Hi, everyone. My name is Patrick akhil, and
joining me today is Kenji. He's a YouTuber on Caster, as
well as the head of data science.
At Scouts Consulting Group, we touch on personal growth,
personal values, and really self improvement, which are a few of
my favorite subjects. I'll / all can socials in the
description below. Check him out.
And with that being said, enjoy the episode.
I know you do the podcast and I know you have a YouTube channel
as well but you also have a full-time job in the side.
Like how do you how do you balance all three man?
That's a lot. Um, so I think balance by
definition is look is a myth, but there's no, there's no like
constant states have balance in nature.
Yeah, right. Like the Earth is spinning, you
know, and then it's moving around the Sun and they like
everything is in movement. Yeah, and I think that in life,
it's the same thing. So some weeks, or some months, I
have to give additional energy into my main job.
Okay? Some months, I give it a Energy
into the podcast and some once I give additional energy into to
YouTube content. And I don't think that there's
anything that says I have to do all of those at the same time to
the best of my ability right there.
The nice thing about everything but my like main job is it's at
my discretion, right? I got to make when I feel like
it or I'm the one that it's golden to there's no time frame
outside of class set. So when You've created that type
of system you can sort of choose when you put the extra effort
into it and you can front load it.
It's like okay, I have I know I'm going to have this lull in
my work. I'm gonna load up on a lot of
the content stuff. I'm Riku record a lot of
podcasts going to make a lot of videos.
I'm going to do whatever it might be.
So I think that that's something that that I realized over the
last couple of years is that there doesn't have to be this
perfect balance. I would like that.
I'm going to go on vacation with my girlfriend.
To do it. I'm going to take two weeks off
and I'm not going to look at anything, but when I go back,
she also knows that I'll probably work really hard and I
might not be able to spend as much time on certain days, but
as long as you're communicating, with the people in your life and
you understand that you're going to have to work really hard
sometimes and you can do absolutely nothing sometimes.
If you set it up correctly to me, that's a very kind of
freeing concept. Yeah, the cells very healthy
because in, in my mind, I'm I can only go on Vacation, when
I've prepared a bunch of stuff, right?
I do this, I do this podcast, I have another YouTube channel,
which I do with my girlfriend and her sister and then I have
just a full-time job going on and we can only go on vacation
or we can only take time off when everything has been
prepared. So, we can keep that consistency
that we've kind of promise to ourselves and to the people that
are kind of tuning in every week that we can deliver on that.
I haven't gotten to that point where I'm like, okay, we can
just take time off, but it sounds way healthier of a
mindset to have. Yeah, I think that there's sort
of a critical mass, you got to with consistency.
So I got to a certain size of my YouTube channel where I
essentially just did a bunch of bowling.
And I said, do you care if I have weekly content?
Okay. You know what's most important
to you, the most important thing to people is that the content
that I make is relevant to them. They're getting value and I see
it in the in the metrics as well.
So, I sort of got to thinking he's like, why am I crushing
myself to put out weekly YouTube video, right now, if the quality
is not going to be as good as it could be and people aren't going
to be getting exactly what they want from you.
So to me it was like well I can take put less effort into it and
make more of an impact. If I'm just focusing on the
focusing on the concepts that are most relevant, I don't have
to do it as consistently. Like people are still Watch it.
And to me that was very freeing. I I used to feel very trapped by
these deadlines out imposing myself.
Oh, you know everyone tells you for any content, the most
important thing is consistency. Yeah.
And I think that that's important to a point.
If the type of content you're making needs to be consistent,
like, for the podcast that I make.
For example, I make a weekly episode exact level of effort to
do that compared to a YouTube video, The Way lower.
But if everyone's expecting a weekly episode, then consistency
is important. But if the you're asking
yourself, the questions is consistency.
Important in the type of content of the type of thing that I'm
doing. Yeah, it might not be the case
and then if you're doing that you're just killing yourself and
and putting all this extra pressure on yourself for
essentially. No reason and I think that
applies to work. I mean, if you're a data
scientist, if you're a software engineer, if you're working in
any of these professions, some of them are project-based.
Some of them you can actually You like for all you know there
are can be laws in your work if you plan it correctly, if you
are, you know, current plan incorrectly and doing these
types of things that you can plan around pretty much
everything. And that's the beauty of some
sort of a casual Sprint system that you're using is or kanban
or whatever type of approach of using, is that you work on tight
enough Loops that, if you need a break in a lot of places, you
can take a break or you can like, watch It a couple weeks.
It's not like you're planning out, you know, six months, like
he used to. Yeah, I mean, yes, you are doing
some form of planning, but what you do on a week-to-week basis
is what you're focusing on, and I think people get really
wrapped up in thinking that you have to be so consistent.
And everything that's consistency is important, but
it's super over emphasized in my opinion.
If we're maximizing for happiness, if we're maximizing
for Pure, Efficiency and output consistency is probably a little
better but I don't think we should maximize exclusively for
that type of of pure output utility.
Yeah, I agree when or how do you realize those things because you
said right when you're in the thick of it or when you're just
starting out and you haven't hit that critical mass you go for
consistency, right? You go for output and at some
point, you've It's okay. If I actually want to be
happier, I need to be able to let go of this, right?
Need to be able to let go of that consistency and focus on
what makes me happy as well as. For example, making the best
videos I can which sometimes requires a bit more time, but
that switch that, that doesn't happen overnight for me, it's
either a conversation or it's something I've read online
before I have that realization. When did it click for your?
How does it usually click in that way?
I think for me and I would argue for most people, it's this
feedback loop of experimentation and then introspection.
So you have to have some data, you have to do something and
then you analyze it. So, I'm doing this consistently
over time and I'm doing it consistently over time and I
have to after I have some information on if that's been
working or not, I have to look and see if that is making my
Whatever, I want, whatever outcomes, I want come to
fruition. So whether it's growing in a
channel, creating more value for other people, whether its
Financial, whether it's happiness in time and freedom, I
have to evaluate across those different metrics, and to me,
it's just continually iterating on that process.
Yeah. So I experiment, I try stuff, I
look and I say, did that work, did that not work?
If it worked great, if it didn't work, let's re-evaluate and try
Some different stuff. And I think that that's served
me relatively. Well, over time, I mean, I don't
have any dreams necessarily of becoming like a massive
YouTuber. Yeah, you know, tens of millions
of subscribers and doing that as my full-time thing.
I'd much rather have more privacy and More in my opinion,
like sustainable lower lower effort.
Businesses, be a part of those. Also probably make YouTube
content at least for the next four or five years, because I
really enjoy it, but I'm not optimizing for subscribers.
I'm not optimizing for growth in that area.
I'm optimizing for Value that I'm creating.
And I'm also optimizing for like, my enjoyment of the
process. Yes, it's great to make some
income and have sponsors and do those types of things.
But that's definitely not the whole story.
I would not be doing things how I'm doing.
It if those were my main focuses of just like tremendous growth
and and and income. So it's it's really important.
I think to just evaluate what levers or what outcomes you care
the most about. Yeah.
And to build a system or experimental find a system that
targets the specifically. I think that's a that's a very
healthy approach, I think not even if you're creating content
or doing a podcast, I think even in your Your full-time job.
I didn't you professional job. Not that all the other stuff
isn't professional. That's not what I meant, but I
think finding balance in enjoying the things that you do
not over doing it. Not maximizing for output is
very healthy, because I think if you don't have kind of that
mindfulness, or that awareness of that, I think that's how
people get burnt out. They really just just drive
themselves through a wringer over and over and over again
until their body physically. Klee says, we cannot do this
anymore even though they might be mentally like, okay, let's,
let's keep going. We've always been doing this.
Their body will literally put on the brakes and say, we actually
need to pause here because we can't do this anymore. yeah, I
like to think of sort of my outcomes as a long-term Mac
maximization problem. So, I want to do everything that
I can at every step of the way to maximize the like lifetime
value of my decisions. Again, whether that's Financial,
whether that's happiness, whether that's health.
I want to do the things that I can to again, completely
maximize those over the course of my life.
Yeah, I think burnout happens when we start doing those things
locally or in a very short time window, Because you're like, oh,
in these next two weeks, I have to get this out.
And then in the next two weeks, I have to get this out and you
start running on this hamster wheel and that's when, when
you're not thinking about the global maximum, you start making
trade-offs for these local maximums.
And so, for example, if if I focused in the next three months
of only doing one type of YouTube content, I was making a
video every day. I would probably grow a
tremendous amount. Yeah, I'd probably We have make
a lot more money and probably a lot of these things would happen
but I probably also absolutely hate making content.
I'd probably ruin all of these things for myself, and the
short, the, you know, whatever amount of money, or outcomes.
That I would create in that short term.
They would pale in comparison to what I would do over like 15
years. If I stuck with it and I really
enjoyed that process. So, I think that a lot of
people, they just I'm not Saying that they're short-sighted.
Yeah, it's a lot easier to see these outcomes in the short term
rather than seeing these outcomes in the long term and
just expand your view and zooming out is something that
anyone can do that can also help them probably prevent some of
the really negative repercussions of or like,
getting to that burnout face. Yeah, I completely agree.
I'm thinking back because I'm a software engineer on the
day-to-day and it's Important to Zuma.
Figure out what the problem is or figure out what the long-term
goal is. But I've never had that
realization. That it is the same with your
life, right? You have a certain goal or you
have goals in life. You have values in there and
what you're doing, kind of on a smaller scale on a weekly or
even monthly, maybe even yearly basis, contributes towards that,
right? And that shortsightedness when
it comes to weeks or months or your self-imposed deadlines.
If you don't zoom out and figure out what are we actually?
Working towards or what is my life going to be like, x amount
of years down the line? You might lose sight of that.
And exactly, as you mentioned, you might step on that hamster
wheel and actually never get off of it.
And then yeah you run towards your own demise basically which
is a real shame. Yeah, I mean it's like you put
on a Band-Aid Solution on some code to get it to run right now.
Yeah, where your boss is yelling at you, they want you to get
this out the door quickly, a client is having a problem with
something and they need it fixed right now.
Yeah. You keep doing that over and
over again and six months down the road, you're going to have
just a janky code base and you're going to have a lot of
issues that you're going to have to eventually fix and faiths and
I don't think anybody wants to go through a backlog like that
and fix everything I'm frightened.
If you take a little bit more time, you do it correctly.
You sort of, you know, how to push back against your boss, but
it's one of these things where Everyone wants what's best for
the company in that circumstance.
Exactly, I think that there's a way you can have those
conversations with your superiors but also have those
conversations with yourself and say, okay, is this going to
benefit me in the longer term? Or is this a Band-Aid fix?
Or is this like a short-term like locally optimal thing that
isn't going to serve me? Well in the future and I would
expect people will be a lot more happier in the long term if they
They always tried that that philosophy now.
Maybe it doesn't work for everyone but I found myself to
be a lot happier when I kept the bigger picture.
Yeah, I can imagine that you come across as very Zen when
you. I mean, when you just talk about
that sort of stuff and I know that from personal experience, I
know Band-Aid Solutions don't work well, for the long term.
It's not what a business want, it's not foundational in how we
want to grow. You have never Take a look at my
own life and been, like, okay, is this a Band-Aid solution to a
problem that I'm having or am I actually working on a foundation
and working on something long-term?
Right, I've never had that realization yet.
If I'm talking about exercise, for example, I do put in the
work so that hopefully longer down the road.
I'm still this. How do you say that?
I feel I feel great right now. I want to feel great when I'm
50, I want to feel great as long as I age, so I do put in the
work on that. So I feel like a lot of times we
do that towards the output that we have not necessarily the life
that we experience, which is weird.
Yeah, well you know, exercise is a perfect example of this
concept. Yeah.
So for example, when I used to exercise, you know, there's some
like hubris or vanity involved, right, where I wanted to look
good. I would work the, like, I
benchpress and do a lot of the more like showy muscles, right?
And From doing that. I developed a lot of back issues
of injuries and those types of things.
And yes, I was exercising, but I wasn't exercising with longevity
in line. Exactly.
So now I go see a physical therapist.
I don't have any injuries right now but I go see a physical
therapist. Basically once a month I check
in it. You know like if are there any
muscle imbalances that are going to cause me to hunch over in the
future? Yeah, I do.
Morning, you know, just like 10 minutes, stretches light
exercise that is specifically targeting the areas of my body
that are in balance that are going to cause essentially bad
stuff in the future, right? It's like okay, I'm doing these
things proactively rather than focusing on the exercise that is
easiest. And has the the quickest
short-term payoff for me. Exactly.
And to me that that was, you know, I didn't start doing that
until basically this year. And this is a lesson that I had
to learn as like as I'm getting older.
I'm like, well, I think I wake up and I just like so whore.
I didn't do anything. I do my neck hurts all these
things. I'm like, well, you know, why am
I not approaching that? Like, I would the business areas
of my life. Why am I not tackling not that
head on and taking it accountability that and thinking
about that long term as well? And, you know, that's hopefully
like I'm not perfect, they're definitely Where I where I
really struggle with that still. But that philosophy is starting
to bleed into more and more things that I do and that's
something that I'm pretty excited about.
I mean, I feel about as good as I've ever felt get in, the best
shape I've probably ever been, in terms of like being pain-free
and funny thing is that since I am doing these like more, like
maintenance related exercises, I can start doing The other stuff,
you know, like actually lifting weights are doing Jiu-Jitsu or
these types of things. And I'm not we're not as worried
about injury. I'm not as worried about about a
lot of the bad parts that come from that or like the normal
things that I would have to worry about with the muscle
imbalances that I have. So it's kind of like, oh I, you
know, handling things holistically allows me to once,
I've got the system setup, focus on these more, local things.
Again, if I To, yeah, it gives me more bandwidth to do the
things that give me Immediate payoff as well, so you can
quote, sort of get the best of both worlds which is kind of a
great evil. Yeah, exactly.
I feel like there's not necessarily when you go through
your educational Journey, you learn about a lot of business
related things, not necessarily about life related things, but
we never going to touch upon self improvement, right?
Even in a work environment or even in your life, you don't
really We get a lot of tools to figure out, okay, we improve a
little by little like with an end goal in mind which we work
towards and day by day, or within a habit or within a
routine, you get better at that. I'll be at something.
Physical when it's Jiu-Jitsu or you want to get better at it or
you want to get another color of belts.
I don't really know what the levels are.
Exactly or you. You're a software engineer and
you want to go into that from a junior to a meteor to a senior
position or staff, or what have you.
It's on. Some aspects is very tangible
and in others, you have no clue. You have to educate yourself,
really? Put in a routine or figure out
what works best for you and then kind of go on that path of self
improvement. How did you figure out what
works best for you? And how do you is it in your
habits? How do you improve daily?
Is it on a daily basis or a longer term?
Habits are massive thing. I love to read reading has been
probably one of the most powerful forces in my life to
date and it so happens that I love personal Improvement books.
Yeah, I got hooks. I think the first one I read
they call them a QuickBooks. So essentially a book that
shakes your perspective of the world.
Okay. The first one I read related to
that nature was. I think there's awaken the giant
Within by Tony Robbins. And it talks it, it's more a
sort of like, a workbook than it is an actual book, but it
essentially, you go through and you audit your whole life.
You look at your value systems. You essentially try to diagnose
and figure out what motivates you, what's important to you.
And there's something very interesting is that the things
that are really important to you.
They can complete right. So if I want freedom, like
that's a really important thing to me.
Yeah, but also I want to be Close to my family inherently,
those two things kind of can conflict, right?
So if I want freedom, I want to travel everywhere and I have a
wife and kids, that's probably not going to be as feasible,
right? And so, you have to reconcile
the things that are are, are sort of not opposing, but
colliding, forces in your life. And that really was a great
start for me to get to know myself and get to know what I
like. I mean, when we were growing up
were so impressionable. We like, what other people like
we were interested or we a lot of people choose our careers
either, because our parents said something was a good career or
we see people making a lot of money or a lot of these things.
And, you know, do we really? You know, we really like
software engineering. Do we really like data science?
Or is it just what some Harvard Business review article said was
the sexiest job of the 21st century, right?
And I really started thinking of him since, like, what do I
actually like, you know, is, is a kid?
What'd I like, you know, I like to build things I was creative
and you know, to be perfectly honest is quite lost in high
school and most of college. And eventually I like it got to
the point where I was reading and consuming a lot of
information. And essentially all of these
books they say here is like the framework to work from But you
have to do a lot of work yourself, right to figure out.
Exactly, what is your motivation?
What is, what is my motivation is quote?
What is your path? What not passion either?
Like, what is your driving first?
Of course. What is your purpose?
Right? And to me, I was able to hone
that down and figure out once I had that a way to build off of
that. And so habits are way you
reinforce that. There's a lot of really good
systems that allow you to maximize on that and and get to
your goals as efficiently as possible.
So, a couple books, I really like are in terms of habits,
first, we have the Power of Habit and atomic habits, those
are really powerful ones. Then you have for actually
getting things done. Probably my favorite one is
called the four disciplines of execution and also the one Which
I have not been doing a very good job of here, but that's
also something apart of the introspection that, that I need
to be doing and figuring out and having these these audits of my
life. So, you know, reading has been a
big portion and then I will also say I've said this a couple of
times a couple other places in college.
I was like my junior year and I had completely lost all.
I want to do is play golf or wasn't really, it wasn't really
dedicated to it. It was whose parting Allah just
sort of wandering through and like I got a call I was like
super hungover one morning, my dad calls me up and he tells me
that my cousin had passed away. Who was a year older than me?
Who's 22. I think at the time and I just
turned 21 and he passed away from like a freak heart attack,
right? Billy Yeah.
And so to me that was that was just like a massive pivotal
moment. I essentially went from saying,
okay, if he could pass away and a lot of people take these
things differently, I mean there's someone who could have
taken that and said life is meaningless.
If anyone could go anytime and I'm just going to Coast but I
for some reason took it as a sign that I had to make my life
meaningful because I didn't know when things couldn't so I should
really Pursue excellence in everything that I did because
that's what I have control over right now.
And that gave me this very aggressive sense that I need to.
Get what I want out of life while I'm here because again,
Anything could happen in that sense and then that's when I
went on. This really aggressive reading
care. That's what I really started to
look for purpose and understanding and I I'm still
really aggressively on that journey.
I by no means made it anywhere. Yeah, I'd like to think that
I've I'm further along and I'm quite enjoying the the ride as
it goes. Yeah.
There are these Kind of pivotal
moments in your life and I think everyone has that.
If you think back, something happened and something
completely changed and there's a distinct few right that I can
remember. There's this first time I heard
a gunshot because the jewelry next to us the place where I was
working at got robbed in the middle of in the middle of
daylight and I was 16, the guns are not really common in Holland
and it was Panic on the streets, right?
When I was even younger there was a period where My dad almost
passed away because he had a brain hemorrhage in college
twice when my mom had cancer, like those are pivotal moments.
When I think back in my life that thinks shifted, my
perspective on life, shifted my mindset shifted, I needed to
grow up. That's kind of what I took away
from it. That's how I reacted, I needed
to grow up and get my shit together especially because I am
the oldest of four, right. My youngest brother is 16 years
younger than me just turn. Levin two weeks ago and yeah
your life all of a sudden you get a reality check.
I don't really like the notion of a reality check but that is
what it is. That's how it felt to me all of
a sudden, you realize. Yeah, thanks can be over and
they can go real quick. So the life that you have the
seconds that you have, you're going to make them count in
whatever way you want it to be pursue that.
Yeah. And, you know, I should note so
my cousin was like the closest person in the world, to me.
The time we close in age, he like lived with us.
It was like it was pretty, pretty brutal, but I also want
to make it clear that I don't think people have to have
something terrible happen to them, or the something like
terrifying and necessarily like life chattering to be able to
grow from adversity. Yeah.
And to be able to make a change in their life.
So, something, as we mentioned before the show, obviously, I
have like a wicked black guy and a little scuffed up.
But, yeah, I've gotten really into Jiu-Jitsu recently.
And what I love about that is that every time I go in, you do
live sparring and you're put in to these situations where you're
just every night. You know, I go and I get my butt
kicked, right? And I have to go in and I like,
put myself in this situation where I know I'm probably going
to get, you know, you're starting.
I'm going to get my butt whooped quite a bit.
But I know I'm going to come out of it alive and I'm going to
improve and get better because of these things and you can
fabricate these scenarios like running a marathon like doing
any of these like intense physical challenges, that's
probably the lowest hanging fruit where you can prove to
yourself. That you've done something, very
difficult, and you've gotten through it.
You you've taken on this adversity and you've been able
to over overcome it, and that can give people an Edible,
another perspective, write something that was very similar
in my mind as well is, you know, after I went to grad school for
business, I did Consulting for a little while, and I'd never
really written a line of code. I did some code academy and then
I applied to do a master's in computer science.
And so going into that degree, I had no concept of the field is
completely foreign to me, but it was something I felt like I I
was really interested and wanted to do, right?
And I was able to graduate with, you know, graduate that I think
I'd almost a perfect 4-0. I got like an a-minus and
coincidentally it was in machine learning.
So I graduated with almost a perfect as a 3.9 GPA has, but I
digress. But that's something you know.
I went into this completely new field and I felt like I was able
to learn it and pick it up and at the time and I still feel
that way if I Able to go into this new domain and, and learn
this this field which from outside looking in is very
difficult. What couldn't I do?
Especially if I didn't have any of these like parallel skills.
Yeah, and the idea behind that is, like, we're constantly
building our our experiences. We're constantly building this,
this mental note book of things that we've accomplished and, or
things that we've gotten through or things, to change our
perspective, Give and if we continue to do that over and
over again, we become a very resilient and proactive and
hopefully impressive person that they can overcome any sort of
adversity and also essentially achieve what we want out of
life. And I think that that's
something that is really stuck with me, is that if I can make
it through the hard things that I've gone through, if I can
achieve, the things that I've achieved in the past.
What could I achieve in the future?
If I, if I Follow the same script.
Yeah, I really like that that mindset of, right?
It doesn't matter if you haven't, you don't have the
aptitude for as long as you put your mind to it, right?
You will apply yourself and you are consistent with that.
You can be better at something, right?
You pick a random thing that you've never done Pottery or, I
don't know. Cooking is an amazing example,
because that's a thing. You can do daily, you can get
better at a lot of things, right?
You had just have to pick and spend the time that you have in
I always wanted to play an instrument when I was young, I
never got the chance to various reasons, but now I don't pick
that up because I feel like I'm already so far behind that when
I start. Now, it's going to be so long
before I'm even apt at. For example, playing piano or
playing guitar, right? But that already upholds me that
already prevents me from getting good at the first place, like I
can actually do that. If I apply myself, and if I put
in the time there's nothing preventing us at mean, there are
exceptions. Sure.
But in most cases there's nothing preventing you from
doing what you actually want to do.
As long as you put in the effort, you were still in
control of that. Just have to decide to make a
choice. Yeah.
I mean to that maybe an iteration on that point but it's
interesting. You know, everyone that I know
There's something impressive that you don't maybe you just
don't think it's impressive, right?
And we all have this is maybe you you in a high score in a
video game or you had some experience that you were ruled
to overcome. Yeah.
You know. Maybe you were put on the spot
in the in the classroom to read out loud and you, you did look
really good job. It doesn't matter what it was.
There are things that you've done that, you can build on,
there are things that you've achieved, there are things that
were difficult and you got through them.
And we forgot to look at those things.
We forgot to go through the like to remind ourselves of the
things that we've accomplished very frequently.
Then we also forget to Frame. The bad things that have
happened to us is things that we've overcome as well, and I
think that, you know, putting an effort Is in order to build a
larger portfolio of things that you've accomplished and then
that portfolio is what takes you to success in life.
This is behavior, like one of my favorite people to read or
listen. To is this guy, David Goggins
me. He talks a lot about about this
where it's like everything you do is training for the next
thing that you do. Yeah, like anything, right?
And that, that's a really a really cool philosophy.
Yeah, I agree. I it's a journey.
Right? And everything, you've
accomplished everything you've experienced is experience,
right? That's why I do love.
I love talking to people that have done job transitions.
I love working with them because they bring that diversity to the
table, right? I haven't had the most
traditional background in getting to a software
engineering position. Nor have my peers, but some do.
But what we bring to the table is very different, right?
If it's life experience or the way you've grown up with a
Country, you've been involved in or or I've grown up in or have
experienced even in a minor or like a monthly period, you all
bring that with you. It is all perspective in what
you're doing and that is part of what makes you you as a person
uniquely you. And I think that just adds a lot
to the table. It makes it more enjoyable to be
around, makes it more enjoyable to have that conversation with.
Because I think there's always something interesting in
someone, it doesn't Matter if they're even Twins and they have
the exact same background there. Still distinct few differences.
That you can find in there, and if you have the Curiosity that
drives you you can have an amazing conversation.
I think with those people, Yeah, I forget who said it but nobody
can be you better than you. Yeah, right.
Exactly. Again, I think people Overlook
that too much, right? I mean there's something
inherently unique or valuable about your story and your
perspective. You just have to kind of do your
homework on yourself over this. Yeah, that that introspection is
sometimes really difficult for me.
What I love about the things that you say is Right, sometimes
you need to stand. Bill and look at what you've
accomplished and actually be proud of that, right?
Or look at the things that you've overcome and be proud of
those. I love it.
When someone randomly gives me feedback and says Addison, that
was a really difficult situation.
You handled it beautifully or that was a really difficult
situation. These are the things that I
noticed by because those, I can take with me.
I can either be proud of our I can use that to improve myself.
I don't think I do that. Often enough give feedback to
other people when I'm proud of them or when I really appreciate
what they've done. I think I can do better there,
but I really appreciate it. When people do that to me, like
I have distinct few memories that people have done that, that
I mean, their memories. I can still remember them.
So they've stuck with me throughout the years, which is
really cool. I think.
Yeah, I mean, I think that that gets into a maybe another Circle
where it's, like, finding the right people around you, is what
I think. Also drives a tremendous amount
of success. I've, you know, over the past
two years, I've been able to surround myself with people that
I think are motivated or they very similar values to what I
have. And I can talk to them about a
lot of the things that I'm struggling with a lot of the
frankly. They Also helped with a lot of
the things that that I'm working through and trying to improve
upon, you know, I'm a bit of a whole group of people that also
create YouTube content. Yeah.
And they're honest with me if there's something that seems off
for the they don't really like or or something that I can do
better. They'll tell me and part of that
process is getting checked and being humble enough hopefully to
To iterate on things. And and also, Stand your ground
when you need to know. If there's a change that I don't
think is irrelevant. I'll say okay.
You know, I'm still going to do it the way that I proposed, but
thank you so much for the feedback.
I really genuinely appreciate this.
And, you know, It's easier now than ever to find those people,
exactly? Right.
If you want to, let's say, you want to prepare for a software
engineering job or data science job.
There's so many places on the internet where you can create a
study group or you can find people that are working on the
same thing you want or, you know, any of these types of
things. There's, you know, read it
forms, there's websites. There's Discord servers, there's
like channels. There's all the stuff and that
for me is The like ultimate life hacks.
Yeah, is because I think motivation is unbelievably
fickle one day. I might wake up feeling like I
want to do something and the one day I might have to say, I don't
want to do anything all day. I just want to sit here.
Yeah, and one of the best ways in my mind to create motivation
or create a reason to do something is to have other
people. Hold you accountable.
And just, you know, telling someone you're going to do
something and not doing it. And disappointing them to me is
like one of the worst feelings in the world, maybe maybe other
people don't mind that, but that's a lever.
I know I can pull and say, oh wow, I'm gonna let this person
now I'm okay with letting myself down but I'm not okay with
letting one of my friends down or something other people down,
so I better get this done. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Fully agree with that. I hadn't realized it and it's
throughout this podcast that I've kind of more and more real.
Is there. But what's really cool about?
Now, the time that we have is that we have digital Community,
it's right where you can find like-minded people in whatever
hobby your profession. You have right to learn from to
motivate each other, to have a dialogue to have a conversation,
right about anything, which is incredible because if you would,
if you would not have that, you have your local Town, your city,
your Province for your country. And there's only so many Many
people that are exactly with that same mindset with those
same Hobbies as you and you would have to find them
individually and surround yourself with them physically,
if we wouldn't have that digitally.
But since we do have that, there are so many avenues for you to
communicate, Express Yourself, befriend people that are
like-minded. I think that's, that's
incredible. And I, I hadn't realized that
actually, before I think a year ago, Things really cool that we
have that. I mean, just for a thought
exercise. Let's say I go to like a bar
down the street, I live in Hawaii.
What are the odds that someone in that bar is a data science?
Or maybe even like data scientists or maybe units
operating here? Yeah, right.
Like, maybe software engineer, probably higher, but I like it.
Let's say I did a scientist like maybe one in 15 of like all the
people. There are probably, it's not a
very common profession here most of its concentrated I didn't
like high tech areas. What are the odds that I
actually run into that person unbelievably low?
Yes, especially in a bar setting.
What are the odds that they're also interested in content?
Creation, which is something that is very relevant me even
lower. I can go, you know, I've got 50
people this year that are interested in that intersection
of those things, and it's been really easy to connect with them
or, you know, like algorithms that are recommended.
Sure. It's fascinating.
How much? More efficient.
It is the meet people online and I probably made more
high-quality friends that and I consider high quality friends
friends that I share values with.
So I think that there's like three levels of friends.
So first is by acquaintances. Like your your you live next
door to this person in college, try to do the proximity, right
then you have shared interest so I live next door to this person
and we will close surfing right? And then you have 0.
Oh, we're both unbelievably excited about education and
teaching and we have a similar purpose that's like the top
level where you have alignment there.
But I've been able to find more friends of that type this year
than I have my entire life combined.
Probably. Yeah, and it's all through the
power of essentially, the internet and Linkedin and
YouTube and these different platforms.
Yeah, which to me is Why's the I fully agree.
Do you think there's a downside to that as well?
Because as we move more towards digital are kind of physical
relationships or even saying hi to your bus driver, for example,
and travel a lot with public transport here.
So that's kind of normal in my, in my area of the woods or even
saying hi to people on the Metro are helping each other out.
When someone has a problem, Yeah, I think people sometimes
put up the walls or want to be in their bubble or want to be on
their phone, and they kind of forget that they're still also a
physical world out there and even a simple smile to someone
you pass, by can bring you happiness and without realizing
that without actually contributing back or giving back
to the fold in that way. I think there's also a downside
to that. Yeah.
I 100% agree. Yeah, I think that.
The technology having essentially, the world, at your
fingertips, in your pocket, makes it really difficult to
leave that world. Yeah, right.
So you're in line at the, their shopping market.
Everyone's first instinct is to just look at their phone and sit
there and wait, right? There's no mental downtime,
right? There's always constant
stimulation and I think that that's inherently just terrible
for people. If we're always stimulated, if
we're always looking at our phone to probably on Instagram,
we're always on any of these websites.
We're Very little of that introspection that I believe is
so important because we don't have time to mean.
If you think about the history of humans, there's been so much
downtime. Like it got dark early in the
depending on where you were in the world and what are you gonna
do? You just literally sit there.
Yeah, right. That, that is an inherent part
of the human condition is just boredom and we don't have
boredom anymore. It doesn't exist if you Cell
phone or doesn't exist in the, like, how its evolved or like,
how? Historically evolved exactly
there's a great book on this called, by Cal Newport.
And remember what it's called, digital minimalism.
Okay. So it's called and it talks
about how essentially Technology.
And some sense is really not great for our mental health or
productivity, or any of these things.
I will say, I'm a big believer that you either use technology
or uses you. Yeah.
So if I'm on any of these social platforms, it's not for my
enjoyment. I view them as essentially like
business platforms. Okay, right.
I like, yes, I enjoy the creation process of YouTube, but
YouTube is the medium to get the videos that I create other
people to create value for that. And of course there's
educational benefits and those types of things.
But that all goes under you, using these platforms rather
than you being a giant eyeball for them, the show ads to
exactly. And, and, and making that
differentiation, and just like, thinking, when you're scrolling
Instagram, am I using this, like, is their utility and me
scrolling? Am I going to remember
scrolling? Through this ins.
Am I going to remember this meme that I saw and send it that I
sent to my friend five years from now?
Or is this a waste of my time? And I'm slowly starting to think
more and more like that. I'm still I have I go through
these phases against room for like, three months and it's
amazing. Oh, yeah.
And then I download it again because I'm like, do I really
need to make a post about something?
And then I'm just stuck in just scrolling Loop.
So that's, that's an area I'm really working on.
Yeah. Same here.
Same here, I so throughout College throughout High School,
even I never wanted to engage piece.
I just didn't see the benefit, right?
Facebook was one of the first things we had hives before that,
which I think is a very distinct Touch One, these, which is
exactly the same as Facebook. I never had that because I was
like, okay, I know you guys. I don't have to see the best
version or all the highlights of your lives.
If I want to engage with you, I'll engage with you in that
way. I don't want to see a digital
profile of you nor do I want to put A digital profile of myself
in there and constantly update it, right?
I would constantly be busy with that so I never had a Facebook
never had Instagram. Never had Twitter Instagram, I
barely have now just because I have kind of YouTube as a side
thing so I do kind of engage with that a little bit but then
I have all the things that I LinkedIn is a is a big bad one
that's been there recently as I love engaging there and it's to
meet interesting content, right? It might be content that I do
remember, I might reflect on and be like, huh?
But yeah, I can also scroll endlessly.
So I've decided to offload all the apps that are kind of have
been toxic in my relationship or I've spent too much time on in
my personal opinion and I'm kind of detoxing right now mean that
phase where I'm not in there. Sometimes I download it and then
I'm like, okay, time to offload it again.
Still working on it bit by bit. But I all of a sudden I realized
I have way more time. And that's a pretty awesome
feeling. And I'm like, man, I do have
more time. How did I create this time?
What did I do before this, right?
Those thoughts. Yeah, I think that's the, that's
the benefit of kind of offloading or detox in yourself,
from those app sometimes. Yeah.
Well, you know, we started this conversation with how do I get?
You know, how do I balance? Or how do I manage all these
things? Yeah.
And to me, a lot of it is I just didn't, I do a lot of the things
that I enjoy. I really love my work.
I really enjoyed the content that I create a really like
talking to new people. My podcast really enjoy a lot of
these things and over time, I've just had less enjoyment in
Things that I believe waste my time.
Yeah. Every now and then I'll watch
like a Netflix show or something like that.
Right now, we've been watching The House of the Dragon, which
you know, comes on Sundays but I virtually watch no TV.
I just, I just feel like if I sit down and watch TV, I'm like
well. I'm not going to get that time
back and I just feel guilty for watching it now because I'm
like, oh, I could be working on something that I probably enjoy
more and also would have greater utility in the lung.
Yeah, I try not to play any games, although I've recently,
like found a couple like card games online that.
Oh, yeah, getting sucked into. And I'm like, because, you know,
like something like some, like, strategic card games.
There's a lot of strategy and it like scratches like I meant it's
an maybe I can justify that by it, like on critical thinking, I
don't know, but it's like you know I always go back to this
thing is like well, Do I enjoy this if I enjoy it?
And it's utility and not sense. And it's like, stress relief,
that's fine. But if, if I'm just doing it for
something to do and there isn't any long-term benefit, why would
I, why would I do it at all? And that's generally where
social media or a lot of like scrolling pipe.
Social media is is falling more and more again.
Not definitely not perfect. I still have some, you know, I'm
in one of these phases where I have instant My phone right now.
Exactly. How probably delete it after
that. But yeah.
So I think that that's You know, if anyone listening is ask
yourself like a my youth, am I using these apps?
Are they using me? Yeah, I think that's a really,
really interesting thought. I can already imagine a scale of
being plotted of things that I enjoy and things that like our
time sinkers and things that I actually want to sink time in
because they're beneficial for the long-term or I think timing
just as a Time sink. And that's a shame because we
only have a finite sum amount of time, right?
If you think all my life flies, by Hopefully it flies by doing
the things that you love are doing the things that really
stimulate you. And I, you know, in a form of a
hobby or a form of a passion that you have hopefully doesn't
fly by and you blinked in your like, oh man, what did I do all
this time? And sometimes I feel like that
happens a bit too often. I do have then again die, I need
some trigger points. I need to either have a
conversation or I need to read something on LinkedIn or online
or anywhere that I'm like okay I need to get my stuff together.
There again because yeah, it's been a time sink.
But we go through iterations and we get we get better at I guess,
I guess. Yeah.
You know, something that the scary to me is that I haven't
had one in a while, but the idea where you have a day and it was
just completely unmemorable, okay.
We're essentially. Nothing.
Maybe you did some work, we did whatever one day but there is no
story that came out others that day.
There's nothing. Meaningful about that day of
your life, right? Was just completely mundane, you
know, every day, I'd like to be able to remember every day of my
life. I'd like something meaningful to
happen every single day. And it's up to me to do things
that are memorable everyday or meaningful.
Every day is probably probably a better better, better
perspective. And, you know, there's a real
this book called story worthy guy essentially talked about how
Third, a little background, the guy who wrote the book, he's won
the storytelling competition, like plenty like 20 in
unprecedented times. And I, since the moth
storytelling slam and he goes through, what are all the
elements of a good story and a good story, doesn't have to be
like the crazy stuff that happens.
It just has to have a moment that is human and relatable and
meaningful and every day he does this exercise where he writes
down what who what like the interesting story was that he
lived that At day and he's been able to.
If you have something meaningful that happened every day, you
remember every day and that the more meaning the more memorable,
your life is probably the more meaningful it is and, you know,
it'd be pretty cool to go back through when you're on your
deathbed. And remember every single day,
what happened what made that day special?
What made your life special to me?
That's a really a life really well, lived, if you have that
ability, who usually only remember the really good parts
or Really bad parts but everyday, I would hope that
there is something special about it.
Yeah, you know whether whether it's just something good that
you ate or it was your got you got caught in a rainstorm and
you know you're drenched but your significant other made a
funny joke when you came in either there's these little
moments or a life that They can be.
So Significant, but we always just just passed them over and
there's something something to be said about.
Capturing them and and I don't know just just like making them
live on because I think I just got so scared when I have one of
these days I look back. Like what I do.
I do anything at all? Yeah, I'm like I guess I like
worked on XYZ work today and yeah I don't like am I gonna
remember that at all in 20 years?
Probably not. So weird thing, how our memory
works but that I think you kill bird mentioned.
It's a Was just that I had was that he's trying to journal
every single day about his day. I anything interesting that
might happen and he says, well the, the benefit of that is that
he comes better at storytelling but also you remember your day
more fondly by the contributes to that happiness again, and I
like that you mentioned, right? It doesn't have to be a huge
thing. You don't have to go out of your
way and do something wild, it can be a very Minor Details,
right? Little interactions that you've
had or little realizations that you've had.
Had I walk around and I'm like, I've I've never seen this, like
I genuinely have never seen this.
Or I have those realizations that this is the first time I'm
doing x y z or I'm doing things differently.
I'm stepping out of my routine. I'm like huh?
That was also a thing or I mean, a different street that I've
never been to write those little things are part of your journey
and that you do on a day-to-day basis.
I think capturing those first of all, might be a fun exercise.
I set that back, then haven't done it because men, Journaling
is just I see an uphill battle for me personally, but I think
you can be very interesting, get a penny.
Really like that helps. Yeah, I don't like my
handwriting. This is it Gilbert?
Hey, I could bomb bomb. Yeah, that's the guy.
Yeah, I gave him. I sent a told him to read that
book and I think he did. So let's I love a ghost Pursuit
vehicle. Yeah, full circle.
Yeah, I go over to go verse awesome.
For so, for anyone who is listening to this one,
Definitely check out that other podcast.
You have also had him on my show.
So awesome. This great guy and a great book
they read as well. Yeah I fully agree.
Let's let's round it off here man.
I think time flew by which usually means it was an awesome
conversation. Thank you so much for joining.
Is there anything you'd still like to like to share?
Yeah, if anyone wants to learn more, I don't always talk.
Philosophy, often Pocket Data signs and some of these other
things, you're welcome to check out more on my YouTube channel.
It's just my name Kenji. On my podcast pens, nearest
neighbors and I believe Patrick will also be on the show there
if you want to hear more from him.
So I'm really excited to be here and I really enjoyed this
conversation. Maybe it sounds Me.
Maybe it's really vain if I enjoyed a relation because I was
talking so much, but that's okay.
You know, that's hilarious. I will join you there.
I really enjoyed this conversation as well.
Thank you again Ken for, for joining us.
And thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one.