Lawrence Yeo On The Arc of The Practical Creator, Creativity & Finding Work That Matters (The Pathless Path Podcast)

[00:58] Paul: Welcome to the newer version of my podcast, rebranded as The Pathless Path. I am really excited about all of the guests I have lined up and the ones I plan on reaching out to and interviewing over the next year. I'm just really energized by the podcast and what I might do with it. I reflected to my wife Angie last week that I think I really like having conversations with people. She looked at me with a look like, uh, yeah, obviously. Um, I've done probably 500 to 1,000 conversations with people over the past 5 years around taking different paths and have just continued to stay fascinated with the topic of What drives people?

How do people unlock their inner creativity? And how do people make choices and decisions in their life? And today we have a great episode of an example of this. Lawrence Yeo, he is the creator of More to That, and I'll intro him a little more in a bit. But he wrote this amazing article called The Arc of a Practical Creator, and he combines visual storytelling in the very much vibe of Tim Urban with really thoughtful, good writing. And I just wanted to share his journey and story, and I hope more people discover his stuff.

I hope you enjoy the convo. Without further ado, let's dive in. This episode is sponsored by CrowdHealth. Stop supporting the broken health insurance system with your hard-earned dollars. Go to joincrowdhealth.com now and experience freedom from health insurance. Right now you can get your first 3 months for just $99 per month.

That's almost 50% off the normal price and a lot less than a high deductible healthcare plan. Just go to joincrowdhealth.com and use promo code boundless at signup. That's joincrowdhealth.com, promo code boundless. Mandatory disclaimer: CrowdHealth is not health insurance. It's a totally different way of paying for healthcare. Terms and conditions may apply.

Welcome to The Pathless Path. I'm Paul Millerd, and in this podcast we examine the invisible scripts that run our lives and dare to imagine new stories for work and life. Hello, hello. I'm talking today with Lawrence Yeo. He is a digital creator who runs a site called More to That, which to me I think is one of the best things On the Internet. I would describe your work, Lawrence, as visual storytelling, and maybe you can correct me, but I find the combo of visuals and poetic words, I would say, just so powerful and resonant to my own journey.

You write a lot about exploring alternative paths, creating online, sharing your ideas, your relationship with identity, money, work, and all that. Super excited to explore this today. Welcome to the podcast, Lawrence.

[04:10] Lawrence Yeo: Hey, what's up, Paul? Thank you for having me. I'm a fan of your work as well. So it's just awesome to be here with you, dude.

[04:18] Paul: A question I'd love to start with is I've been thinking a lot about what are the scripts and stories we grow up with. A lot of the people I talk to a big way of sort of waking up to what we really want is starting to unpack some of the scripts we grew up with. So I'd love to start there and just ask, what were the scripts you grew up with around creativity?

[04:46] Lawrence Yeo: The scripts around creativity? Well, I think a lot of it was just your general conditioned elements of what it means to be a creative person. And it wasn't necessarily instilled by my parents or anything like that about saying, hey, do not pursue this or do pursue that. It was much more implicit. And I think it was more so around who held elements of prestige around me and who was determined notable or noteworthy and who was not. So I actually do come from a family where there is a lot of artists on my mom's side.

And where creativity is kind of heralded as a virtue, but it was never really spoken about as such. It was just like, okay, that person is— she illustrates children's books, that's your cousin. And it kind of stopped there, right? Whereas if someone was a physician, they'd be like, oh, he's a doctor, as a result, blah, blah, blah. There's always a clause that's added more to say about that than the the person that may be a creative. So there were no values that were explicitly told, but it was just kind of implicit in the way that it was communicated.

So I think that's where the notion around creativity was more so, okay, people follow this particular path because it seems like it's an interesting one, but it doesn't seem like it's well regarded in any tangible way. Unless there was some sort of practical element that came with that. So if the person sold the book for this X amount of money, then that becomes something that's spoken about more. So these are some of the scripts.

[06:36] Paul: Yeah. Prestige is such a powerful thing. I think the best definition I've seen of prestige is essentially what we pay attention to. And as kids, we're so aware of this. I think for me, I had this deep sense that money was one of the most important things. And downstream of that was like, if you're not getting paid as much money as possible, you're kind of a sucker.

So that very narrowed like what I would even consider doing. I always thought like, okay, the goal is to like get good grades because if you have good grades, you can get a job paying a lot of money. Did you grow up with similar ideas steering you in a direction towards, I know you spent several years in the corporate world.

[07:20] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, I think when it came to money, so my family, we were in a position where we had, so we had a decent amount of money and I was able to see the effects of having money in the terms of the home we lived in. And then things kind of went awry and then we didn't have much money. So then there was like this shift in my, early teen years where you just look at your surroundings and it's like, okay, we used to have this and now we don't have this.

[07:46] Paul: Wow.

[07:47] Lawrence Yeo: And, and that is the result of not having money. And so I started, I was able to tie money with actual my tangible environment. But what was interesting was that it never felt like I was poor. It never felt like we were poor. Because my, my parents did a really good job instilling in the values of rich friendships. And we're always surrounded by people, whether it's a church community or even our neighbors.

Like we had a really tight-knit relationship with our neighbors. So whenever we just wanted to play and horse around, there's always someone there to do that with. And there was always people to talk to and it never felt like we were alone in any sense. And I think like that's when the effects of poverty could be particularly destructive is when you actually feel alone as a result of not having money. But I never really felt that. So even though our immediate surroundings didn't look like a quote unquote prosperous world, it didn't feel that way inside.

So I think this ability to have these two different sides of the coin cohere really shaped my view of money and how I see it as, yes, it's a tool that enables certain things like survival and so forth. But given that there's a roof over my head and given that I could eat what— when I wanted to eat, not necessarily what I always wanted to eat, but when I wanted to eat, there was something there. And I realized that, okay, when I have these things, then everything else kind of takes care of itself. And what matters more is about like who I'm with, What I'm doing and where is my attention being dedicated to? So without even really thinking about it too much, I just think that these things kind of shaped my view of money. But things started changing when I went to college.

[09:48] Paul: Yeah, I was going to say, because I read in one of your essays about money that you had this deep fear of ending up sort of on the street. Without anything.

[10:01] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah.

[10:02] Paul: Yeah. So talk to me about college. Yeah.

[10:05] Lawrence Yeo: It's funny because the more you surround yourself, I think with people that have stuff and they come from wealthy backgrounds and so forth, like the more—

[10:17] Paul: And where'd you go to college?

[10:19] Lawrence Yeo: I went to UCLA.

[10:20] Paul: Okay.

[10:21] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah. So it's, you know, and it's not like a, it's not a private school in terms of like where wealth was just so evident and so forth, but it was clear to me that, okay, people I'm talking to and people I'm around all come from very different backgrounds. And I'm actually like, I went in with full financial aid and it was like, oh, a lot of these folks, they like, they've had this whole experience paid for and they don't have to worry about loans. So even talking about loans was something that was kind of like, I couldn't really relate to certain people. And it was, it became more of, like I think the first 2, 3 years, it was just about play, play, play and having a great time is why you're in college and all that stuff, all the shenanigans. And then that last year of, okay, finding jobs, right?

And this is one point that when I was reading in your book, like I just kind of like was honed in on because it was like you're speaking to me in that sense of—

[11:21] Paul: Did you have a spreadsheet too of hundreds of companies and—

[11:25] Lawrence Yeo: I wasn't as disciplined as you were about this. I, okay, for context, I was undecided for my major as of year 4 as a senior, still undeclared. Yeah. And my friends were like, can you even do that still? Like, can you even have an undeclared major for that long? And then I was like, maybe I should talk to my counselor.

And the answer is no, I have to make it something. So off of a whim, based upon my course load and what I had already done, I went with economics because it turns out that a lot of the stuff that I already did, it could kind of count to that. And I only needed to take a few more classes and I'll get a degree. So it's not like I had this fully formulated plan of going into economics. And then once I decided on the economics major, I was like, what do I do with this? Like, I don't— what does it even mean to be economist?

I barely understand supply and demand. I don't want to do that. So, then I kind of just started looking more and more and I remember just straight up going into Google and this is, you know, kind of shows you the byproduct of my environment at the time and the hustle of the career fairs and the prestige that was surrounding, oh, this person got that offer, that offer. And I just went in and put in like, what is the job that will make me the most money after graduating? And this was in '07. So like investment banking.

Was at the top there. And what's funny, man, is like I saw that you had a super day with Wachovia, right? So I actually did have a super day with Wachovia as well, like for an internship. And I like bombed that shit too. Like just not even a callback or something.

[13:09] Paul: Hey, this was this, we weren't at the same one, were we? Like, oh, I guess full-time and intern recruiting would be different days. Mine was fall '06.

[13:21] Lawrence Yeo: Uh, no, I was in '07. I was in '07 and I went to the one in SF. That's not where you went.

[13:27] Paul: Oh, right. No. Yeah. I was in Charlotte. So, okay. Yeah.

It's, it's so funny, right? Tying this back to prestige you talked about at the beginning, like it seems so silly looking back. I just saw what people were paying attention to. I was like cruising around in the internet and I stumbled upon these Vault Guides. So these Vault Guides, right? Yeah, yeah.

[13:50] Lawrence Yeo: I remember Vault Guide.

[13:52] Paul: They literally rank it for you. They say, here are the top 100 prestigious banking firms, hedge funds, venture capital firms, consulting firms. So they literally show you, you should pay attention most to these companies. And then like you channel the insecurity of being a young man and needing to feel like to prove yourself into, oh, I need and want that. Right. But yeah, it's— I didn't— I don't think I would have liked being investment banking.

I actually really liked consulting, but like, we just group these like they're the same thing, and it's really about prestige, has nothing to do with actual interests or tendencies.

[14:35] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, and prestige, really, it's— it really is a drug, right? And I think it's the most potent when you are first learning about what prestige means in in a way where like, oh, I mean, it all kind of starts even with like what school you're going to get into. Even like some people do that from high school on. It's like, oh, this high school is more prestigious than the other. And then you do that for college and then you do that for the job world and so forth. And you start to develop this notion that everything is neatly categorized in this way.

And I think to a certain sense, it's comfortable. It's comfortable knowing that this is better than the other. So it's like you don't have to think that much. It's like, well, if I go get a job at Goldman, then that means that I'm at the top of the top and like I've made it. And you could feel that confidence boost as a result. And like, it's like if you go, go to a boutique firm or something, it's like, oh, okay, I just got in.

And even, even if you're making a similar amount of money, you'll kind of feel down on yourself about that. Like that's, I just kind of saw that happening not just my friends, but even with myself. And coming from that background of, you know, like understanding that money, you only really need so much of it to be all right. All of a sudden was about like, okay, this was the number one important thing about like how much can I make and how much would my bonus be? And just really measuring all the entirety of self-worth into this neatly categorized mechanism really that's been distilled into a fucking vault guide. So like, it just sounds absurd when you actually phrase it like that.

But when you, and this is something that I write about just a lot, is that when you are so caught up in this, this like zeitgeist or this digest or whatever, it's like you can't get out of it. It's so hard to see outside, to zoom out and see the absurdity of it all. And I think that is what is desperately needed. And I think it will, it eventually hits people in some format, usually, whether it's in the form of discontent or questions of meaning. But you will see at a certain point that if the model breaks for you in your mind, and I think a lot of people experience that, especially after having kids. So I'm a recent father and—

[17:02] Paul: Oh, congrats.

[17:04] Lawrence Yeo: Thank you. Thank you. So like, just when I talk to other fathers, the overarching commentary we have is that you realize the constraints of your energy.

[17:16] Paul: Yeah.

[17:16] Lawrence Yeo: And when you realize the constraints of your energy, it's like you understand how valuable your attention is and that you don't have much of it. And if you're spending so much of your attention in an area where you could truly care less really, but it was anchored by past notions of prestige and so forth, then it starts to get really burdensome. And I see this a lot with like different dads and so forth where constraints really highlight that really viscerally.

[17:48] Paul: It's an interesting thing. I think a lot of our work has become this knowledge work, which is abstracted work. We're really working with like models, symbols, and computers. And we're not as connected to our stuff. And with that often comes a lot of work that you don't really want to do, but you just keep doing. You're kind of grinding, but there's this low-grade burnout of doing these things which are disconnected from what you even care about at all.

And when you're working on a path like that, like it only sort of works if you're young, healthy, and don't have much responsibility. But once you start having responsibilities, or I think probably in our cases is like this other work we're pulled towards and called to do, you start to look at life differently. It's like not a, I need to like succeed and make as much money, is like, oh, I need to manage this energy to keep building towards the life I want and like balance all the things I actually care about.

[18:53] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah. And I actually have a question I turn to you is, do you think that—

[18:57] Paul: Sure.

[18:58] Lawrence Yeo: You know, people talk a lot about burnout and so forth as being a conduit to some of these realizations, but do you think a lot of, like, do you think burnout kind of precedes questions of meaning? Like it almost has to happen before you could start asking about that?

[19:14] Paul: Well, I think there's different kinds of burnout. So I think there's like, I think there's the burnout of like working too much. I think that's pretty straightforward and most people are aware of this. I think there's a different kind of burnout, which is a disconnectedness from what is really like connecting you to the world, to your work, to others. And that can sort of like grow and sort of creep up on you in a way you don't really expect or understand. And it can happen.

It happened to me working 40 hours a week in my last job. So I had this idea that, oh, I'm managing work-life balance. I'm not compromising on the things I care about, but I just didn't have this lens of seeing burnout as being disconnected from what I cared about. Ultimately, I was serving people who really cared about status and money, trying to make more money, serving boards and CEOs, trying to make more money in their companies who like, I just didn't care about any of this. It seemed all just so silly. And for me, I was doing all this creative stuff on the side and I didn't really notice that as like, oh, this is my future path.

It's so obvious now. Like that was like screaming, please release this energy into the world. But yeah, it's very hard. I think burnout is one path. I think health crises are another path. I've kind of had both of those.

Loss of family members. Having kids is a big one. Like, a lot of people say, oh, you couldn't do this if you have kids. What I found is the complete opposite. Some people, their spouse gets pregnant, or they get pregnant, or they just have a kid, and then they're like, oh, I'm blowing it up now because I don't want my kid to see me in this state. Like, everything matters way more.

I'm gonna take everything more serious and really commit to what I care about.

[21:13] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah. And that latter point, it's like you want to be a lighthouse for your values and you can't do one thing, say another. And I think like, you know, truth always does live in nuance and paradoxes and so forth. But children, I think, have a difficult time internalizing these paradoxes. It's kind of like, hey, you said this thing and then you do that. And it's evident.

And, you know, my daughter's not at a point where she could even comprehend these kinds of things yet. But I could already see that, yeah, it's like you cannot hide discontent, especially when it comes to what you're working on. And like, if there's a misalignment in what you're working on and how you would ideally want to spend your attention, like, these things come out in like very nuanced ways that people detect so easily. And I think that is a large part of the impetus of like, yeah, having kids is like why I'm gonna blow things up right now. Of course, granted you have the capacity to do that and I guess like the privilege to do that. And I think like money is part of the equation, but the bigger thing in my opinion is more so the dynamic you have with your partner.

And I think these are things that, this is one thing that I don't think people talk about enough is how important you have those, that alignment with your partner.

[22:35] Paul: Yeah, let's talk about this because I, I talk to a lot of people and they don't have that alignment with their partner. And the reason they're talking to me is they're saying like, well, my spouse wants these things and I want these things. It's like, I can't solve that for you. That's a really hard conversation. And that's a scary conversation. I met my partner after I sort of embarked on my path.

So I met somebody that was like, oh yeah, prioritizing creative acts and not prioritizing around money and stuff, hell yeah. And like the power I get from her and her me in saying like, I don't care if you have a job right now, the art you're creating now, like some of her art is up here, like this kind of stuff she just like whips out.

[23:25] Lawrence Yeo: It's beautiful.

[23:27] Paul: But I tell her like, this matters. Like you're channeling like magic in those moments. And like, I want to build a life around that. And she, me, and like, I always tell her like, I'm nervous. Like, I don't know if I'm making money in this thing. She's like, you do whatever you want.

I'll support you. And it's like, oh, so powerful. Yeah. So I'd love to hear how you and your partner have conversations around this. Like, when did you meet? Were you in the corporate world when you met?

How did it evolve over time too?

[24:03] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, the beautiful thing is that the way we met was already immersed in like the creative realm. So I mentioned to you before we started the podcast is that like I actually took two leaps in the sense of I left the corporate world to become a musician, a beatmaker. And when I was in that space, I actually was also part of a nonprofit where we taught mainly high school kids how to make beats and how to DJ and how to record, stuff like that. So just to give them a good creative outlet. And our kids were invited to a fundraising party that my wife's nonprofit program was holding. So my wife was an arts teacher and she was so for more than a decade.

So for her, she always understood just like what creative self-actualization meant. And she didn't just teach one group of people. She taught anywhere from like kindergartners all the way to like grandparents, right? So the entire gamut. And I think like because she had that wide sample size of human beings to work with and to share the creative spirit with, like it was to her, one of her north stars is that like, yeah, creativity is just an inherent part of who we are, of the human condition. So, you know, when we, when we met, it was like we were kind of grounded in that conversation already.

So kind of similar to you and your wife, when you met, you were already kind of on your path, like you knew what you were kind of looking for in a certain sense. But what was interesting was that, you know, we started dating and then I decided to go back to the corporate world while we were dating and You know, I just— but the details matter here in the sense that it's not because I felt like I need to go make money. Like, that was part of it. But also I was starting to become disillusioned with music as the art form that I might want to maybe become my career. And I think like this is also an important thing for people to realize too, is that creativity is a really big word. And it's a word that is thrown out like the word freedom is.

Oh, creativity must be good. Freedom must be good. You know, but there are many shades to creativity, of course. And a large part of what you're trying to do is to find the texture of creativity that not just matches your ability to whether enter a state of flow or kind of more individualistic reasons, but also for social reasons as well as to like, who are you around? What about this art form attracts this certain kind of people in conjunction with your individual values? I love that.

And if there is a tension, then this may not be the texture of creativity that works for you. So when I was doing music, I could spend all day making beats and I love just the art of doing that and so forth. But then like I would, I would like start going on tour and all these things. And then there was just a lot of habits that I kind of picked up on these various things that I didn't really like. So as a musician, like first of all, I drank a lot and I just felt like this wasn't what I wanted, what I should be doing, but it was almost like it was very permissible, you know, to do that. And then like you just go on stage and you could work.

And same thing, like I could drink and make beats. Like at a certain point I had to have a glass of whiskey before I made music. And like I could see these things kind of funneling in and there was like a little bit of a clash there. And then this clash started growing bigger and bigger when it kind of became apparent to me that the way I would build my career as a musician was all about like, who can I attach myself to? Who can I like rely upon to get the word about Bobby music and all this stuff? And it became clear to me that even though I love music and I will always love music, and at a certain point I hope to create more of it again, but I knew that this wasn't what I wanted to call my career.

So at that point, I was so lost, man. I was so— I was like devastated because I knew that I'm a creative person, but I was like, knowing that I had to let go of this in some, in a real concrete way made me feel super lost. So I was like, well, what else do I know how to do? And then like the mind just started going back to what else can you do? But it started going back into like, what function can you serve given your mind and your experiences? And then it all became about function again.

And I was like, oh well, I know how to create models. I know how to, I can, you know, like do hella shortcuts in Excel. So I'll go back to the corporate world. And I reentered that. And then I was in the corporate world for another 5 years. And it was during this time though that I started experimenting with writing.

And writing was something that I did when I was a kid. But it was mainly like fiction and stuff like that. Um, and this is another point too, is I think like if you kind of don't know what texture of creativity may be the right thing for you, like think a lot about like what you like doing as, doing as a kid. I feel like that's a good indicator of what may be something right for you.

[29:43] Paul: I want to pause you there. Like, do you think, like, did you intentionally intellectually go, I need to find a creativity, writing is the thing, I'm gonna do writing, or did like the writing emerge out of you? Like, in some sense, because you had left this creative path behind, you sort of had this internal thing that needed to be expressed. Like, did the writing just come out of you? Because I think that was my experience of it. The interesting thing of writing my book is I had to just go back and reflect, and it's like, how did that happen?

And a lot of times I didn't have an explanation. I just— these things had to come out of me, and I can tell a story around them, but like I started writing online around 2014, 2015 while I was at work and I can't really explain why it was happening other than like there was just this part of me that needed to be seen and heard.

[30:40] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, I think it was more of that too for me. And I remember the first kind of experimentation I had with writing, you know, as an adult. In terms of like publishing online was like, I did this thing for my music where like I felt like my creative muscle atrophied with music. So I said, I'm gonna make a beat every day for 60 days. And what I said was when I publish the beat, I'm also gonna write a little snippet of like what I felt while I was making that beat. And then that lasted for like 3 days 'cause it was so tiring just to make the beats.

I did all the beats for 60 days, but the writing, stopped after like day 2 or 3. But it was my first foray into like writing online and publishing. No one read it really, but it was like, huh, okay, this is an interesting way to get my thoughts out about this music because music is such an emotional thing and it's hard for you to convey ideas through music, especially just instrumental music. So the realization hit me that like, hey, with these extra paragraphs here, I could actually convey the idea behind this song. That no one else might be, might get just by listening to it. So I thought that was interesting.

And I've always been someone that has just been fascinated with like philosophy and psychology and so forth. So I started just experimenting with that more and I started like a personal page on Medium, but it was still just purely like, what is this thing all about? Do I really enjoy the writing process? And that, that word enjoy, like we could get into that way more too, 'cause it's such a loaded term. But like, does it actually feel like it's the right avenue of expression? And as I started publishing more and more, even though the external validation piece is low, and I think this is important because that I think as a creator, you're always balancing the intrinsic motivation, external validation.

But you don't have that at the beginning. It's all intrinsically motivated and finding out if this is for you. And I think that's why it's so important. Like you have to sit with that for a while. And then it became clear to me that I just, even if no one's reading, like there's something about structuring my ideas in this way, thinking through them in a way that's beyond just like me and my friends drinking. And then we're around a campfire and just like philosophizing about life.

And then we're like, yeah, that's deep, bro. Like instead of that, what if I actually take time with it and really sit through and think about this in a way that music didn't allow me to do? And I found that I really loved that. And there are many avenues I could express that. I could start a podcast, I could create YouTube videos of just me talking about these things. But I think writing was the clearest way for me to wrestle with some of these ideas and then find enjoyment in the challenge.

And that's what carried me forward with that.

[33:41] Paul: That's beautiful. Yeah. So this might be a good way to start talking about the arc of the practical creator. One of your recent posts, and I think I've read a bunch of your stuff before this, but I think this one resonated a lot. It put words to things I was experiencing on my journey. And also I think brings alive what this is really like.

And I think you said something really powerful at the end is like, here's the punchline that every stage will be challenging. And that's the point. Like, I think people look at these alternative paths as like, okay, how can I solve it? How can I like make money and like make it work? Pretty much if you're going to stay on a path like this, I think you're, you're sort of seeing the challenge. As having some value and being like a guardrail to like making you reflect on things, making you grapple with your insecurities and things like that.

So yeah, maybe, maybe. So you say 3 stages and you can give me the high level more clearly, but you have like the money, figuring out the money, and then the great plateau, and then the creative career, like committing to that and going forward. So the money thing, it sounds like you were back at your job and the money was coming from your job, but funding you to kind of do that creative work. How, how did you think about that in the moment? And then how do you think about it looking back?

[35:18] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, I think in the moment, all I knew was that I was building wealth for some reason. Like I, I, I knew that I was exchanging my time for money and that money was going to convert into some sort of freedom of attention that I could dedicate to something else. That's how actually, that's how I almost always viewed money as from the moment I even started in, in finance. Like I knew that there was something else I wanted to do. But that this would afford me the ability to do whatever that is. So I kind of had this viewpoint from the beginning, but the challenge was more so in knowing like what exactly that was.

And I think it was only through hindsight where I kind of put it together that most people that work in, you know, day jobs or just the very fact that you're calling something a day job means that there's something else that you're working towards. Like, you know, terminology is very important. When we refer to certain things in certain ways, there's always some other motive behind it. So, you know, whenever someone says, I have a day job, then I'm always like, what do you— so what are you doing this for? Like, that's the very next question I like to ask the moment you say day job. And, um, I think like this is a pretty ubiquitous phenomenon where you're kind of just doing this transfer of one thing to another.

And the genesis of this piece really was, it really answered one problem. That's what kind of got me going on this piece was the problem of patience in terms of like, you just gotta keep going. Like there is this adage that every person will nod their heads to is like, you just keep going and then the benefits of compound interest will take into effect and then everything will be all right. But it just doesn't address the question of financial safety nets. It's really sexy to attribute success to patience, but not as sexy to attribute it to financial safety nets that could buffer you against failure. And it's really important to have that in mind when you're embarking on a path like this.

[37:33] Paul: Did you have a number, like a certain amount of savings you wanted to reach, or were you cutting your expenses in the years before you ended up leaving, or? Like when did you start thinking about that? Like super practically? I never— I sort of cut my expenses in my last year, but I also was like, okay, if I can save $50,000 of savings, that will buy me enough time to like figure out what's next.

[37:58] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, I actually didn't have any number. I didn't have any number, which I don't recommend to probably most people. But I think the reason why that was possible, and this is a good time to kind of close the loop on the partner conversation, was that like me and my partner, my partner was telling me in like year 4 of my job, she's like, you have to quit your job. She's like, you have to quit your job because this is not what you want to be doing. And I think another impetus was like she actually went into the office I was working in and she was like, What the— this is like a cage. This like feels like a cage, you know?

And she's like, I get sad thinking of you going there every day when in reality— Yeah, like she was like, I know what you can be doing with your time. And like it saddened her to know that I was spending it there. Huh.

[38:55] Paul: Wow. This is so powerful. It sounds like your wife is very intuitive. She seems ahead of you in you realizing who you are because I read your, your other line. I think I have this quote here. Last year I told my wife that one of my goals was to make more to that my career.

And she replied, what do you mean? It already is your career.

[39:19] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah. Yeah. Damn. I mean, that really struck— it struck me too. Like, Huh, you're right. And then it just got me thinking about what does it even mean to have a career in something and how she saw that even before I did.

And I was anchoring it to some of these other scripts like you were mentioning. And I agree, she was very intuitive in that sense. And like, and I was trying to offer up retorts to that, like, well, you know, I have to have a certain amount, saved here. And then here's the other thing too, Paul, is that I think like with you and even your partner and like just the way that like there, even when you just showed me what she drew, you had this kind of sense of like, I want to show this to you, right? Because like there's something beautiful about this and because I believe in this. And I think like belief is not blind either.

Like belief also can exist because you believe that your partner does have something in them that they want to direct ambition toward. And ambition is not a bad word per se. Like, this is where I disagree with certain— like, for example, I love Krishnamurti. He's one of my favorite thinkers, but he rails against ambition. But I think, like, ambition is a healthy thing in terms of having some sort of challenge to direct it towards. And then, like, I think if your partner sees that in you, then they're also like, well, and then your mind is more like, how am I gonna make money from this?

But I think in their minds they see the ambition, the ability to actualize that ambition before you do.

[41:01] Paul: Yeah, that's happened for me too. I've made comments where Angie has just told me, well, you're already doing that. Like, why are you afraid of like having to go back? Or she'll say things like, well, you've made it work for 5 years. Like, how could you fail now?

[41:18] Lawrence Yeo: So what do you respond to that?

[41:21] Paul: I've gotten a lot better at just accepting compliments. So I just try to like, yeah, you're right. It usually is very reassuring. I think meeting her early on is when I flipped a switch in my own path. So one year after quitting my job, I moved to Taiwan. I met her a couple months after moving there.

And when I was in Taiwan, I was playing this game of playing accountant. I was trying to minimize my cost of living to extend my runway to continue to figure out things I wanted to do. However, I had sort of figured out things I wanted to do. I just wanted to have conversations like this, create online, write, but I didn't know where it was leading me. But when I met her, I sort of just like committed to all those things more seriously and like said like these things matter and I'm saying these things matter and she likes that about me. So it's like, yeah, I mean, this is such a powerful thing.

It's— I feel so lucky. But yeah, I, I think the deeper point here is that sometimes our body is not caught up with our reality, right? I talk to a lot of people who are like succeeding on certain things, but their head is still 6 months in the past when they actually were struggling. Right. And they have this idea like, oh, I can't make it. I'm struggling.

I don't have enough money. And sometimes the lag is enormous. I've talked to people with millions of dollars who are still convinced they are broke. Right. So for me, it's very much trying to like get it into the body. Okay.

How do I feel? How do I feel like I'm okay, right? Yeah, it's powerful, but this might take us to the second part. So like part one is like figuring out the money. I think what you would say is like get some money to buy freedom or space or like the permission to take the next step, giving permission from yourself and from the world. And then the second chapter I think is the most interesting, like the great plateau.

And this is, I'll just read what you wrote about it. It's the flat place in the arc where you're actualizing your creative potential, but you're not seeing the practical results of this effort. The customers aren't pouring in, the audience isn't growing, people don't seem to care. The energy invested doesn't align with the expected outcomes. And this situation is rightfully concerning. Oh, this is— oh, this is so true.

Like, and that's where like the belief of the partner becomes so powerful, because like every data point in the world tells you you are a goddamn fool if you pause to think about it. But if you just sit down and you're in the flow of creating things, you just like This is everything. And it's like that tension is what, like, that is the game of the creative path, I think, where it's like people are like, oh, I just need to create a product to make money and then I'll be okay. It's like, no, you need to figure out how you're gonna play the game of managing that tension, that inner game of like not going crazy when you don't have clear signals about what's happening and then deciding you want to stay on that path. Then once you have that, like the rest I think is sort of easy. It's not easy, but it's like once you've committed, then you can do, try all sorts of stuff.

[45:07] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah. I think the hardest part is to calibrate that intuition properly. It's to know that your intuition is, is giving you The right signals. And, and I mentioned this in the piece, like there's no clear way to determine this, but there are a couple ways where I think one powerful thing is to, I think the beautiful thing about being a creative and you actually putting things out is that you have this running trail, like vestiges of your past self, and you can revisit some of these artifacts. And you could look at it and be like, holy shit, that was terrible. And like, you can actually, like, you could feel a visceral reaction.

And that reaction is your intuition speaking of like, what does progress mean to you? And maybe you look back and you're like, wow, this is great. And if that, in that case, it's kind of like, well, hey, you are doing what you set out to do years ago and just kind of keep at it. But like, I think you have to constantly calibrate this part of yourself, I think, with the external piece too, because this is important to also understand is like you have to be honest with yourself about why you do this. And for example, I know someone who like her, she is just like her time is just completely spent like with her kids and with her family. And so she has like no time, but whenever like she sees my wife, she has like a gift to give her that she handmade, like a crafted gift.

And she's just like, how, where do you spend the time? Where do you find the time to do this? And she's like, you don't understand. If I don't do this, then this has an adverse effect on my health. Right. And she's not publishing anything.

She's just like, I need to make this. So that's an example of someone that's purely intrinsically motivated, right? Now I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I'm purely intrinsically motivated. I'm not. So there is something about external validation that also informs what I do intrinsically. And I think like, but I do think like there are some people that may tell themselves a narrative.

They're like, oh, I don't give a shit what other people think. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do me. And if, If that really is you, then fine. But if you're saying that as a defense mechanism because you think— because I think one thing about being on that great plateau is to kind of have this like, man, fuck everyone else mentality too, right? And then you start to convince yourself of a narrative that you actually don't believe.

[47:50] Paul: You're trying to protect yourself because it might feel so painful if you— if people start putting down your stuff. I think there's been tremendous power for me in just admitting I care. I was telling you before that writing the chapter of like why this matters in my book just brought me to tears because I was so ashamed of admitting I cared. And like our culture tells us we're not supposed to care, but I was just like, wow, like I wrote this book because I do care. I do care about seeing people thrive. I do care about seeing people do the work that matters.

And I think that's become like a larger message of like what I want to convey to other people is like, you matter, your work matters, the things you claim to care about matter and like keep going. But on the motivation point, I, I would guarantee, I would bet like I'm extrinsically motivated too. I sort of pay attention to like the feedback I'm getting. From people and like, sure, follower count go up, always helpful. But I have this inverse signal, which is like if I'm— if I don't write for a couple of weeks, I will feel this inner tension. And I know that like I need to keep writing.

So like my mantra is really write most days, write most days, and the rest will really figure itself out. Do you have?

[49:16] Lawrence Yeo: Yep.

[49:17] Paul: Have you had periods where like, oh, I just haven't created in a couple weeks, that's what's off?

[49:25] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I also run a course and when I'm in that course mode, I'm, you know, once again, it's like the texture of creativity shifts. Like I'm still creating things, but it's not like I'm writing and I'm not like publishing pieces. It's more directed towards like, How do I create something great that will change people's lives for the better? And it's a very different frame of mind. So when I'm in that phase, I do notice it's like, oh yeah, I'm not really working on like getting the ideas out there.

And I actually am reading this book, like a student sent it to me. So Elizabeth Gilbert's, what's that? Big Magic. So she has this book called Big Magic and I was just reading and she kind of has this, interesting point about like how ideas, they kind of, they find you and then you choose to work with them or not. And if not, they kind of drift on to other places. And I think like when you're in a mode maybe where you're not writing and you're not doing that and some of that tension, maybe the sense that like you're saying no to too many things like these ideas.

And then it's just kind of this notion of, man, I should really work on this stuff or actually like really sit down and do this. And the one way I kind of alleviate that tension though is that I do write every day, but I don't write to publish every day. I think like there is also delineation where like I journal every single day, like a whole page, and there's no intention for anyone to look at that, but it's just a way for me to like actually get in the act of writing every day. Knowing that no one is listening to this. And that's also very powerful because it helps to inform the ideas that I do wanna write about that I wanna publish. So I, I don't, yeah, I don't really, I, I agree with you in the sense that like, yeah, you kind of do the one thing that matters, which for I think both of us right now is to write and then everything else kind of follows.

But I think it's also important to not put so much pressure on yourself to like write every day in terms of like, you write something that you're gonna publish every day because like publishing is a, it's a different form. Like when you're, when you're writing to publish, there's like a little small shift that happens in the way you communicate. So for sure, um, you wanna balance that properly.

[51:46] Paul: So are you in the third bucket now of like committing to the creative career? And if so, like what, how, how do you plan on making money? Like what, what is, how do you think about how all the pieces fit together now?

[52:02] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, I am in the creative career and like you were mentioning before, my wife knew it before I did. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. We're here. I think that the challenge of like the money stuff is, you know, I don't know.

At one point, like, I think that Mordhau, that as a business, is still on infant legs. It's still like finding its way. At the second, on the other hand, it's kind of like, I just know that everything will be fine. And—

[52:39] Paul: Ah, this is so good. So I had this feeling before the money showed up. How do you know that?

[52:47] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, well, I think first of all, I've already put out a product now. Like I've put out my course, right? So this was like my first official product that it started just only 6 months ago and I've ran 2 cohorts. And in terms of, so in total there's like 60 students that have been part of the experience and like that's been great in terms of like revenue. So I'm like, okay, wow, this is like, there's something feasible here. Like, so you see these signals here and I'm just kind of like, okay, if I just keep working on this and building it.

And then also like, I think the conversation of money for me, it's one where I wanna make sure that I try to go about it in a way that of course I agree with, but it feels, I don't know, like right to me. I don't know how to describe it. And I think people have different ways of approaching it, but like I know that I could do a far better job at like monetizing and all this stuff. But like I think the pace in which I'm going, it feels right to me. And I think the challenge really is that when you're in this third stage, it's kind of like you have the money element and you're figuring that out. But if your mind continues to think so much about that, then it's like you're— this really starts turning into a job in a really quick way.

And I don't believe that money is evil or anything like that. I think it's very important. Now, though, the important thing is to understand where it stands and your rank order of priorities, because if it was number one, then you shouldn't be doing this. Like, I think it's like you could, you should go back to consulting or go do what you were doing. Because you'll make way more money doing that way easier than this.

[54:44] Paul: Yeah, I think most people I know, and you'd probably agree with this, there's probably a small probability in which over the long run, over the next 20 years, you'll make a lot more than you actually would have. But it's just, it's probably just a probability, right? And that's not enough to make you do this path for the money. It has to be for something else. This, this soul energy of what drives you forward, right? And yeah, it's, it's a really interesting conversation.

I was having this conversation with a friend, which is once you're on a path, once you kind of have your grounding, you're firmly on the path, you're committed to it, you sort of start to have infinite possibilities of ways to make money, things to do. And what you realize is you could make more money, but there's always a cost to everything. And the most valuable resource is your energy and your attention, right? So in the short run, you might be able to go really hard on your course, right? And make 2x or something, but then you might be burned out for 4 to 6 months after that. And that's just going to like slow you down.

You're going to have a hard time restarting that. You may not even be able to run the course again because you have a weird feeling towards it. And I think under like trying to have an intuitive sense of those tradeoffs is what enables you to keep going at like the right pace. We all have this right pace. Um, and it's easy to mistake. Ourselves for like hyper-ambitious people who are like naturally in that all-out mode.

Most people are not those people. And that's sort of what I wrote my book for is like, you need to find your footing, you need to find the costs, you need to trust your intuition. Then you can ramp up and down the ambition levels.

[56:39] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah. Well, you know, the thing that I'm kind of wrestling with right now, maybe get your take on it is like, you know, when you, if you could accept that, that you're, you're not going to be on the full steam ahead, like ambition lever, but you at least you're on the lever somewhere, right? And how you battle that with the feeling that you're not doing enough. 'Cause I think like when it's just you and I know you have like these intricate, these kind of cool things where you take a week off like every 7 weeks or so forth, which I think is brilliant. But like, I feel like there's always with more opportunities because like you were saying, on this path, so many opportunities open and you just see that like, oh wow, I could do this and I could do that. Like, and at the same time though, optionality creates a sense of like, you may not be taking advantage of them.

And as a result, you could feel a little, am I missing something here? Am I not doing enough? So how do you kind of balance those two things?

[57:42] Paul: I try to define enough. Like, what does enough really mean? In the end of my book, I sort of write out, here's my definition of enough. And enough has much more to— much less to do with money and much more to do with like the energy to keep going. And I've done a lot of experiments of non-work where I've tried to appreciate life for itself and shift into the true leisure mode. Not a vacation, but leisure.

And you have an awesome essay about this. And really just try to like tell myself sort of in a way like a bike ride in the middle of the day is worth billions of dollars. So like I'm not going to make billions, so I can't compromise that. Right. And Yeah, there's just inherent value there in the non-doing. So I'm always thinking about the pausing, but yeah, my, my actually 6 weeks on, 1 week off experiment has really helped me focus on both fronts.

Continue to appreciate leisure while also making strategic bets in the shorter term. Right. So, but I only constrain it like the next 6 weeks. Here's the 1 or 2 things I want to do. Um, instead of sort of like doing 15 different things at like 20, 30% over an entire year.

[59:10] Lawrence Yeo: Hmm.

[59:11] Paul: Hmm.

[59:12] Lawrence Yeo: I like that. I like that. And I, that, that point about focusing on the one or two things across even a time-bound—

[59:20] Paul: Yeah. God, the time-bound has been power— really powerful for me.

[59:24] Lawrence Yeo: Hmm.

[59:26] Paul: Okay.

[59:27] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, no, that's helpful. I think that feeling of not doing enough, like it's not really anchored to any monetary thing. Like I'm not reaching a certain amount of money or something, but it's more about like this latent potential, I guess. And am I fine-tuning it and actually working towards the things that do matter or setting myself up? But one thing I try to remind myself is that like, yeah, you get too lost in the future and you just cannot, you just cannot enjoy what's in front of you. I mean, it's a platitude of sorts, but there's nothing truer than that in a sense.

So that's something I try to keep in mind as well.

[01:00:08] Paul: Beautiful. So wanna do a few rapid-fire questions if you're down?

[01:00:14] Lawrence Yeo: Yeah, let's do it.

[01:00:17] Paul: So I think you sort of answered this before. What's a life path you left behind?

[01:00:24] Lawrence Yeo: A life path you left behind. Yeah, I guess music, but I think I will return at some point.

[01:00:32] Paul: Awesome. How do you define enough?

[01:00:40] Lawrence Yeo: Enough is when— enough is when a prior version of yourself would be content with what you have now.

[01:00:53] Paul: Love that. What— who is your life path role model?

[01:01:00] Lawrence Yeo: My life path role model. Hmm. I don't really have any that come to mind, like in terms of a specific person. I think It just kind of speaks to just the fact that I think all of the things that I'm interested in come from disparate sources. So, but I think if I were to reframe it as like, who can I have as like my personal therapist on call throughout anyone in human history? Maybe the Buddha.

[01:01:35] Paul: Nice. Well, what is a creative influence that shifted your mind on something big? Either a book, podcast, idea? Anything like that?

[01:01:52] Lawrence Yeo: Book podcast. I really do enjoy Krishnamurti's books. I'm reading a book called Think on These Things. It's a collection of his various talks, transcribed talks. And I think he just speaks to the fact that, yeah, like, we are not independent of one another in any sense. And I think creativity is all about understanding, like, the wholeness of all of us here.

And how we have to also let go of identity in a kind of, in a visceral way in order for us to feel connected with the person that's right in front of you. And I think that's particularly pertinent to creativity because a lot of times if you herald that as a virtue, you might start seeing that I'm a creative person, this person's not a creative person, that person, and Like, you know, I have a lot of friends who tell me, I'm not creative, I'm not creative like you are, or whatever. And I think it's because like everyone identifies with whatever they're doing and spending most of their time on, and they don't— and it's all a question of like agency. And I think if we could start seeing that, you know, if you direct your agency towards something that's just inherently creative, then I think we'll have a beautiful world.

[01:03:32] Paul: So I love it. I'm so inspired by having somebody like you as a fellow traveler on this path. Just so, so excited every time I see you're putting out a new post, and I hope you keep going. And I want to make a plug for you before I can— before you can make an additional plug, but I just think Lawrence's site is so incredible. MoreToThat.com. If you're— if you've enjoyed this interview, do yourself a favor, pull out your phone now and just like block off an hour on your calendar, put the website in and go explore the post because it's just so good.

Like, it's, it's one of the best things out there. And I'm gonna be a big fan and champion of it for sure. But just keep going, man. Anything else you want to plug, places you want to send people?

[01:04:32] Lawrence Yeo: No. Well, first of all, thank you, man. No, it's really cool to talk to you. I love your book. I love what the message you're putting out for people. And I think you're making a difference for people that are looking at this point in their lives and they're very confused.

And I think it's always helpful to know that there is some sort of guiding post there. But yeah, I just, I think my site is where you can find my stuff. And I really appreciate the attention that any of your listeners or people would give to it. That means a lot.