Joy-First Entrepreneurship with Russell Nohelty

The most dangerous lie in entrepreneurship is also the most common: sacrifice your joy now and you can “earn” happiness later. We push back on that trade, because we have both seen what it creates: founders who hit milestones and still feel empty, creators who keep shipping while quietly resenting the work, and businesses that look successful but require constant self-betrayal to maintain.

Our guest Russell Nohelty, USA Today bestselling author and the mind behind “Hapitalist,” makes a bold claim: you can build a real business, make real money, and stay a real happy human, but only if joy becomes the operating principle. We dig into why “rich and miserable” is a predictable outcome when you never define “enough,” and how chasing bigger numbers can block the very security, freedom, and belonging you were after in the first place.

We also get tactical. Russell breaks down why long-term creative entrepreneurship depends on optionality, the ability to walk away, pivot, or burn down what no longer fits. We talk AI for creators as leverage, not a threat, and the unglamorous systems that actually grow a business: discovery pathways, an owned audience like an email list, and clear monetisation moments that you do not feel ashamed to mention. The thread running through it all is self-worth, because if you do not believe you have value, you cannot bake value into what you sell.

If you have been hustling for a finish line that keeps moving, hit play and sit with the line that makes you uncomfortable. Subscribe to Mind Meets Machine, share this with a founder who needs it, and leave a review with your definition of “enough.”

Transcript

Joy Vs Growth Trade-Off

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Dear listeners, there's a strange contradiction sitting at the heart of modern entrepreneurship that almost nobody calls out. Right? We start businesses because deep down we want to be happier, more free, more alive, more ourselves. And then somewhere between the first dollar and the first hundred thousand, we forget the entire reason that we started, right? And we optimize for growth, for metrics, for status, for some imagined version of ourselves that we who will be allowed to be happy later once the numbers are big enough. And year after year, we postponed the very thing, the whole journey that we're supposed to be about. So which is which is wild when you think about it, because the only entrepreneurs I have ever met who actually built lives, they wanted to live, are the ones who refused that trade. So the ones who somewhere along the way decided that joy was not the reward at the end of the journey. Joy was the operating principle of the journey itself.

Meet Russell And Hapitalist

SPEAKER_00 1:10

So hey dear listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of Mind Meets Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and today we have a very lovely guest whose work I find genuinely subversive, I'll say. Not because it's loud, but because it cuts against almost every script the entrepreneurial world has been quietly handling us for the last 20 years. So he's coined award for what he does, and I love that it's his capitalists. Right? So yeah, I mean happiness plus capitalists. Right? So the premise that uh you can build a real business, make real money, and the real happy human at the same time as well. So and that the people who pretend like you have to pick two of those, they are mostly just defending what they did. So please welcome my guest, a lovely guest, Russell Nalty. So welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Amazing. Thank you so much, Russell, for joining us today. And Delismas, like before we get deep into this discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce you with Russell. So Russell is a USA Today bestsetting author over 25, 20, uh, I'm I'm so sorry, 27, like it's it's 75, right? Yeah, it's all these 75 books. Basically everything back here.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

So there and there's like 15, 15 uh workbooks that I don't even really list. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah. So over 75 books, I mean 20 plus years running creative businesses across multiple industries. So he's also the host of the capitalist podcast based in Los Angeles with his wife and his dog. So I can't wait for the discussion. So, well, not too much take up much over your time, dear listeners. Let's get started. Welcome to the show again just for having me. So, so Russell, like I want to start with the word itself. Like, because Hapitalist is not a marketing slogan, it's a thesis, and I think it pushes back on something the entrepreneurial world has been quite, I'd say, reaching forever. Like the idea that the joy is what you get after the company is built, the reward, the research, and what you're saying is something very different. Like you are saying joy is the actual operating principle, not the reward.

Why Rich And Miserable Is Normal

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Right?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

So my thesis argument is basically Elon Musk's life sucks. And he's the richest person in the world. Like, does anyone look so let's just take apart like the Grimes part and the fact that like he can date suit? Like, does anyone want to be in their office at three in the morning, like sleeping in their office? Like when they when they have like $200 billion? Like, do is this that how we want to live? Like, does that actually sound fun to you? It sounds like a thing we should all want for. Like, it sounds maybe sexy for a minute, but like I have this principle because you know, we live in a a world uh I live in uh the United States of America, and so we often talk about like how great life is in China and other things, and I'm like, okay, so here's a good test. Do you want to be a citizen? Not that China's bad, but like, do you do you want to live day to day in a place that tracks you all of the time? Do you want to live every minute of every day, like wondering where your next billion dollars is going to come from? And like, let's just say what I want to ask people is let's say you got, you won the game tomorrow. Would you want anything that you want right now? And usually people are like, and they and they and I'm like, because like what you probably want is belonging, security, freedom, agency, autonomy, like recognition, whatever that is, you don't need $200 billion to get there. But you also like do need money. So it's this we we sit at this intersection where it's like, okay, the world runs on capitalism. Whether you want to be a communist or a fascist or whatever the other, whatever the thing is that you want to be, and I have very strong opinions on all of them, especially in the past 10 years. Like, we live in a capitalist world. Money makes like we need money to buy foods and service, to make to buy goods and services, to like be safe. And like that is how we develop security. We hoard the resource that we hoard is money. And so we can't just say, I'm gonna retire to an ashram or a temple, because like that's not realistic either, because we also want to live in our neighborhoods, like we want to be around humans, usually, like we we want to like be be a part of the world, and like frankly, like stuff is cool, like some stuff's good. Like, we should we should we like want to be around stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is that we're being constantly bombarded by these things that we're not good enough, and that if we only had X, Y, Z, and it never goes away, then it's just B1, B2, B3, and just keep cycling like this, then we'll be happy. But like happiness isn't something you chase, it's a state that you are. And I I think that we live in this tension and nothing really gets in the middle of it, which is I'm a capitalist, I like money, but I also want to be happy. And it seems like you can pick one or the other. Up until this moment, it's been like you either pick happiness or capitalism. And I just don't think that's true. I think that we, if you want to be Elon Musk, you have to choose. But most of us don't want to be Elon Musk. Most of us want to own a bake shop in like our hometown or like be on the speaker circuit and like be able to pay our bills. I don't know, but like it's that the goal is not to make a billion dollars. The goal is to have a billion dollars worth of happiness. And the easiest way to never get the form, the latter is to pursue the former. So, like, if all you care about is the money part of it, then you're never going to get the happiness part of it. And it's going like, so if you want the you can have both, but we have to start talking about both at the same time if we're ever going to have both. And it just doesn't seem like anyone that I talk to who's made their life as an entrepreneur in tech who you idolize is actually happy. Like they always find happiness after they stop pursuing the thing. Once money is no longer the issue, they like go and like take a like Matthew McConaughey like takes a boat or takes a bus across the country, or like they go when they live in in like in like a yoga retreat for two years. And like then they're like, oh, now I realize that I'm it's like, yeah, but like you're only happy because you got the money part situated and you no longer have to do the other part. So like that's not good either. Like, why can't we just be happy and be and like make money at the same time and just do them both in concert?

Define Enough To Exit The Rat Race

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Interesting, definitely true.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

And and here, like, I definitely want to ask you, you know, like the entrepreneurs who finally drop the hustle now, be happy later kind of thing. What is the first thing they discover about themselves that and their business that surprises them? They don't actually want anything that they wanted.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

So they do not want to build it or they just like okay, so what we want is to be able to walk in anywhere, hand a credit card, and be like, great, I got it covered, right? Like that's really the feeling that we're all doing. And like a billion dollars is like a really good number to be like, well, if I had a billion dollars, then like, and it's like, okay, well, the average human makes three million dollars in their life in America. Like, that's what the average American human makes. It's different across the world. And you're like, okay, well, like what if you had three million dollars? You just you just had that covered. Is that enough? And so what the the pursuit of capitalism is, is the ability to know what enough means to you. And what you find for people that get off the rat race is suddenly they realize that they had enough years ago and they burned all of their bridges and they had enough. All like it's like all of those stupid, like, it's a wonderful life movies. When they're like, oh, if I just I had happiness all the time, I had it all the way back there. And I'm not like, you don't need the 20th million dollars. Like, that's not the thing. So it's like, okay, well, you don't need a billion dollars. What if you had 500 million? What if you had a hundred million? What if you had 20 million? What if you had 10? What if you just like could make $100,000 a year? Like, would that be an like you're living better than like 99.9% of people on this planet? So the problem is we don't know what enough means. And when people start thinking about that, what ends up happening is they start living the same life every year. And they're like, oh I thought at some point it would get easier. But you realize that, like, if you've built your life around releasing 10 books a year, you have to release those 10 books a year. You you like, and it's great the first couple of years. You're like, well, I'd be 200 grand writing books. This is great. The 10th year, you're like, oh my God, I don't have anything to say. I've written 80 books. Like, what do I say now? And you're like, well, I don't know, dude, but like you built your life around these 10 books, so you better go. So I want you to build it right the first time. I don't want you to get 10 years into your business and say, oh, I gotta blow everything up. Like we don't have to, we only have to blow up our lives after a business is successful because we've built a business and a life that needs to be blown up. We don't actually have to do that. Like that, that's like there's a way to like have find this little happy pocket in capitalism where you're like, okay, here's my little thing that I want to do. I want to own a bake shop. Well, it's like you don't need to make a million dollars and sell your business to own a bake shop. You can own a bake shop, you can just do that, and then like your life is full of owning a bake shop, and that's the thing you want to do. So we don't have to make maximum money to then do the thing we want. We just have to do the thing we want and not have to make a million dollars to do it. And like that is a very reasonable thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah, and obviously, I have to say that. I mean, because because what you're naming is a kind of self-betrayal, like most entrepreneurs don't even realize that they sign up for. But like we trade our joy for the growth, and then we wonder like why the growth don't or doesn't feel the way we thought it would be. And the truth is, almost nobody puts in the podcast is that the joy was never going to come at the end. The joy was always like going to be a kind of daily practice, right? So that's interesting, yeah. And and if you just go a bit deeper into it, uh, because 75 books is not a I mean, it is it's a huge, right? So that's that's a life shaped by the extraordinary uh commitment to making things. And nobody, nobody writes 75 books while quietly kind of miserable. Like something inside how you are, I mean, how you have built your creative business has to be working at the level of joy and not just the discipline. So if you can just share, like what is the deeper structure underneath that the kind of output? Like, how have you I mean actually?

Build A Business You Can Quit

SPEAKER_02 13:23

I was I was deeply miserable writing most of these books. So, like, but like when you write the book, you think there's gonna be a payoff. The problem is, or one of the problems is there's so many problems with capitalism, but like the one I'll talk about now is that we always say, well, if what after I write 10 books, it'll be easier. And but it will only be easier if you construct your life in a way that allows you to not so when we're getting a business, we're starting a business, what ends up happening at the beginning is we say, Okay, I love podcasting, so I'm going to make a living podcasting. I'm gonna put podcast, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build this space. So like we have a full-time job probably, and we're like prying open this space, this little space, and we're like jackhammering it up, and like a podcast suddenly fits in here. And you're like, okay, great, I buttressed it with the podcast. But like the podcast is just the job. So like the real work isn't saying, okay, so I currently have the space that's filled with this podcast, but how do I buttress all of this things like a mind so that I can pull out the podcast and just have space? Because what we really want is space to do whatever we want. Currently, that's podcasting. But in a hundred episodes, you may be like, I don't want to do a podcast anymore. I've I've got like 20, I got several podcasts that I stopped in my career. Like, oh, I really like this series. So like I I I want to write it. But like then the series is over, and you don't, you never want to be forced to do anything because that is where a job comes. People go, I'm really happy in my job. I'm like, then that's great. You've got a calling. I love that for you. But the minute it's not longer, no longer fun, then we have a problem. We all have a problem. And so the like I tell people, I have no stake in what you do, as long as you're not hurting yourself or somebody else. I have stake in whether you're happy. And no matter how what way you're happy, if you're happy with a job, if you're happy like selling shoes on the on a street corner, if you're happy like writing books, like whatever your joy is. But what happens is over time, the joy goes away. And we still are forced to do the thing that we were doing. And that's where I have a problem. Because I've interviewed tons of creators, and all of them pretty consistently said the way to be current to have a creative career over the long haul is the ability to burn it down and walk away. And then come back to it if you want to or build something else. So when I consult with people, what I normally ask them is, you know, tell me about some things you enjoy in your business. And what they say is like, oh, I do this, I do this, I do this, and I do this. And I'm like, are those things you enjoy? Because it doesn't sound like you enjoy them. And they go, no. And I'm like, okay, well, tell me about the things you enjoy. And it goes on in this loop until they realize that they're do they're miserable because they're doing all of this stuff that they don't enjoy, and usually are not making any money either. Because that's the thing. It's one thing to be doing something you hate and making a fortune. But usually what's happening is we're doing things we don't like and they're not actually returning. They're not doing anything for us. They're just like making us miserable, and then we're and and and and entrenching us further. And I don't believe in the sunk cost value. I've burned businesses to the ground, I've walked away from business, I've walked away from partnerships, I've done like book series that end, and like you're only ever just one product away from like turning it around. But the product you're making now is probably not that product because if it worked, it would be working.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Very true. Yeah. So like, and the and the part of how you work that other creative entrepreneurs would register most, the piece that it say, I could never do that wait. What is it?

Stop Saying No To Yourself

SPEAKER_02 17:41

I well, what I would say is you can do anything as long as you are willing to accept the consequences for them. And that's the part that people don't do. What they say is, I can't do that. And most people neg themselves like 10 or 15 times within a five-minute conversation with me, unless they now now they're a little bit better because they know that I'll just be like, oh, that sounds hard. That's that's exhausting. This is this whole conversation is exhausting. Not this one, but I'll be like, this whole conversation is exhausting. All you did is say no. And like the minute you you talk your your your future into your existence. So I'm not saying that like every word you come out of your mouth will come true, but I am saying if the words that come out of your child mouth are no, then it will never come true because you will never try. So the question that I have is like, what is the what are the consequences? And it might be, I may be broke, like my friend, my friends will leave me. Oh, I'll lose my audience. And to which I would say, like, like you're broke now. Like, okay. Well, okay, so like, do I think you can make money doing a thing you love? I do. So like, and that's like, are your friends friends that are worth having? Like, are they supportive? Because they certainly seem like they're negging you literally all the time and they're keeping you in this bad spiral. But like, but like if they if you decide to do something different and they are leave, then are they really your friends? Or are they just like friends that really liked you on this vertices? Like, are they worth keeping? Like, you can still love somebody and not be doing the same thing. I'm not saying like you suddenly cut them out of your life, but like if you go a different way and they are not going to follow, that's okay. You know, like losing your audience, do you even want that audience? Like, that audience doesn't seem to be very supportive of you. They're not even talking to other people about you to bring new people in. Like, and like if they aren't, if they are your audience, so I believe the only people who are really your audience are the ones who will move with you across platforms and do other things. Otherwise, if they are fans of the format, or they're fans of the platform, or they're fans of some other way, and that is okay. But if they are your fans and you tell them, hey guys, I know you like the way that I think of things, and this is where my mind is at now. And like, you don't have to follow me here. Maybe one day I'll come back over here. Like, you can stay and hang out and be like, like, I had a until January, I had a company called The Author Stack. Until last July, I had a company called Writer MBA. And now I have a company called Hapitalist. And like before that, I had a company called Wannabe Press that kind of is a holding company for everything. And like now I just talk about happiness all the time. And a lot of people just want to hear about books. Just want to like read my weird fiction or whatever. And I'm like, great, well, that still exists. You can go and revisit it at any point. But I'm on this journey now. Like, I'm building apps and I'm like doing other stuff and I'm trying to dissect like how to actually make somebody happy. And I don't expect you to follow me on this journey. I do expect, though, that if you if you're interested, that you will follow me, or maybe you'll you'll give it some credence. But like, what are the actual consequences? Because there are a couple of in like things you can't come back from. Like, don't drink poison, please. Like, don't like chop off your arm. But like most things that we deal with are mental things. And they are like societal things. And like, I don't know, society's stupid. Like, it's stupid. Like, all of this is stupid. And like, I don't want to live in a society that like tells me I have to do something in in a in in a specific way. Like, and if I do want to live in that world, then I should just get a job. Should just get a job. And some people are just like, look, if you're happy to be miserable, just like go get a job, go teach something, or like go go like go like like go work in a warehouse. Like if you're going to be miserable, And you don't want to change your situation, at least have health insurance.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Very true. Interesting. Yeah. And amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

So like also, like if I have to say I have to bring AI directly into this now because the topic cat the topic categories you choose included. And I think you sitting one of the most interesting intersections of this moment because you are you are a creative entrepreneur and you have spent your career making art and writing books. And AI has come into your industry like wrecking ball, right? Into a quiet neighborhood. So if you can just share, like what is the real relationship with AI as a creative business owner?

AI As A Creator Force Multiplier

SPEAKER_02 22:50

I mean, I use it to make all of our workbooks. I'm literally was coding it to like I have a new app that I vibe coded called Joy Looper that I'm debuting. I'm like making apps from my books. Like I just don't. So I you can I've lived in a world where I had to wait for people to validate me to like make apps and like make movies and stuff for my for my life. And I don't, I fundamentally like don't have to do that anymore. I can be like, I want to make an interactive novel. I can just do that. And then I can make a way to allow you to do that.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

And like, so I don't so as a writer, I've lived through multiple apocalypses. I was a journalist at a time when journalism stopped being a good job to have. I I wrote books at a time when books were so saturated that I that like it was very hard to do anything. I I I respect people who who say that their jobs are livelihoods. And I have I'm I I I have endless sympathy and empathy for people like that. But for me, I am able to connect my brain to a something that lets me think about, for instance, our terror, the terror deck we just launched. Like the terror deck we just launched, I I designed every every card. All of the quotes are from me, but like I don't know which one should be the two of clubs and which or the two of cups and which one should be like the king of pentacles. And like AI helped make that connection for me. Like I wrote all of these books, and like I want to turn them into RPGs and interactive novels. And turns out that like GitHub repositories are open source and have been for 30 years. So like I don't, or longer than that. So it's like, okay, well, we live in a world where like a thing can take all of this code and take all of my IP and merge them together in a way that like, aside from whatever issues you have about like energy consumption, an open source thing is meant to be open sourced. Like that's why they made it open source. So if I have a way to take this open source and take things that I own and merge them together, like, and if you don't like that, like go screw. Like, I don't know. Like, go away. I don't, I don't actually like I don't care if you follow me. I don't care if you buy from me. I don't care if I ever make another dollar again. Like, frankly, it just doesn't bother me. And because I know that like all I need is like uh a thousand people, two thousand people. Like, really, if if you sell high enough ticket items, you need like one or two people to make a good living a year. Like, do I really think that like through all of the ways that I make that I build audiences and scale? And like, I'm very good at finding new people and bringing them through a funnel and a flywheel. Do I really think that like even if I had to start over today, that I couldn't build a business? Like, businesses are easy. Do you want to know how to make a million dollars? Here's the secret go find a bunch of people that have more money than time, figure out what they need to move themselves forward, sell it to them, and like they will buy it because they have more money than time. Like it, I just I just made you a seven-figure business. The problem is most people don't want to do that. People want to is carve out a little piece of of the universe that they can feel comfortable, that they can have some customers come in and like every morning they like make coffee and like they have bagels or whatever the thing is. That's what they want. And that is hard to do, which is where capitalism comes in. The idea is okay, what do you want? What do you really want? Because and and like this is what people always say, they're like, oh, well, happiness is so straight. And I'm like, actually, being happy means being miserable for a long time. If you want to really be happy, it takes you having many dark nights of the soul and saying, wow, why am I sabotaging myself? Why am I like, why am I saying no all the time? Yeah, what do I really want? Why do I want that? And knowing, oh my God, this is what I really want takes a lot of digging. And it is uncomfortable and it is painful, and it sucks. And even once you do all of that work, all you're going to be able to do is tell yourself, I just did that thing because of this reason. And like it will make you happier, it will make you more joyful and more content, but it takes a long time to get your life together. And you have to be willing to do that work or on the journey to that work before you even can hope to be. That's why toxic positivity is so enticing because it tells you all the things you want to hear. But what you really need to hear is you are going to be miserable until you choose to be miserable in a way that can define your actual happiness. You need to go through a joy loop, which is what we call it at Hapitalist. You need to be able to attune yourself. Because on the side of your brain, on the there's a little radio knob. And what's happening if you say, I don't see opportunities, is just like a radio knob turned to the wrong dial. If you tune it to the thing you actually want, you start seeing everything. You're like, wow, I can make money here. I can go to this yard sale, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can make money. There's a sunset date on this stuff. Like, okay, I can do, I can suffer through this for a year to like make enough so I don't have to do that. But the thing is, like, we don't put sunset dates on things. So like we end up being like, oh, this is a perpetual thing. I can never get out of that. And let me tell you, your life has a sunset date. And if even your life has a sunset date, everything has a sunset date. Like everything in your life has a sunset date. And you should find the things that make you miserable and decide how long you have to do them before you never have to do them again. And then you have to stop telling yourself no. Then you have to figure out like the way that resonates with you to bring in

The Joy Loop And Your Story

SPEAKER_02 29:50

the right opportunities. Then you have to magnetize those opportunities to you. And notice I haven't said anything about selling for one second in this whole show because it's only after one attunement, opportunity, path of least friction, and good chaos engine that you get to the sales mechanic. And like, once you have the story, then the sales mechanic works. But like we are so busy falling for all of this other stuff, all of these other futures that we forget to build our own, dude. And here's like every company that's telling you what you should do is trying to get you to believe in their future. Amazon, Facebook, TikTok, all of them are saying this is the future. And they all contradict each other because they're all different versions of the future. But you don't have to deal with their futures. You can just say, you know what future I want? I want this future. And then all you have to do is tell one story. One story. The one story will get you to six figures. One you're one story away from getting to six figures right now. All you have to do is figure ahead to tell that story. And people will magnetize around you, and you will be able to do the thing that you want to do. The problem is not that you hate your business, it's not that you hate your life, it's that you hate the story that you're telling. Very good.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

And so if you have to give today one advice to the listeners, then what that would be.

Self-Worth And Simple Business Systems

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Ooh, this is tough.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Okay. So despite what I said today, how you're feeling is valid. And like you have self-worth just for existing. Your self-worth, your worth is not determined by where you're from or what you do. It's determined by the fact that you exist at all. It's the same amount of self-worth that every other human on this planet has. And don't let anyone take that away from you. That's the one piece of advice that I have. Like, you if you do not feel like you have self-worth equal to the Pope and the president, if you don't feel that you have that self-worth, then you will start giving parts of yourself away. You will start saying, Well, this person, if one person can have more self-worth can be worth more than you, then it's very easy to say, well, they're worth more than I am. So I'm going to do what they say. I'm going to do what they say. And I'm not saying that this is carte blanche to do anything, but it is a carte a carte blanche to think that you deserve good things, to stop moving away from the things that bring you joy. And this is the real problem with joy. If we don't think that we deserve happiness, we will never chase the things that bring us joy. And if we feel like we have no self-worth, we will actively chase things that confirm it. And if you think you have no self-worth, I would ask, who is telling you that? What are the signals that are telling you that? And those things need to go away. You need to stop listening to those things because they're objectively wrong. We go through this activity in Hapitalist called, is it true though? So if someone will tell me something that they said, what they think, and I'm like, okay, like, is that true though? And they will say, and I'll say, like, they'll be like, yeah, it's true. And I'm like, okay, state your evidence. And then I'll say, like, okay, well, that's a feeling. Like, that's unprovable. That's a theory. Like, but like nothing in your life is actually proof of that thing that you can't do it or that you're not worth it. Even if someone says you can't make that company, and you're like, oh, look at all these 10 other people. You, I'm like, well, that's their story. Do you know how they all built their business? Do you know why their business failed? Do you know what they did, like what strategies that they used? Because they probably didn't do anything. This is the secret of like businesses. It's like most people don't do anything. When I meet with but marketing marketing, the worst thing that I could hear is I do this, this, this, this, this. I tried this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and none of it worked. You're like, oh my God. You know how many times I've heard that? Zero. You know what I hear? I did a TikTok. I did a, I, I, I, I, I, I, I was on Facebook. I have like a podcast that I do once a week. And you're like, okay, so what is the discovery mechanism? So you've tried social media and you don't like that. Great. Well, like, then stop doing that. Like, you have a podcast. Great. Do more of that, and that brings you joy. Great. Do more of those things. But a podcast isn't a discovery mechanism. So if you just have your podcast, you have to be like, okay, cool. That's your platform. Like, how are you getting people into your ecosystem? Oh, I just have them listen to my podcast. Great. But uh, there's no email list there. You don't know who those people are. You got to do something to get them there. Okay, so like that's not a great platform. So, like an email list or a circle community or school, I don't, I don't really care what you do, but like you need something to be like, oh, these are humans. Most people don't have any way. Most people don't even have an email list, dude. Most people don't have a customer list. Most people don't keep documentation of who resonates with them. Do you know how far ahead you will be if all you do is be like, hey, that you sound interested. Can I put you on my email list? Like just that one act alone. If you do that for two years, that's almost a thousand, that's the better part of a thousand people who would be on your email list in after those two years, who all resonate with you. And almost no one does that. So you're like, okay, well, let's say you do that. You're like, okay, cool. Well, do you have a monetization mechanism? How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you like you now have a platform? Do you have how do you monetize it? Like, what are your pledge events every quarter? And you're like, oh, well, I don't really do anything. I mean, they have like a Patreon. You're like, okay, when's the last time you promoted it? Oh, I don't really do that. I say go subscribe to my Patreon at the end of my show. And you're like, okay, cool. Would that work for you? And they're like, no, does that ever work for you? And they're like, no. And you're like, okay, well, what's worked for you? And it's like, oh, well, you know, people like sell a book and do a thing or they talk about it. And you're like, yeah, exactly. Like, you have to talk about the thing. So, like, okay, great. You have a platform. Now we have a MySaian mechanism. Now, how do you find it? You're like, don't say frigging Spotify or like your, your, your Apple Podcast feed because they don't work. They're not, those are not pathways. Those are platforms. So just putting your stuff on Spotify is not discovery. You have to draw a path from you, from it to you. And okay, so you're telling me that all 10 of these businesses had an email list, they had buyers, they had monetization events, and they had discovery pathways, and they had good products. All five of those are true for all 10 of those things, and not one of them succeeded. I don't believe you. Just take your evidence. And they're like, okay, well, I guess I don't know that. Okay, great. You're gonna go interview all 10 of those people? No. Okay, well, then you can't, then all of your evidence is is is moved. The only evidence that matters is the thing that you can see, see, touch, hear, feel, and and and smell. Like, if you ran an a monetization veg on a platform and it didn't work, all you know is that that platform doesn't work for you right now. And that's fine. Great. There's a million. Do you know how many products? Like this, some of these books made 10 or 100 times more than others, but I wrote them all. So if that's the truth, then just because a product exists doesn't mean it's gonna do the same amount of value. It definitely doesn't mean that they have more work. The books that do that I love the most almost always do the worst. Almost always, almost every time. The book, the the terror deck that I'm launching now, miserable launch, terrible launch. But I like use it every day. It's like literally the most valuable thing that like product I've ever made. And so it's like that doesn't like what matters is do I bake what I love into the product? And you can't, if you do not have self-worth in yourself, you can't ever bake that worth into the things that you sell. And so I beg you, I beg you, I beg you, do not think you're better than other people. But if anyone comes along and tries to say you're not as good as them or tries to make you feel like you're not as good as them, you can tell them to get bent because that is just untrue. It does not matter if you are the lowest person, you don't even make a dollar a day, or you're Elon Musk. Both, like Elon Musk is the high watermark, and he is miserable. And most people that make less than a dollar a day are miserable. But there's also people who are happy who make very little, people that are happy that make a lot. So, like, none of that matters. All that matters is like what is true about your business. And so, Hapitalist is about showing you how to take what is unique about you, your natural tendencies, and pairing them with strategies that will actually work. But also saying none of that matters because I am optimizing for joy. And you know what happens when you have joy, even if you don't make money? You're at least happy. You at least were happy during that time, right? Like I make no, I make so much less money than I ever did any other time of my career. But I'm so much happier because this is what I want to talk about. So, like, there's value in just the existence of these moments, of these talks. Whereas a lot of the things that I've done in my past, they lost all their value because like I don't talk about those things anymore. So the the the the worth is intrinsic in the product itself. And if you do not believe that it has value, nobody else will, including yourself. Amazing. And if listeners wants to connect with you, what would be the great medium to connect?

Where To Find Russell Closing Challenge

SPEAKER_02 40:18

It's just capitalist.com. It's like capitalist with an H.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links and the details into the show notes for your easy to friends. And with this, I have to say thank you so much, Russell generally. And I mean, I have to say that the combination of someone who's actually built across 20 years and refuses to perform, the suffering most entrepreneurs perform is very rare, and the listeners can feel it. So I hope that this conversation finds the founders, creators, and operators who needed exactly the kind of nudge stop postponing and so on so it's really great. And for everyone who is listening, or maybe you'll be listening later as well. So if a line in this conversation made you uncomfortable, then that's the line to sit with. Especially the part about whether you have been quietly trading your joy for your growth without realizing it, right? So that recognition is not a verdict, it's an invitation. So I just request share this with another entrepreneur in your circle who's been hustling for a happiness that keeps moving further away. So they will know that it was for them. So with this, hope this is your whole saving and this is Mind Meets Machine. We will meet you back here soon. Until then, will the happy least way optimize for joy on purpose and make the money doing it? The two were never enemies. That was the light. That you were sold.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

So with this, thank you so much and have a great day ahead.