Lenny Rachitsky: evaluation

Transcript context

…Okay, yeah. You said no. You said no. And I was like, "Wow. Out of curiosity, what's the thought behind it?" And you said, I'm going to bastardize this, you could correct me, but you essentially said, "I don't really like doing live public speaking type things and I've been fortunate enough to build a career where I can write, I do my podcasts, and work only on the part that I love doing. And so I'm okay saying no to these other really interesting opportunities." And I remember at that time thinking it was so groundbreaking that you could say no to something that was legitimately a cool opportunity and be really confident about it because it wasn't your core competency. It wasn't the thing you are best at. And I've really kept that in mind when opportunities come my way of, am I excited about this? Is this what I'm really good at? Can I shine in this setting? Because when you are solo, you get to choose the settings that you want to be in. That's such a cool story. I don't exactly remember that, but I am zero surprised at what I said. And the way I put it now, when folks invite me to stuff like this is I just find the ROI on my time is so not worth doing a talk, doing a fireside thing, doing another podcast. It's just like, if I can spend more time on this newsletter than the podcast, the leverage is so much higher than just doing a talk because that takes so much time. So I just have this template now that basically says what I sent you, that is, that it helps. But it's tough. It's so hard to say no. Sometimes these opportunities are so interesting and the person is like, "Wait, what?" Because I don't think the people asking you for stuff know that I'm getting 10 of them a day, and they're like, "Oh, he said no to my talk. He doesn't want to be on my podcast. What a jerk." That's what I think. I don't know if that's what they think. But anyway. Okay, that's great. Yes, and I think I just had a post about reaching a million subscribers to the newsletter, and actually had this image of the Ikigai concept, which is exactly what you just described, which is you want to try to find the thing that you love doing, that people value, and that you can make money doing. That's the dream. And that's exactly what you have done as well. So thank you for being here, Wes. I actually think we delivered on what I thought we would. I think this is going to be one of the most highest leverage conversations we've had. So two final questions. Where can folks find your course? I know you also do executive coaching. Where can folks learn more? And final question is just, how can folks be useful to you, Wes? You can find out more at weskao.com. I linked my course to my coaching from my main page. I also post on LinkedIn as well, so you can follow me there. And I'm always looking to meet fellow operators who out about communication. So if you put any of these principles into practice, I would love to hear about it.…

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