We are now recording. Hello, Jason. Hey, hey. So I emailed you a couple of weeks ago for something unrelated to what we're about to talk about. And you sort of offhand asked me how I'm going or how are you doing? Very nice of you to ask, Jason. And I said, I'm kind of sick of my business. Or I said something along the lines of, I don't know, I'm kind of sick of my business. I think I said, I've lost the zest for running my business. I've lost like my mojo for running my business.
And you said, well, maybe we should talk about it. Maybe we should even record it. And so here we are. Yeah. Well, what is the business? Remind me. Like, really, what is the business? So... I'm running currently theoretically, actually, actually I'm running three businesses, but it's all under one thing called AJ and smart. Actually a little bit like 37 signals is the umbrella. So it's three different things that I'm involved in.
The main, I guess, moneymaker is called facilitator.com where we train corporates or individuals on how to become facilitators. That's like the, I'd say the bread and butter.
main part of the business second part of the business is aj and smart studio where we do one-off design projects for companies one-off sort of design strategy things and the third chunk of it is a new part of the business which is sort of like us using part using the things we do in our business to help other businesses in similar spaces to grow so more like strategy ish consulting ish
stuff so what part are you sick of are you sick of a holiday i mean this it's always good to ask because you know it's kind of like if you're like i'm angry it's like well Actually, just part of you is angry. There's other parts that are not angry. And so it's good to kind of understand like what part of you feels like you don't want to do this anymore or maybe you don't want to do anymore or you don't enjoy it anymore. Is it all of it? Some of it? What do you think? What do you know? So.
I think what I've come to the conclusion of, I think this sort of a bit of malaise and lower energy for all of this started about four years ago. Actually, that's when I started this unscheduled CEO.
podcast where this audio may end up at least one place and that was just my me recording my journey of saying okay i'm not going to be the ceo anymore ceo anymore or at least i'm not going to just keep hammering away at this business i'm just going to see what other things i want to do like and i was obviously very grateful to have the luxury to just do that and to explore um but i think the result of it is like
I don't know. I feel like I was super pumped in my twenties about building my businesses. I feel like I had infinite energy for it, infinite kind of excitement, but I'm wondering if that. was more like a dark fuel which i don't have anymore because actually now i'm way it's like i'm happier now but i have less of this like dark energy to build things and grow things and make loads of money
It's like things are too easy now or something. And I have this urge always to just blow stuff up so that I get the excitement and energy to make stuff again. I don't know if that makes sense.
yeah that does so you well you know this is one of those things where i mean just hearing that makes me think that maybe you haven't adjusted yet to um your own like growth and position so like in your 20s you're like build build build grow grow grow and then you kind of get into that habit of thinking like that's always the exciting part and when i'm not doing that part i'm now
unhappy because i'm not doing the thing that i used to really enjoy and you probably can't do that for you can't keep building that way probably forever right so i wonder though do you think if you were building something new you'd have the zeal and the zest, or is it like, you just don't even have the energy to do, to start over again. I mean, cause I can appreciate that fully. Like I, as I've mentioned, I don't.
I don't ever want to start another business again. Like I couldn't, I don't have, I don't have the endurance at this point to do that or, or the, I just don't care enough to start another business. You know, like you have to really. feel like you need to put something new in the world and feel like it's only you that can do it. And the whole thing, in a sense, I just, I don't have that part of that comes from like being doing the same thing for a long time. I have enough money. I don't have the.
there's no real carrot at this point other than enjoying the work. So if you enjoy the new and you've been around for a while, you can't always be new. How much of it do you think is that? Or is it just like, you don't even like this tech shit anymore? I mean, or whatever, right? Or maybe, I don't know, maybe you have clients that aren't only in tech, but like.
maybe just kind of just off-putting. It's like you like a certain food for a long time. You're like, I just don't like this anymore. There's definitely some elements of that. And I can, I mean, I should definitely not say this, but I really hate working with corporates. Yeah. obviously should not say this but there's a good chance they won't hear it but i i don't i definitely don't enjoy that aspect of trying to figure out how to build
It's like one of these unfortunate things where it's very lucrative for us. The enterprise training is like extremely lucrative. It's pretty easy for me to just let it keep going in the background. But even the light ways that I get pulled into it, even the very small ways completely drain my energy to like to the point where I'm like, this is just fucking bullshit. I don't want to even hear it.
Yeah. Like, why am I doing it? Why am I doing this? Like, why? Yes, exactly. But then I'm like, it's very lucrative and that's good for the business and it would be stupid to not do it. Maybe you had this when you guys moved from being an agency to base camp. Maybe. I think there was something there. But it's one of those things where I'm like, it's hard to just go, okay, I'm cutting that.
because it's too good if you know what i mean but it's also draining and annoying well do you feel like you have to do how many is it just you and your partner or was it how many people are So there's 14 people on the facilitator team. So it's actually not me at all. But could you just step away for a year from that and see what happened? Like, I'm just curious, like, what do you think would happen?
if you is it you basically bringing in the business is that kind of your role or like what is your role in that what i'm trying to get at is like what's the part that you don't really like and if you don't have to do that part Like, are you essential in that area? If you're not, maybe you don't have to do that. So I'm barely essential and I'm barely part of it at all. It's more that the essence of that.
still ends up being part of the day-to-day of the business that i end up interacting with like with facilitator.com just to give you the two sides of it there's sort of like the B to C side of it where individuals can just like come to one of our trainings or buy one of our things, whatever. And then there's a corporate side where a company will buy like a large scale, you know, thousands of licenses or something.
That one client, by the way, I love you guys. That one client will be the conversation at the lunch table. even if i'm completely on ignore trying to ignore it and on a different project and brings with it the almost the only things that work their way all the way up to me Because these projects are so huge. And if there's like an issue, the CEO needs to get like the call. So even though I do have many people, I do have like a CEO facilitator who's great.
it's still there's like this sense with that particular thing with working with enterprises and building all the systems you need to work with enterprises there's something about that just makes me tired and makes yeah i think it just makes everyone tired Yeah. It sounds like there's, there's no motivation. It just becomes a chore at that point. And you're like, that's hard. It's hard to do chores when you don't really have to do them anymore. That's it. Yes. That's hard.
It's not hard to do a chore when like you need to do it because like that's how you're going to get somewhere. But now you've sort of gotten somewhere and you're still doing that chore. occasionally and maybe i don't know how often it is but it's enough to make you feel like this sucks i don't want to do this anymore and it's because you don't have to probably that makes it worse i i think the thing um let me let me just take you in a different direction for a second um
Out of the three businesses or the things you do, are there any parts of it that you really still like a lot or not? You could say no to. I'm just wondering. At times, I really like a lot of parts of it. And at times, I'm like, why am I bothering to do this? I already figured it out. I mentioned to you, it's like a video game I finished a long time ago.
Sometimes I go to I kind of go into work and I'm like, I already did this for it's year 14 for us now. I've already done this and I don't feel like doing that again. But at the same time. there is a responsibility on my shoulders that growth overall somewhat happens so that we just don't like completely shrink and switch off. So...
Sometimes I'm very excited about parts of it. The part I'm excited about right now is like this partner side of the business where we get to jump into other businesses. and just help them grow because that's fun and that's new and that's exciting and it's not corporate it's sitting with the founders and helping them uh grow the business um
But I do, I definitely feel, this is like my own totally not deeply thought through conclusion. I definitely feel like... 20s were easy because it was like i need to do this this this this this firefight grow the business now it's been that you know uh it's been like a safe good cash flow business that's profitable for now
a long time i don't know like six or seven years right and now i definitely feel like i've gotten lazy a little bit lazy but i also don't like i don't really feel like making anything at the moment and yeah one side of that one one like element of that was okay one one way to think about it is i'm just gonna do nothing then i'm just gonna like float around and just yeah travel
I kind of tried it. And I kind of also end up coming back to I like to make stuff. So I think I'm turning 37 like next week, I think. I'm right now at this point where I've hit like a limbo zone where everything's pretty good financially so I don't have to do much. which is great but it's not so good that i can just literally switch off for the rest of my life which maybe i wouldn't want to anyway so there's this this the fuel
that I'm using now is like way less clear. Like the carrot is gone. There's no carrot. So if there's something in the way, let's say it feels like maybe you're stuck behind something. This is just like a little thought exercise. Could you visualize moving something out of the way and then like having things be better or, or is it, is it so general?
It's like a general malaise, a general just like, I don't even know if I like this stuff. Some stuff's fun, but I don't know. Or is there really something that you're stuck behind, do you think?
like is it the responsibility to three different things is it you know being pulled into some stuff and then you're like being pulled into one little thing just ruins everything else because it just just sets me off mentally i don't want to do it then it becomes like really hard because i really don't want to do it my motivation's gone or is it really a matter of um a general like i i wouldn't even know what to move out of the way if i could
I think there's two parts to it. Number one, I cannot decide and I can't figure out whether our business should essentially be... a small bit like a very slow growth very i mean just to be kind of relatively uh i think we can share our revenue numbers are like five to six million revenue 50 profit margin and my goal for a while was i'm getting us to 10 million that's my journey i'm going to do this it's going to be super fun and
Whenever I try to do that, I just realize I really hate the journey. I really don't like it. And so then I bring us back a little bit or we basically stop pushing that hard. And so one thing is I'm definitely stuck between.
in this indecision of do we just like kind of make new things and do launches and we still stay around this five six million mark and that's fine and that's good or should i be trying to grow it so there's this indecision between these two things definitely stopped me from having energy the second thing and again like this is being recorded but we don't have to post it so sure see where we want to go with this be honest yeah yeah so i
After probably 10 years of ignoring people's advice, I finally actually went and got diagnosed for ADHD. And I'll also be honest, I just started taking... a low dose of one of these medications by Vance. Yep. I know it. Yep. Something changed in my brain completely the second I took it.
and all of this like malaise around oh but there's this and there's this and there's this and there's this and all of this sucks and all of this sucks and i couldn't be bothered and but also i want to make new things and also i want to make video games and all of this right just like stopped
and i was like oh i'll just work on this specific thing in the business that's obviously i should just work on and i've probably enjoyed the last four days of work more than the last four years of work amazing Except for the fact that I'm sweating a lot. Does it make you sweat? It's making my palms really sweaty. Interesting. Well, I mean, that's very interesting.
I mean, ADHD, typically people like don't want to do non-preferred tasks and it becomes, it's like you can do them, but it becomes just a massive weight and you're actually quite good at doing things you want to do. But if you have things in your day, you don't want to do it. It's impossible to do in a sense. It's like horrible. It's not just, oh, I don't want to do that. It's like, I will literally, you'll have to hold the gun to my head. I will not do it. Yeah. Yeah.
So this is like an interesting thing because it probably revealed some truths for you, or maybe is revealing them now, which is that maybe your day was filled with a lot of non-preferred work. stuff that you just didn't want to do, but you had to, and it was just wearing you down. And maybe, maybe this is a break for you now. And I feel like you'll know more than 30 days kind of thing. Like this seems pretty interesting.
Yeah, this happened even since we were emailing. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I mean, this is something, again, many people in my life have been saying. And I've just been one of these people like, it's fake. It's all BS. It doesn't exist. If everyone I know has it, nobody can have it. And now I'm like, oh, no. It might be fake. Well, especially if you take like a stimulant, which is what that is. And it's like.
and you feel better because some people they take they would take that and they would just be like crazy like oh yeah and it but if adhd brain it's like a different it it affects it differently that's pretty cool so I mean, here's something else I was going to get at with the growth thing. First of all, I think that's great that you're, first of all, like four days into maybe a new way of seeing the world or your world. And I think...
You'll know more about that in a month or so. But the growth thing is always interesting to me. I just always ask instinctively, why do you need to grow this to a $10 million business? Like what's wrong with $6 million business? Like what if it was a $3 million business last year and you just grew it to six? Like not that you did, but like you'd be happy then you doubled it. It's kind of like.
There's this, I always get this wrong. I've seen this like quote somewhere where something about like, you know, someone is like 40 years old and they wish they could be 20 again. and like instead of wishing which you can't but instead of wishing that just imagine that you were 60 and you woke up at 40 and all of a sudden you're 40 now like you're you're actually where you wish like you in 20 years you'll be
you'd love to be where you are today, right? Like you can't have what you had before, but where you are today, there'll be a time in the future where you wish you were that again. And I kind of think about that in terms of like five to 6 million revenue. That might be amazing. Like it could be in three or four years, actually you're down to four or you're down to three. Well, it could, right?
Yes, it could. Or it could be like, so what do I have to do to get to seven or eight? Like all this extra stuff I don't want to do and why? It's just so what? I have what? I think it's just a good question because... You think about like a, let's think about like a really nice restaurant somewhere, maybe in wherever, like if they can survive 20 or 30 years, just like selling the same number of seats every night. And like, isn't that an amazing outcome?
What is it about our line of work that makes you think it has to be about growth? What if you're filling a restaurant every night? Like your business as a restaurant, you're filling it every night. You're full every night. You're not going to expand. You don't want to take on more seats. You don't want to have more rent.
You just want to keep those seats filled. And maybe that's exactly where you are. And in a different context, you'd be thrilled. Why are you, we, many people in this industry not thrilled with where they're at? And they feel like they... There's something else they need to get to before that. And part of it is like, I wonder how much of it is social media and all the stuff of like.
This is messages being pushed down on people that like grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And you're also in the business of helping other teams grow. So you feel like we have to do, I have to take my own medicine. Yes. But I mean, really, if you could strip that away. Do you? I think it's a really good question. And definitely part of it is social media or listening to podcasts and being like, oh, if you're not growing, you're dying. That kind of thing. You probably heard it.
I don't know. Who told me that? Who was it actually who told you that? Because I've heard that a million times too. And by the way, I feel this too. I feel like with AI now, it's like sass is dead. You pay attention to anything, it's just doomsday everywhere.
Either it's in politics or in business or you're not doing well enough or you're not getting as big as you can or something's coming to take your business. And like if you just shut that shit off for a while, like you actually realize like none of that actually matters at all day to day. Like it just doesn't matter.
You've got your customers, you've got your business, you know what you're doing. And if you can, you know, fill, fill your tables or fill your chairs with seats every night or butts in seats, whatever, and like do your two services every night or whatever, do one turn, whatever they call it in the restaurant business.
And you look at the end of the night, we sold everything we could sell today. And that's an amazing day. And we had a great year, same year as we had last year. What's wrong with that? Maybe there's some tinkering in the margins. Maybe we, you know, we brought our supplier costs down or whatever, you know, whatever. But in so many different contexts, it'd be an amazing business to have a $6 million business. That's incredible. 50% margins. What? Yeah. Fantastic, right?
Why can't we be happy with that? Yeah, I don't know. And then growth could be like the cherry on top instead of like the whole damn thing. Like if you can grow a little bit, great. But don't feel like you need to more feel like. if you want to you can try but you still have this incredible set of great revenues and great margins if you can maintain that for 15 more years imagine how incredible that would be
Yeah, I can't believe it's already been 14 years. Yeah, another 14 years, right? That's crazy. I think part of it is also the kick you get from making... I get a very big kick from making something like... packaging it up and selling it and seeing the numbers go up not because i care about the numbers i just like that game and so there is that element as well where
every so often I'm like oh god damn it it's it's working everything's fine but I don't I'm not getting to play this video game that I really enjoyed for a very long time and I'm having a hard time like finding other parts of life that simulated in that way or where i can just have that same excitement um which is yeah you know part of
my personality which is definitely about making new things getting them out there having people witness them having money come in and then being bored of that and then doing that again for a different thing
I'm the same way. We're making two new products right now because we have two new ideas, but also because we got to make stuff. We got to make new things. We figured out that's what we need to do. Otherwise, it's boring. It just ultimately... boring to only maintain something that you have that works well you want to try to make new things but for me it's never like about like think about all the money this could make ever it's just like i want to make this new thing and it's exciting to see
When people buy it, it's like a validation that you have something cool that you made that's exciting and useful for people. And then the money side of it is just like whatever. It's kind of a bonus in a lot of ways at this point. Is this why you, so you guys had 37 signals and Basecamp was a product. Then you turned everything into one product, one thing, which was just Basecamp. Did you go back to the 37 signals with lots of other things for variety?
Yeah. So when we launched Hay and Hay became something that was clearly going to stick around, it felt weird to have a sort of... birth two things it felt weird to call the company base camp when we had a product called hey also um and then uh i mean we could have just said like hey by base camp and there's also a product called base camp but but we're like we probably want to do some more of these
And then it's going to just feel strange to some degree. I don't think it matters. And it might've been the wrong, wrong decision. We should have maybe stayed with base camp and said, base, these are all like brand extension things. I don't know. I don't think it really matters.
that much but it could have been more coherent in some ways 37 signals is strange like what is that people don't really know what it is and but for us it was like an art project in a lot of ways like i don't we like it so We've always done things we've liked. If that's worked out well for us, let's keep doing that. And maybe one day it doesn't work out well for us anymore. And that's okay too, I suppose.
But yeah, I think it was to make more things because David and I realized like we just we like to make stuff. That's it. We just like to make things and we have some ideas. We want to make more things. So like the one stuff came after that. We're doing two more things now. I think for you, I would figure out, like, is there something, like, again, this is a visualization thing, like, if you can move something out of the way, would you feel better?
Or is there not actually something you can move out of the way and it's just everything? That's the first thing I would ask myself. I think I'm the one in the way in this scenario. Like, okay, it's my indecision and sort of floatiness around what the hell this business is and what we do and like employees ask me they'll also listen to this so they'll they'll know what's true they're like jonathan like what's the
what's the vision for aj and smart and i'm like i don't know they're like are you are we like growing it or i'm like i i don't know i just want to just enjoy myself we just do yeah how about we just do stuff yeah yeah like the way i think we're just going we're not we growing i don't we're just going can we just go like let's keep going that that's how it is for me too and i feel like some for some reason i and i felt this maybe you're feeling it now i was like
You're almost not allowed to feel that way. You feel like you need to have the big explanation. Yes. I have no clue. I don't know. We're just going. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever get into a... um let's say more than a couple of weeks phase where you were just like ah god oh yeah what am i doing with it like maybe i should just do something totally different oh yeah i've had many episodes where i'm like why am i doing this at all
I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like half of what I'm doing. And then... Things come up where, you know, that sticks around for a little bit and then like something interesting happens and it kind of kicks you out of that orbit and you get into a new orbit and you're like interested again. And then, you know, then things sometimes you get kicked back to the lower orbit where you're like, I don't, why am I?
why um what's helped me and david both and i was going to ask you about this is taking a sabbatical so we took like um david took we offer everybody sabbaticals here um But I hadn't taken one in like 20 years. And so I took a little bit longer. I took an eight, like an eight week. Usually we offer people six. I took like an eight week.
um, sabbatical and it was hugely helpful. And David's done the same thing. Have you stepped away from this business for two months in 14 years? No, I would highly recommend it. I think it's, first of all, it's really healthy for everybody involved. everyone else. It's going to be really healthy for you. And it'll either renew your passion and zeal to some degree or it won't. Both of those are instructive.
But the other thing that it'll do is when you come back, you'll sort of see everything with fresh eyes again. And you'd be like, why are we doing that? Why are we doing this? Or I had this idea we should do this. Like there's a clarity. You cannot see it when you're just like.
up it's up in your face all day long but when you come back to it you'll see it fresh it's like going to a place you haven't been for a while and like it's like oh yeah i kind of remember this but things have changed or this this is different like i just want I went to the University of Arizona for school, for college. I ended back there in like 10, 15 years. I just went back a few days ago. And it was the same, but also very different. They built a lot. And you see those changes.
Because you've been away from it and you knew it before. But if I had lived in Tucson, which is where the school is, for the last 15 years, I don't think I would have noticed a change as much. Because you're going along with it. And it's slower. So I think maybe being away for a couple months could be very, very healthy for you, especially like in this new mind you have at the moment. And I would do that immediately, basically. I think you'd be...
What is a sabbatical to you? Like, is that just like my worry about a sabbatical is like, I wouldn't know what the hell to do. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know what to do either. So I, uh, It was actually weird. The first two weeks were actually hard because I didn't know what to do. You have this momentum that's been carrying you for a decade plus.
doing the same thing every day with work. I have a thing to do in a place. Yeah. A place to go, a thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now you don't have that. And so you like putter around and putts around and it's awkward. It's like actually a new skill to figure out like what to do with your day. I know this sounds like a luxury, but it's just weird. I would find that very strange. And then you sort of settle in, you find a different rhythm.
And like I didn't go like some people go somewhere. I was at home. I've got kids and a wife and I can't really go anywhere for that long period of time anyway. But I just like putzed around the garden a lot more, which is something I've always liked to do.
Um, I, I've been learning to play drums. So I spent some more time doing that. Like I practiced an hour instead of 10, 20 minutes, you know, like, I just have some more space and some more time and just messed around. And then there's a point where. for me at least, and this is true for David too, there's a point where both of us like got towards the end and you get hungry again for what you've been missing. So you're like, I'm really excited to get back to work in the next 10 days from now.
So then you get bored of having nothing to do. It's awkward. Then you start to enjoy it. Then you are craving something again. You're like, well, I'm lucky I get to go back to work and do this thing again that I actually do like to do. I think they'd be very helpful for you. So I wouldn't like think about how to fill the time. I think what I'm going to do is so I'm going to Japan in a couple of weeks. Amazing. Maybe I'll just not.
go back to work for a few more weeks, like use that as the starting point and choose an ending point. I would do like six weeks. I think you need six, like two. Three, it's too short. It's like a normal holiday in a sense. If you can, and you can, it's your damn business. Yes, I can do it. Take six weeks off. Start it with Japan. Great idea.
Then you have a month after that, you get back, you recover, you do some other things, you whatever. And then I bet you, you'll come back with a little bit of a renewed sense of purpose and clarity. Either way, either direction it goes.
uh and maybe there'll be that thing that's that you see in the road now that you couldn't before and you can push that out of the way and i know you think it's you right now and maybe it maybe it is but maybe taking the break we'll get that out of the way but maybe there's something else in the way um and um
I'll give you a quick story on this. When we switched to Basecamp from 37 Signals, one of the reasons we've done that, I went off and I got married and I took some time off and I came back to the business after I hadn't been away from the business for a long time.
I came back and something became extremely clear to me that was not clear to me when I was in the business, which was like, I came back. I'm like, we have four products. We had Basecamp, Backpack, High Rise, and Campfire at the time. And I'm like, we haven't touched three of these in... a long time they've kind of atrophied um i'm not proud of them anymore um why are we doing these other three like what why why why not just do base camp base camps are big hit it's like our
10 20x hit compared to anything else like why and i wouldn't have even have had that thought had i not been away from the business because every day is the same as the day before in a sense. And if you're not thinking that way the day before, you're probably not thinking about it that way tomorrow. But when you stop thinking about it at all and you come back and then you see like, man, it's like my office is a mess. Like you're in your office, like you're like.
it's kind of tidy and you come back like jesus like stuff everywhere like what like how how did it become a slob like you kind of don't see it until you walk away from it It was hugely helpful. So that really helped us, I think, refocus. I'm like, this is, we have too much stuff going on. We don't have enough people. We don't want to hire more people. So we got to cut some things back. It just became so obvious and it would never have happened had I not walked away.
for a little bit so i think that'll happen with you in whatever form it takes but um it's a good practice i think to step away for a little bit i think and it feels to me like you need like
What I'm hearing is like what I'm hearing in my own head is what I'm hearing from you, which I've been through these moments where like, I don't like this, but this is like, I should like this. This is, I get to make my own job. I get to make my own business. We're doing well. Why don't I like this? Like what's.
I'm so fortunate. Like what, what the hell? Yes. And then you start to like feel bad about yourself even. Yeah. And you know, it's not a good feeling and you can't get, I, I found I couldn't get out of it by just. gritting through it i had to kind of take a little step back that and i think one of the things is that i
I think I've been taking breaks, but I've always been one foot in, one foot out. Like I've been like, well, I'll work a little bit less during the week and I'll have like this unscheduled thing where people can contact me, but I'm not going to make meetings, blah, blah, blah. But I'm still, my brain is.
locked on to solving the business's problems and making new products etc etc but i have not i think i've been like avoiding taking anything like a six week break um i probably should do that yeah i think first of all everyone else will be happy that you're gone yeah they just will like it's it's good the boss is out of town this is good
It's like when your parents leave for a few days, you know, when you were like, you know, 15 or something. It's like, this is amazing. You know, get away and give everyone some space. Everyone will step up. Things will be just fine. Um, and you'll come back refreshed. You're not going to, I don't think you're going to break yourself out of this by staying in it, you know? And again, to visualize things again, like to your point about you might be the thing that you're stuck behind.
so then like you got to get out get out of the way and let that like it's almost like you're holding a big bolt it's like this sisyphus like you're kind of pushing this rock up the hill and you're behind it and if you move out of the way it's going to roll away but that's what it needs to do it needs to roll away
but you you're not letting it roll away because you're behind it right so if you just step aside let it roll down let it clear out and you'll come back and and it won't be this battle anymore maybe right It's really interesting that you say that because I've had two people say to me in the last week, like, you know, I'm kind of...
moaning to them about you know all my luxury problems of running the business it's hard it's hard yeah exactly and um yeah one of the conclusions is like yeah you you either need to really back off and just see what happens with no intervention at all or you need to start taking action and i keep flipping between these two modes uh like
now i'm taking it now we'll see what happens now i'm taking action now we'll see what happens and i haven't i'm not letting any of those especially the see what happens modes or just taking a break mode i'm taking a break i'm seeing what happens while constantly tweaking it myself, if you know what I mean. Yeah. This whole see what happens thing, or no, no, that I like, the take action thing. I don't think you have the motivation to take action right now.
I actually think it would be almost impossible for you to do so. Not that you're not capable of it, but in the current state you're in, you don't have the motivation. So it's like, it's just impossible almost. But it will be more possible if you step away and see what happens for a while. Step out and come back because you have the skills and it's not like you lost your skills and talent, but you can lose the will to do it. Totally.
and you just need to recharge that by, by stepping out of it. Yes. I would, I would definitely take six weeks off. I think that to me is like the biggest thing you need to do, given the fact that you haven't really done anything like that in a decade and a half.
I'm going to do it. Yeah. And the thing is actually both myself and my girlfriend run the business. So we actually both have to do it. Okay. She's in as well. Right. You're in them. I'm in. Yeah, exactly. And vice versa. So is she going to Japan with you?
Yes. Okay. Well, that's a good start for both of you. And then the other, what, 12 people or so can just run the show for six weeks. They can. They're great. It's fine. It's probably going to be better. Yeah. It's just going to come back. It's already a 10 million. Fuck. there you go that grow by getting out of the way could be could be but no i think i think that'll be healthy and and and i think you'll you'll have a renewed sense of uh a clarity on it the fog will lift and you'll you'll
you'll at least know where you want to be more because maybe, maybe it turns out like those six weeks off are the best, best time you've had in the past 10 years. And maybe it's like, maybe I really shouldn't actually be doing this anymore. Yeah.
maybe I'm doing the company and myself a disservice by doing this. Like this was actually what I had to see or the other way, which is like, man, I really do miss it. I really do enjoy this. And I missed it. Eventually I missed it. And now I got the fire back. So.
Cool. It's really true that I haven't taken a serious break in a long time. Actually, the recent break I took, which was two weeks, I had the flu the whole time. Right. It didn't really... and you're probably scrolling on your phone and like filling up your brain with all the shit that you're not you're supposed to be doing and all the bad things that are happening and whatever it's like not unless you didn't but it's just too easy to keep filling it with all this like
The worst part of the internet is just the advice everywhere. I mean, here, I'm trying to give you some, I suppose, but we're not on the internet, let's say right now. I think that's a really good point because I was going to say I'm not really checking company things, but I am checking like... you know, people's posts on X. I'm, oh, I should be doing this. I should be doing this. I should be doing this. Well, and especially right now where it's like, you know, all the AI talk, it's just like.
Everything is dead. Everything is dead. Everything's going to be replaced. It's like, well, that's pretty scary. If that's like, I mean, who knows, right? Maybe it's true. I don't know. But like, it's not true right this second.
yeah um for sure and a lot of there's a lot of like you know uh prototypes being generated you know in in 10 minutes and people think it's like the end of whatever and maybe again maybe it is at some point i don't know but um whatever it just it doesn't affect what you're doing right now it just doesn't affect what you're doing right now and then you're like well i need to stay on the because if i'm not paying attention to this so it's going to happen in a year it's like
i don't know things are moving so fast that like it doesn't this idea that whatever you're going to miss now is going to matter in a year it almost doesn't feel like that's true either yeah I think this is also, this comes down to one of the things which I've recognized in myself that makes me less motivated, consuming versus producing. Yeah. Consuming so much stuff. Yeah. And it's actually.
credit to my girlfriend she tells me all the time jonathan like the last thing you need to do is be reading another book or yeah you know like just stop and just make stuff it doesn't matter or do nothing it's even better yeah I like you should go basically be an island for a while. You know, don't don't read anything. Do things your own way. Yeah. And you will enjoy life so much more. So much more.
I'm actually going to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. I'm going to call you up. I'm like, the company's dead, Jason. This conversation was recorded and deleted, so I don't know whatever happened. Exactly. Can I come work at Basecamp now, please? Yeah, hey, maybe.
Well, yeah, cool. I think I hope that that's helpful. I think a break is going to be huge for you. And then you'll have more clarity at the very least. And that's what you need right now, I think. It wasn't what I was thinking of doing at all. Yeah. But now that you say it. I think it, now that you say it, because when you first started saying it, I was like, oh, I took some breaks. I took a break over Christmas. I did this. But actually, I haven't taken a real, like, who, like, Jonathan.
separate from the business, just as a human out in the world, like pre the company, just, I don't know what that even is anymore. Well, think about what the word break.
really is break is like a separation so you probably just made dents in taking some time off but you haven't separated you need a break free from what you're doing in two weeks is not enough time for that you know get a break really have have air between two sides and and that's going to take you a good six weeks yeah this is good to have this conversation right now because i was just about to take on another kind of fun
But definitely going to not make that break possible project this week. Yeah. Which I think I will not take on. Yeah. Cool. I'm going to do that. Good. Enjoy Japan. Have you been to Japan before? Yes, it's great. I love it. Yeah. Amazing. So, so great. You're going to new places or places you've already been.
My girlfriend hasn't been there before, so I'm going to give her the tour of the usual places. If you have any recommendation of like one thing I have to do. Where are you going? Tokyo, Kyoto. uh osaka hanoke that's it do you like ceramics actually yeah so Let me introduce you to this guy. When we were in Kyoto, there was a guy we got introduced to. His name's Robert Yellen. He's an American, but he's been living in Japan for 30 years.
some odd years um essentially as local as you can be he's fully integrated um he's like the foremost expert on japanese ceramics and he is a fascinating guy really interesting total hippie, like interesting guy. And he'll take you around to different artist studios. A lot of people who are in the ceramics world in Japan, they work out of their homes.
So they'll have like little artist studios in their homes and they'll take you through to some homes. You get to meet the artists, you get to see their work. Neat guy, really neat guy. I'll introduce you. I don't know if he's available or if you want to do it or whatever. I definitely want to do that. But he is, it's fascinating. And he's a cool guy to get to know. And he'll take you out to lunch at some local spot that you wouldn't normally go to and that kind of thing.
Wonderful guy. So, yeah, I'll you're on WhatsApp, I imagine. Any sort of. text format all right send me send me your number so i can hit you up on whatsapp because he's on whatsapp i'll just do a little group intro perfect thanks a lot man that's yeah you should you should you should hang hook up with him for a day it's just like or half a day whatever it is uh he's worth it
yeah he's great i'll definitely do that i'll definitely um that's that's like the big thing i'd recommend since you've been there before that that's something you probably haven't done no and i would do that yeah i'm gonna do that that sounds really Different to what I did the last few times I've been there. Awesome. Well, great, man. Well, good luck. Let me know how it goes. I'm very curious. And I'm also curious about how your mind works over the next six weeks. Me too. Yeah, that's awesome.
I'm going to be enlightened and sweaty. I know some people who are on Vyvanse and it's been life-changing for them. It's so strange. yeah i think i didn't i i didn't really know what to expect because i it's too i didn't know what was actually wrong with me basically yeah and now people are uh like
my employees, my sister, my mom, my girlfriend are all like, Hmm, it's very weird. Yeah, well, they've noticed like, they're like, it's weird to be talking to you. And you don't want to just walk away. Like, I'm so I don't want to enter. I'm so impatient usually and i'm so guessing people's next words in their sentence that i can barely handle talking to people um normally uh which is also by the way why i didn't haven't had a
guest podcast in a very long time it's not that i'm not super interested it's that i'm i struggle to actually listen and remember what the person is saying so i'm like oh fuck it i'm not going to do that anymore so that has been fascinating and lots of other, lots of other weird, uh, parts of it. I think if I can, I'm kind of like scared of medication. So I'm like weird about it. So I'm.
still in the phase of i don't know if i'll keep taking it but at the same time it's kind of magic so i don't know yeah i know a number of people who do it just during the week and then they don't do it on the weekends oh okay it's like during work where they really need to kind of focus and whatever and the weekends are a little bit more um just kind of
they want to be back to themselves in a sense, even though it's, but who knows? I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I know nothing about this other than what I've heard. Okay, Dr. Freed. I just know, I know some people who've tried other things and this, because I guess this is an extended release. Yes. It's sort of the difference. You don't have a hard drop off or whatever. No. Come down or whatever. Yeah. Although it hit me so.
This is still whatever. It might be even interesting. I took it on Thursday. And that was the first time. And again, I was so scared of taking it that I stood in front of the pill for an hour. Right. It's my girlfriend being like, it's fine. Like the doctor gave it to you. It's the lowest dose. I took it. And then we were both like. Probably it's going to be so subtle. You won't even notice it. I was literally a different person two hours later. I was like, is this how you see the world?
You don't hear all this noise at the same time. It's like, it's crazy. It's magic. That's amazing. Yeah, it's pretty weird. Good for you, man. That's pretty awesome. I'm going to be like, I'm going to have 50 businesses next time you chat. I don't think you need any help, man. Yeah. Yeah. Just going completely mad. Thanks. We'll have a great time in Japan. Yeah. Have a good time in Japan. Good luck. Take some time off.
Let me know how it goes and hit me up when you're back. I'm curious. Thank you so much, man. Anytime. See you later. Yeah. Adios.