Craig Swanson | The Power of a Willingness To Be Wrong

Srini Rao: Craig, welcome to The Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Craig Swanson: I really appreciate you having me. I'm really looking forward to this.

Srini Rao: It is my pleasure to have your, So I found out about you by way of our friends at h Podcast Alley,

they're probably the only podcast pitching agency that I actually say yes to, but that's because I think that one of the people they hired was Cher Hale, who's the only person I've never said no to in 10 years.

Literally I don't think she's ever had a guest where we've said no when she

pitched us

Craig Swanson: Wow. They gotta clip this, use it for themselves.

Srini Rao: Oh, I keep telling every publisher I was like, You wanna get guests on podcasts? Hire, Share Hale. So this is like a commercial for her. But anyways I we was telling you earlier, there's some one particular thing in your bio that got my attention.

So I thought it would be a perfect place to serve, and that

did your parents do for work and how did that end up shaping the choices that you've made with your.

life and your

Craig Swanson: Alright. When I was born in New Mexico. My dad was a nuclear chemist. He worked at Los Imus Laboratories where they built the atomic bomb. He was born. The year after World War II ended. So he was the, not the generation that built the bomb, but he was the generation of scientists that came after them.

And my mom was a hippie. My mom was a hippie. I went to preschool in a tippie. I grew doing transactional analysis for tots. My mom was really into, let's just say alternate science or pseudoscience as a path to explore oneself. And so I got a lot of left brain and a lot of right brain, activity at the same time.

And just reconciling those two kind of forces my life, I think has really set me on the path I've been on my entire life.

Srini Rao: Yeah that was what struck me so much. I thought about two parents. I'm like, how could two people who have so little in common, a nuclear scientist in a hippie actually coexist together? Because I feel like if I were with somebody who was a hippie and I was a nuclear scientist, I'd be like, You're full of shit 90% of the time when she said something.

Yeah. How did they, you mean, how did they find that balance of teaching you to be open-minded about things that you can't prove with any evidence versus your dad, who's probably entire life is centered around proving things with evidence.

Craig Swanson: I, don't think they were stereotypical at either, in either case, I, my dad the short version is, I don't know. The biggest thing I think I learned from them if I had like a life lesson that I picked up young, it was with two parents that didn't really fit together.

instead of divorcing, figured out how to fit together better progressively over time. And so it, and it's been huge support for me in my marriage, in, in my, in, just in my business. I don't the, idea that we're that it's on me to figure out how to make things work with people.

And that, that it's not just a matter of finding the perfect fit and then all the work is done. think it's just baked in to who I am.

Srini Rao: Yeah, I mean I think that there is this sort of almost delusional idea that there's gonna be this perfect fit where everything works. And people always say it's yeah getting married is the first part. It's like the being married is the real work. Cuz I remember we had my friend Jennifer Tates here, she wrote a book called How to Be Single Unhappy.

And right

after she wrote it people said, We'd like you to write a sequel title, How to Be Married and Happy.

Craig Swanson: That's exactly maybe it could just be how to be happy and like I, I think that if we're looking at the at the place we are at or the people we're with to fill that gap,

It's an external thing we're trying to, use. And I don't know. That's, I don't know if I, I don't know if I live that, but I aspire to that.

I aspire to be, I aspire to be able to be complete in environment I'm.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

Craig Swanson: and

Srini Rao: so you mentioned preschool in a tepe transactional analysis for Tots. I was like, wait a minute. What the hell? transactional analysis for? And what in the world was your education, like going to preschool and a tepe, like that part of it Anyway.

Craig Swanson: Honestly I don't really that much. There was a lot of I, I don't I don't really know. So both, both my sister and I dropped out of high school. And I don't know if we were ignored as kids or if parents just gave us room to be us, and I think it's probably a mix of the two.

I think my parents were so busy trying to figure themselves out that maybe they couldn't really help us figure ourselves out. I was thinking about this, A lot of people grow up feeling like they're not smart. And there's a lot of entrepreneurs that look back and feel like they they were proven that they weren't smart in school and they have a chip on their shoulder about it.

Both my sister and I dropped out of high school and I subsequently dropped outta college. And both of us had this belief that we were. we were and that's proven true in a lot of in most of my life. I've spent my life kind of trading my intelligence for money or for or for different things like that.

But there is a path at which different, a different approach for my parents would have set me up to be focused on what I've not accomplished, as opposed to a confidence that despite the fact that I didn't fit into the school system, was not me that was broken.

Srini Rao: Okay. So that is such a interesting way of looking at this because I think that when we stereotype a high school dropout, it's like, Oh, high school dropout, deadbeat. But clearly you not only dropped out, but you also maintain the belief that you were smart. So two questions come from that.

One, what did your parents teach you about making your way in the world? As somebody who was a high school dropout who was clearly smart and believes you're smart and traded, your has been able to trade your intelligence money, what do you think we need to change in our education system so that people like you don't walk out of it saying this is a waste of time.

I'm just gonna drop out. And clearly you are better for having dropped out. But that's not the case for 90% of the population.

Craig Swanson: Oh, okay. There's a bunch in there. First of all, I probably don't look like a traditional dropout. For one thing, I graduated for one thing, like I just stopped going in my senior year. I just stopped going to school. I think I got a 0.9 on my official transcript in my senior year.

but and, I don't think I qualified for graduation, but no one called me on it. I was in the honors program to that point. I was a high productive, student, and I think people just assumed, I don't know. I don't know if anyone even was aware that I hadn't qualified to graduate, but I do.

I do have a diploma. Ended up dropping up because I got a full time job at a local newspaper, doing, doing publishing. I ended, I didn't go nowhere. I literally got a job out of the high school newspaper that I had been working at for the last two years and was working at a newspaper that hired me right out of high school.

And I just stopped going to any classes I didn't care about. My dad, so my parents, when I, so then I went to the University of Washington. I part of me dropping outta high school was that I got the acceptance letter to the University of Washington that didn't have that standard language that appeared on a lot of my friends, which is based on future grades.

So it often says you're accepted to such and such based on future grades.

And

Mine didn't say that. and so if all I'm doing is completing high school to get into college, I already had college locked up. So I just stopped going to high school. Then my second quarter in college I had picked up a job at publishing house in downtown Seattle.

I was a graphic design major at the Enver at the time in the University of Washington. Although two quarters in that doesn't mean anything. And I was working with the people. I was eventually gonna be taking my resume to years down the road in my head. I. I just went full time. I just started working and saw an opportunity in this market to, to trade my knowledge of technology for access to designers.

And I ended up from my parents to put down first and last on office space. $600 a month for the office space with just the belief that somehow we could build a business and that could serve what we were doing. And that ended up effectively being the business. And I ran up until we, until I sold that IT company and and started Live.

Srini Rao: So let me ask you, when you are in that position of I mean you basically say you're gonna run an office, did you know what business you were gonna start? Or you just I'll figure this out.

Craig Swanson: So I, so background, So this is 88, 19 89. The, Macintosh had just come out, I think Illustrator 1.0 was out, I think Photoshop, I don't know if Photoshop 1.0 would come out. I think Photoshop 1.0 was about to come out. And the ado the the Postscript laser printer had come out about three or four years prior. And in, in bigger markets, we had these line ofr, output bureaus that popped up, which were basically the place that graphic designers could take their PageMaker or Illustrator files to and get high resolution slick paper printouts of it that they could put into their pay stubs and use in their. . And at that time there was a lot of debate within the design community about whether computers could actually do the work of typography that they were used to sending out to professional typographers.

Depending on how old someone is, they may not know what a professional typographer is because the five to six years following that, all the professional typographers went outta because they were placed by designers doing their own design.

So I was working at one of these output bureaus, so everybody that had a computer that was doing creative design work in the Seattle area had to come to either the place I was working or one other place in Seattle and.

I was a design major, was asking ton of questions. I basically saw this as an opportunity of seeing like these professionals coming into to my environment to run their output that I just got to be educated by. And so they would teach me what good typography was. They would, I'd be just asking all these questions.

I'd be a sponge and soaking it up. And I realized over time there had something had shifted over. Over time I realized I had been answering and clarifying that by basically showing them things on the computer that they were saying were important to them, that they didn't know how to do. So they were teaching me what good typography was, and I ended up troubleshooting and figuring out how they were able to do it on their computer that they didn't know how to do.

And so over time I developed a following of professionals in the field that were coming to me for advice on how to make these brand new computers work. And I just felt like there was an opportunity there. And so think we, I hindsight, it was not hard. In hindsight, we had a two or three clients that basically kept us fed.

It didn't take very much cuz it I, it didn't cost very much to live because I had nothing. But but we ended up getting a couple clients. I ended up getting a couple bigger clients and then I slowly, I got just enough clients that basically we a really busy helping designers work with computers.

And that kind of grew into the next 25 years of my life.

Srini Rao: Wow. You, I think there's a couple things that really strike me. One is you seem to have this almost inherent capacity to just self. That I wonder where that comes from and whether it's something that people can develop. Because I think that when I look at my post formal education, if you can call it that, it's definitely been much more driven by my true interest.

Whereas I felt like I was force fed when I was supposed to learn when I was in college and high school. So you outta high school I is surprising to me cuz I always thought when kids don't do well in high school, I'm like, it's not cuz they're not smart, it's cuz they're bored. But that was one thing.

But then, You didn't seem to see any of these things as disadvantages that would keep you from doing these things. And so often I think that people have these perceived disadvantages and perceived weaknesses and they often can't see the distinction between what are the real advantages and real disadvantages.

Cause of course, all of us have real weaknesses and strengths. that I think is often left out of the sort of the self-improvement literature where we don't like to talk about the genetic reality of what we're PO capable of. Even though those things matter because you're believing that you're intelligent.

The fact that you are we can't ignore the fact that genetics play a role in that. I

we'd be lying if we're saying that. Having a data who is a nuclear scientist probably helps.

But

The thing is that yet that, all that being said, why do you think it is that people are so limited by their perceived disadvantages?

Craig Swanson: So Okay. Perceived by their perceived disadvantage. think, I think for whatever reason, was not raised to perform to someone's external. Like my parents not have their tied to my performance as their child. So I, whatever reason, I did not, I was not performing for someone else, or if I was performing for someone else, it felt false.

And so I think a lot of people trade they most want by trying to look like they have it. So think a lot of people trade the opportunity to learn by trying to look like they already know it or Or we get so caught up in trying to check someone else's box on our life we never, take the, never take over control of those choices. And school. I think I think traditional school does that especially, so if parents are getting their value out of what grades their kids bring home, and if teachers are getting their value out of what grades kids are getting, and if kids are communicated that their job is basically to look good and to hit other people's marks for their lives, I think really lessens their ability to create their own choice for what they wanna create. And here's the thing you take I used to think I was self made. I used to think that this path was a path that like I found myself, of course I did not have. I didn't have people telling me I couldn't go on down this path all the time. There's an assumption that maybe I was supposed to do something, but like a lot of people let me slide by a lot.

And a lot of people granted me a lot of access trust that I hadn't earned. And I had an easier path than others might have. Ultimately I think regardless of like where people start, at some point in life, we have to stop caring what society thinks about us or to some degree if we can, set aside to hit someone else, mark someone else, that's Mark for our life, it gives us the opportunity to figure out what the hell we wanna do with our own life.

Srini Rao: Speaking of which how did the way that your parents raised you influence your own role as a parent?

Craig Swanson: That, you know what I, can't even, I can't even answer that because my whole relationship with parenting got rewritten by my first child to a degree that I can't even there's no, way I can see my life without it. So my daughter Pepper was born we, became pregnant with PEPPER in two 19. 2000. She was born in 2000, so it was 1999. And we were that she had Down Syndrome and also that she was probably not gonna survive. Through the pregnancy. And so we had the most painful pregnancy together. That is magical emotional. Every night we would go into the hospital to see if she was still there, we'd read a book to her and decide that if she was gone the next day, that that she had left we had read her that story and burned out all the sorrow and loss of having a non-typical child having a child's delays, burned that all out before she was born.

And so she was born into this world where she was a miracle and she had made it through to birth. And then from three months on, I have been just like I was brought into this special needs education program her. University of Washington has amazing special needs education down for autism, for all these different things and.

I have no idea what type of parent I would've been with. Two typically developing kids because I had my entire life and my entire experience with education rewritten through the process of raising a child that was never gonna hit society's marks and had a lot to give. Excuse me.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

So you don't mention the pregnancy. You knew this early

,

on. I then feel free to do not answer this question. We can cut it out if we need to. But at any point, if you know this, cause I imagine you know that pretty early right? In the

Craig Swanson: Yeah.

Srini Rao: was the, so what made you say, Okay, let's just continue down this path despite knowing how difficult it's gonna.

Craig Swanson: First of all didn't have any clue. So first of all, it's actually not difficult, but we didn't know that. I think we, both, both my wife and I at times kept looking at the other to call it said do you want out? And hoping the other would give us the out, and we just never took the out.

And I think to some degree it was because we were also told that she would probably not live to birth. That we just decided that if she were going to if you were gonna go past the odds we were given, we were not going to call it ahead of that. But it wasn't moral and it wasn't we didn't have particularly strong objections to ending the pregnancy on any ground other than just personal choice.

neither of the two of us were ready to make that call in sync with each other to actually do something about it. We, failed to act, we gave it to her, and then she arrived.

Srini Rao: So you mentioned that your entire narrative about education and raising children's talk to me more about that because I I don't, to be candid, I don't know much about Down syndrome other than what I've seen on TV or basically what the media portrait.

So what do you want people to know about this that you think they don't, and what do you think media does wrong in terms of portraying this?

Craig Swanson: I don't even, I don't even really worry about. I don't particularly feel I've, so I'm not really fighting against media on anything. So here's, what I learned. Here's my experience. First of all, ,we we had gone through the process. We were not getting when we were intending to get pregnant.

So we would, we had started the process of adopting. So part of the process of adopting is you go through a lot of education and coaching to basically say, here, child is not necessarily going to look like you. Your child is not there's a lot of characteristics that are going to be different from you than what a biological child might have.

And more than that, we were given the sheet of paper where we had to accept or reject this long list of disabilities that we would accept in a child that we were gonna be matched with. And mental delay was something both of us were unwilling to be matched with. So we have a sheet of paper we had would've not accepted our child in a matching process that we had control over. And the big thing that came to me when we got into education is I wanted to compare Pepper's development. Too typical. I want I was looking for those external markers for me, me to know how we were doing as a parent, how she was doing how was her development doing. And at every stage along the way, professional that I was involved with this school would never play that game.

They wouldn't tell us we were wrong for playing that game, but they would never engage us on other than pepper's own development. They'd never give us any connection to any other Never get a connection to where she would be developmentally. It was always about her and her next steps.

And I think like the, when I look back at this process, like the two biggest lessons I learned from that process is to let go of comparison. basically stop comparing to what other people are doing and to let go of fear of the future. Because the other thing we got is we got this long list of fears that we could have about the future.

And I'll tell you what, almost none of them ever surfaced.

We've had less medical issues with Pepper than with our brother. There's just It has been I don't wanna say easy, but it's been easy. It's been easy as long as we are not playing the game of comparison and as long as we are not trying to worry about what could happen in the future, life itself has been really good.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

Craig Swanson: And, then that showed up again. Oh. When? So we have a typically developing son. I have a typically developing son who is two and a half years younger than his sister. He was raised into this world where, As parents, we were not marking him against other things. He was raised with a lot of special needs kids around him.

If it was Dr. I, I could see him as a young, like a seven or eight year old playing baseball really was frustrating him. That no one was playing to win. Like they were all playing to play and like he wanted to like, beat and was just not finding that match for him anywhere.

And so in some ways, like he's found his own place with competitiveness as he has gotten older. But he also is incredibly he's just got this built in understanding that other people think differently and have different capacities in a way that I don't think I don't think I would ever get to without having it that young, Like I learned it as an adult, but it's a different thing.

It's something I carry on intellectually and it's so baked into who he is. It is just a joy to see.

Srini Rao: Yeah. How so describe how the relationship develops between siblings when you have a neurotypical kid and then

a special needs kid. What is that like?

Craig Swanson: I, early on, so he, so early on there, she was close to him developmentally in a lot of ways up until they were like about five or six. So he was a couple years younger. He was smaller than her for a period of time. But then there was, I would say that like growing up as kids, there's a, there, there are a lot of similarities and and they're like kind a common place.

And then some point he started getting taller. He started getting more verbal. Like he just had different skills. You know what I would even have to ask, I'd have to ask why it what that feels like. But from the outside he's just he just, he had a relationship with his sister for who she was and she wasn't necessarily doing the things that, that some of his friends were doing in different areas.

But if I think that the biggest thing was that he was always Pepper Si brother. So the one thing that he like, he really felt was Pepper was very outgoing, knew everybody in school. And so Wyatt basically grew up in a world in which everybody knew his sister because she stood out. She was different, she was memorable and she was also nonthreatening so that she was nonthreatening and she was friendly.

So the kids were not trying to compete with her. Kids would her. That there was a lot of connection. And so Wyatt went through life basically being Pepper's brother. He was so happy when Pepper graduated for like left high school. And when when he got to be, when he went to high school, he did not tell people he was Pepper's brother because he didn't wanna be Pepper's brother anymore.

He wanted to be, he wanted to be Wyatt. And wife and I had traded off last name, so my wife kept her last name. And so our kids had different last names, which made it easier for him to not be Pepper's brother when he got into into high school. It's nice now because he does like introducing Pepper to his friends in college.

But there was this point where he could definitely feel like he was trying to be his own person.

By the way this we're not going anywhere. I thought we'd go in this conversation. This is really fun.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

That, that, that's the, I've been known

to do that to people. I

Craig Swanson: But actually but this actually comes back to like my life and my career and everything else.

And like building online education. I, this all for me, my personal story, it resonates back to the stuff I believe that I was being implanted with when I was growing up. But it's really hard for me to tell whether I'm rewriting my story of my childhood to fit the mindset I'm in today or if those seeds really were planted when I was growing up in New Mexico.

Srini Rao: Yeah

It's kind I know what you mean. I feel like there are parts of who I am and the way I was raised that still play out in the work that I do today. And then there are parts that I rebel against. This is something, like I said I I'm just really curious what is the development of somebody who has Down syndrome? Like what is their world like to day and what are their lives become like as adults at through adolescence? What is life like for

them

Craig Swanson: There's no singular answer to that. Ranges so in, in the case of, so in the case of pepper, so in the case of Pepper verbally is not as as some of her peers, as some of her peers with Down syndrome, and certainly as her peers who are typically developing.

She also had a hearing impairment that we didn't catch until later. And so she doesn't have as strong of verbal skills as some of her friends do. would say emotionally. Emotionally. So emotionally, she is really balanced. She is able to navigate a lot of things, keeps a lot of relationships going like needs to keep connected with people.

She currently has a job art at a local, elementary school. There's a before and afterschool program that she is an art teacher for. And I, and and probably will need support for, the rest of her life. So one of my one of my one of my requirements from me as a parent is I, financially, need to make sure that she is taken care of throughout her lifespan. Probably is not gonna manage her on money.

She will probably work, but will probably need additional support. She'll probably need to have someone just making sure that she's okay, but more on the level of like someone needing a care and an adult care home. So someone needing just someone to touch in periodically to make sure everything's okay, not needing necessarily on a chronic or daily basis

And. Other than that she needs what a lot of people need, which is a feeling that she to create her own things and to contribute back and to be part of society, to have friends and to feel like she makes an impact.

Srini Rao: Yeah. Speaking of things and contributing you've alluded to online education throughout this. mentioned Creative Live. beginning of my conversation, I didn't

With Chase.

Craig Swanson: I yeah, so no. Yeah, I you know what? I should fight for that higher in my biography, although I was trying to not, No, I'm actually I'm, the I built the, so I brought Chase into Creative Life. So was the company that I incubated in IT company. in 2010, we spun it off onto a separate entity.

Chase came in as a partner and we basically spent spent the next five years up to what it became,

Srini Rao: Wow. So let's talk about online education in

I think that there's something that struck me on your site where you talked about this idea of building million dollar online businesses, one partner at a time. that happen? Like, how does, because there are so many people listening to this who are probably like, That sounds amazing.

That's what I want. And I've always when I looked at the online world, I said the internet is like a developing country. It's basically a reflection of America in a nutshell, you have the 1% on the internet, like you look at the Tim Ferris's of the world, it's you look at the podcast on the top 1% at iTunes, it's like the lion share the money goes to small group of people who.

Some of them are there purely outta talent? Some of them are there because of good timing. some of them are there simply because they had the skills. There's so many that go into this, some of which can't be replicated. This is one thing I've often found is that people, when they come across prescriptive advice, overlook context a lot they don't want to account for some of these things.

Oh, I can just do what that person did and I'll get the results. It's no, you won't look in the mirror. yeah. So anyways, like how is it that somebody like Chase becomes somebody like Chase and who else who puts in just as much effort, doesn't make anywhere as near as much progress.

Like

Craig Swanson: Yeah. To, to some degree. I don't know. So first of all let's, assume luck and preparation and soil. So let's assume that there's opportunistic stuff. The people I partner with are already in the 1% for some type of audience following.

So generally I partner with that have already created a following of over 250,000 people in some fashion, be it Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. Like they, they have already that niche where they have a really large follow. So that, that was true of Chase. that's true of most of the people that I partner with, so I actually don't know how you get to that place.

I shortcut that by partnering with people who have already done that. I will say, just from my experience of working with people that are at that level they, they are willing to trade other parts of their life to get that and they prioritize it to a degree that people who say they want it don't, Now that doesn't mean that simply prioritizing is enough.

There's probably, as you were saying like some additional luck and opportunity and everything else skill. I will also say that to there is also a degree I don't know, or let's say thinking that is attractive to view from the outside that like draws viewers in, but sometimes works against those same people a productive team of people around them or doing some of the things that are necessary to build a really effective business. So a lot of times and this is where I fall in, so my kind of my magic sweet spot is basically to work with people that have a huge following, huge social following the ability to create the ability to educate, are missing something that connection to basically be able to build a of the size and capacity that their audience would warrant.

Srini Rao: Yeah. I, it's funny because I'm going through this. Julian Smith has been mentoring me and he is basically the conversation we keep having is you're sitting on a gold mine and I'm teaching you how to minor because a episodes in the archive's.

Been at this for 10 years and Brian Holiday and I talked about this. We were having conversation about what role circumstance played in the things we've accomplished. Like I was very fortunate to be one of the first 500 writers on Medium. I got a book deal because an editor at Penguin stumbled up on an article.

Two years after I wrote it that was really lucky. And I was 10 years ahead of the curve on podcast, which became a major Those are things that you can't replicate. But what I'm interested, like what are the ADHD thing. I'm diagnosed adhd, so

I'm all too familiar with that.

But one thing you talk about is systems as well. Systems and scale. What are the things that you see as far as other personality traits in addition to prioritization and other things that these people have come. Cause even Justine Musk told me when I interviewed her about Elon and she wrote that article in Extreme Success.

She's People don't see how much work really goes into this. She's the amount of stress these people deal with, she's these kinds of accomplishments, if you want to have that sort of extreme success. She's it often will come at the cost of everything else in your life.

Craig Swanson: it can. I actually it can, but also it doesn't have to, Let's just start with that. That trade is up to the individual it's a little bit like thinking that you had to be drunk to be a good writer, be to. we can create what we want to create in life and not necessarily have to have these of like pre-described trades.

In Yeah. Trade offs. Exactly. But you, but something like there, there's a trade for something. Here's a couple things that I find working with really, like really amazing creatives with really large audiences that are missing something to build that really effective So part of it is just what they have built out in terms of their own kind of pattern recognition. Like I have built out a pattern recognition over years that's basically built around business models and revenue and audience and everything else. I don't know that I could do that and also be building out the pattern recognition that's necessary to be able to do influence and, call and with audiences.

So there's just there's different things you put your time into. The other thing for me is the most creatives that build their own business, where they are the, ceo, coo, and basically driving it, they become the, their own ceiling for what they can create. They. They often have a hard time being able to hear their audience because part of what gets them to the place that they can speak so publicly and be so public is they have to be really in tune with the themselves and their own message.

That sometimes that confidence can actually create a space where it's harder for them to hear what people are saying outside of them.

And so a lot of times what I am doing is I am going in and partnering with someone and then I am listening really hard to the cues and the audience and trying to figure where the market is interested in

,

going, which sometimes is not exactly where the brand of the person that is has, created that audience is instinctively wanting to go.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

Craig Swanson: And then I always say like the, we make a career. We set our career basically working for ourselves. Like we, create a career by the things that we do for free that we invest our love into. We build a serving others. And And that balancing act, it's almost like the inside person versus the outside person.

So I'm, I am usually basically the inside person that's building the structures, building the systems, trying to like wire everything together on the financial and legal and technical and structure and including staffing and teams. The, and Johnny people I partner with are basically driving the mission and the brand and the public face, like it is their name and entity and vision that is basically driving the purpose and the mission that we are after.

then I am basically crafting the engine for them that allows that mission to be accomplished.

Srini Rao: No. It's funny you actually talk about this idea of where the market wants to go versus where the entrepreneur wants to go. Cause I, can relate to that. And and more it just, I had a copywriter I worked with and he just would not let go of this question. He was like, You don't know what problem you solve and who you solve it for.

That's why we're having such a hard time growing. And it I, realized like there are things that I wanted to create that don't necessarily solve the problems my audience wants me to solve for them. And I, realized it was like building audience at a certain point I realized is less about you and more about them.

And it's, you're right. That is such a hard thing to get your head around cuz I'm so immersed in this message that I'm trying to get out to the world. So how, what is it that goes into that capacity to listen to what the audience is telling you? Like where, how do people develop that and what are they listening for? Because I'd imagine this goes far beyond just sending out surveys.

Craig Swanson: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think, how do you learn to listen? I was thinking about that. I was thinking about that. Like what kids are missing today me there's a lot to be said for quietness and lack activity until my boredom or curiosity brings forth like, bubbles up something I'm interested in exploring.

And I think like learning to listen means learning to let a pregnant silence go so that the other person is inspired to say something. And I think there are ways to do that the aggregate. I, do a lot of engaging with audience. So first of all, Surveys are great Surveys are great.

Creating space for people to be able to tell stories is great. You know what, I think a lot of people, especially people on a mission, Listen for prove that they're right. And if we started off this conversation about about my parents, about being raised by a hippie and a scientist there is a, there's a scientific way of thinking. I'm not a scientist but I think we adopt the mindset of the parents we were raised with.

Even if we don't have the technical skills, I have this understanding of the scientific method and I have this understanding of how I was raised that the biggest thing I wanna avoid my life is the hubris. To assume that just because I believe something that I'm right, I can believe want to believe.

But when I. Cherry picking my externally to justify that belief. I have stopped and I have stopped creating the opportunity for reality to educate me as to what is really in existence.

Because when we are, when you do a scientific experiment, you have to be really clear on your hypothesis.

You have to say, Here's what I believe to be the case, or Here is what I am wanting to find out. And then you have to honor the results of the evidence.

And, I really do think I think that's what I bring to a lot of conversations. I bring a willingness to be wrong. I bring a real constant willingness to be wrong.

And in being wrong, I create a space for the market to teach me what they're interested in without me necessarily trying to prove that I was right in my original guess.

Srini Rao: Yeah

Craig Swanson: and that thinking is a to build a brand in the early stages and that because and, for what you do, like for what you do there has to be a mission for you that is so important to you that you're willing to ignore pursue it.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

I look, I, here's, It's funny you say that because there are two, it's almost like these two sort of paradoxes that coexist

I know that one thing for a damn sure, and I know that it often will come at the cost of our metrics. I will never make a choice on a guest based on what that guest would do for our numbers, is difficult because we are still running a business that's venture funded, right?

I'm not willing to compromise the integrity of the content. But when I teach people, one of the things I preface preface everything I say is I want you to consider the possibility that everything I'm telling you is bullshit

because it might be for you. So much so that I started writing a book titled Everybody is Full of Shit, Including Me, which is basically about how context distorts our perception of prescriptive advice.

Craig Swanson: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And honestly, if I have a superpower, it's a superpower to be willing to be publicly wrong and to learn. So for me, in public is something I'm really comfortable doing and in public means I am comfortable being wrong and unde defensive and at my best. And when I fall back to protecting my ego, it's usually I'm under stress and it is not, the thing I aspire to be.

It certainly shows up at times and I think a lot of cases I am working, Actually, you know what There's, Can I follow this thread? There? Is this okay. Let's just talk about high performers. So, I work with people that are like at the top of their. In some field, and generally they're at the top of game, which means that they knew enough about the rules and the execution to be able to be at the top 1% of their means that while they're creating for themselves, they are hyper aware of who is judging and how the judging system works in their place. Be it athletes be it artists that are su that are super successful CPAs like in any industry. And when I start to partner with them, they, the most common I get from them is basically they are looking to be judged.

They are looking to be judged whether they're doing things right, if the, if we are growing fast enough, they are looking for the metrics that they can judge results and. I am so wired the other way. am trying to get them to let go of the judgment.

Srini Rao: don't know

Craig Swanson: I have this belief that most people that are performers also battling against themselves with their core strength that they have not yet unlocked. Because, and I find this to be true most people that have not done like a lot of, self work you can't be the top of someone else's game without being hyper, hyper aware of who does the judging and how you look to them. Which means that you were probably raised in some way where, someone along the way really educated you that it's important to do this and not to do that.

Srini Rao: Yeah.

Craig Swanson: And so they generally have a secret shame that they are hyper aware of that really like they feel like they're battling their entire life. And that shame can be that can, that shame can be almost anything, but is the thing that they were taught when they were younger is wrong about them while the other stuff that they're doing is the stuff that they're taught that is right about them.

And the thing is these are top performers, these are discipline people. These are people that are like doing amazing things. If they could have cut that piece out of themselves, they would have by now because they have been able to basically shape their lives to do everything else. But there is this thing about them they have not been able to change because it's core to who they are, but they still see as a negative. And where I find that next level of growth that comes from is when they embrace that thing that is the most shameful like poisonous part of themselves to their own story and start to realize how much of a superpower it is in their life. And when they start to view it as an asset rather than the negative thing, it basically unlocks that next level takes them from not just crushing someone else's game, but starting to crush their own.

Srini Rao: Oh, I love that. It's funny cause I think about a d as something that the longest time was my biggest liability because it was a massive liability when I was working a day

But

as an entrepreneur, it's a huge asset because I can do things in the amount of time. It takes most people to do the things that most people will take a week to do.

I can do in an hour. just for example, even the way the show started my friend said Savara was like, You're a pretty average writer. I don't think you should start another blog. He's You should spin this interview series out into a separate site. An hour later I had mocked up a version of a.

I sent it to him, bought the domain broadcast fm, emailed them back with the mockup and said, Is this what you had in mind? When do you wanna start? And he was like, He told me this day. He was like, Yeah. He was like, I only gave you a suggestion. And then an hour later I was in the streamy. Reality distortion field.

Craig Swanson: yet that same behavior you probably grew up seeing as a huge detriment educationally,

Srini Rao: trust me, the, it's a being that sort of strongly biased towards action and impulsive has a downside

Craig Swanson: you, b well, exactly your relation like, I'm sure that there have been relationships that you have hurt, you've burn out team members. There's all these, there's all these ways and the thing is, there are these stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and depending on who our parents are and the stories that they told us, could view this as the the worst part of you is actually.

like it is the source of everything you've created since embracing it.

Srini Rao: yeah.

Yeah. That's the thing. I think Danny Shapiro in her book still writing the blessing and the wound, something along those

often next to each other. They're birds of a feather. Because yeah, absolutely. I like my, two roommates in Boulder were talking about partying and all sorts of other exploration and they're like, and I'd be like, I have limits.

And they're like, Yeah, we've never seen them

Craig Swanson: Yep.

By the way I'm part of an entrepreneurs organization, and yeah, ADHD is like, often referred to as like the CEO sickness or something like that. Is there, there is this thread of people that can create amazing things rapidly that Yeah. That have this trait.

Srini Rao: I've been going back through Net Hall Wells because like I didn't ever start doing the research on a added until I got a informal diagnosis late. I got a diagnosis from a psychiatrist after being fired from what was my very last real job or almost being fired.

And at that point I was like, Okay, let me go to a psychiatrist and ask. And I remember calling a friend and I was like, What would you tell you if I told you that I might have adhd? And he was like that explains why you coming over to our house is like a tornado coming through.

We find stuff months

afterwards and it's still, to this day, my friend is Yeah he's there are reminders of the fact that you were here still.

And even now when I've gotten it under control. He told me, he's my best friend Gareth and I, we co-host his segment every week called the Creativity Hour. And he's He's IFR is over to your house. He'll open a cabinet, take a glass out and forget to close the door.

And that's cuz I've just moved on so fast to whatever's next on my mind.

Craig Swanson: absolutely. I I, yeah I have various times try, so I failed the diagnosis I think in part because, I didn't show sides of my life. So I actually don't know where I am on that, but I've attempted to like have a diagnosis and like I'm, I've just kinda made my own piece with my mind.

But yes, like processing the way, we process information and deal with things are just a huge part of who we are.

Srini Rao: So it's funny you say that because like I process information so fast and I remember telling my friend Charmaine Hey, I would be a terrible coach. I'm like, I don't wanna listen to people's bullshit and their problems.

And

And I explained to her, I was like, I just don't give a fuck about people's emotional problems and I don't want to hear them cry.

I'm like, I can make shit happen for them really fast and help them tell tell them what to do and give them solutions. She was like, Honey, that should be the copy on your landing page if you're gonna coach anybody. And so I basically as a joke, I put up this Facebook post title No Bullshit Coaching, and one of my audience members actually emailed me, was like, Hey, Streamy I'm writing a book and the book is already written and I would like to hire you.

So I literally just copied that and sent and was like, If you're okay with all of this I'm not gonna tell you anything you want to hear. I'll tell you what you need to hear. Because the woman who taught me how to give feedback didn't sugar coat shit. So I don't know how. And he hired me

Craig Swanson: That's

great.

Srini Rao: I was stu, I was like, Okay, wait a minute.

I think I, I found the niche of people that I wanna work with. It's like people who are needing my motivate, they don't need me to motivate them.

Craig Swanson: Exactly. Yeah. They're looking for something from you and this is the thing. Yeah.

Srini Rao: Wow. This has been amazing. So I have two final questions for you.

Craig Swanson: Yeah.

Srini Rao: With age you've gotten to work with all these amazing people you've been part of all these businesses that have grown to be wild, successful. Creators 250,000. So what, how's your definition of what it means to be successful changed with age and how does the value you place on money changed with time?

Craig Swanson: Right, so let, Oh, here's what I aspire here. Here is my My personal aspiration is to be so clear what I want to create from me. That I am willing to walk away from everything else, that the world values, that I'm willing to sacrifice winning in everybody else's eyes to pursue a losing game as long as the game I'm, that I want to play.

Srini Rao: I

Craig Swanson: And so I left Creative Live five years in. At the time I thought that was gonna be like the biggest thing I'd ever been involved in. But I was ready. But I, in stepping away from that, I was honoring something that I really wanted to. And yeah so I am trying to listen to me instead of listening to what the world values. Then the second thing he said money. There is a value statement that I that I have for my small teams where I'm working on growth, which is to work with me, to create with me. I call it a love of revenue. Not a love of money, a love of revenue. There is something really, cool about things that generate revenue for me.

And revenue for me is basically the world some of their energy in to what I'm creating. And for me it's really like I really love things that other people value so much that they're gonna give part of their life's energy to. make created part of their life. So I've created a lot of revenue. I'm not sure that I've held onto as much of that revenue as someone who loved money would hold onto. And if anything that's something over time I'm, been more about is just being able to just honor, stability and honor space. Certainly, I can.

I don't need money in the short term and I probably don't need more money in the short term. Probably there's this three to four to maybe 10 year window that I could work without getting more money. So it's really more now for me about who I'm creating. Oh and, sorry. I'm sorry I'm giving you these long, answers.

other thing is I love helping, I love having a partner experience their first million dollar event.

I, yeah, there's this, there for me, there's now this place where for me to create something for me, I have, because I'm basically all about partnerships now. I've basically been doing nothing but partnerships since 2010.

So anything I create for me, I am creating with somebody else for them of equal or greater value. and sometimes many people have to be, have to receive before I get to receive. And I, just love that part of my life.

Srini Rao: Amazing. I one last

We finish all of our interviews. What do you think it is that makes somebody, or

something unmistakable

Amazing. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and to share your wisdom and your insights. Listeners, where can people find out more about you, your work and everything? They're up to.

Amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.