#143 The Art of Living - Kyle Kowalski on how to have an existential crisis, synthesizing the art of living, curiosity as fuel, his relationship with money, "killing himself to work" and "purpose washing" in big companies

[00:59] Paul: 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. Today I am talking with Kyle Kowalski. I'm super pumped for this. I've been bugging him to come on the podcast for probably 3 or 4 years now. Uh, we're gonna talk about why he didn't come on the podcast, but Kyle, you call yourself a lifestyle entrepreneur.

Love that term. You also throw around a bunch of other terms, which, uh, I love. You call yourself an interdisciplinary dot connector across humans, um, trying to help people make sense of ideas in their lives. Uh, you're a corporate dropout, left the corporate world in 2018, a couple years after your own ex's existential crisis. We're going to dive into all this. Thanks for joining me today, Kyle.

[01:55] Kyle Kowalski: Yes, thank you, Paul. Very happy to be here. And as you mentioned, long overdue. And I think it's only fitting that my first podcast appearance is with you, given how long we've been connected, probably at least 5 years. I think on Twitter has to go back to at least the 2018 timeframe. I actually went through my direct messages on Twitter and saw one that we had connected back in maybe early 2019.

So Wow. We've been connected for a long time and yeah, this is long overdue. So thanks for having me.

[02:21] Paul: So the question I start with, what are the stories and scripts you grew up with that told you— and I know you've probably thought about this more than any of my guests on this show, but what are the stories and scripts you grew up with that sort of guided you to think, here's how I should be spending my life once I arrive at this adulthood thing?

[02:44] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, it's an interesting question. And I had to actually go through some of your previous podcasts to try to figure out what's that one question that he's mentioned that he asks every single one of his guests. So I have done a little bit of thinking about this. And actually, funny enough, even though I've been on this journey, this will be later this year, will be 8 years post-existential crisis and then coming up on 5 years full time of doing the solopreneur thing. But it's only been in the last year or two probably where I've really kind of started dissecting myself. So that whole know yourself thing, getting to know yourself, I started really attempting to do that right after my existential crisis in late 2015.

And then all of my free time in 2016 while I was still fully employed. You'd have to see my— the walls of my office at that point at home. We had the idea paint, the whiteboard paint up on the walls, and all 4 of the walls were completely covered in trying to get to know myself and things like that. But really, over the last year or two, I've tried to figure out my own socialization, my own cultural conditioning, and kind of pick that apart. Why am I the way I am? Who am I?

What's the difference between psychology, things that are what I call mind stuff, and then beyond mind when you get into kind of the more spiritual realm and things like that? But as far as scripts go from my childhood, I actually created a premium post on the website last year called Dissecting My Own Lottery of Birth Ticket, where I went through all of my nature, all of my nurture, and tried to figure out, you know, I didn't, I didn't choose or control any of my genetics. I didn't choose or control any of my nurturing, my environment growing up, any miracles that may have happened, any traumatic experiences that may have happened, things like that. But when I really think about how I ended up on the default path in the first place, I have to think that a lot of it was a fear of disappointing my parents. And I'm not sure exactly where that fear came from.

I think it was a self-imposed fear because my parents are two of the coolest people you'll ever meet. I used to tell, I used to tell my friends that in high school and college that my parents are cooler than half my friends.

[04:55] Paul: What did they do?

[04:57] Kyle Kowalski: Uh, for a living?

[04:58] Paul: Yeah. What made them cool?

[05:01] Kyle Kowalski: Um, I think they were just really relaxed and chill and, um, kind of go with the flow people. My dad's an industrial designer, um, kind of had his own entrepreneurial path for a couple of decades. My mom is a nurse, been a nurse for decades. Um, my dad's the youngest of all of his siblings. So maybe that had part to do with it too. Birth order, I think matters.

But, um, yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't remember anything in my childhood where they told me specifically or explicitly, um, you know, don't disappoint us. You know, there was nothing like that. But for some reason, and maybe it's personality type or amalgamation of, you know, a multitude of countless things, I had this script in my head where it was kind of this don't disappoint my parents thing. And I think that really fueled a lot of what I did, whether it was competitive sports or trying to get good grades in school. You know, school for me was more of a get the good grades.

That was the primary thing. Actually learn the stuff was a secondary thing. Um, so I got, you know, straight A's through grade school, got good grades in high school. College was easier than high school, so I didn't try as hard in college. Um, but, uh, and we can talk about that too, but, um, yeah, I ended up on the default path and, uh, here we are today.

[06:19] Paul: Yeah. There's sort of a gravity to the default path too, especially if you're good at school, right?

[06:25] Kyle Kowalski: It's.

[06:26] Paul: No, nobody's going to criticize you for just kind of floating along with the tide if you're good at school, right? Everything sort of pulls you toward that. And I had a similar experience. My parents weren't obsessed with me being super successful. They were just more like, go to college, get a job. But I sort of brought it on myself to sort of self-perpetuate this identity.

Do you sense you sort of internalize I am this successful person. I need to continue doing successful things like this successful people around me.

[07:00] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, a little bit of the success side, I guess. I think, you know, when you grow up in competitive sports and school and things like that, you, I was thinking about this today, actually, you, I wonder how much of that when you're a child actually embeds a kind of zero-sum mindset of better, worse, winners, losers. You know, when you're growing up, it's you're competing against yourself. You want to get, you know, better personal records in sports. You want to get better grades than you got, you know, the prior year. But then you're also competing with your peers at that time.

So am I faster? Am I slower? Am I getting better grades or worse grades? The interesting thing for me that's a little bit different, and this is, this is kind of interesting because you talked about this in your book, the Daniel Kahneman idea where you get some money scripts embedded by the age of 18. And Morgan Housel's book, The Psychology of Money, actually says a similar thing where, you know, your, your scripts about money are kind of embedded in childhood, like the economic period when you were born, how your parents raised you in regards to money and things like that. And I feel like I kind of was never primarily motivated by money.

I had this primary motivation for some reason, and I think this maybe ties into the fear of disappointing my parents of, uh, this like really hard work ethic and just do really good stuff. And then all the other stuff comes as a byproduct. And I kind of carried that through school, through sports, through my professional life during my career, which was not primarily motivated by kind of jumping jobs for better pay and things like that. I saw that as if I do better work, I'll kind of move up the ladder and then the money and the titles and the kind of all that stuff will come as a byproduct. But that's still a key script for me was, you know, work hard, try hard, the dominoes will kind of fall of, you go to school, you get the job, you, you know, move up the world.

[08:57] Paul: Yeah. Yeah, it's that hard work script, right? And I think there's wisdom in it, but I think increasingly as we have moved into knowledge work and stuff, some of the hard work on the wrong things can be torturous to the soul.

[09:14] Kyle Kowalski: Oh yeah, absolutely. And this is where you get into kind of the differences between, uh, what you're good at and what you love to do. And those two things can be very different. Um, I used to say I was a good quitter because I would, I would do the, I would do things where, you know, I, I I grew up in competitive swimming. Swimming got me into running. I ended up figuring out that I was better at cross-country and track than swimming once I got to high school.

So I quit swimming. Um, so, but you kind of, to be a good quitter, I feel like you kind of have to still give it your all. You have to still keep going even when it gets tough. And you have to do that to a point where it's so many days of kind of waking up and feeling like this isn't my thing. Uh, but you kind of know what your next thing is going to be. So I quit swimming to do, to focus on running.

Running took me into college. I got a partial scholarship to run in college. Um, so that took me there. And then I realized that sports in college were like a job and weren't too much fun. Uh, so I quit that and finally decided I'm going to kind of enjoy life for the first time. Um, but even, you know, quitting jobs and going to a new job, it's one of those things where it's gotta be tough for a pretty long period of time for me.

And then I'm like, okay, I know for a fact that this isn't going to be the thing. What is the, what is the next thing?

[10:33] Paul: Yeah. What— when you were graduating from school, what, what was in your head as this is— this is what I want out of life?

[10:43] Kyle Kowalski: Honestly, that's a, that's a really great question. And I don't know if I try to transport myself back in time to 2007.

[10:53] Paul: I—

[10:54] Kyle Kowalski: so I didn't, I didn't have an internship. I wasn't in a rush to get a job after school. I had gone to school for marketing. I actually thought I was going to go to college for graphic design because everybody on my dad's side of the family is in some type of design. All my cousins, my dad, my best friends in graphic design to this day. So I actually thought I was going to go to school for graphic design, but I was up until 3 a.m.

doing art projects in high school. So I was like, all right, that's not going to work out. So I just, I kind of defaulted to the marketing path. Because I didn't really know what else I wanted to do. Stuck with that marketing and business through college, graduated without an internship or anything, and then was in no rush to get a job. And I think months probably went by because it wasn't until October of 2007 when I actually finally got my, my first job.

And it wasn't my first pick for a job. I actually wanted to be a research assistant at Nielsen BuzzMetrics. I'm not actually sure if they're still around or not. But it's funny thinking about it now because I feel like what I spend my days doing is research. And when I went through my marketing career, some of my favorite roles that I had during that time were research-type jobs. But sure enough, didn't end up with that and ended up doing as an account executive at a digital marketing agency.

And then I think you saw my tweet yesterday where, you know, sometimes you can wake up 7 to 10 years later and not know how you got into career that you're in. And that was kind of that case. I had met through a friend of a friend, the COO of a local digital marketing agency in Cincinnati, and still had to go through the interview process and everything, but, um, got that job. And then, yeah, years later, you kind of wonder how you ever got into it in the first place.

[12:42] Paul: Yeah, it's sort of an accident. This is, this is the thing that made me reflect so much at this moment in my book where I write about I'm quitting GE. I had mentally quit GE. I was going to leave after a year at the company. And in— after deciding to quit, I landed a job at McKinsey right after this. And there's this alternate path of what if I didn't get the job and quit and bet on myself and right going into the recession, it would have been like— it would have been dramatic probably and probably wouldn't have ended well.

But It's like I probably would've learned a lot there that's really interesting. And instead I, it became easier to get more and more jobs and keep sort of shuffling around the prestige world of consulting and strategy type work. But yeah, it's really hard to contemplate what would alternative paths look like. We sort of just take for granted. And once you realize this, you also have to contemplate, oh, our future paths are just as unpredictable. Predictable, which can be incredibly overwhelming for people.

[13:54] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, I kind of think about that from like you have the inversion principle in your book, which is great, a great one. Another one is counterfactual thinking, thinking more of a reflection exercise of, well, what if this had happened or what if I had done that or what would my life look like? So those kinds of thought experiments, I love doing those because yeah, you just, you never know, but the stars aligned the way they did. Things played out the way it did. And yeah, it's— but it's fun to think about. Yeah.

[14:20] Paul: So you become good at marketing and you climb the ladder, you become a senior manager. Um, take me to 2015. You're working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. Uh, you probably don't even have time to think about anything, but, uh, something happens. What happens?

[14:39] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, so in the marketing world, it's common to have these ebbs and flows of crazy hour work weeks, but to, to that point, I had never had it be a consistent thing. You know, you've got the 60, 70, 80-hour work week here and there, maybe 2 weeks, and then it kind of dies back down. But in 2015, I had actually already moved to the client side of the marketing world, and my boss had been let go a few months prior to that in early 2015. And the president of the company said, okay, you're doing your job and her job until we backfill this position. So it actually took them 6 months to backfill the position, of course, with no additional pay or any, or anything while I was, I was doing 2 jobs. But this is kind of where the work ethic comes back into play where I'm like, okay, I just need to buckle down and do this.

Um, I don't know that this is a good thing, but at one of my prior jobs, one of my managers had called me a marketing robot, which she meant, which she meant was, and someone else had described me looking back. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, and one of my clients had called me, um, unbreakable. And, uh, and I kind of took some pride in that at the time, you know, it was like, yeah, throw anything at me, throw as much work at me. I'll figure it out.

I'll get it done. Um, you know, I'll sprint to the finish line kind of thing. And I won't stop until the work's done. Um, and that's kind of how I approached work, you know, my whole career. But in 2015 is when I was basically doing two jobs. And the 60, 70, 80-hour workweek thing was every week for 6 to 9 months straight before they backfilled that position.

And it just sent me into what I at least have self-diagnosed as an existential crisis. And so if you go back to that time, this was around October, November 2015. I just remember what I would— my, my daily workday was go to work, come home, probably not work out. Eat some dinner, get back online after my wife would go to bed and I would work from 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM essentially every single night to get all those hours in, including weekend work and things like that. And I just remember vividly one of the nights staring at our bedroom ceiling at 2:00 or 3:00 AM, not being able to fall asleep. And that's when all the questions started of what am I doing with my life?

Why am I here? Is my purpose really to be doing this? All of those types of questions. I mean, if I could go back in time and look at my Google search history during that time period, it would be amazing just to see all the questions I was asking at that time. But really anything you can think of, that's when all of the questions started. And I think it was actually maybe less to do with the insane hours and more to do with I felt like the work itself and the job I was doing lacked purpose completely.

I was, I was working in brand strategy for a global apparel company selling people more clothing, and I just couldn't find the purpose in it. And so I think that lack of purpose piece was a key element in addition to these insane hours. So I would, I would still classify it as burnout, but I think the primary thing was burnout due to lack of purpose.

[17:47] Paul: In the 2010s too, a lot of companies started pushing these corporate-approved purposes. Right? And it was like, we need to define our purpose. And I remember things like Ernst Young being like, we help, help people thrive, or something ridiculous. I forget what it was. But do you think, uh, that increased awareness of like, work should be meaningful, like this movement, um, paired with the reality that you're selling $40 jeans Did that tension play a role in you becoming more aware of these things, do you think?

[18:25] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was a trifecta for me because not only was— I call that phase of the corporations and companies and brands jumping on the purpose train as purpose washing. They're kind of trying to bolt on. Yeah, exactly. They were trying to bolt on purpose as like an external thing. And I think a lot of this kind of rose to the surface because you had brands like TOMS, you know, buy one, gift one brands, and you've got Patagonia who's been around for a long time doing the sustainability thing.

And then I think other brands started to catch on once the cause marketing thing and purpose started to become big. So that was definitely a big thing during that time. However, the brand that I was actually working on was also the trifecta portion is the brand I was working on was in the midst of a brand reinvention itself. So not only was it purpose plus, you know, they're trying to bolt on purpose, I was lacking purpose in the work itself. And then the brand itself, I didn't even think about this until probably a year or two after the fact, just how funny it is that the work I was doing was trying to reinvent the brand that I was working on. Meanwhile, I'm having an existential crisis.

[19:38] Paul: Yeah, that, it's so fascinating because I was trying to untangle this and I think objectively work has gotten a lot better for people in the modern world. It's just that our expectations almost creeped up too fast. Like the slope of that line was faster than how the quality of the work improved. So people's attention to, oh, We should have per— like companies like, here's our purpose, we should have purpose. And people are subconsciously thinking, well, I should probably have purpose. And it, I think a similar thing happened to me around 2015.

I was just losing less and less steam for like work. I was working in the space that talked about culture and how do we build a meaningful workplace? And it's like, well, This is crazy. I don't even feel connected to what I'm doing. And so I wanna read something you wrote about this period, and this would be a good way to transition to go deeper into this. You talked about this a little, but you said, my heart was racing, anxiety at an all-time high.

I could not calm myself down enough to fall asleep. No amount of deep breaths were working. I stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. I was physically killing myself to work.

[20:58] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. Yeah. And we have a mutual connection in Andrew Taggart and his total work philosophy. And I mean, if that's not a description of total work right there, I don't know what is. You know, that's kind of the epitome of the work ethic combined with, you know, I'll do anything it takes and then realizing that that actually leads to a really rough place and some, and some realizations learned the hard way. But yeah, yeah, that, that was the epitome of total work for me.

[21:27] Paul: And that only makes sense if we conceive of ourselves as a worker, right? But I think the trap in that, and I definitely encourage people to check out Andrew's summary, your summary of Andrew's work on your website. It only makes sense to do that if you can't imagine any other possible life, right? And I think this is the vicious cycle is that if you are working a lot and identified as a worker first and foremost, it sort of becomes impossible to imagine anything else. And then you just sort of gaslight yourself and it's like, well, what are you supposed to do? Not work.

[22:03] Kyle Kowalski: Right. And it becomes, it does become kind of a vicious cycle where, you know, for me, you know, my wife has worked at the same company for 13 years now, I think. And in those years I had worked for 4 companies. I think, uh, at least 5 to 8 different job titles and 12 to 15 different managers. And now doing my own thing, which counts as number 5, I guess. Um, so it is this vicious cycle of, you know, you kind of go through the process and then it's like, okay, this isn't working here.

So let's change scenery, you know, at a new job, maybe a lateral move or a promotion technically or whatever, but then it's kind of like rinse and repeat. You know, it's like, okay, let's, let's repeat the same cycle. And it's not uncommon in the marketing world especially to have a tenure of, you know, 2 to 3 years at a company before you move along to the next thing, because it is just this vicious cycle over and over again.

[22:57] Paul: So you downloaded a— downloaded all— you, you're on Google, you're researching, and you determine, I'm having an existential crisis. You create something called a document titled How to Have an Existential Crisis, and you sent this to your family. I did.

[23:16] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. So what I would do, because I was still working full time and what's funny is I got promoted after my existential crisis. So in March of the following year, so 3, 4 months post-existential crisis, I got promoted, which is just a hilarious kind of part of the story because it's like all the killing yourself, all the hard work, all the loyalty to the job and everything else, you know, quote unquote paid off, um, in terms of that world. But, you know, on the other side of it, it was just killing me. Um, but, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[23:55] Paul: What, what was in that document?

[23:57] Kyle Kowalski: So How to Have an Existential Crisis was like, uh, at least a 30-page single-spaced Google Doc of Everything that I actually, I'll share it with you after this and maybe I'll, maybe I'll make it public and just, yeah, I'll publish it. It'll be funny looking back on it now because a lot of it will be, um, you know, things that I was just discovering really in the midst of my crisis. So I think that's when I had discovered things like the blue zones. I think I had discovered Ikigai maybe from Daniel, uh, Buechner. I think his name's Dan Buechner from the blue zones work. I was watching the Cosmos series on TV.

I was, I was watching like every nature show I could get my hands on because I was trying to give myself a new perspective on life and understand life better. But yeah, there's— I mean, that's during my crisis when I first discovered intentional living. So concepts like slow living and simple living and minimalism and voluntary simplicity, decluttering, things like that were all concepts that were completely foreign to me until my existential crisis. And when I discovered them, I was like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that there was essentially a non-default path, you know, that you could follow in life. I didn't know that there were people who were intentionally choosing to buy less stuff. And, you know, the terms like lifestyle inflation and the hedonic treadmill and, and things like that, those were all things I had never heard of.

So really, the entire Slow journey and the entire website is all stuff that I have discovered on this journey post-existential crisis. I didn't, I didn't know any of these words. I didn't know any of these concepts. I didn't know how to articulate so much of the things that I feel like I've connected the dots on now. Uh, that was all new news to me. Uh, but yeah, that, that document is fun to look back on.

[25:45] Paul: Yeah. That could be a good, uh, number 500 post actually.

[25:51] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. Yeah. But it's going, it's going to you. The Pathless Path book summary is going to be number post number 499 on the Slow website, and then comparing my own journey to yours. Um, and what you have in the book will be post number 500 as a, as a premium post. Yeah.

[26:07] Paul: So talk to me about this explosion of ideas. So I think I experienced a similar thing. Podcasting was probably a way in for me, Tim Ferriss's podcast, and then all the people he was talking to, like Derek Sivers. We talked about Derek Sivers briefly before this. What, uh, what was that like? Because I experienced a similar thing my final 2 years of work in 2016 and 2017.

I had this explosion of creative energy, which was outside my work, but every morning I was waking up, putting on the corporate uniform and commuting to work. And it was so brutal for me, but I didn't even, it didn't even occur to me that I could like leave that. Life. So talk to me about the final couple of years before you actually did walk away.

[26:56] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. So most people are probably surprised to hear that the crisis itself, which was kind of like I say, the acute portion of the crisis was like a 6-week period at the end of 2015. Although you can't put an end, of course, on a crisis, but it was probably like a 6-week thing then in 2015. And then the following 2 and a half years, I was still fully employed. But spending all of my free time trying to get my note, trying to get to know myself, trying to learn about life, trying to find purpose, trying to figure out what could my next step be? What does that look like?

And those were the roughest 2 and a half years of the entire journey. So the, the most miserable portion was actually when I was, I had my, I was at the peak of my career. I had my highest title. I was getting paid the most I had ever been paid. We had bought a McMansion in the suburbs. I had a sports car.

I had all of the lifestyle inflation boxes checked, but that was when I was most miserable in my life for those 2.5 years. And I think it's because of massive cognitive dissonance between the things that I was learning in my free time about myself, about life, about the world, about others. Yet, like you said, still showing up to work every single day, doing the same, all the action of the day-to-day life was still the same. So in terms of what I was learning and how I was living, there was just a huge disconnect that kind of compounded over time. The more I learned, um, and all the seeds that had been planted, you know, beginning in late 2015 were finally kind of to, you know, start to develop and germinate and even blossom or bloom in some cases of like, okay, uh, this is hitting a boiling point and the learning needs to match the living much closer than it currently is.

[28:38] Paul: It's kind of scary in that moment too, right? Because you sort of sense, if I follow these ideas, even if you're not fully aware of it, they seem sort of dangerous because it's sort of obvious where it's going to lead. Even if you're not acknowledging it at the time, right? It's like, I might have to give up this life. And Even if you know the sports car and McMansion aren't making you happy, other people's respect for you is dependent on you having those things and performing that role in society, right?

[29:17] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, and this kind of ties back to what we talked about at the beginning where I'm, I guess I'm lucky in the sense that I didn't have extremely powerful money scripts in my head. So in terms of, You know, leaving the money behind and leaving that lifestyle behind to a certain degree and things like that, that was actually somewhat easier for me because I could, I've, like I said also that I've always been, I've considered myself a good quitter. And, uh, so being able to say, I don't really care that much about the money. And, um, you know, if I'm miserable here doing this, then You know, I'm okay with walking away and trying to do something else. And the entrepreneurial bug had been planted in me at least a decade earlier. I had been working on actually, funny enough, a side project clothing brand.

It was like an eco-fashion lifestyle brand where I had 3 trademarks approved and the Shopify website built and hundreds of products concepted and things like that. And that's what I had worked on in my free time. But I'm lucky in the sense that I ended up working for an apparel company and saw how just dirty the fashion world is and that that wasn't something that I wanted to do. Um, so when I actually left my job in 2018, quit my career, I actually thought I was going to double up. I was going to work on Slow half, half of each day, and I was going to work on this clothing brand the other half of each day. And of course that, that died really quick and I just went all in on Slow, but, uh, Yeah.

[30:51] Paul: Yeah. Were your parents supportive of you taking a leap? When did you first start to think, okay, maybe it's time to unwind or move to this next chapter?

[31:03] Kyle Kowalski: So I, I knew that the entrepreneurial thing was something that I just had to get out of my system. I had to give it a try. However, it was still not a clear and obvious decision. Um, and I was still applying once I knew that the job that I was at wasn't going to be a long-term thing. I was still applying for other similar jobs, um, at the same time, just, and, and then finally occurred to me, I was like, this is just going to be the same thing at another company. Um, this isn't going to work out.

And then another one I just got flat out rejected from without a phone interview or anything. And so it kind of made it easy for me in a sense, whereas like there are literally no other available jobs that. I'm interested in right now. And so I'm going to try this entrepreneurial thing. I'm going to give it a go and see what happens. And at least I can say that I got it out of my system and maybe it's not for me because there's obviously no guarantee that it works out.

And I had seen the stuff from Naval Ravikant and things like that where he says, you know, it's going to take 7 to 10 years before you're making a sustainable living doing this. Some get lucky and, and start making money in 5 years. So I kind of went in with that mindset that it's going to be a slow go. It's going to be a long haul, but, uh, I had to give it a shot.

[32:17] Paul: Yeah. And your parents, were they supportive?

[32:21] Kyle Kowalski: Um, overall my parents have always been supportive and I think they know that I'm going to do whatever, whatever I think is best anyway. Um, but I think there were some scripts around, um, You know, you should never quit a job until you have another job lined up kind of thing. And I was like, well, I kind of do have another job lined up. It's just making $0 and it's of my own creation right now. Um, but you could call it a job if you want. Um, so there was, there was a little bit of that.

And then, uh, there was also a little bit of hesitation knowing that the entrepreneurial path can just not pan out. You know, it's, it's a risk, it's a gamble. And, um, some things can kind of sputter along forever and not work out. So. They had acknowledged that too. But, but overall, they've always been supportive.

[33:08] Paul: Yeah. And what were the conversations like with your now wife about taking the leap?

[33:16] Kyle Kowalski: It took some convincing. I think she was worried about me during my existential crisis. She had— we've been married, it'll be 12 years this year. So we've been married a long time. We got married in our mid-20s. And, uh, she recalls, you know, I've never, I've never seen you like that before.

It was like me during my existential crisis was kind of a first for her. Um, and she ended up having one 2 years later, which happened to be the exact same age when I had mine. I was 30 years old, 30 years, 8 months old. And she had one exactly 2 years later, 30 years, 8 months old, which was weird. But, um, but it took some convincing for her, um, for me to finally say, I'm going to, I'm going to give this a try. Um, I think she had to see how bad it was at my job at that time and how I came home every day with that cognitive dissonance of, you know, just, you know, exhausted at the end of each day, drained, um, which is a complete opposite of each day now where I feel like my energy actually builds throughout the day.

And I think that's the difference between work and play is that work is one of those things that at least I consider as energy draining or energy depleting, uh, whereas play is something where your energy regenerates throughout the day. So you can actually put in just as many hours, but if it's play, it doesn't even feel like work at all.

[34:42] Paul: What were those first few months after leaving your job like?

[34:46] Kyle Kowalski: First few months. So I woke up, I read about this in your, your book as well. I woke up the next morning. After my last day at work and, uh, you know, still use my alarm clock, woke up at the same time. Alarm clock?

[35:00] Paul: What are you doing?

[35:01] Kyle Kowalski: Set up a little—

[35:02] Paul: I didn't use an alarm clock.

[35:03] Kyle Kowalski: I set up a little desk area, um, at our house and got straight down to work that next morning. Um, and it's funny to think about now because obviously, you know, things don't, things don't pan out day to day. Things, you know, you start to, you start to connect the dots, things unfold over time. But I approached that next day like I was still employed.

[35:25] Paul: Yeah. How long did that take to be like, oh, I can just go walk around?

[35:31] Kyle Kowalski: I would say honestly, probably about 6 months. Yeah. And I've heard that from other people too, and I'm sure you have too. And I'm sure the time varies, but I think Michael Ashcroft actually said something similar where It's kind of like, you know, when you go on vacation or back when you were employed, you know, when you go on vacation and it takes like, you know, 1 to 2 to maybe 3 days before you stop checking email and you kind of let things go and then you kind of get in the flow of vacation. It was kind of like an extended period of that, like your whole career kind of builds up inside of you. And it took, it took me about 6 months to decompress from that, I'd say.

[36:07] Paul: Yeah.

[36:08] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah.

[36:09] Paul: For me it was about 7 months in which I really gave myself permission. The first few months I was. Kind of a wreck. I took a month-long trip to Europe just to like decompress, decompress. But I was so afraid of making money and stuff that I found clients and then I joined a coworking space and I was going to the coworking space every day. And then I'm thinking, well, what am I doing?

I don't have to be here certain days. I can just go wander around. And I got rid of the coworking membership and just started working a little less. And yeah, that's sort of been the common thread over the past few years. But it takes so much time to unlearn these scripts. I think the lesson I learn over and over again is everything you realize takes more time to unfold than you expect.

Have you found a similar thing?

[36:59] Kyle Kowalski: Oh yeah, absolutely. And after doing obviously a ton of reflection and trying to connect dots, looking backward and things, Even having the words to be able to articulate what you had gone through is something that doesn't come until later after the fact. Um, so even, you know, understanding what you had been going through during a certain time, or, um, you know, trying to figure out, like, I kind of did this also with my own relationship with money. And I have some posts on the site about that, trying to figure out, you know, how has my relationship with money changed over time? And. and you start to learn new concepts and new words and things like that.

And that helps put the pieces together looking back of, okay, yeah, this is actually what I went through.

[37:44] Paul: Yeah.

[37:45] Kyle Kowalski: How has it changed my relationship with money? Yeah. Well, I think initially it was nonexistent. It was nonexistent slash dysfunctional. Um, and then I went through a phase where when I first left my job, um, I actually went through a phase of money aversion. Where I didn't feel like I should charge people for anything, uh, or even, or even really do the gift economy thing.

I did have a donate box on the website, which no one used, but, uh, yeah, I re—

[38:16] Paul: so I wanna stop you here. You probably know what I'm gonna mention. Um, I, I remember emailing you in 2018 or 2019 and I was like, I wanna sign up, but I wanna pay you more.

[38:29] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, I do remember that. I do remember that. Yes.

[38:31] Paul: And you were like, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know how to set it up. You made it so painfully hard to like support you. And I think the reason I was doing it is because I was experiencing a similar thing. I, I was dealing with my own challenges of accepting money, especially for creative work. Right.

It's like you have this idea. It's supposed to be a gift to the world. You're supposed to just love it. And yeah, money is so confusing and hard to untangle, but I'm glad you upped your prices. And now I think I've— I think I have the lifetime subscription to Slow.

[39:09] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, I think— I thank you and Michael for that. Probably only 2 years ago now or so for helping me adjust my pricing for, you know, the market based on what it is. But, but this is a— this was a form of imposter syndrome, right? It was one of those things where— and I write about this in the post of, you know, you go from a non- non-existent or dysfunctional relationship with money to, uh, I went through a money aversion phase, uh, where I was like, I'm just not going to charge anybody for anything because then no one can criticize anything. And that was a form, that was a form of imposter syndrome, right? Where it's, it's one of those things where, well, you know, if I, if I do that, then, you know, everything's free.

No one can complain about anything being free. So. That, that kind of resolves that. So it took me a while and I've actually had quite a few, you know, price bumps on my, on my products over the years because it's a getting comfortable with yourself thing. It's kind of shedding the lifestyle or the imposter syndrome thing. And then also just understanding the market and having a kind of an honest assessment of what you're offering versus what the market's offering, what people are charging and things like that.

But that took me a really long time. And so, I think the final kind of phase of the relationship with money is finally developing a healthier relationship with money, one where money doesn't rule you, but you're also not averse to it because there's a great quote. I think it actually is from Stephen Mitchell's notes on his Tao Te Ching translation where he says, "Aversion is the flip side of greed just from a different angle." And that kind of has always stuck with me where it's like, okay, yeah, like you can go from the greed side to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, but it's still going to be, you know, equally as unhealthy.

[41:00] Paul: Yeah, it traps you in this frame of money. It sort of assumes money is bad, therefore I am good by leaning against money. But all you're doing is defining yourself as against something instead of being for things. And I think this is one of the hardest things on a solo path is figuring out what are you actually for? And the reason it's hard is that there's infinite space for like how you're going to lean and the for as you're merging into something you're for is ambiguous and it feels incredibly weird. Have you experienced a similar thing with like what is slow for?

Like you never really know and it's constantly evolving.

[41:45] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. And two things that I've found helpful on this topic specifically are one is figuring out what you're for is equally as effective as figuring out what you're not for. So a lot of people try to figure out who am I, but at the same time they don't figure out who am I not. Um, and that was one of the things I really thought a lot about, um, you know, being introverted and starting this path. I was like, okay, I'm not. I don't really have a desire to start a podcast.

I don't have a desire to create a YouTube channel and be on camera all the time and things like that. But that was helpful, right? Because then you can kind of double down on figuring out who you are and what you are for. Um, so that's one part of it. And then the other side is, um, a thought experiment of if you do have what they call, you know, if you're a multi-potentialite or if you have a lot of interests or you don't know, you have a lot of path optionality, but you're not sure which one you want to take. Uh, one exercise that is helpful is, well, what is the one thing that you can't not do?

And there's kind of an intentional double negative there where you're trying to figure out, okay, yeah, I might like doing this. I might like doing that. And this kind of differentiates between what you love and what you're good at, which might not be the same thing. And maybe a lot of the paths are things that you're good at and you might like doing as a hobby, but then there's this one that is like, I can't not do it. So when I, when I first started, uh, thinking I was going to pursue two, two businesses, you know, my first day off my career, I quickly realized that Slow was the one of the two that I couldn't not do. I was more into it.

I felt like the world needed it more. You know, the other one was essentially creating another graphic tee company. And although it had a portion where I would, you know, give proceeds to clean water and things like that, it still wasn't one of those things that I kind of had the same questions of, well, the world doesn't need more graphic t-shirts, so. Slow, slow is the one that I can't not do.

[43:37] Paul: Yeah. And you can feel it. I think spending time on your site is magical. It's— you can tell you care and that you— there's this passion put into it. It's like, why would anyone do this? Why, why would anyone do these incredibly long, thoughtful posts on like— you've basically like mapped out like how to live an intentional life and like put everything on your site, right?

[44:08] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. And, and it's all for—

[44:10] Paul: the only reason somebody would do this is because they enjoy it, and that's so beautiful.

[44:15] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. And not only enjoy it, but also just desperately need it, um, because it's still my existential crisis that fuels me, you know, almost 8 years later, um, and hasn't slowed down at all. Because what you end up finding out is once you start questioning things and pulling on a thread, that thread connects to everything else, and everything's interconnected. So you learn about one thing which leads you to another thing and you're like, I didn't know that. That opens you up to a new thing. And I guess what I've kind of figured out is that the art of living, which is essentially what I'm trying to learn, is, is almost the broadest thing that you could try to tackle.

And so I have no doubt that I will never run out of things that I'm learning. And you in your book mentioned the end of history illusion. And just looking back, even, you know, I'll look back on that, how to, how to have an existential crisis Google Doc and, and think, okay, even us having this conversation today, I am well aware that, you know, my views on things are going to change in the next year, in the next 2 years, in the next decade. So I try not to get stuck on that too much. Yeah.

[45:23] Paul: Yeah. It's something I've realized too. I think a lot of people don't create, right? They aren't creating and sharing their ideas in public, and they sort of think everything they're reading online, consuming, is this information war. And it's like, these thoughts are something I disagree with and I need to be against this, right? I think the more you create, you realize that's sort of a waste of time because we often don't even know what we really think.

And it's evolving.

[45:54] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. And that's where, that's where writing comes in, right? Because writing is what helps the thinking. And that was an epiphany for me, was realizing that thought itself can be a passion. And I actually am more passionate about thinking than writing, but I appreciate writing for what it does to help thinking.

[46:12] Paul: How do you think? Do you think by writing? What are the other ways you think and contemplate and ponder?

[46:19] Kyle Kowalski: I guess I'm in general, my personality type is pretty introverted, so I'm a pretty introspective, contemplative person in general. But a lot of it is dot connecting through. I use Obsidian as kind of my second brain tool, which is helpful. But really what's most helpful is when I take a bunch of different ideas and kind of outline them together and try to figure out what are the patterns What are the similarities? There's a, there's an author named Mortimer Adler who has a book called How to Read, and he has something called Coming to Terms, where if you're reading a bunch of different books, you kind of have to figure out, well, this person's saying, you know, this word, but this other person's saying this word. And, and by exposing yourself to all the different things, you're able to say, okay, they're actually talking about the same thing.

So thinking through those things, it's one of those things where it's just a matter of quantity before quality, I guess. Um, I actually just read, I'm now reading textbooks for fun. So I just read, I just read probably 3 textbooks on adult learning, lifelong learning, transformative learning, uh, all trying to inform the course that I'm working on. I read a book about interdisciplinary studies and how to do interdisciplinary research and things like that. Um, but, uh, one of those books said something along the lines of the more you learn, the more you can learn. And I think that's very true where the more, the more you're exposing yourself to, the better your filter is going to get, both for the sources you're picking out, the books you're reading and things like that.

And it's also going to improve your thinking, your ability to think, the dots you're connecting, the dots you have available to you to connect. So it's really one of those things where exposure and quantity are the first things, and then over time you're building a better filter. You're better at evaluating information. You're better at synthesizing it together. But it's one of those things that just comes through quantity and time.

[48:20] Paul: So you had a good awareness. Okay, I can sit down and read books and research and synthesize. Like, you're probably one of the best in the world at this, and it clearly comes out in your writing. How did you think about building like a business about this? I know you were averse to money at first, but how were you thinking about like your path at the beginning? Were you just thinking, okay, if I just write great posts for a long enough time, something will happen?

Like, what was your conception of it and how are you thinking about it now?

[48:53] Kyle Kowalski: So I started out— this is another area where I didn't even know the word synthesizer. Another synonym for it is synthesist. Some people call it knowledge integration, interdisciplinarity. There's a whole bunch of words for it, but I didn't know any of these words whatsoever when I got started. And I think what fueled me when I first got started was just my own curiosity. So Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, now The Marginalian, she's a big inspiration, not because of her content necessarily, but her lifestyle and what she does, because it kind of mirrors what I do to, to a high degree.

And she has something where she says, you know, It's always been for her personal development before business development. And that has always resonated with me because everything for me is just trying to figure out life and all of the business side of it is just something that I figured out or figured that I would have to figure out later. So when I first started out, I don't think I had any products whatsoever for the first 2 years of Slow. It was just me learning and sharing what I learned. Um, and that sharing portion of it was, was a key part of what I considered, uh, my ikigai or purpose at the time, because had I been learning, just, you know, saving everything in a private Google Doc or, or something like that, um, without sharing it with the world, then it wouldn't have been very purposeful because it would have truly just been a selfish project, right?

At that point, I'm just learning. It's all up here in just this one head and it's not helping anybody else. So that key part of sharing it publicly was kind of making everything a flywheel, flywheel of kind of a full circle virtuous cycle of learning, synthesizing it, sharing it publicly. That would kind of, you know, develop a curiosity for the next thing. And it is just this continuous flywheel. But I didn't have a product on the site for the first 2 years and then It was, it was interesting to me to learn about the concept of D-commerce or digital information commerce because I had been developing that other brand as an e-commerce brand where I would have physical products and inventory I'd have to have in my house or, you know, warehouse or something.

But the concept of D-commerce was like, oh, okay, that's, that's really interesting. I think I could do something along those lines and kind of a premium content membership and other digital information products. Where you only have to create it once and then the replication cost is zero and you can sell it all over the world. And there are no— most importantly to me, I think— no physical inventory. And, and, and so it was just kind of stumbling along the process, just watching the process unfold and trying to figure it out as you go. And I think in my Ikigai ebook, I mentioned something like had you asked me in 2015, 2016, probably even 2017, you know, what is your purpose or something?

I would not have been able to articulate it how I would articulate it today. Um, the word— I didn't have the words to be able to do it. I hadn't connected the dots about myself to be able to do it. Um, so it is kind of this continually unfolding process and trying to connect the dots as, as you're going.

[52:17] Paul: What's your purpose now?

[52:20] Kyle Kowalski: The way that I've described it, uh, in a single sentence is synthesizing lifelong learning. That's kind of the first and foremost part of it. Um, and what I've realized both with myself and with others is that sharing that can actually catalyze development in other people. So just a few months ago, I discovered the concept of transformative learning. Which is literally my entire journey buttoned up in a single concept. It starts with a disorienting dilemma.

And that's the funniest thing is this concept of transformative learning has been around for like 50 years, but I just discovered it a few months ago. Um, a guy named Jack Mezereau came up with it. A number of people have, uh, built on the theories and challenged it over the last few decades and things. But if you look at it, it's essentially Joseph Campbell's hero's journey where it starts with a disorienting dilemma. And then that starts all the questioning. Critical reflection is a key part of it.

Critical self-reflection is a key part of it. Um, and then it ultimately comes around full circle to a new perspective on yourself and the world, and also sharing that new perspective through action in the world. And this, it's been an eye-opening thing. I wish I would have discovered it, uh, you know, many years earlier, but, you know, better late than never. But that's kind of how I sum it up now, is that I'm synthesizing lifelong journey that catalyzes human development. And I've seen that just in my own journey.

And I feel like I've had people reach out to me and say that it's helped them and theirs as well.

[53:57] Paul: I sense you're sort of in your own hero's journey. You're almost at the phase where you're like reentering the world, right? You're doing this podcast, you're on, you're on screen now, you're unblocking your calendar a little bit. Talk to me about this next phase for you and what other things you're going to be leaning into.

[54:18] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah, I've thought a little bit about this too, because I don't know, I don't know that I have an answer for why now, you know, why the call is finally, why I'm finally saying yes. If it's just a new season, if it's, uh, you know, something else, this is probably one of those things where, you know, right now we're in the midst of it and I probably won't be able to connect the dots on it until later, but. I am feeling the call now to kind of get out there more. Um, uh, I've had people say that, you know, I should humanize slow a little bit more. Um, and so getting out there and sharing my story, the, I guess the other thing is I didn't realize that the story was that interesting until I've had people reach out to me and ask me, you know, specific questions about it. Um, and I'm sure you've had, you know, hundreds of people reach out to you too.

Um, but I had never even thought, I had never even considered that or thought about it, um, until I had people reaching out to me of, hey, can you tell me a little bit more about this? Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Um, and I was like, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know that the story portion was actually some of the most interesting stuff. Um, so I'm now kind of trying to embrace that a little bit more and embrace this new season of, uh, of getting out in the world a little bit more?

[55:33] Paul: Yeah, I think— I wonder why that is. I think part of it is our own fear of criticism. And what I mean by that is I, I got feedback on my newsletter and stuff, say, I like your story. But it wasn't until I put my book out there that I started encountering way more people that just resonated with my story. And I think part of it is I was protecting myself before that, because people do criticize you. Oh, you shouldn't be talking about these things.

And you tend to give those voices more space than the positive, um, support. And the truth is, it's all just a continuous learning of who are you not serving, right? For me, it's I am not serving cynical people. I am not serving people that are crushing it on the default path. I am not serving rich Americans who want to reject alternative paths because it scares them. I'm really just serving people that dare to dream big and remix their lives.

And I've realized through reading other people's stories, I can resonate with almost anyone's story. I don't care what background they are. It's really just the feelings we resonate with. With, and that inspires people. So I definitely encourage you to let it rip, baby, and like put your, put your personal story out there. I think we can find inspiration in almost anything.

And it's— there's so many voices that are like, you shouldn't X, you shouldn't be saying Y. It's like, I don't know, I think more people should be sharing more stories and it's up to people to filter what they should be receiving or not receiving.

[57:25] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I'm figuring out now is that the story, the personal story is what grounds everything else. Like if you, if you read the, the about page on this, on the SLO website or what is SLO and things like that about the different stages, those stages only matter because those are actually the stages that I feel like I've, I've gone through over the last 8 years almost. Um, so really, and I've had some people say. You know, how do you balance the learning with the living?

And so that way it's just not all head knowledge and things like that. And what I've realized for me is that to me, it's actually one in the same because the only reason I'm even doing this is because I'm trying to learn how to live. Um, and so to me, it's like the practice field and the playing field are one in the same. The learning is, is the living where I'm taking things that I'm learning and kind of testing them against real life. You know, does this mesh with my lived experience? Does this new concept fit in, you know, my day-to-day life?

And so it's actually this like almost real-time feedback loop of just based on the nature of the things that I'm trying to learn, that it's just, it's almost one in the same. So in that sense, the story is kind of what grounds all of the content on the site.

[58:46] Paul: What are some of the surprising trade-offs you uncovered in this new approach to life in terms of time, money, work, anything? Hmm.

[59:01] Kyle Kowalski: I think you cover some of these in your book as well. But one of the big trade-offs that you first notice is that there's, there's no one, especially when you first get started and you're an audience of one and you're writing blog posts for yourself on the website or on your website or you're creating YouTube videos and you have one view and things like that, you're starting off really just doing it for yourself before you ever have an audience. And if you're coming from the corporate world or the default path where promotions were really important to you or someone patting you on the back in your performance reviews was really important to you or almost even daily feedback, if that was important to you, You're at least going to go through a period when you first get started where you don't have any of that. You know, there's no one looking over your shoulder anymore.

There's no one giving you that feedback. There's no one patting you on the back. Um, and this kind of goes both ways, right? There's no praise or criticism when you first get started because there's literally no audience. Um, so that's a, that's a definite trade-off that you have to make. Um, and then yeah, I think.

I think figuring out just your daily schedule and routine is, is a big trade-off, right? Because you go through that period of, you know, it could be, you could do anything today. You could structure your workday however you want, or you may choose to not even work. Um, so that trade-off of figuring out how you want to spend your time. Um, and then there's the brutal reality of if you're, if you're not working on something. No one else is working on it, right?

There's not a team of people that you may, may have been working with at your, at your prior career or job, uh, that can support you if you're out or if you take vacation, if you're sick or whatever. Things only move forward when you're working on them. Uh, so that's a big kind of epiphany and realization of if I'm not doing it, no one else is doing it.

[01:00:55] Paul: Yeah. This is also one of the hidden upsides, I think. I've been playing with this idea of the great thing about dropping the ball on your own is that you are naturally opting into other things that matter to you more. Right. And those actions can reveal values. Whereas if you're dropping the ball on other people's work, it just sort of feels bad and you're still just there on the clock.

[01:01:24] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. And if— and this kind of goes back to what we were talking about in terms of figuring out what you can't not do. If you're dropping the ball on something or procrastinating on something or whatever it may be, and you're on your own, then that could just be a sign that that's not the thing that you can't not do. And so therefore, kind of look at those other things that are those things.

[01:01:46] Paul: Yeah. And that, that's writing for me. I can't not write. And when I go too long without writing, it just doesn't— it feels like the system's gunked up. And it's like, I'm like, all right, I want to go do that. I don't ever feel coerced, which is beautiful.

Uh, because I felt coerced to do pretty much everything on my previous path.

[01:02:09] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel the same way, um, in terms of just thinking, you know, if I take a few days off of just doing what I do, um, I can, I feel like my mind kind of atrophies a little bit, kind of like if you took a week off of working out. You know, your body would feel it. You'd have to kind of ease back into it when you get back in. And I kind of feel that a little bit too.

What's funny about, I don't know what made me think of this, but, um, in terms of what I do, I was never a reader growing up. Uh, I actually, my worst grades in school, in grade school were reading comprehension because I read so slowly. I would actually, like, if there were timed tests and quizzes and exams and things like that. Um, even, even going up to like SATs and ACTs and things like that in high school, I would run out of time in every test. And, and so reading was one of my, my worst subjects. And then when I was actually in, in the working world, I got feedback from one of my bosses at the time that my emails were too long.

So I've kind of tried to use these things that were, uh, but, but see, these seeds were planted, right? You know, these seeds were planted in grade school of I'm just I'm not a great reader. I read really slowly. Um, or my emails are just too long, too detailed. No one wants to read them. Um, but now I'm kind of using those things that were previously perceived as negatives as a positive in my life for what I do now.

So it's kind of interesting how the same thing can just be perceived differently.

[01:03:39] Paul: Yeah. And it's really amazing, right? You're people— there are certain people that love long-form stuff like me. Like your writing is such a gift to someone like me who wants to go deeper. I don't wanna read the surface level content post. I wanna read the long essay, the book.

What, uh, and maybe this is a good way to tee up some of the things you're working on. You're working on a course, uh, around synthesis. Uh, so maybe talk a bit, a little bit about that and how you wanna help other people think about synthesis and learning.

[01:04:13] Kyle Kowalski: Yeah. And to kind of segue into that, your point about more long-form content online, that's kind of what I see as Slow's sweet spot is I'm sure we all have read our fair share of 300 to 1,000-word blog posts that are kind of just superficial, surface-level, oversimplified content. And then on the flip side, you've got 50,000-plus-word books Right. Source content, really big research papers and stuff like that. And I kind of saw this middle ground of a lot of slow posts are anywhere from 2,000 to 8,000 words. So I call it in terms of your info diet, I call slow a heavy appetizer, which, uh, which, you know, social media content, short blog posts and things like that are just light appetizers.

The source content, like full books, is an entree. And so in terms of slow content, um, it's kind of this heavy appetizer where you might read a post or a book summary or something, and it might be all you need. You might be good. You might be, your info diet might be full from that, or that might actually pique your interest and you choose to then go read the full book because the summary had helped you. So that's kind of an interesting way in terms of trying to figure out, you know, there is this gap, right, in online content of this middle ground. Length of content, which I guess in terms of digital content would be considered long form.

Yeah. But yeah, in terms of kind of moving into digital products and things like that, I had started with a premium membership a few years ago, and then I released an Ikigai ebook kind of documenting how I found my own life purpose and a framework that I feel like other people could follow as well. Pair nicely with The Pathless Path for any readers that are fans of your book and are looking for that purpose for themselves. And then really getting into courses now is what I feel like is the next step because in terms of— it's kind of the product equivalent of long-form content. If you're looking to really go deep into something and learn it holistically and comprehensively, then courses, online courses seem like the way to go. Not to mention it seems like, you know, the educational world in general is kind of moving in that trend, in that direction of having more and more stuff online.

And I think online learning in general is just going to blow up, I think, over the next decades. But in terms of what I'm creating is really putting together everything that I've learned about synthesis, synthesizing, the same thing that I said about just having the ability to even have the words to articulate it. Which wasn't something that I had from the get-go. I've actually had multiple people reach out to me and say, yes, this is how I think. Um, I had no idea that there was a concept or words to describe how my mind already works. Uh, and that was kind of the same realization that I had.

I was like, and I think, I think I might need to credit Maria Popova for actually helping me realize that. Cause she has a post about combinatorial creativity, um, and knowledge integration. and things like that, which, which may have tipped me off to, to the word synthesizer in the first place. But the idea for the course is I'm actually going to lay out, uh, video content, uh, screen sharing video content of my entire process. And so I'm going to actually dissect how I create a— well, I mean, literally every part of the process, how I choose books, how I created my reading list, how I read a book, how I take notes on the book. How I create a book summary, how I create a synthesis.

And there are all different sorts of syntheses where one of them could be as simple as just synthesizing two books together. The one that I published recently is a synthesis of three textbooks that I put together. I actually did one for Maria Popova, which I have to imagine is the most comprehensive thing on the internet about her. I went through 50 pieces of content. About her from podcasts to article interviews to speeches that she's given and put it together into a single post of everything you could ever want to know about Maria Popova from her kind of her process of how she does things on Brain Pickings or The Marginalian. So I basically what I'll do is I'll go through every single type of content that I create and dissect it and show people live almost how I, how I do it.

So again, this will actually be a good example of using the personal story as what grounds everything. And then what I've created is a Obsidian actually has a, I don't know that it's a plugin, but it's like an add-on feature called Obsidian Publish, which lets you publish some of your private notes public. And so what I've done is I've essentially created a microsite of concepts that are related to synthesizing and synthesis. And it probably has maybe 150 concepts that are all interconnected on this microsite. So the idea of the course is you're taking this course, you're learning, you know, how to, how to create a synthesis or something. And then what I'll do is I'll link to concepts that are related in the microsite for things like critical thinking, information evaluation, higher order thinking.

All these concepts that already exist, those will kind of be add-ons in this like little digital garden microsite where people can go explore more and kind of figure out like, oh yeah, I wanna learn more about that concept. But the entire course itself will be grounded in my own personal process and story.

[01:09:54] Paul: I love it.

[01:09:54] Kyle Kowalski: So hopefully it's entertaining.

[01:09:56] Paul: Yeah, I'm, I'm excited for that. And, uh, where can people, where can people learn more?