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Hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.
I'm Joe.
I'm Kevin.
And I'm Nick.
And guess what?
We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas.
We invented a podcast?
Well, we didn't invent it.
We just contributed to it.
We're the first people to do podcasts.
We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.
Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know.
Tired and sick.
Tired and sick.
Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Just listen.
We don't care where you hear it.
Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy.
Not quite.
On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends.
Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.
This week my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.
Where does your group perform?
We do some retirement homes.
Those people are starving for banter.
Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to before breakfast, a production of I heart radio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's episode is going to be a slightly longer one part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome and any advice they have for the rest of us.
So today, I am delighted to welcome Eric Ries to Before Breakfast.
Eric is the creator of The Lean Startup Method.
He is also the author of The Lean Startup and the brand new book, Incorruptible.
So Eric, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, I'm excited to have you here.
So why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Sure, yeah.
I was one of those people that grew up programming computers.
I couldn't believe it when I found out you could get paid for computer programming, like it was a job you could have.
I was so excited as a kid.
And I thought technology was the most powerful force in the universe, so I wanted to learn to harness it.
And my career is basically a series of me realizing that there's something more powerful than whatever I previously thought was the most powerful force in the universe.
So when I found out that technology is created by human beings, I realized that actually management is a more powerful force.
And lately I've been helping so many companies develop these incredible management systems, only to watch at the board level as they get dismantled.
And I realized, wait a minute, governance is even more powerful than management.
So it's kind of been like digging digging down into the substrate layers that power our modern world.
That's kind of how it's felt.
Yeah, I think a lot of people hear the word governance and their eyes kind of glaze over.
Oh, God, it's so boring.
I know.
It sounds like the worst thing ever.
And I mean you're kind of known for talking about companies in the startup stage, like the early stages.
It seems like this new book is about... how not to fall apart as you become a grownup, right?
That you can actually transition into middle age and maybe even a ripe old age as a company.
I'm curious what did lead you in that direction of making that pivot.
Yeah, listen, I've actually helped, I don't know how many companies now start and have success.
I've personally helped people create billions of dollars in personal wealth.
I've been around Silicon Valley and its incredible engine of wealth creation for a long time.
So I'm very proud of that work.
And I think it's amazing.
I'm very proud of the people who have who have done that successfully.
And yet I have also been keenly aware of the dark underside of this whole thing, the human costs.
And when I say that, people instantly think they know what I'm talking about.
And it really depends on what their background is, what I'm talking about.
Is it The mistreatment of employees and the burnout?
Is it the loss that those founders feel themselves when the creation that they made, they lose control of it and it becomes something that they come to hate?
Is it about the environmental or community effects of our environment?
There's so many things.
It's funny.
I say the negative effects.
Everyone thinks they know what I'm talking about.
And my thesis in this new book is that all these different downsides are related.
It's not many different things, but one central error that we have made that we need to undo.
And the book is called Incorruptible.
I mean, the word corruption sounds like kind of a hard word.
I mean, I think of people passing money in a dark alley.
Why did you choose corruption?
I struggled with this a lot because I think part of the problem in our modern world is we've lost the ability to name things properly, because we're so afraid of saying anything that might offend anybody else.
And I just felt like this is what our great grandparents would have called it.
If they could see all the different ways we have invented in our modern world of making money without creating any value at all, many of those practices they would have seen not just as morally dubious but, like quite a few of them, would literally have been crimes in our grandparents' time.
So I feel like one of the changes over that period of time is we have just narrowed our sense of the word corruption.
Now we think it only means embezzlement or fraud.
But I think it should be – we should embrace an older, like more thorough understanding that it really involves any behavior in which people are making money without creating value.
And I'm sure there's a lot of it.
We could all point to our least favorite industries that may be making money without adding a huge amount of value to our lives.
But the thing with this – I mean –
I imagine almost every company would claim to be mission-driven.
I mean, you know, maybe if you're running a scam front.
I just got a scam call right before we talked, Eric.
Oh, no, I'm so sorry.
It was the worst.
It was somebody claiming to be from our sheriff's office, like saying that there was like a bench warrant out for my arrest.
So there is not.
I looked.
I'm so glad to hear it.
But no, listen, we're seeing an epidemic of that stuff because new AI tools make fraud.
It's so easy.
But, you know, that's clearly not adding value.
And I don't think that company is claiming to be a mission driven company.
But most normal ones probably are.
So what's the difference between, you know, any random company claiming I am mission driven?
You know, that is our central thing.
And those that really are. are incorruptible because they are so focused on that mission.
Yeah, I call them in the book mission hopeful, because I don't think you have to.
You don't have to assume any ill intent on the part of people that are saying this.
And in fact, in the book, I say something that a lot of test readers had a hard time with.
Look, if someone tells you that they're mission-driven, tells you that you can trust them, but they haven't made the corresponding investments in an apparatus to keep those promises, then they are lying to you.
And a lot of people are like, you can't say that about my boss.
That's not fair.
You know, he's a good guy.
He's always a good guy.
I was like, well, what's unfair about it?
Well, he doesn't mean to be lying.
He sincerely believes he will.
I'm like, that's not what I'm saying.
He said you can trust him in the future, but he's lying because he doesn't even know if he's going to be there in the future.
And I think that, again, it's like we've lost our ability to say this with any kind of clarity.
I tell a story in the book of.
I read dozens I mean literally dozens of essays that people have written after leaving Google long time Google employees.
10 plus years, every single one of them talking about the loss of the don't be evil ethos at Google.
One of the things we love the most.
Anyone who was around for the Google IPO remembers the moral clarity of a slogan that's so simple don't be evil.
Three simple words. that that's something that could be lost.
And listen, Google's a great company.
I mean, to say Google's like, they're not even the close to the worst of the worst, okay?
But the fact that it's so publicly documented that, despite every apparent best intention that I can find, they nonetheless felt this loss.
You can see it in these essays.
People write about this feeling that something mysterious was going on, that something vital was being lost, but they couldn't even say who was causing the loss.
And that feeling of helplessness, of confusion, of mystery characterizes almost everyone.
I know who's trying to do anything good in business today.
Employees, customers.
I mean, I keep telling this story about the economist John Kay I think is the one I first heard it from who went into a restaurant one of his favorite restaurants, took one bite and told his friend.
I bet this restaurant's been taken over by private equity.
I can taste it.
And he looked up his phone and it had.
And so many people.
I probably had a dozen people come up to me after giving this, saying this story and telling me they know what restaurant I'm talking about.
And it's 12 different restaurants.
It could be 12 different restaurants.
But it's not just private equity, right?
No, of course not.
You know, you write in the book that profit attracts predators.
Yes.
But it's like you want to make a profit.
Oh, sure.
And I'm sure a great many founders would like to have some or otherwise get the financial benefits.
So I mean, is there an actual governance structure that allows you to keep the original mission in the face of wanting to get good returns for everybody who put their money in at the beginning?
The simple answer is yes.
And most people don't believe it.
Like we're so cynical and we're so been told that the way things are is the way that things have to be for natural law reasons that we actually often ignore the evidence that this is true.
That's like staring us in the face.
One of my favorite examples is Costco.
Okay, everyone knows Costco.
And yet most people don't understand the magic of how Costco is made.
So Costco is one of these companies, I call them the exceptions that prove the rule.
So, like I was watching a video the other day, Some economist, I think, was talking about how only family-run businesses can truly maintain brand integrity over generations, because if you want to have a brand promise that endures for more than 10 years, you have to resist all the temptation of the.
ROI stuff and the spreadsheets and the quarterly targets and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
He's listing off the companies, Ford, Toyota, Mars.
There's some family-run companies.
And then at the end of the video, he's like, oh, and also Costco for some reason.
Costco's not family-run.
They're not family-run at all, but they're actually able to do this kind of by magic.
We treat it like this magic trick, and yet Costco's not alone.
Anyone listening, you have a Vanguard mutual fund?
You ever bought a Patagonia fleece?
You ever drank Carlsberg beer, taken Ozempic?
You know if you ever root for the Green Bay Packers, if you've ever watched Wallace and Gromit.
Like there's all these companies, practically in every industry there's one that has some kind of unusual long-term commitment to some higher value than just making money for itself.
And if you study those exceptions, Not a single one of them follows what I would call today's best practices for corporate governance.
So when people say that this is impossible, then you're like okay, but if it's impossible, how come we have these exceptions?
They'll be like, well, those exceptions are idiosyncratic.
But then you're like, but then how come they all follow this pattern?
Like, then you say, well, it's probably a coincidence.
But then I'll be like oh no, actually this pattern is old enough and we have enough examples that there's extensive academic evidence that this is a better way.
And it's that they are not...
But what are they not doing?
Yeah.
So I don't want to be simplistic about it, because of course this whole book is my attempt to put down the blueprint of how this works.
And, in order for this to work, people like to focus on the structures, of course, because they're very interesting.
But first, before you can adopt any alternative structure, you first have to build something worth protecting.
Right.
So the thing that makes these structures work is the internal alignment, the coherence that having a strong, purpose-driven mission that is aligned with human flourishing makes possible.
If you don't have that, you will not be able to achieve institutional longevity.
And if you do, you will not sleep well at night based on what it comes.
So just like disclaimer, please don't skip over that.
But yeah, if you look at these companies that I just named, They all have rejected the most important business idea of the 20th and 21st century, which is called shareholder privacy, which holds that the purpose of a corporation, purpose of an organization really, because this is metastasized out of the public markets and into nonprofits and governments.
You see it everywhere now.
Its purpose is to create financial prosperity, to create financial returns for its investors or donors or for whoever.
Sometimes even not, we can't even say who it's for.
We're just like, well, we have to grow.
We have to get bigger.
We have to have more money.
A lot of nonprofits, schools fall into this trap all the time.
And the desperation to make money first of all makes you very weak because it makes you vulnerable to anyone who can threaten credibly threaten to take your money away or offer you more money.
So these companies are easy to tempt.
They're basically addicts, do anything for a hit, which is really quite sad.
But worse than that, they have a governance structure that allows anybody who wants to take them over.
What's so interesting is, if you do the first thing I talked about, you build a company that accumulates this incredibly valuable asset.
I call it the most underrated asset in the world today, trustworthiness.
When people can trust you, you're going to make more money.
You're going to have these huge competitive advantages.
You're going to have higher employee morale.
You're going to have longer customer retention.
There's amazing data about this.
Companies that are trusted can raise money cheaper.
Customers are more likely to stick with you if you make a mistake.
Customers are more likely to try your new products.
I mean just the benefits of trust, it's a compounding asset.
And yet most leaders today are horribly naive about this.
It's as if we've taught them how to create this vault full of this incredibly valuable asset, the most valuable asset in the world.
And we're like, just leave it unlocked.
If someone tries to steal it from you, act shocked.
It's like, why are we shocked?
It's valuable.
Of course, people are going to try to steal it from you.
So you need to learn to build organizations that are strong enough to resist.
And we see some of these structures, like employee ownership, like having an industrial foundation, a perpetual purpose, trust being a public benefit corp are structural mechanisms.
They're just locks on the door to prevent outsiders from taking what you've made.
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break, and then I'll be back with more from Eric Ries.
We'll be right back.
Think podcasting can help your business.
Think I heart streaming radio and podcasting.
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We're the first people to do podcasts.
We're starting a trend.
But this one's extra special.
So how did we actually come up with the name Hey Jonas, guys?
I honestly don't remember.
I think it was on a call about what we should call it.
We were thinking of originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers.
This is how you guys remember it going down?
Yes.
I have a very different memory of this.
We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.
And then I wrote down in my little notepad, hey Jonas.
And offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.
But thanks for remembering that, guys.
Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Just listen.
We don't care where you hear it.
Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy.
Not quite.
On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends.
Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.
This week my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.
Where does your group perform?
We do some retirement homes.
Those people are starving for banter.
Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Well, I am back talking with Eric Ries, who is known as the founder of the Lean Startup Method.
He's also the author of the brand new book, Incorruptible.
You have a different definition for profit in your book.
And we've had other guests talk about this concept of flourishing on this show in the past.
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your definition of profit and what you mean by that.
Okay, it's going to sound radical at first to people who are not used to rethinking what profit is, but I assure you it's backed by really good evidence and I will walk you through the logic of why I think it's right.
So I think to make a profit is simply to maximize human flourishing.
That's literally what it means to be a for-profit company.
So already you can see that our current labels of for-profit and nonprofit make no sense, because the Smithsonian Institute is technically a nonprofit from a tax status perspective, but it creates lots of human flourishing and makes pretty good net income too.
Philip Morris is a merchant of death.
So although it has a lot of net income, it's not actually making profit.
It's extracting money, value out of the bodies, the human bodies that it destroys.
So that's...
That's just a statement of fact.
I don't think that's actually that radical when you think about it.
But people say, well, okay, but if that's true, then we need to have a new term.
We can't redefine profit.
We have to have double bottom line, triple bottom line.
Fred Reicheld, who I really admire, has a concept he calls good profits and bad profits.
And it's basically like good profits are the profits that create long-term sustainability and allow customers to trust you and build your brand.
Bad profits or anything else.
But I actually really want to push back on that.
I don't understand why we have to say that bad profits are profits.
Because these terms, we can define them however we want.
And the most important thing I learned while writing this book was I really studied like how did we wind up in this shareholder primacy situation in the first place?
And if you look at Milton Friedman and the other thinkers who really advanced this idea that the responsibility of a corporation is just to maximize its profits, it was a relatively small cabal of academics judges, board members, lawyers who became enamored with this idea, starting in the 60s and 70s.
And it only really became like real judge-made law in the 1980s.
So it's not even that old of an idea.
If you can see a tree right now, probably you're seeing something older than this idea, okay?
It's not some bedrock principle of capitalism.
It's a new idea.
And the key, if you study all the stuff that they did, they never said look, we think it's better to have ruthlessly exploitative companies.
So we should have two kinds of companies the old kind, the purposeful-based companies, and the new, exploitative companies.
And therefore, we're going to have a double bottom line.
We're not going to have two.
They didn't do any of that.
They never did that.
They just said the purpose of business is... to do this thing.
The definition of profit is this narrow thing.
They just created a new business orthodoxy that we mostly have inherited on challenge.
So I think it doesn't make sense for us to go around creating all this new vocabulary when we can just define things properly in the first place.
And if you take an economics class, You will learn that the way we define profit today, most people might say what is a profit?
They say, oh, it's simple.
It's just how much money do I have left over after I pay for all my expenses?
Has these catastrophic conceptual flaws in it.
Because if you create massive deferred liabilities, like in the case of a Ponzi scheme, you could appear to be profitable when you're really not.
If you don't account for your negative externalities, like if you do tobacco smoke or pollution and somebody else has to pay for the cleanup of the thing that you do.
And, most importantly, if you profit from the destruction of human lives, we don't have a good way to account for that as an input factor of production.
So the costs of this behavior are not properly accounted for.
So we have to come up with a new definition of profit because our conventional one is super flawed.
Well, you talk about the idea of creating more value than you capture.
I guess is a way to think about then, the excess.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
OK, profit.
Well, and, you know, it has business ramifications, too.
I imagine that people are more likely to stay with an organization that seems to be creating more value.
Oh, yes.
There's so much evidence.
I mean, the book is just low.
The citations of this book are almost as long as the book itself, because we were just I was like I got to show you the evidence.
People are skeptical.
So I got to show the evidence.
I showed my work.
You can read the citation and see for yourself.
We have massive amounts of evidence that companies that have as their explicit intention to create more value than you capture.
Instead of just make as much money as they can by whatever means necessary, just reap all these counterintuitive benefits, including being more competitively advantageous.
Yeah.
So Eric, I want to pivot from that to talking a little bit about your schedule, since this is a show where we talk productivity most of the time.
What does your schedule look like on a usual day?
Boy, I have three young kids and, you know, 20 different jobs.
So it's actually very, very, very chaotic.
Yeah, you know, I'm, especially since my kids, you know, I've gotten to three kids now, like I'm very family oriented and very, like I'm very local, whereas I used to travel all around and give lots of lectures and stuff.
And now I tend to mostly do stuff, work from home.
And, you know, it's so different when I'm writing.
I try to do that all day.
I try to carve out as much time as I can for when I'm writing.
When I'm promoting, I'm doing a lot of interviews and I'm out there talking about the book.
So you know, when companies call me for advice which they do almost every day then I'm in the trenches with them.
Like, while we're talking someone, a founder, is raising a series A and he's texting me for term sheet.
You know tips.
And what do they say to this investor?
Like literally as we talk.
So yeah, I feel like the privilege of what I do is just it's an endlessly intellectually stimulating and it has so much variety to it.
It doesn't tend to stay stable from day one day to the next.
But do you have any routines that you think make you more productive?
Yeah, I mean, I'm very clear about my priorities.
So I'm willing to tolerate a lot of schedule chaos because it's like look, these are the priorities.
These are the ways in which I need to schedule.
I'm very lucky to have... a longtime and very trusted assistant who can help me manage my time.
And I just try really hard not to spend time on logistics and scheduling and the meta work about work and as much as possible delegate that so that, like my, time is spent on the actual substance, whatever that substance may be.
All right, we're going to take one more quick ad break, then I'll be back with more from Eric Ries.
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That's 844-844-I heart.
But this one's extra special.
So how did we actually come up with the name Hey Jonas, guys?
I honestly don't remember.
I think it was on a call about what we should call it.
We were thinking of originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers.
This is how you guys remember it going down?
Yes.
I have a very different memory of this.
We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.
And then I wrote down on my little notepad, hey Jonas.
And offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.
But thanks for remembering that, guys.
Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Just listen.
We don't care where you hear it.
Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy.
Not quite.
On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends.
Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.
This week my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.
Where does your group perform?
We do some retirement homes.
Those people are starving for banter.
Well, I am back talking with Eric Ries, who's the author of the brand new book, Incorruptible.
We've been talking about his schedule.
Now, with three young kids, is your morning – so this is a show called Before Breakfast.
So people are always curious about the mornings.
Is the morning sort of when they wake up or is there a set thing?
Yeah, totally, totally.
No hour-long thing of green juice and meditation at this point.
No, those days are long, long since over.
I mean the most meditative thing I do in the morning, most mornings is I take my three-year-old downstairs and we sit on the couch and we read a book.
She's in a Thomas the Train book.
So I'm like rereading these old Thomas the Train books that I read with my other kids when they were really young.
So yes, I can recite many lines of verse from Thomas the Train, from these younger books.
So I kind of like...
Yes, it's a little bit difficult because I don't set my own schedule in that way.
I'm beholden to their schedule.
And we have to make that transition every morning as they get used to the fact that they've got to now reconnect with the wider world.
It can be challenging.
But I feel like it's also...
I just, I start every day with this like dose of gratitude.
Like.
Here are these incredible beings that they still want me in their life, enough that this is how they want to start their day.
So I try to keep it in perspective.
But yes, from a work logistics perspective, it is a little bit complicated to-
Yeah, of course, for sure.
I'm curious, you kind of have a bit of a lean startup mindset with your own life.
I mean, are you trying things out as you're figuring out what your next big thing is going to be at any given point?
Yeah, yeah, I'm very experimental in my own work.
And it's not so much that I'm like explicitly trying to apply lean startup.
It's just that I'm very scientific.
I like to apply some of the method whenever possible.
And I'm also very willing to try new things.
I don't know, maybe that makes me I'm just used to the uncertainty of being around startups all the time.
So most of the time when someone proposes something to me, if it has any merit at all, I'll be like well, let's try it.
You know, and I won't be like some people will be like hey, like I get all the calls these days like hey, can we digitize your entire, all your writing and train an AI on it.
And, you know, have people talk to you and talk to the AI instead of talking to you.
And I'm like, that doesn't sound like too good of an idea.
That doesn't sound good.
That doesn't really appeal to me.
That's actually taking out the most interesting part of my job and getting rid of it.
That's not really a good idea.
But like, but even with that, I'll be like, well, you're welcome to try it.
Like, I don't think it's a good idea.
It doesn't sound great to me, but if you want to run an experiment, like I'm open to it.
And I try to be super open to the serendipity that happens when you put ideas out into the world and just see what comes back to you.
And then are you quick to sort of kill things if they're not working?
I mean, is that how you get over that?
You do a lot of experiments.
You have to just be like, you know what, this is...
It's not working, I'm gonna let it go.
And it's tricky because letting it go when it at first doesn't work is super easy.
The hard part is like when you've been involved with something for a while and you nonetheless have to let it go.
And as a founder, this is a huge issue because...
My experience, I don't know, maybe other founders are different.
Like I know some founders who've been able to stay with one company their whole life, which I totally admire.
But that hasn't been my experience.
My experience has been that, like when, When I'm doing the magic trick of being a founder, something comes over me.
I have access all of a sudden to this incredible persuasive power.
I have access to people come out of the woodwork to help me and to provide resources.
I feel like I'm channeling something way bigger than myself.
And when it's time for me to do something else, it goes away.
And the people, it's hard.
I recognize how hard it is for the people around me because they're like hey, can you do the magic trick for me?
And then I say, no, I can't do it anymore.
And they think I'm withholding.
You know, like, well, come on, if you really love me, you do it.
And it's like, I hear you.
I totally hear you.
It's amazing how far we got.
I'm so grateful that you've come on this journey with me.
But like, actually, it's time now for you to do the magic trick.
You've got to take it over from me.
You've got to take it on.
And that has been a recurring source of tremendous challenge and stress in my life.
Yeah.
Well, trying lots of different things is always good.
I always ask my guests what is something you have done recently to take a day from great to awesome?
Oh, man.
From great to awesome.
I feel like I'm so blessed.
I have so many stories like that.
I think...
One of the things that really blew my mind, so just let me paint the picture for you.
When I was writing this book, I basically realized at a certain point I've been working on it for several years that I was like headed for a true disaster because the book had basically gotten twice or three times as long as it needed to be, because there's so much detail to these techniques that people desperately need to know and i had to find a way to to cut.
I just had to cut a whole book out of this book to get it to the length and the thing, and i, just like i was extremely, extremely daunted and unlike as i was really struggling with this.
One of the companies that i had helped found is an ai research lab called answer ai and And we have a very contrarian thesis about AI.
We don't think that you should ever use AI to replace human creativity.
You should only use it to amplify human creativity.
And mostly at the time, we had used the technology that we've developed for programming, as everybody's doing.
So we built these really cool tools.
People can go to Answer.ai and learn all about it.
I think it's super cool.
But we had always said at the beginning we were going to try to use it for non-technical tasks.
Also, we had helped start a law firm.
We had done a lot of legal work with it.
And at a certain point I was like I wonder if this can help me with writing and editing and researching.
And I was very nervous because if you tell people that you used AI these days to help you write a book, people get super, super agitated about it, which I completely understand.
And I have very mixed feelings about it.
My work was illegally used without my consent to train these models in the first place.
If you ask them to imitate my voice, they do a really good job, because my data is all over the training data.
So anyway, I had real ambivalence about it, but I had several moments where I just once I started to build out this really highly customized rig for myself, where I wasn't asking it to write for me, but just to help me overcome my natural ADHD, overcome that feeling of I'm at a blank page I don't even know what to do today, or help me organize my thought.
I had a bunch of days where I was really in the writing flow, had this awesome feeling about it, which normally when you're an author, you get that only so rarely.
This is an extremely rare experience.
And it was incredible to feel like wait, have I done something that's going to allow me to have that sensation more often?
Which just was incredible.
So yeah, that was something that took a whole bunch of days from great to awesome for sure.
Well, hey, it's always good to be in the flow.
And if a tool can make that happen, then it's good.
So Eric, where can people find you?
I'm very easy to get ahold of.
If you want to learn more about the new book Incorruptible, we have a website called incorruptibleco where people can get bonus content.
There's actually one of the secret chapters that I was just mentioning that I had to cut out of.
The book is only available to those who pre-order and order the book right when it comes out.
It's not going to be available long-term as well as a whole bunch of implementation guides for people that want to do the really meaty, detailed work of this.
You can also find me on all the normal social media places.
I'm most active on Blue Sky, but I have a lot of following on LinkedIn.
And people can buy the book in any format you want.
Okay.
You can get it in hardcover.
You can get it in ebook.
You can, I just finished recording the audio book, which has a bunch of cool bonus content.
And also audio book is super cool.
Very excited about it.
But the other thing you can do this book is going to be carried in lots and lots and lots of local independent bookstores.
We actually have a huge list of books of bookstores that are carrying the book on the website.
So if you go to incredibleco, you really want to do me a favor and do your community a favor.
Buy the book at your local bookstore, support these important local community institutions.
Or, of course, you can buy it wherever it's most convenient for you.
I'm so grateful to those who want to do that.
Well, thank you so much, Eric.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you to everyone for listening.
If you have feedback about this or any other episode, you can always reach me at laura, at lauravandercamcom.
And in the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at LauraVanderkam.com.
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Hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.
I'm Joe.
I'm Kevin.
And I'm Nick.
And guess what?
We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas.
We invented a podcast?
Well, we didn't invent it.
We just contributed to it.
We're the first people to do podcasts.
We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.
Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but you know.
Tired and sick.
Tired and sick.
Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Just listen.
We don't care where you hear it.
Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy.
Not quite.
On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends.
Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.
This week my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.
Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on.
A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman.
Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets.
A billion dollar fraud.
But how long can this alliance last?
Tell me what you know.
Is somebody coming after me?
Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
