I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society.
What happened to your motivation?
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Here are a few things I've been contemplating lately: ------- Aaron Francis wrote about this in his newsletter, and I can’t stop thinking about it: “Maybe, working hard doesn’t lead to burnout, but the lack of hope leads to burnout.
If you're working really hard for something that you don't believe will pay off, it's easy to lose motivation. But if you believe that the thing you're working on will have a payoff, the amount of work almost doesn’t matter.”
Working on something I believe in gives me an unbelievable amount of energy. I can work 12 hours a day and feel like no time has passed. I'm highly activated. I'm motivated by the promise of a future payoff. But sometimes, I've kept working even when it became clear that the payoff wasn't going to happen. I kept showing up, tryingto do the work, but I became numb. I couldn’t get moving. My productivity grinds to a halt. “Burnout is nature's way of telling you that the perceived reward isn't worth the effort.” – Matt Wensing
Read my post | Reply on Bluesky ------- 🎧 Jon and I recorded a podcast episode! This was meaningful for me! Jon and I recorded our first episode in 2 years: We talked about big changes in our personal lives. We also discuss burnout and motivation, the evolution of the podcasting industry, the pressure of being a leader, and the possibility of taking a sabbatical. ------- 📊 Business bets, and the payoff you need (Here are a few ideas I'm working on; help me finesse them?) In business, any effort you expend is a bet. And every bet you make should have some threshold for success: “Given this investment, this is the ROI I need.” The hard part? Many bets fall below the needed threshold. As entrepreneurs, if one bet doesn't pay off, it can raise the stakes for subsequent bets. (This is how people get into gambling trouble!) Your next bet has to make up your losses from the previous bet, and still hit a reasonable threshold for revenue, profit, etc. Some types of businesses:
Other types of businesses require frequent launches (one-time sales, course launches, etc). The "cycle of death" is when you invest a bunch of time in a launch, and it doesn't perform well. You're one bad launch away from not having enough to invest in your next project. ---- I'd love to know what you think about any of this. 👍 Cheers, |
Justin's newsletter
I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society.
Happy Saturday! Here are a few things on my mind... Adam Wathan has a new podcast where he walks and talks about what's on his mind. And it's great. ADAM'S MORNING WALK • EPISODE 1 The Tailwind business ain't what it used to be 29:13 MORE INFO View the podcast website How high is customer demand? Successful startups don't create demand. They position themselves in the path of existing demand. In a good market, customers provide their own motivation. I made a video about this: Your job isn't...
Happy Saturday! Here are a few things on my mind... Warren Buffett's game Great post on Farnam Street: Students often go to visit Warren Buffett. And when they do, he often plays a little game on them. He asks each student to pick the classmate they would choose if they could have 10% of their earnings for the rest of their life. Which classmate would you pick and why? Then he changes things up again. Who would you think least likely to succeed? Why? He asks the students to take out a sheet...
Hey friends, Not recording The Panel today (sorry!), but I do have a ridiculous new animated video to show you: This is an inside joke from the Mostly Technical podcast: Ian Landsman (one of the hosts) loves to keep restarting his programming project (outro.fm). He does this by typing `laravel new` (which initiates a new Laravel project) in the terminal. Aaron Francis isn't impressed. (I have a new technique I'm using for these; I'll update this post about it soon) Cheers,Justin Jackson –...