, um, last week with Mike Pacchione.

[00:58:31] David: It’s maybe my least favorite work that I do.

[00:58:33] Nathan: Yeah?

[00:58:33] David: I hate doing it. Keep going. But I just feel like I have to.

[00:58:37] Nathan: Yeah. But I did this interview with Mike Pacchione, um, who’s a speaking coach, and he, all of the speakers at Craft and Commerce for the last eight times we’ve done the event, he has coached them in- individually on, like, how to make their talk great.

[00:58:49] David: Cool.

[00:58:49] Nathan: And it’s just a thing that we do where we- we’re like, “You know what? The audience deserves the best. Like, you know, we’ll hire a speaking coach on, on behalf of everybody.” And I feel like that was one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. And so then, uh, now I need to watch that back, exactly as you said, and be like, “Okay, what did I do differently?

[00:59:05] Was it the prep? Was it the energy? Was it that Mike and I have been friends for a decade?” Like, any of those things. Um, ’cause I believe that all of these things in life are skills that you can learn with deliberate practice. And so it’s like, okay, what are you trying to master and- Mm-hmm … get better at that?

[00:59:20] David: Well, to this point, the craft that I’m trying to master actually with the podcast has very little to do with writing.

[00:59:29] Nathan: Okay.

[00:59:29] David: The craft that I’m obsessed with is how do you get absolute psychos of all different ranges who are married to the game in their own way- Mm-hmm … from poets to politicians to stand-up comedians to super sh- shy fiction writers, and how do I meet them for the first time, record with them five minutes after I’ve met them for the first time, and then- Two hours later, get them to say, “That’s the best interview I’ve ever done.”

[00:59:58] Mm. How do I do that? And that has to do with the energy that I bring. It has to do with the space that I cultivate- Right … the prep that I do or don’t do, the cadence, the vibe of the conversation. Do I lean into eye contact? Do I lean out of eye contact? Body language. I mean, there’s 874 different variables, and I wanna know what all those different variables are.

[01:00:19] Mm. And it’s like the art of that deep communication is what I’m obsessed with. Mm. And that’s why I watch the game tape. Right. Because what I’m looking for as much as the information is, what does body language do? Mm. And it’s like a study in human communication, and that is vast- Mm … vastly interesting to me

[01:00:40] Nathan: Okay, so then you’ve got the episode-

[01:00:42] David: Mm-hmm

[01:00:42] Nathan: and you’re putting it live. Mm-hmm. What have you learned about video podcasting and YouTube growth and all of this of, like, actually getting attention to these ideas?

[01:00:51] David: Yeah. So you know how people talk about how, like, they, they did something and it took, like, a year off their life? Yeah. Like, my, all the time I’ve spent in YouTube thumbnails has taken 5% of the soul out of me, okay?

[01:01:05] I’ve spent more time looking at YouTube thumbnails than I ever wanted to in my life- Mm … and I’m, like, 5% more soulless as a human being because of all the time I’ve spent on this. It is just the least fun, most important playground for someone who wants- Mm … a YouTube show. And the reason is that your average view duration combined with your thumbnail testing and title testing, it just really matters.

[01:01:32] Mm. And one of the things I learned from MrBeast, I went one time to his house. I visited him- Mm … in, uh, in North Carolina, spent three days or something, two or three days playing basketball with him. And so we’d, like, play basketball during the day, and then at dinner, uh, we’d sort of chat and talk shop, and MrBeast loves to talk shop.

[01:01:49] Like, the coolest thing about MrBeast is what he wants is he wants to learn as much from you as possible, and in exchange, he will teach you everything that he knows. You know, kind of like you’re about to teach everything you know- Yeah … right? He will just talk shop all day. And one of the things I learned from him, he did this PowerPoint presentation, and he just talked about how he thinks about packaging and framing.

[01:02:13] Mm-hmm. And one of the things he said is, “When you find something that works, just go really hard on doubling down on it.” And actually, this is a strong piece of advice I’d have for creators is double, triple down on what works. Um, it sounds really simple, but you don’t need to be super creative. So with MrBeast, it’s like I put 44 people inside the red circle.

[01:02:37] I put one guy inside, inside of the red circle. I put one guy inside of the red circle for seven days. I put somebody inside the red circle for seven years. This person was locked in this thing for this many days- Yep … until this happened. And if you just go through MrBeast’s videos, you’ll see he finds a format that works, and then he doubles and triples- Right

[01:02:57] and quadruples down on it, and that has totally happened for us, which is, for example, learn- Blank in blank minutes. We’ve done that- Mm … so many times. Or how to write adverb, my friends always make fun of me for this, how to write absurdly well, how to write whatever, insert something L-Y well, and you just- Mm.

[01:03:21] We have so many titles like that. And I think when it comes to YouTube thumbnails and a lot of stuff on the internet like this, you just gotta Forrest Gump it a little bit. You just gotta say, “What does the most basic, stupid version of me know that the smartest version of me can’t see?” And then go actually do that thing.

[01:03:41] Nathan: Mm. Yeah, do- finding what works and doing it over and over again.

[01:03:44] David: Yep. I mean, this is why, you know, you go to these conferences with people who are, like, especially, like, middle America entrepreneurs, like somebody who runs a construction business, like they run a big pool business, fencing business. Like, a lot of them are so boring.

[01:03:59] Nathan: Right.

[01:04:00] David: A lot of them are so boring, and you just kinda talk to them, and they’re like I found something that worked and I just never stopped doing it. And then I got really rich after 30 years.

[01:04:14] Nathan: My roofing business is now worth a billion dollars. Yeah. You know? And there’s, like, legitimately tons of those people.

[01:04:19] David: They’re so boring, but they’re also gonna be way more successful than I’m ever gonna be in business- … because they’re not super curious. Mm-hmm. They don’t have a big need for novelty, and they just, “I know what works, man.” You know what I mean?

[01:04:36] Nathan: So in podcast growth, ’cause I feel like that’s one of the hardest things on the internet-

[01:04:40] David: Yep

[01:04:40] Nathan: is to grow a podcast, what are some other things beyond the YouTube side that have worked? Or, or beyond titles and packaging and thumbnails.

[01:04:46] David: Yeah. I’ll tell you what I think about every day at this point is I gotta get the best guest in the entire world. Mm-hmm. I’ve a guest maximization strategy. My interview with Stephen King will get more than 100,000 views.

[01:04:59] Nathan: It will.

[01:04:59] David: Okay? So how do I get Stephen King on the show, right? Right. My i- my interview with Taylor Swift will get more than 100,000 views, so how do I get Taylor Swift on the show? Mm-hmm. I don’t know, but a lot of that is just really simple. You have the guest on, hopefully do a good enough, good enough job.

[01:05:17] I say, “Hey, can you make an intro to somebody?” They’ll say, “Oh, sure, I can intro you to this person or this person,” and then I just go from there. And now that I’ve gotten in the flow of that and have a pretty good system, I also have a really good full-time guest booker. Mm. Like, I have… He is freaking great and super committed, and we work our tails off to get people and are super strategic.

[01:05:40] And a lot of times we’ll follow up with someone 12 times before they come- Mm … on the show. You know, we have a few people right now, they’re just like, “They’ve gone dark.” All right, follow-up date, August 17th, we’ll follow up August 17th. Mm-hmm. And personal intros, relentless follow-up, and then just finding the nodes in the network of who can make the intros, the publicists at the big, the bigger publishing houses.

[01:06:02] And then once again, you talk about current, writers are- much more likely to come on a show when they’re promoting something.

[01:06:10] Nathan: Right.

[01:06:10] David: So I’m always looking at Amazon pre-orders, who’s pre-ordering, who’s having their books pre-ordered right now. Mm. And I’m looking right now for August, September, October, November, December, right?

[01:06:21] Malcolm Gladwell’s coming out with a book in, in November. I ran into Malcolm Gladwell at the Maker Hotel in Hudson, New York. Went up to him, I said, “Hi, I’m David Perell. Good to meet you.” Uh, he said, “Eh, I don’t know if I’d be interested in coming on the show, but here’s my email.” And I’ve emailed him, like, way too many times.

[01:06:41] I sound like a crazy ex-girlfriend. Yeah. You know what I mean? But he’s got a book coming out in November. We’ll try to get him on.

[01:06:47] Nathan: And so, I mean, you had so many guests on, like even people who someone who’s obsessed with writing wouldn’t think of as a writer. Well, you know, uh, take Howard Marks, for example.

[01:06:54] David: Yeah.

[01:06:55] Nathan: Right? But a prolific, very, very effective writer. How do you go about getting someone like Howard on the show?

[01:07:01] David: I forget how I did Howard, but I have a take.

[01:07:03] Nathan: Yeah.

[01:07:03] David: I have a take. Investor letters are the highest ROI per word writing in the entire world. And investor letters are a very underappreciated- Mm-hmm

[01:07:15] writing art form. If you think of words published versus value created- Mm … with Howard Marks, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett-

[01:07:24] Nathan: Yeah. Oh, yeah

[01:07:25] David: I mean, I don’t know, we’d gotta crunch the numbers on this

[01:07:29] Nathan: We’re millions of dollars per word, if not…

[01:07:32] David: I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised- Yeah … if they’ve created more value just with the three of their letters than the value of the entire book publishing industry.

[01:07:41] Right. Do you know what I mean?

[01:07:43] Nathan: Oh, yeah.

[01:07:44] David: That’s crazy that Bezos or whatever can, can, can do that, and I just think investor letters are a very underappreciated- They’re so good … writing form because of this.

[01:07:53] Nathan: They’re so good. Okay, so going back to guest booking- Yeah … ’cause that’s the thing of, like, you know, especially if you always record in person.

[01:07:59] Yep. Right? That, that’s a hard thing to do. You have to get on a plane a bunch, or you have to find the timing right, um- I mean,

[01:08:04] David: I had to move to New York.

[01:08:06] Nathan: Right. So what are the things that you d- you’re doing to, to make sure that you’re getting just killer guest after killer guest?

[01:08:13] David: Honestly, it’s really simple.

[01:08:14] It comes down to three things. The first is you do cold outreach and relentless follow-up. That one works the least well, okay? Yeah. The second is you do what you can to meet people in person. Like, I will go to the different publishing houses- Mm … and I will walk into, you know, Macmillan, and then I will have a conversation with their publicist or whatever.

[01:08:38] I haven’t done it at Macmillan. Yeah. I had the CEO on the show. And then I will say, “All right, Jane, this is our show. Can you send me emails?” And then they send catalogs. Like, there’s people whose job it is to pu- to promote and publicize the books.

[01:08:52] Nathan: Right.

[01:08:52] David: I think basically at this point, How I Write is among the best ways to promote or publicize your book.

[01:08:58] Mm. For, like, a two-hour thing, I mean, I have an audience full of readers, all these sorts of things, so I can make a compelling pitch to them and I say, “Hey, send me your top people.” Mm-hmm. I’ll swipe left on a lot of them, but then I’ll swipe right on some of the really good ones, right? But by far and away, the best ones, this is true for fundraising for my series, The Modern World, it’s true for getting guests on the show, personal intros.

[01:09:19] This, this world runs on personal intros, okay? It does not run on merit. It is all who do you know, can you make an intro, and, um, if you come as a highly vetted person- Mm … the, the currents go way faster in those worlds than if you don’t.

[01:09:34] Nathan: So you, so at the end of an episode, afterwards you’re saying… Are you asking for a specific intro, or are you saying, “Is there someone

[01:09:40] David: that-” I’ll tell you exactly what I say.

[01:09:42] “Hey, I really enjoyed this.” Is there someone you know, based on the experience you had, who you think would be great for the show? Mm-hmm. And then they’ll say, “Yes,” “No,” “Email me.” And then what I say is, “The best guests have been writing for at least a decade- Mm-hmm … they’re very verbally articulate, and they have a unique perspective- Mm

[01:10:06] on the writing process. And if you know anyone with those three, then, then that’d be great. And then, you know, somebody recently said, “All right, send me some of your guests, and then what I’ll do is I’ll take a look at your guest sheet and, uh, see who I know,” which is kind of like- Yeah … trying to size me up and all that, which is fine.

[01:10:24] Like, that’s, that’s, that’s what people do. And, uh, so that’s what I’ll do, and then do the follow-up email, and then follow up relentlessly.

[01:10:31] Nathan: Okay. So I feel like you then stepped out of this world-

[01:10:35] David: Yep …

[01:10:35] Nathan: of how do I, you know, make great content on, you know, about writing and publishing and podcasting. Like, that was a jump from the business stuff you were doing before, but, like, we haven’t moved that far.

[01:10:46] David: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:46] Nathan: And then you come fully out of left field- Mm-hmm … and you’re like, “We’re going to make a TV show- Yeah. … and go into the modern world.” Let’s go. And also, the other thing is, you s- you step away from behind the camera. Right? You’re, you’re no longer are in front of the camera.

[01:11:00] David: Mm-hmm.

[01:11:01] Nathan: And now you’re producing and you’re creating this.

[01:11:02] Mm-hmm. So what’s the modern world, and why did you create it?

[01:11:06] David: Let’s see. Years ago, it was 2022, a few things happened concurrently. The first was I did my first trip to Paris, and I was just blown away by how things looked in France. Mm. It’s just so beautiful. So beautiful. I’d never seen anything like that.

[01:11:24] And the contrast between that and Texas, I was like, “What is going on here? How is this- Yeah … the same civilization that’s created these things?” Right. We breathe the same air and- Right? Like, just so beautiful and thoughtful. And not just like Versailles, but just how they presented you with a espresso and chocolate croissant, you know what I mean?

[01:11:43] Mm-hmm. Like I remember I went and I went to go buy some charcuterie, and I always thought charcuterie was, like a charcuterie board, of course it’s gonna have meat and cheese. But the charcuterie in, in, in France is, they only sell you the meat. So the guy goes, “W- you know, we have no cheese. Like, go over there to go buy your cheese.”

[01:12:00] So I go and I got my meats and I got my prosciutto, salami, whatever, and the lady goes, “Show me your meat board.” And so I show it to her. She goes, “Oh, you know, just the perfect five cheeses.” But then she goes, “You need to eat the cheeses in this order. One, two, three, four, five.” “Do not do it otherwise.” And I was just like, that care and attention is, like, what is going on here?

[01:12:21] All to say, I’d gone to Paris, and then I found this account called The Cultural Tutor on Twitter. Mm. Anonymous account. I was like, this guy is so brilliant. I followed him from the early days, man. I need to get in touch with him. I need to get in touch with him. So I hop on FaceTime with him, and it turned out that my friend Harry Dry, who I’d had dinner with in London, they were friends.

[01:12:43] I texted Harry. I was like, “I need you to put in touch with him.” He goes, “Yeah, I’m 24, 25 years old. I live in northern England. I just quit my job at McDonald’s.” Um, “I’m tired of, like, cleaning toilets and getting s- like getting the ketchup out of the parking lot at McDonald’s. Um, I don’t have a lot of money, so I’m gonna try tutoring people in culture, uh, as like a way to kind of make some scrap.

[01:13:05] And then if it doesn’t work out, I’m gonna go join the British military.” And I’m like, “Dude, what?” So I just raised some money.

[01:13:14] Nathan: And he’s getting millions of views- Millions of views … on his, on his threads on X.

[01:13:17] David: I’m like, “Dude, you have so much game. I’ve just raised some money for my company. Can we just make you a writer in residence?

[01:13:24] And you don’t need to do anything for us. All I would like you to do is just publish every day, ’cause you’re just so good at what you do.” He’s like, “Great, let’s do it.” So he becomes the largest art and architecture account in the entire world, becomes one of my pretty good friends, and we’re in London last April, and he would just give me a tour of the city every day, and I’m like, “Shian, you’re a good writer, but your presenting is out of this world.”

[01:13:50] Mm. Out of this world. We need to make a film And so we go to Hollywood, they say there’s no interest. You can only really make a series like this if you’re into music, sports, true crime. Hmm. And I said, “To hell with that. We’re gonna make a pilot episode. People are definitely interested.” So we launch a brand new YouTube channel.

[01:14:08] Um, our goal is 100,000 views, and we ended up doing 100,000 views in like the first 16, 24 hours. Um, yeah, it got up to five and a half million. The channel now has almost a quarter- Hmm … quarter million subscribers from that one video. And so now the game plan is let’s go make a series. Hmm. I really believe in Shian.

[01:14:29] I think Shian is just so talented, but also just the best guy. He’s magic on

[01:14:35] Nathan: camera.

[01:14:35] David: Magic on camera. But the other thing is like You know, you just talk to people and you’re like, “Okay

[01:14:47] The London phone booth Mm-hmm … so charming, so wonderful. And then Oh, no. This is what replaced it. You know what I mean? Like- It’s so bad … what are we doing? Why, why are we seeing this all over the place, right? Like, what is going on with this difference, you know? It’s like everyone prefers this over this- Mm-hmm

[01:15:12] but this is what we’re building so much more. Right. And it’s not a coincidence that, like, look at this, this phone booth is out of commission- Mm … but it’s so beautiful that people said, “No, we want this on our streets.”

[01:15:24] Nathan: Right.

[01:15:24] David: This one is ugly and, you know, it’s been defaced with graffiti and you just see the same pattern all over the place.

[01:15:32] Mm-hmm. Same thing in San Francisco, where I grew up. There were these chains on this railing that I always- Mm … used to walk by, and I used to love these chains. You know, it’s, um… You know where this is, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s sort of like these big ship chains. They’re kind of rusted. The waves- Oh, yeah

[01:15:48] would crash against them. I used to love this. And, like, some bureaucrat somewhere decided it was a good idea to replace it with this metal railing.

[01:15:57] Nathan: Yeah.

[01:15:58] David: Like, this is obviously worse. And to me, you know, we talk a lot about climate change and the, the pollution of our natural environment, but I think this is the pollution of our man-made environment- Mm-hmm

[01:16:11] and this shows up everywhere. It shows up from, uh, just the way that a gate is designed to a way that a light is, is constructed to just the way that a, a, a bus stop works. Mm. I mean, the City of Los Angeles spent $200,000 on this bus stop- That’s so bad … and they brought, I think they brought the mayor or somebody to the bus stop to celebrate the opening of this bus stop.

[01:16:35] This bus stop is appalling. Like, you know, we talk a lot about equality and equity- Mm … and, you know, helping, you know, making public transportation something that everyone… That’s accessible to everyone, and I’m so pro public transportation. I love public transportation. We talk about making the trains go faster, the buses go faster, having them run on time more.

[01:17:00] The problem is if you stand in front of this bus stop, you look like a freaking loser- … so no one wants to do it. We could make bus stops- Right … for cheaper than $200,000 that’d be kind of cool to sit in. Mm-hmm. You know? We’d be like, “That’s a nice bus stop that actually gives people shelter.” And it just shows up all over the place, and if you learn to see like this, you’ll go on a walk and you’ll see 10 things on a walk that could just be a little bit better.

[01:17:26] The difference between a lamppost that’s just a gray slab, and one with some ornamenta- you know, some ornamentation. Mm-hmm. And it, you know, it gets into the, even the biggest questions about, how does the government interact with its people? What does the government owe its people, the public? Mm-hmm. We know we’re the ones who pay the taxes.

[01:17:43] And you show up here, last thing I’ll say on this- You talked about that wooden table. The first thing you showed me was a wooden table- Yeah … from 1880. That was from a post office. Mm-hmm. The, we used to design post offices with the American dream etched in stone, right? The dream of this was a place of, of, of, of ambition, a place that had values, a place where the public deserved beauty, and that beauty could just show up in a mu- in, in, in a mural, could show up with a table like that, could show up with a nice art deco pedant, and now you walk into a post office and it’s none of that.

[01:18:14] You got cheap fluorescent lights. You have a table that’s absolute crap. Everything is optimized for cheapness and efficiency, and that is what the government is telling us th- who we are. Mm-hmm. That’s what they’re saying. It’s what builders are telling us who we are. And I wanna elevate the human spirit.

[01:18:30] I believe in the dignity of every single human being, and it shows up in a bus stop, it shows up in a railing, it shows up in a telephone booth. It shows up in 100,000 things across the city of New York, and I just wanna open people’s eyes to this, and I just feel like that is my mission in life right now.

[01:18:46] Nathan: Mm-hmm. I love that. I mean, I watched the, the pilot when it came out, and it just did such a good job of telling that story and sharing it. Now, it’s honestly a little bit depressing.

[01:18:59] David: It’s really depressing. It should be. It should be. Um, you know, we, we fly our flag high about how much progress we’ve made, how wealthy we are, but the stuff we build these days has seriously declined in quality.

[01:19:17] Mm-hmm. And the decline in quality is one thing, but the way that, what that decline in quality says about what we believe about human beings- Mm … and what they deserve, and our duty as builders to the consumers of the thing that we build, that to me is depressing, and it’s something to rebel against.

[01:19:37] Nathan: So we spent the first whole portion of this talking about the creator economy and writing and YouTube thumbnails and, and all of that, and then, you know, you’re observing this change happen in the world around what used to have art and style and character and meaning and now is lost.

[01:19:54] How do you think of the interplay between those two worlds? Is that… Is the same thing happening in- Yeah … the content that we create?

[01:20:00] David: Yeah, man. Let me show you. This is slop. This is AI slop. This is the same thing as the Twitter thread you don’t like, is this elevator. There’s actually no difference, right?

[01:20:11] Mm-hmm. What do they both have in common? They’re optimized for efficiency, convenience. Um, there’s not a lot of the kind of work, the craftsmanship, the decoration that comes with it, and it’s kind of a copy and paste template that you can see. Where is this elevator? You don’t know. I, I have

[01:20:29] Nathan: no idea.

[01:20:29] David: You have no idea.

[01:20:30] It could be in San Francisco, could be in Bangkok, could be in Tokyo, could be in London, could be in Cape Town, South Africa. This is completely placeless design, right? And it’s super bland and generic and inoffensive. I would say that is the same thing that writing slop is. There’s no difference, right?

[01:20:46] Whereas if you look at this painting, which I love- Mm … this is the opposite of slop to me, okay? Mm-hmm. The, this woman- I don’t mean to infer too much, but let’s have some fun with this. This woman may very well be poorer than all the people who are going through this elevator at the office every day. This looks like a fairly ordinary woman.

[01:21:07] Um, you know, and what do you see? You see some color, you see some texture, you see the greens, the orange. Mm-hmm. Um, you see kind of different swirls and different shapes that are coming together. And this is the world that I wanna live in. Mm-hmm. This is an unpretentious world, but it’s a world of soul and character.

[01:21:25] It’s a world of place. We know that this is not in Japan. We know that this is not in South America. Mm-hmm. We know that this is not New York City. It’s probably somewhere between Turkey and, you know, maybe India or something like that. Mm-hmm. Right? There’s a real sense of place, placefulness to this. Mm-hmm.

[01:21:42] And I wanna live in this world. I wanna live in this world. And it’s the same thing when you read a piece of writing where you say, you know, the way that they write, it’s not fancy, but wow, I can feel their personality onto the page. I can feel that there’s a distinctiveness to it. I know that AI didn’t write this.

[01:22:02] I know they didn’t copy- Mm-hmm … and paste this. Didn’t necessarily labor over the words, but they write with voice, and they’re saying something both in what they say and the way that they say it. That’s what I see in that image, and it’s the same thing in writing as design.

[01:22:17] Nathan: Hmm. Yeah, and it’s just basically creating the world that you wanna live in.

[01:22:22] David: Yeah.

[01:22:23] Nathan: And that’s the thing that we all have this crazy gift that we’re able to do, where we can sit behind our, our computers or at our coffee shops and create something that impacts so many people.

[01:22:33] David: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:34] Nathan: What I’m curious about is where you take the show. Like, that’s… I, I feel like you’re, you’re now trying to play on another level.

[01:22:40] I w- Yeah … I watch you in your career, like, take these step functions, and this feels like a big one. W- what’s the goal? Where do you, where are you trying to take the show, and what are the obstacles in the way?

[01:22:49] David: Um, fundraising is a big obstacle. Fundraising’s a big obstacle. Um, b- To be honest, I don’t know. Um, I think I got a little bit too into long-term planning with Rite of Passage, and I’ve really tried to come back from that.

[01:23:07] Um, I almost got so obsessed with the long-term vision that I got away from the work that just needed to be done today. Mm-hmm. And I don’t have a long-term vision for the show, but I do know a few things. One, I know the story resonates with people. Yeah. ‘Cause I’ve seen the way that Sheehan is able to do it, and I’ve seen the look on people’s faces when they, when they get it.

[01:23:32] They’re like, “Wow, I’ve never really seen that before,” and, “Wow, that is everywhere. That is a problem.” So I’ve seen the look on people’s faces. I know it resonates. That’s the first thing. The second thing is I know that we can tell a good story. I talked about Sheehan. The director of that short film, his name is Tommy Lee.

[01:23:47] I adore Tommy. I, I just adore Tommy. He’s one of my best friends in the world, and Tommy’s so talented. And, like, if my job is to get Sheehan’s ideas and his way of communicating them with Tommy’s genius as a creator- Mm-hmm … with sound and with visuals, and my job is to just let them do their thing and then to just push them to be as good as they can be and then also to, like, work with them as we’re writing the scripts to say, “How do we make this as simple and clear as possible?”

[01:24:19] ‘Cause that’s what I do well. And I know that if we can take the ideas and we can produce something that’s really good, we can have something that really moves people. And if we can get there, then I’ll, like, take my head out of the water and think about what’s next.

[01:24:34] Nathan: Mm. And so right now you have the pilot done, and you’re fundraising for creating the first season?

[01:24:41] David: Yeah, uh-huh. So six episodes- Okay … about, uh, the major aesthetic styles of the last 800 years. Mm-hmm. So medieval, the Renaissance The Enlightenment, the 19th century, first half of the 20th century before the World Wars- Mm-hmm … and then after the World Wars. And what you realize is that the World Wars, um, destroyed our spirit in a very- Mm

[01:25:04] meaningful way. Um, you know, it’s one thing to learn about war through guns and through, and through airplanes and bombs and, you know, there’s great tragedy in that. That’s half the story. The other thing is, I talked about it earlier, style, art is the- Mm … external expression of the inner spirit of our time.

[01:25:23] And when you look at a building, when you look at lampposts, when you look at paintings- Mm … you see that something about the human spirit was just completely squandered. Because with World War I, we got mechanized murder. Mm-hmm. You know?

[01:25:38] Nathan: Right.

[01:25:38] David: And we murdered people by the tens of thousands, and afterwards we said, “What did we do to ourselves?

[01:25:45] We just committed s- we almost committed civilizational suicide.” Mm-hmm. And then we almost did it again. And so what we’ve had to do is we’ve had to… A lot of the quests that came out of both of those wars were reimagining what should humanity be, who are we, and I think a great loss of faith in the goodness of humanity and- Mm-hmm

[01:26:07] the why beauty is worth fighting for and striving for. Um, I did wanna say one more thing- Yeah … that is a very sort of practical thing that we’ve learned. So I talked about the six episodes, and- Presumably all those are about history, right? So talk about the Middle Ages. Um, but the series is called The Modern World, so we’re actually always talking about the present.

[01:26:35] So how does that make sense? So what we did is when we had these marathon sprints, we went through 160 pages of scripts, and we just… The three of us in person here in New York City, we just took out every single piece of jargon, but we developed a concept called braiding. And what we do is we never get too far away from the present.

[01:26:58] So a, what a lot of history, architecture, series, and books do is they’ll just talk your ear off about Gothic architecture just over and over and over again. But then you’re like, “Okay, cool. So I learned a lot about what happened in Northern England in 1488,” and, like, I’m making this up. Yeah. Like Beverly Cathedral, and, like, the way that the gargoyles and the spires related to each other, right?

[01:27:25] And you’re like, “Fine,” but I actually find that to be pretty boring. Mm-hmm. What’s far more interesting is to say, the core thing about the medieval times is that everything was handmade. Everything was N equals one.

[01:27:37] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:27:38] David: Now, look around you. What that’s around you is the only thing of that thing that has been made.

[01:27:45] Like my shirt, there’s tens of thousands of these. These shoes, there’s tens of thousands of these. Right. Right? Same with your shoes. Okay. Same with this carpet. Same with these cameras. Like- Mm-hmm … nothing around us, with the exception of these plants- Mm … are the only thing of that thing that’s ever been made.

[01:28:02] We live in mass production. We live- Right … in a copy and paste culture. The medieval time, everything was N equals one. Mm. Mass production wasn’t even a thing. And then what comes from that is the craftsman, now you think about workers. What do you think of? You think of the, the, the people at the iPhone factory who they have no individuality- At all.

[01:28:25] Or, I mean, I remember onto the Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan, and the person’s just putting on the little plate on the F-150, the little plate on the F-150 over and over. They just gotta follow an SOP standard guidelines. Mm. Medieval times, the craftsmen were encouraged to put all their personality on the buildings.

[01:28:45] That was like, put your individuality on the building. Right. We do exactly the opposite. And sometimes it is only through contrast that you can see who we are. We are an age of convenience and efficiency and standardization. That is who we are as people, of mass production, the international style way of doing things.

[01:29:06] And once you look at the other culture, you see us clearly, and then what we do is we’re just always braiding the modern world with the past- Right … constantly showing contrast. Mm-hmm. And I think that that style, that way of speaking, will be one of our kind of trademark things that we do.

[01:29:24] Nathan: There are two ideas that I wanna conclude with.

[01:29:26] David: Cool.

[01:29:27] Nathan: The first one is using art and history to hone your, your sense of taste.

[01:29:32] David: Yes. ‘Cause

[01:29:32] Nathan: I think that’s something that-

[01:29:34] David: Oh, yeah …

[01:29:34] Nathan: you know, we start out and we’re like, you realize you don’t actually have taste. Not, not only do you have… You don’t not have something to say- Yeah … you also don’t have taste so well.

[01:29:42] Mm-hmm. So how do you think about that?

[01:29:44] David: So, um, I- Was not born with good taste. Oh my goodness. So what happened was when I was 23 or 24, I read Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way. Mm. And there’s an idea in that book of doing an artist date. And what I did was every Thursday, I would go to a museum in New York or something of the sort.

[01:30:13] And what I realized, when you go to a museum, you’re basically seeing a lot of the best things that have ever been made. Okay, I’m gonna caveat that in a second. But you’re seeing the best things that have ever been made that have stood the test of time, and intuitively what you’re doing is you’re kind of working out what is quality and what’s shoddy, what’s quality and what’s shoddy.

[01:30:33] So for example, my ability to look at wood now- Mm-hmm … and tell what is, like, quality wood versus, like-

[01:30:40] Nathan: What’s mass-produced versus-

[01:30:41] David: Exactly … handmade and all that And, like, really just good wood has gotten a lot better. I don’t actually have the words to describe it, and I’m, like, nowhere near, like, a carpenter.

[01:30:49] Mm-hmm. But it’s gotten a lot better, and it’s been that for everything. And here’s the thing about humans: we’re really bad… I learned this from Amor Towles. We’re really bad at knowing in the moment what is good. We’re really bad at it. So, like, if you were to look at the top 10 books, top 10 songs, it doesn’t really correlate that well with actually, like, really what is good and quality, but we’re very good at discarding crap over decades.

[01:31:22] Mm. We’re incredibly good at that. So, like, things that have stood the test of time, 100, 150 years- Mm … there’s a reason why. It tends to be pretty good. So that is, like, a core human skill that we have. Now, at the same time, you talk about cultivating taste- One of the most important things that you need to be able to do as a creator, as a consumer, is to criticize things that other people deemed really good- Mm

[01:31:57] and to say, “I think that’s crap.” And you go to a museum, and your kind of default assumption is, everything here is absolutely amazing- … perfect, and, like, the best thing ever made.

[01:32:08] Nathan: A curator said it is, so.

[01:32:10] David: And it is so important to just be like, “I think that sucks. I think that’s no good. That is just a bad painting.

[01:32:17] That is a bad painting. I don’t like it at all. It offends me.” And so what I like to do is, when I go to a museum, is I like to leave by just asking what I ab- what did I absolutely love, what did I absolutely hate, and just take photos of both of those. Mm. And those visceral reactions, if you’re just over and over again, um, whether you’re wanting to play really good music, whether you’re wanting to write really well, whether you just wanna be a better interior designer for your house, paying very close attention to what I love and what I hate, and giving yourself the permission to despise things, to think that things that are popular absolutely suck, um, I think really elevates your sense of taste.

[01:33:01] Mm.

[01:33:02] Nathan: I love that. I’m gonna spend more time not just curating the things that I love, but also the ones that I hate, and why.

[01:33:09] David: And the other thing, that is different from being a hater. Mm. I think being a hater, you’re just belittling the thing. This sucks or whatever. You’re making fun of it. Um, a true critic can work out why they don’t like something.

[01:33:22] Mm-hmm. And once you’re in real specificity, I don’t think you’re being a hater.

[01:33:26] Nathan: Yeah. I like that.

[01:33:28] David: Yeah.

[01:33:28] Nathan: Okay, the final thing. Yeah. If you had the ear of thousands of top creators-

[01:33:33] David: Yeah …

[01:33:34] Nathan: and you wanted to have, like, a call to arms, a message of, like, how you want them to show up in the world, and to create a future that’s different than the elevator, the AI slop, the, all of that, what would you say?

[01:33:48] How do you want people to change what they’re creating?

[01:33:51] David: I want you to pay really close attention to what stirs your soul, and I want you to go create that.

[01:33:56] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:33:59] David: That’s all I have to say. Now, I’m gonna caveat that with being a creator’s really tough. Mm-hmm. And I made a documentary about a musician named Porter Robinson a few years ago, and I never published it.

[01:34:14] I just made it for myself. It was about an hour 20 minutes long, and I wa- watched every interview, and I ended up with a very important thesis, which was Porter got to a place in his music where he could make whatever he wanted, and actually, what I said there, he has a line that says, “The work that stirred your soul, you can make for someone else.”

[01:34:38] And that really resonated with me. But what he did was he started with remixes, and he made a lot of stuff that was pretty common and popular because he needed to ride the current to get to a place- Mm … where later on he could make the thing that he really wanted to create. And I do think that sometimes you gotta hustle.

[01:35:01] Sometimes you gotta ride the currents. Um, but what good is it to gain the whole world but forfeit your soul in the process? It’s one of the best lines in the Gospel, and do not do that as a creator- Mm … long-term. So, um, you wanna fight that every single day, but I do have sympathy for how hard it is at the beginning, and, um, that’s my one caveat there.

[01:35:28] Nathan: Create things that stir your soul.

[01:35:31] David: Yeah. Pay attention to what stirs your soul, and then put that back in the world.

[01:35:34] Nathan: Yeah. Okay, if you’ve enjoyed this and you’re like, “I want more David Perell in my life”-

[01:35:39] David: Yeah … where

[01:35:40] Nathan: do I go?

[01:35:40] David: So I have worked on this series, The Modern World. Our pilot episode is called How Did the World Get So Ugly?

[01:35:46] You’ll see a video of escalators, and then it says what changed on YouTube in the thumbnail. Watch that. I’m really proud of it. I co-wrote it. I produced it. And I also have the show How I Write, and if you’re looking for something deep and soulful, listen to the interview with the poet Dana Gioia. If you’re looking for something really practical, listen to the interview with Susan Orlean.

[01:36:07] And if you’re looking for something that is just, like, kinda whimsical and someone who really observe, observes the world well, listen to the interview with either Elif Shafak or Robert Macfarlane.

[01:36:18] Nathan: Mm. Amazing.

[01:36:20] David: David- Thanks, man.

[01:36:21] Nathan: Thank you

[01:36:21] so

[01:36:22] much for

[01:36:22] coming

[01:36:22] on.

[01:36:22] David: This was really fun. Thank you.

[01:36:25] Nathan: If you enjoyed this episode, another great one to check out is my episode with Ryan Holiday.

[01:36:30] We also discussed the topic of tying timeless ideas to what’s happening right now, and how one piece of writing becomes a whole library that compounds over time, which is exactly the kind of leverage that David was talking about. Like the video if you enjoyed it, hit subscribe on YouTube or wherever you’re listening, and I’ll see you next week.