Zack Arnold | How to Edit Your Life and Optimize Yourself

Srini Rao: Welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, man, I'm super, super excited about this today. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.

Srini Rao: Oh, it is my pleasure to have you here. So I found out about you because somebody wrote in and told me you had worked on what is probably one of my favorite series of the last five years, which is Cobra Kai.

And I was even more happy to learn that both of us grew up in the 80s and we were deeply informed by something like the Karate Kid, probably you more than me, given that it's become such an integral part of your life's work. But before we get into all of that, I wanted to start by asking you, what was the very first job that you ever had and what did you learn from it and how has it influenced your life going forward?

Zack Arnold: Oh man, that's a really good question. The very first job I had I was probably about six years old and it was working for my dad cause my dad has been an entrepreneur on and off his entire life. And very first job was that I was enlisted after I would get home from first grade to fill envelopes and lick envelopes and put labels on envelopes cause he had a direct marketing company, which nowadays you, you do email blasts.

He was literally sending out a direct mailing blasts and had an entire assembly line in our basement. And I was helping him put together and collating and all the direct marketing materials that he was sending out. And I worked for my father for years. We also, I grew up on a farm, so I worked on the farm building structures, feeding animals, mowing the lawn mowing hay, all this fun stuff, but if we were to talk about my first technical real job for somebody that wasn't my father, where I was actually punching a time card and I was getting paid by somebody else, I worked for the local hardware store.

In my town that I grew up in of 400 people. And I believe I was a senior in high school and essentially it was an after school job and I did a work study. So I was actually doing it after lunch through the rest of the day, about five, six hours a day. And it was like, if you picture fifties hardware store from the movies that had the soda fountain, they didn't have any computers, everything was done by hand.

And I was stocking shelves and I was pouring coffee and I was making milkshakes and I was going out in the back of the warehouse and I was stacking cans of motor oil and whatnot. So it was a very eclectic way to to grow up and learn the power of a real work ethic compared to the way that I think a lot of kids grew up today, but.

Just the biggest lesson that I learned from that was just showing up consistently and doing a good job with everything. Yeah. Because how you do anything is how you do everything. And it's very easy to take for granted there's 400 people in this town, who cares how I stack cans of motor oil in the back of this Podunk hardware store.

But I was really taught that whatever it is that you do it well and do it to the best of your ability. And that even meant how I stack the 50 pound bags of dog food in a warehouse that the customer never sees. So it was really about attention to detail, showing up every single day, showing up on time and just consistently doing a good job.

And frankly, I've taken that into every project that 25 years.

Srini Rao: Yeah. I'm so glad you brought up attention to detail because that was the first thing that came to mind when you started describing this. A town of 400 people. What are the social dynamics of growing up in a town like that?

Zack Arnold: The social dynamics are that everybody knows everything about everybody.

The school that I went to was it was one building and it housed K through 12 and there were about 500 students. And I was in by far the largest class of, I think, maybe 65 students. The average when I say class, I mean like the entire grade. So the entire grade that I graduated from was a class of 65.

The average class size is or grade size is about 30, 35 people. So we were much larger than the rest. And just an example would be that let's say that you're a sophomore or a junior in high school and you're walking down to shop class, you walk past the kindergarten classroom. That was the environment that I grew up in.

And you knew the first and last name and the brother and the cousin and the mom of every single person in your class. So it was a very small incestuous world.

Srini Rao: What were the pros and cons of growing up in that sort of small incestuous world? And you're a guy who creates television for a living. So I think for many of us who aren't exposed to small towns like that, our primary exposure comes through media.

And in media, I feel like there's almost this just very sweet, warm story that gets told about these places being these idyllic paradises where everybody loves each other. But I know that's not entirely true. So what do you think media does to misportray these towns and what are the pros and cons of the environment?

Zack Arnold: I will say first of all, that I think some of the idyllic portrayals are fairly accurate because there are a lot of things about living in a small town that really are as good as it is on TV where you can think of the local fall festivals where the town comes together and they have a parade or they have the the local carnival that, that takes place where the high school team also plays baseball, like all of these kind of.

Little details here and there that kind of make it like, Oh, that's so quaint. Do I want to have that? A lot of that's actually very true. The cons are that if you cannot conform to the way that people think or the things that people do, it is very easy to become an outsider very quickly when you're in a much larger town or you're in a city, you can be your own person.

You can do what it is that you want to do. And you're probably going to find at least one person, if not a smaller group of people. That think similarly to you that have similar interests. So you always feel like you have somebody that's similar to you that you can relate to. And in a small town, if you're not like everybody else, if you don't think like everybody else, if your dreams are not like theirs, if you don't have plans to become a logger or a farmer or a construction worker, you immediately become an outsider.

And you can just imagine highly intellectual, very creative, not so strong kind of weekly kid growing up in an environment like that. Was not the best for my self esteem. Yeah. I, the

Srini Rao: reason this just occurred to me as a question to ask is I've been watching this TV show over the last couple of months called Virgin River on Netflix, and it's a really beautiful story.

It's exactly like you're talking about this idyllic sort of town in Northern California. And sometimes some of the people who are there shock you, you're like, wait, why did you come back here or even end up here in the first place? Are people who live in places like the one you grew up in people who end up there or are there for life and never leave, or is it a mix of everybody?

And then why in the world would somebody, for example, like me end up in a place like

Zack Arnold: this? I think that what's interesting about this question is that for the most part, at least in my own personal experience, I can't speak to all of the little idyllic towns all over the country, but at least as far as this one was concerned, we were the ones that ended up there.

Everybody else was from there. They were born there. They were raised there. Their grandparents had the farm down the road a piece, and then they had a farm and they were going to inherit their parents farm. So the vast majority of people that were there when I was growing up and now the few that are still remaining because the town is getting much smaller, which will also speak to the answer to this question is that the vast majority of people there were born and raised.

We happen to be the family that ended up there. The reason being that my family decided I originally grew up in southern Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee near a town called Waukesha. Which in in our estimation, like that was living near the big city. You talk to anybody that's grown up in real cities that was living in podunk America, but we decided to move from podunk America to the outskirts of the rural version of podunk America.

It was really out there. So we were the outsiders and one of the really interesting things and whether or not this answers your question, I don't know, but my father was a combination farmer, entrepreneur, and the thing that brought us up there was a job as an elementary school principal.

So as a side note, my father was my principal for most of my upbringing, which is a whole could be a whole other podcast in and of itself, but the point being we were the outsiders. And just to give you a sense of the economics of this community, my father being the elementary school principal, I think at the time he was making, I honestly don't know, but let's say give or take 50, 000.

I was the richest kid in school. I was the rich spoiled kid. And anybody that was the teacher's kids, they were the rich kids. That's how impoverished this area was. So it was going back to the original question, really a combination of mostly people that were born, raised, settled, and that were probably at some point going to die there, and we were very much the outsiders.

Srini Rao: Growing up in an impoverished community like that, there are two things that I wonder about how that shaped your own perspective on concepts like entitlement wealth and success and having your dad as your principal for most of your life. What impact did that have on the relationship between the two

Zack Arnold: of you?

Yeah. So the, as far as the sense of entitlement, that is definitely one if we're talking about the pros and cons of having an upbringing like this. The gigantic con at the time was the fact that I was living in the middle of nowhere. There were no opportunities. You couldn't go anywhere. The closest movie theater was 45 miles away.

So it was just endless boredom, zero opportunities. And it was just work. And I desperately wanted to get out of there. Now I look back at the pros of having grown up in a world like that and the work ethic that I developed and the lack of sense of entitlement because I literally had to earn everything.

I had no idea what a superpower that was going to be moving to one of the biggest cities and basically the epicenter of the entire universe. Of people that decide that I want to make my career all about me. So people can look at me and praise me and I'm entitled and I deserve this. I moved to the epicenter of the universe of that way of thinking.

And I had no idea what an asset it was going to be to have the work ethic that I've developed and have the lack of sense of entitlement, knowing that whatever it is that I want, I have to earn it. And even to this day, with the level of success that I've attained, that does not go away. And one of the things that I told myself, or more accurately, that I promised myself when I got in my car and I drove across the country from Wisconsin to California, literally did the drive in two days to start my first job.

And I said, as soon as the city and this business starts to change me, I'm moving away. I don't care how successful I am, how much money I'm making. If it changes me, then I'm out. And that's been a really big thing for me to make sure I never develop that sense of entitlement. And it's always about earning.

What it is that I want and earning the things that I really want to become. When it comes to your father being your principal I could go back to many archives of sessions that I've had with my therapist about the challenges. I would say that again, it's one of those things where in hindsight, there was tremendous value to it.

There were again, a lot of just I think a lot of the lack of sense of entitlement and the lack of just believing that things are going to be handed to me. And my work ethic again, came from the fact that my father was my principal and you would think, oh you're probably he's lenient on you and you're getting all the perks.

He did the exact polar opposite. There was nobody in that entire school That he was harder on than me. He literally suspended me for three days once because I got into a little scuffle with somebody during one of my classes in eighth grade where for any other students it would have been don't do that again or you get detention but because it was me he suspended both of us for three days just to set an example and he called my mom and he's like you have to pick up Zach she's like what why he's like I just suspended him for three days And when my mom found out why she just laughed and she's Oh my God, this is ridiculous.

You want to go watch a movie? Yeah, let's go watch a movie. And that was it. So I hadn't actually done something that deserved it, but that's, that was just the way that I was brought up is that. I am going to teach you by example. And let's just say that I never got into a scuffle and never got suspended again.

But it was very challenging being the principal's kid because everybody assumed I was getting special treatment and I was entitled because of that. So let's just say that a lot of mistreatment and a lot of bullying came from it, which again, at the time seemed like a con, very much a pro now that I look back in hindsight.

Srini Rao: Yeah. Sounds like anti nepotism basically.

Zack Arnold: Oh my God, it was the pull. Yes, that's the perfect word. It was anti nepotism. Yes.

Protecting the energy supplies that keep our homes warm, giving new life and longevity to the technologies of today and tomorrow, and innovating for a more sustainable, resource efficient world. I'm Fran Scott, and these are the things I'm exploring. that are making a world of difference in our new series of the process automation podcast from ABB.

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Srini Rao: Yeah. Given that you are. I'm somebody who works in television. One thing I wonder, particularly growing up in the time that you did, where you did how that influenced your own taste in pop culture, your exposure to popular culture because part of me sees, thinks there's gotta be like a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, you were left to your own imagination, which I'm sure leads to a tremendous amount of creativity, but you're also starved of influence

Zack Arnold: in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah basically for anybody that are younger listeners, they can't even conceive of a world like this. But there was no internet, there was no satellite dish or cable at all until I was, I think maybe, I don't know, 14 or 15.

So until I was 15, I had three channels. I had ABC, NBC, and CBS because our rabbit ears could not get Fox. So television really had very little influence on me, which is why I went towards movies. My brother an older brother he's very heavily influenced by movies as well. And he basically put that influence upon me.

So by the time I was 13, I had a wall of maybe 300 VHS tapes and it was just watching movie after movie. So movies were very much my influence growing up. But TV really was not an influence on me until definitely until I was an adult, probably around the time the golden era of TV started with the Sopranos and 24 and some of these kinds of big breakout series, that's when TV started to have an influence, but influence the biggest influence on me was always movies.

And until the golden era of TV really started, it was always about, I want to make movies. It was never, I want to make television or work in television. Until I got in the industry and I understood better the nuance of the different opportunities and the costs of working in film versus television. But TV had no influence on me growing up.

It was all movies. You're right. It is a golden era of television because television is a lot better now than it was back then. With, like you said, shows like 24 and those things Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, those guys are brilliant. Everything they touch turns to gold.

Srini Rao: Like I don't think I've ever seen anything they've done that I just, I'm not absolutely in love with.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, agreed. I don't even know if you're aware of it, but indirectly worked for Brian Grazer and Ron Howard because they were one of the executive producers and companies that developed the show empire.

So I actually worked on an imagined entertainment property for about two seasons. Wow. So yeah it's, it was cool to be a very small part of that much larger legacy, but yeah, it wasn't until about my mid to late twenties where I made the transition. Both from an economic and a career perspective, but also from a creative one that I realized.

the stories that I want to tell and the lifestyle that I want to lead. The

,

television industry was a lot more conducive to both than the feature industry. In one

Srini Rao: of your blog posts, one of the things that you say is movies became my escape from the nightmare that was elementary through high school and the Karate Kid was the formative film of my youth.

And as I was talking to you before we hit record here, I just finished reading Machio's memoir and I felt like that was the experience for so many young boys. But tell me about the first time that you watched the Karate Kid.

Zack Arnold: Oh my God, the first time that I watched the Karate Kid, it's funny because if we're going to talk about my very first memory, my actual memory that sticks is remembering watching the Karate Kid 2 in a theater and watching the first Karate Kid on VHS in the basement when my older brother and sister were having a sleepover.

But I will never forget the two moments that I always remember. Are the fight scene that Daniel has with Chosen at the end of Karate Kid 2. But then, of course, like everybody else would say on the planet the crane kick was certainly one of the, those big moments. But it's just, when you see those experiences and you feel like you can really relate to and you frankly are Daniel LaRusso, which essentially I was probably in some circumstances even worse than the situation he was in the first one.

You realize that there actually might be a path out of the misery and the nightmare that is your day to day. So yeah, most of the people that I talked to in my industry, they're always talking about how Star Wars was the formative film of their youth and I always say the Karate Kid was my Star Wars.

Not, there's nothing wrong with Star Wars. I just never got into it and I couldn't relate to it. The way that I could to the karate kid. Cause I was living that misery every single day, literally for years on end. I've never seen star Wars. If you can believe that. Wow. So you're the one. Yeah. I've read Lucas's biography though.

But haven't actually watched star Wars. I didn't think there was anybody

Srini Rao: left. Yeah. I might be one of the few, my brother in law never lets me live it down. He was like, dude, he was like, you should know this kind of stuff. He's you create media for a living. I'm like, yeah, I know. But I'm with you. Karate Kid was one of those films.

I don't know if it was formative for me because. Unlike you, my parents enrolled me in karate and I remember I came home the very first day and my cousin asked what did I learn and I kicked her in the stomach and my parents pulled me out of karate

Zack Arnold: class. Probably not the worst decision for them doing that.

They were they were just being cautious. But what was it like? What was it about that film? I know you could relate to the character going through it, but what was the magic of something like the Karate Kid? That not only pulled you out of the misery then, but then led you to being able to work on something like Cobra Kai.

Yeah. So it's interesting in in talking about this a new memory just came up and if I were to actually tell you the most formative memory that has to do with the karate kid, it actually is not associated with watching the movie. It is associated with a car drive going to school one morning.

And again, my father drove me to school every day because he was the principal and we were going to the same place. But I have a very distinct memory of him talking to me about the lesson of balance from the Karate Kid and explaining to me how important balance is to life. And looking at the work that I do today and all the things that I've done for the majority of my career, whether it is in media creation or now with the things that I do with Optimize Yourself.

Balance is the absolute central theme. And I think that what was so formative about the film, whether it was by choice or not, is that my father was using this story and Mr. Miyagi as a vehicle to teach me life lessons. So the most vibrant memories that I have about the film are actually more related to the lessons that were imparted on me because my dad used the lessons from the film as opposed to just preaching to me.

Whether it was conscious or subconscious, he knew the language that I spoke, and that was of movies, because I lived and breathed movies, so he was using these stories and these movies and these lessons to teach me, and if we're gonna fast forward all the way to how did I go from that period of time from being 6, years old, to now being Lead editor, associate producer on Cobra Kai essentially the first reason this happened is because of YouTube's algorithm.

So let me explain to you what what that means. I had never heard of, nor did I know anything about Cobra Kai being developed as a TV series, but I was just on YouTube for whatever reason. I actually don't consume YouTube that often, but I was either searching for something or whatever it might've been watching and the algorithm said, you might like this and it was in the sidebar.

And I saw the trailer for season one of Cobra Kai the week that it came out. And my first reaction to it was how dare they? Oh my God. Somebody is remaking the karate kid. This is going to be the stupidest thing ever. So I'm going to hate watch the trailer. So I watched the trailer and I realized, okay, so this doesn't look like the worst thing ever, but I'm still pretty confident this is going to be garbage.

So I'm going to hate watch the pilot. So I went and I watched episode one of season one and everybody else that's ever seen it totally hooked five hours later, I'd watched the entire season. And as soon as it was over, I just sat there for two minutes. Just in like silence, I can picture where I was watching it, the room that I was watching.

And I was just like, Oh, I will edit this show. Oh yes, I will edit this show. And immediately got on IMDB, started doing research, who worked on it, who created the show, who were the producers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And realize I didn't recognize any of the names, but in really digging, I found one person that I'd worked with on a pilot like three years before that for four weeks.

So this wasn't like I had to really close friend or really close colleague. It was somebody that, yeah, we'd worked together and we had a cordial relationship and. They would probably remember my name. So in order to really put myself out there and make it clear that not only, Hey, look at me, I'm an editor and I want a job.

You may have seen the blog post that I wrote on my website. You might even be quoting from that one about the lessons from season one of Cobra Kai and how it can teach you to basically a personal development article about how to use these lessons to kick ass in life. I wrote that article and then I sent it to her just letting her know how much of an impact Karate Kid had on me, how much of an impact their season one of Cobra Kai had on me.

And remind everybody, this is the first season when nobody had ever heard of the show and it was on YouTube. And she responded back and said, Oh, I'm so glad that you enjoyed the show. We really enjoyed working on season one. It's really special to us. And your article was great. I'll pass it along. And then whether it was in that email or the next one, I don't remember, but essentially the question came up available, we might be looking for editors.

And I'm like, all right, the door's open. And that was it. So at that point I did a super deep dive into learning all about the three guys that created the show and were also the show runners. And did an extensive reading of all the things that were out there about them. Listen to podcasts that they were on.

And I watched their other movies and their other movies are Harold and Kumar and hot tub time machine and American reunion. And I'm like, what the hell? Like it just, it made absolutely no sense. But the more I started to watch all these different projects that on the surface just seem like stupid, gross out R rated comedies.

The one consistent thing across all of them is all their work has a lot of heart and frankly, a lot of times where you wouldn't even think there would be heart, but there's always heart. And that's really important to me. So when I went into that interview and they asked the very first question that everybody asked, which is, Hey, nice to have you here today.

Tell me about yourself. I just leaned in and I said, all you need to know is that the karate kid is my star Wars. And that was it. And you could just tell that I had them in the room at that point. We talked about process. I talked about all the little nuances that I really appreciate about season one, the way they edited it, the music that they chose.

And unofficially got offered the job in the room and the rest is history. Yeah let's come back

Srini Rao: to Cobra Kai. I want to go back to the beginning of your career because I don't imagine that you drive from this small town in Wisconsin to L. A. and overnight, you're Zack Arnold film editor who's working on all these iconic films.

I know the reality of this because doing what I do is like the entertainment industry. We pitched unmistakable as a TV show once. So I know that this is not an easy path. So talking about those early days, were you, is yours one of those stories of sleeping on couches and eating ramen?

Oh,

Zack Arnold: I wasn't actually sleeping on couches because the couch was taken. So I slept on the floor right outside the kitchen. That is, there is no exaggeration there. I have a memory of my third day living in Los Angeles, essentially the short version of the story of how I got there. Is I went to school University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the final week before graduation and mind you, I hate to say this cause it really dates me, this was over 20 years ago now, which I still can't comprehend at that time.

You weren't really applying for jobs online yet. There wasn't indeed, or I don't even think monster. com was out yet. That wasn't a really common way to apply for jobs and businesses were just starting to create a websites and homepages, but I'd done some searching just to learn and better understand.

What are the opportunities even look like out in Los Angeles? Found one random company that did a low budget, independent movie trailers for like studio Indies. And they said, we're looking for an assistant editor. I'm like, all right this is going to be, this is going to be a good chance for me to just learn how this works.

So I put together one resume. I sent the one resume the Friday night before my Saturday morning culmination, where I was just about to walk out the door for family dinner with family that had come from all over the country. I get a call. They said, we got your resume, we're from this company, are you available to come in for an interview early next week?

I'm like, yeah, sure. No problem. What? Where do you need me to be? In what time? Hung up the phone, went to my parents. I said, I have to fly to Los Angeles this weekend. What? What? What are you talking about? I'm like, yeah, I got a job interview. Mind you, the detail I haven't shared is that whenever you want to apply for work in Los Angeles, if you don't have a local address.

They don't give you the time of day. So I had lied and I'd given them a friend's address. They had no idea I was still in Michigan. So I did my culmination Saturday morning, had family dinner, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, packed up all my stuff, flew to LA Sunday morning, did my interview. I don't remember.

It was maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, flew back Thursday. And the day that my plane landed, got the call. They said, we loved you. Can you start Monday? So that was how I got myself to Los Angeles in two days was I went from graduation to starting to work in LA in six days. And then from there, it only took me about eight or nine years to become an overnight success.

So the overnight success story only took me nine years, but I started working in trailers, working on a low budget movies as an assistant editor. And what I did very quickly is I convinced them and demonstrated to them. I have I have of a lot more value to you as an editor than I am as an assistant.

And I started to get a lot of freelance work getting paid as an editor. And I walked in to the owner's office of this company. It was a company, maybe 15, 20 people, and they were working on some studio movies, some independent movies. But mind you, I walked into the owner's office five months after I graduated from college.

So I was still a newbie. And I said, I have other opportunities as an editor. So either you can promote me to the editor position, or I'm going to, I'm going to take these other outside opportunities, but as of now, I'm no longer an assistant editor. And I said, we want to keep you. And they promoted me. And I've, other than those first few months, I've never been an assistant and I've been cutting my entire career.

Cut trailers for several years. Then I made the transition into doing some independent features worked on some much higher profile trailer and movie marketing materials just to pay the bills and then the. Quote unquote overnight success story where everybody's Oh my God, you became this overnight success and we've never heard of you.

Is I got my first major a list editing job on the TV series burn notice. So that was where the story really quote unquote begins. And then once I worked on burn notice, I worked on glee, worked on shooter, worked on empire, worked on several other TV series and pilots, some of which got picked up, some of which didn't.

All of which eventually led to me working on Cobra Kai. Protecting the energy supplies that keep our homes warm, giving new life and longevity to the technologies of today and tomorrow, and innovating for a more sustainable, resource efficient world. I'm Fran Scott, and these are the things I'm exploring.

That are making a world of difference in our new series of the process automation podcast from ABB. In our next episode, we discover the vital role of data and digitalization within industry and how best to use it. Tap the button to listen and follow the process automation podcast now.

Srini Rao: I think the temptation in hearing this story of yours is, Oh, just persist in everything will work out. And I think that's a dangerous narrative because I was listening to you're watching David Letterman's interview with Ryan Reynolds yesterday. And I think the thing that struck me most was something he said about this whole sort of not having a plan B idea, which he says makes for a really nice Instagram post, but it's pretty disconnected from reality.

And he's And Ryan Reynolds who is by all accounts, incredibly successful. He said, yeah, are you kidding? He said, I had a plan B. I had a plan X. And I think particularly in the entertainment industry, there is this sort of narrative of no plan B, come hell or high water. Matt Damon talked about not having a plan B with Sam Jones on off camera.

And there was a part of me that wonders where that narrative can actually be A disservice because we had Annie Duke here. She just wrote a new book called the

Zack Arnold: power of knowing. I'm actually reading it and I'm in the process of wanting to get her on my podcast. So I might just ask for a mutual intro afterwards, but yes, I'm definitely familiar with it.

You're a guy who

Srini Rao: is familiar with an industry where people probably walk away all the time and probably for good reason. So you didn't, but I'm guessing not everybody had the trajectory that you didn't. And I'm guessing. It's not as linear and rosy as you've just made it sound.

Zack Arnold: No, Oh God.

No, it's definitely not linear whatsoever. And it's funny cause when you mentioned this idea of not having a plan B, I have heard this speech at least 400 times. It's a, what's called Schwarzenegger speech that broke the internet. Where's that? You can't have a plan B. He says it all. I literally hear it in my head.

I've used it as my warmup speech before, like ninja competitions and whatnot. And agree with a lot of the things that he says, agree with a lot of these platitudes about setting goals and working hard and whatnot. But I disagree that you shouldn't have any other plan. And the story that comes to mind, and this comes from the last several years of my journey to go from award winning dad bod to now becoming an American Ninja warrior.

One of the people that I brought into my life as a mentor is Tony Horton, who created the P90X fitness program. And I was at his house when he was doing it's called the Paragon experience where he brings people from all over the world for four days, this immersive fitness experience, learning about fitness and nutrition, mindfulness.

And he had one of the world's foremost experts from the world of Cirque du Soleil teaching people beginner handstands. What does this have to do with success and persevering in plan B? It's one of the most profound lessons I've ever learned. You see these people that are anywhere between 30 and 70 years old that have never gone upside down trying to learn how to do a handstand and they are freaking Out.

Their head is a foot and a half from the ground, but

,

they're literally getting the shakes and having panic attacks because their brain has never gone upside down. So what he walked them through is the process that he has to learn as a trapeze artist, as a walking a tightrope. And he says in order to alleviate, not eliminate the fear, but in order to alleviate whatever the fear is of the unknown, whatever it is that you're pursuing.

So for him, it was a literal tightrope or a trapeze for others. It's whatever thing that they want to pursue that's scary or uncomfortable. You have to do is walk through failure. Basically. It's this concept that I know that Tim Ferriss has talked about as well. That's called fear setting. So if I'm walking the tightrope, I'm going to fall.

I'm not going to do it right the first time. So what happens when I fall? All right let's learn what's the proper body position that you need to get into so you can hit the net and not hurt yourself. Great. What happens if I hit it the wrong way or this way or the net breaks? Okay, now let's talk about the next level of failure.

There's another safety net underneath the safety net and here are all the safety measures. So essentially you're working through all these various ideas. Plan A. I'm going to walk across the tightrope successfully, and I'm going to be at the platform on the other side. Plan B along the way, my foot might slip, my hand might be in the wrong position, and I'm going to fall off.

But if I know how to get into the right body position, and I know that I've double and triple checked all the safety mechanisms, I'm going to be fine, and I have the opportunity to get back up on the tightrope. Plan C is, although safety measures break here's another level of safety measures that are underneath.

So the chances of true failure, or in this case for them, ultimate failure is death, the chances are so minusculely small that you then develop just enough knowledge and have just enough plans, whether it's plan B, plan C, plan D, that you can face it until you make it. Everybody talks about fake it until you make it, and I don't believe any of that crap.

But I believe that you face it until you make it, specifically facing the fear. So did I have a plan B of if I don't make X amount of dollars, or I don't have an A list credit, or I haven't won an Emmy by this age I guess I'm just going to go back to the farm, and I'm going to have to mow hay, and I'm going to work in construction no, that was not a plan B, but there were always alternatives to the path that ultimately were going to lead me back to where it is that I still wanted to go.

So I have a multitude of things on my resume. That nobody has ever heard of that are not on IMDbPro that I never boast about that were not part of the plan, but they helped me pay the bills to continue working towards plan A. So should you just say, I want a plan B where I can give up and I can make excuses for not succeeding?

No. But should you have alternate plans and paths knowing that you're never going to go in a straight line and the path to success is very windy and there's failures and setbacks like in that case, I think you should have plenty of other plans like Ryan Reynolds said from plan B to plan X. Yeah. I remember in 2014, this was the year after my self published book had become a wall street journal bestseller.

Srini Rao: The business was basically running on fumes. I went back to my parents house and I'd been living there for a long time to make the show work, which was the thing I was willing to give up to do this. And I told him, I said, tell you what, by the end of this year, things haven't turned around, I'll go start looking for a real job.

And two months later, I got my book deal, which was just a damn good stroke of luck. But you don't remember somebody had said, Oh, if you have this plan B, it'll become a self fulfilling prophecy. And I was like, no, that's horseshit. That's complete nonsense. If you're committed to the first plan but I think there was an element of luck involved in that.

Write that off to Hey, I I'm a genius and that's why

Zack Arnold: this all happened. Yeah, exactly. And I think that depending on your life circumstances, I think there are also situations where it's frankly irresponsible to not have a plan B. In my case, I'm married, I've got two kids, so for me to say, I'm gonna triple mortgage the house, and I'm gonna take every dollar that we have in emergency savings and our kids tuition and college funds, all of it's gonna go into me investing in my business and I have no plan B because that's just the kind of person I am and I want to manifest my destiny like, dude you're a father and you're a husband don't be an asshole don't.

Put all of your eggs in one basket. There should be alternate plans, but I think that again, just to reiterate this, I think there's a difference between I have alternatives and options and different safety nets based on the path that I choose and based on where I'm going to slip and fall because they're going to, if you're doing it right, you're failing.

If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough, having plans for those failures is important, having an excuse that you call plan B, where it's I want to build a business, but it's getting hard and it's scary. And I didn't meet my projections and people are trolling me online and saying this idea of self optimization is stupid.

I've got a plan B and that's just to go back and be an accountant. So I should probably go with my plan B like that's different. Having plan B as an excuse for not wanting to work through the discomfort and the fear is different than I, the, one of the things that I call myself as an optimistic pragmatist.

I'm not totally optimistic, but I'm not a pessimist. I am an optimistic pragmatist, which is that I always want to assume the best and work towards the best. But I'm going to prepare for the worst. And I think that's okay. And that obviously in my situation has not derailed my success, but I've always got that pragmatic backstop, but again, not to give up just to make sure that I can keep going down an alternate path.

Oh,

Srini Rao: I, yeah I appreciate this more than you could possibly imagine. Cause my old roommate, Matt and I have these battles back and forth. He's you're a pessimist. I was like, no, Matt, I'm an optimistic realist. You're a delusional optimist. Yeah. Yeah. And. Got me thinking about just how we make these choices.

But you don't want to talk to me about editing because I think it makes a perfect segue into your work. I very distinctly remember reading in Greg McEwen's book something about it watching the Oscars. And he said, if you look at the films that always win best picture, he said, coincidentally, they are not coincidentally, it's almost always the same film that wins best editing.

I don't think many of us see the magic of editing because I've been on a reality TV show, so I know the magic of editing or the mismagic of editing for some people who are too stupid and don't aren't mindful about what they say on camera. But talk to me about that because it seems like it's such a profound metaphor for life and also this whole idea of self optimization.

Zack Arnold: Oh, absolutely. And the hardest thing about being an editor is that nobody has any concept of what you do for a living. And I'm not talking about your aunt that's a stockbroker. I'm talking about people in the industry don't know what editors really do. So I can talk to other craftspeople like without having a deep knowledge of it, you probably have some basic concept of what a costume designer does for a living.

You probably know what a director of photography does. You don't know the ins and outs and the nuances the basic contribution that they make to a film or a television show, nobody has any idea what the editor does other than, oh yeah you take the footage that they shoot and you take out the bad parts and you make it shorter, right?

Cause it says this program has been edited down for television. So they assume we take out the bad parts and the best way that I can describe this to people that don't really understand the process is. You imagine for a second, a film set. Everybody knows what a film set looks like. If they haven't been on one, they've watched the behind the scenes.

They've seen something on YouTube. They've seen pictures where you have all these lights. You've got these cameras, you've got 150 crew members. They're spending millions of dollars. They have multiple cameras. They shoot all of this material over the course of a day. All of it goes onto one little tiny hard drive.

And that little tiny hard drive is handed to the editor. It is handed to me and it is my job or the editor's job to sift through every single second, not only every second, but in every second, there are 24 frames. You have to watch everything that was shot. And on any given day, you're probably given between four to 10 hours of material.

You have to construct a story out of that. You have to take all the various angles, all the various takes, all the nuances of performances, the different lenses, and you are the one that actually constructs the scenes, constructs the sequences and constructs the show. So when it comes to a cinematographer, for example, there's this concept where they say that a cinematographer paints with light.

So if you look at a really interesting composition in a movie or a TV show, and you feel something evoked by the way that it looks, that's a cinematographer and lighting designers in the camera department painting with light. What I say is that editors are painting with emotion. So when you feel things, the moments that are created when you're watching a TV show, watching a movie, whatever that media is, those moments don't happen by accident.

Essentially what I do all day long as an editor inside the timeline. And one of the nice things about technology today is that most people at least have. A very basic understanding of editing. Cause they've used iMovie to cut together their kid's little league video, or they've used the Tok things to piece the pieces together.

And universally, everybody's God, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's yeah, no shit. Welcome to my world. Yeah. But people have some basic understanding of kind of moving the blocks around and how you have the different layers and you're stacking things on top of each other.

So what I've always talked about with people that are in my industry that don't understand how to describe what we do. I say that what I do for a living is I play Tetris all day long with people's emotions. I take all of these different colored blocks that represent video, that represent audio, and I create moments.

So no different than as an editor creating moments where all of a sudden you feel something watching a scene. You're like, Oh, I just, I love that scene. Oh, what did you love the most about it? I don't know. It just, it made me feel heroic or I felt sad or it was cathartic. What made you feel that way?

I don't know. I just felt it. I know what made you felt that way. I know you feel that way because at this exact spot, when the character's eyes look this way, I started a piece of music or I changed from a wide shot to a closeup, or I did a very slow pushing on the video. You don't know why you're feeling things, but I know why you're feeling things.

Cause I am. Augmenting that moment to make sure that you feel it. So essentially an editor is not only the final writer that's constructing and reconstructing the story, changing the order of lines, changing the order of scenes, or the final writers, but we're also the ones that create the final emotion and are dictating the moments that you experience.

And what I discovered and this kind of is a little bit of a transition from the editing world to the entrepreneur and the coach and self optimization world when I first started this coaching program and started Optimize Yourself, I was hit with the worst case of debilitating imposter syndrome that I've ever experienced in my entire life, creatively or otherwise.

And what I discovered through extensive therapy sessions is I was experiencing the imposter syndrome because I believed that I knew nothing about how to actually be a coach or how to help people through a process. I'm not a licensed therapist and I hadn't taken all these classes and I didn't have a master's, et cetera, et cetera.

But what I realized over the course of time is that what I've been doing as an editor, my entire career. is I've been telling specific stories and helping the fictional characters create and experience very specific emotional moments. And one day it clicked and I thought, why can't I just do that with real people?

When somebody talks to me, if I work with one of my students in my coaching program, sometimes they'll go off for half an hour. They'll just talk about, oh, this happened in my day or that, and there's this fear and that fear. And they'll say, oh my god, I'm so sorry that I just rambled for so long.

And I said, you didn't ramble, you just created all the raw footage for me. Now it's my job to take your raw footage and pare it down and find the essence of it and help you create the most important moments out of all the things that you just discussed. Once I realized that I wasn't starting over, but I had decades worth of transferable storytelling experience.

And it was just going from how do I tell these fictional stories with fictional characters to helping people construct and better tell their stories and create more meaningful moments in their real lives, then it clicked. I'm like, Oh, I'm actually. Good at this. Maybe I should keep going.

So that was the transition from being quote unquote, just an editor for a living to now balancing editing and coaching and writing and podcasting and all the other things that I do.

Srini Rao: So really what you're doing is you're editing people's lives

Zack Arnold: now. Exactly. And it's not necessarily that I'm editing their lives.

It's that I'm helping them learn how to edit their lives and better write and tell their stories. So if I were the editor, I would be saying, do this, do that, skip this. You know what? You don't need this scene anymore. It's more I help them develop the tools so they can better tell their stories.

I

Srini Rao: so appreciate this whole concept of painting with emotion because I, we've done these narrative style NPR type episodes where we weave together clips from previous episodes. And I have the greatest sound engineer in the world. Like he's this kid in South Africa. We found him on Upwork and God, he was a godsend.

The two of us together can do what a team of 50 people at NPR do. And every time we do one of these, I remember the first time he found out I wanted to do this. He said, you should have told me this, man. He's that's what I do. I'm a sound designer. And my direction to him is very simple. Half the time, most of the time, it's something like Josh just bring the audience to tears.

And it's amazing what he can do with that. With that very simple direction. It just makes me think I had to ask you about the playing with the boys montage.

Zack Arnold: You know what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, That the the top gun rework montage, if I remember correctly, that episode 504 they all blend together, but I'm pretty sure that's 504 I remember.

Srini Rao: I was in Brazil watching this and. It made me wonder what was the emotion you're trying to invoke? For me, it was a combination of I felt a little bit of nostalgia, but it also made me laugh. Like I was dying laughing during that scene. I was like, this is brilliant. Whoever thought of this really is just an absolute genius, especially because those movies are from the same time period.

Zack Arnold: And here's the funny thing about that. And I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble or not. But that montage was not originally conceived to be playing with the boys. The montage was originally conceived to be take my breath away. It was supposed to be a much more romantic lovey dovey montage that was slow.

And like she was having this the sexual romantic fantasy of Johnny being Tom Cruise. And it just didn't work. It just, it didn't feel right. And it was slow and the romance wasn't right. And I, and the, obviously all the footage that you see there in the finished version, that's the footage I had to work with as an editor, at least in live action animation's different, but in live action, the footage is the footage and you can only do the best with what you're given.

So I used, I had all the same footage in the original one, but again, it felt very different. It was creating different emotions in different moments. So I said to them, rather than the volleyball, just being like, it was one of the little vignettes, but really the story of the volleyball and the first version, the way that it was written, it was all about Carmen.

It's all about Carmen being swept up in this moment. And I said, guys, this should be the plane with the boys montage. What are we doing? Like the, because the whole idea of every single vignette is Carmen is playing with the boys. Either she's playing with Johnny or Miguel is part of it as well. And you're presuming, at least in the fantasy that maybe it's a little baby boy.

So this should be playing with the boys like I don't know. We really wanted it to be this. I'm like, and they were

,

like, no, maybe we should make a danger zone. I'm like, guys. Can you just trust me for a second? Let me cut a version with playing with the boys and they're watching like, Oh yeah, nevermind.

That's what this was supposed to be. So that's an example of the power that an editor has. It's not just cutting out the bad parts. It can be completely reconceiving an idea, both on paper and the way that it's shot. And saying, I know this was your intention. Your intention is not working. And there are a multitude of stories throughout my four seasons on Cobra Kai seasons two through five, where whatever in the finished product is not even remotely close to what the original intention was on page because things happen, things change.

You have a visualization of, I think it's going to be this way. And then you actually watch it and you're like, yeah, this doesn't feel the way that I thought. It's my job as an editor to make sure it feels the way you want it to feel. Let's

Srini Rao: talk about doing this in our own lives for non fictional characters like ourselves.

One of the things that you say on your page is that optimizing yourself is about understanding your own limitations, recognizing and accepting your own disabilities, and then becoming the strongest My most authentic version of your existing self, not trying to become someone you're not. And I love the way that you worded that because it was so grounded and fucking reality.

Like it was just like, this is a realistic approach. It's not, Hey, you're going to be the next Elon, which at this point, that's probably no longer viable.

Zack Arnold: I might have to change that whole ideal of the way things have progressed. Yeah this whole idea about understanding your own limitations, I think this is something that.

Srini Rao: People really hate this idea, I think, in self improvement of genetic determinism. And I think there's a lot of books that have been written that challenge this idea. And I'm like, honestly, that's bullshit. Genetics matter. Yeah. I've realized that funny enough, I'm like, you know what? I don't have an aptitude for numbers at all.

No matter how hard I try, I can tell you this from my endless attempts to solve the Rubik's Cube, which eight months later, I'm still tinkering around with this thing. I'm like, okay, my brain doesn't work like this. I know this. I just want to do this for a challenge. But I'm not trying to make a career as a speed shooter.

That's never going to happen. So talk to me about the concepts that you talk about in that phrase and how editing plays a role in doing that.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. So the word that sticks out as the most important to me, which is essentially the foundation of all the work that I do is the word disability. I've gotten not in trouble, but I've gotten some weird comments and people are in this world of cancel culture and everybody walking on eggshells.

I, there's a phrase that I use all the time where I say that everybody has a disability, but you can't say that. You can't say that people have disabilities. And can you just give me a second to give you a little bit of context. So what I mean by this, and this is actually a phrase that I didn't come up with as I'm sure it sounds like you've done extensive homework to prepare for this, which I very much appreciate.

One of the most important, if not the most important project that I've ever worked on. Is a documentary film that I produced, directed, wrote, funded was essentially an eight year passion project about the first quadriplegic to become a licensed scuba diver who also happened to be a good friend of mine.

And what he would always say his message in life was that everybody has a disability. And that doesn't mean that everybody's in a wheelchair or everybody's a quadriplegic the way that he was, but every single person has deficiencies. They're going to have a disability where it might be their eyesight or it might be their hearing, or it's just a disability in a certain context and context with disabilities is so important.

So if somebody were five foot one inches and they're 130 pounds, I would say that their size is most likely a disability if they want to play in the NBA. Now, there have been a couple of people that have been slightly larger than that have made it. But if you're going to play the probabilities, if you're 5'1 and you're 130 pounds, you're probably not going to be in the NBA.

So in that context, your height and your size are a disability. They are a kryptonite. But if you're going to become a ninja warrior and you're a formal act, former acrobat and gymnast, and you're 5'1 and you're 130 pounds. You're going to end up being one of the top ninjas on the planet because you are absolutely suited for that sport.

So if you talk about context, disabilities are only disabilities in a certain context. So for example this documentary film, which was called go far, the Christopher rush story, the fact that he was quadriplegic. He's not disabled. He has a disability in the context of, I would like to run up and down the boardwalk, not going to happen.

You can't do it. But his disability quote unquote was more of a superpower. And that he had a lot of intellectual abilities that he most likely never would have developed if he had spent a lot of time focused on his physical abilities. So for me as an editor, not necessarily in the world of editing television or movies, but in helping people to better structure the stories of their lives and build more meaningful moments.

One of the absolute key things that I think so many people in the personal and professional development space miss, and not everybody, there are a few people that have really figured this out, but everybody talks about goals. You have to set goals. And once you set goals, you build systems and you get to do lists and you get apps and all these other things.

But there's one question that I find almost nobody asks when they talk about setting goals and setting a goal is a major part of better telling your story. What's going to stop me? They don't think about the obstacles and they don't realize all of the limiting beliefs and the voices that they have in their head that are most likely stopping them, making them their own worst enemy.

And one of the exercises that I take my students through and to better tell their stories is to identify what do I believe are my disabilities? Because again, everybody has a disability. How do we reframe that disability in a certain context where in a certain context, it might actually become a superpower.

So if I were to look at this from a top level, and it sounds like this is something that you can relate to when I was in my early to mid twenties, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, anxiety, and adult onset ADD, which was just the trifecta of what the hell is going on with my brain and my life.

And it could be very easy to say, yeah I suffer from ADHD. It's a disability. Yes. In certain contexts, like trying to manage basic things about my life. ADHD can be a real pain in the ass, but guess what? In the right context, with the right tools, ADHD is my number one superpower to building a business and teaching people and better understanding the world and better telling people's stories, but it's because I learned how to reframe it.

So I think that the most important thing when people are telling their stories and rewriting them, they really need to be willing to embrace this idea that these, this is the hand that I was dealt. So yeah, genetic determinism, what, wherever it is that I'm supposed to end up versus I can be anything that I want to be, I think the place in the middle is this is the hand that I was dealt and I first need to accept it, but I need to stop making excuses that these things are going to stop me and I need to instead circumvent these obstacles and find a different path.

To becoming what I want to be because it would have been very simple for me to say I deal with depression and anxiety and I've got this ADHD and I suffer from all of these things and now my life is just going to suck, right? And I lived in that world for a small period of time until I just woke up and I was like, this is just not conducive to me living a quality life and I'm just going to find better ways around it.

So it's just it's all about context. If you're speaking my language this is something I'd be like a dead horse on the show this entire year because you're talking to somebody who has been diagnosed with ADHD as well, who takes medication for ADHD and to your point in a day job, it was my Achilles heel, running a business, it allows me to finish a 45, 000 word manuscript in six

months.

Yeah, I did one of the things that I discovered about myself too, that I, if you have a lot of entrepreneurs listening, they may already realize this. I didn't realize it. It took me years to make this discovery. But what I realized is that I am incredibly good at working with people. What I do as an editor, both in the film and television space and now working as a coach and collaborator and mentor, I am excellent at working with people.

I am horrible at working for people. Oh my God, I cannot work for people to save my life. I just, I can't handle the structure they impose and the arbitrary deadlines or the ways of working or the workflows. If I have to work for someone, I'm miserable, which comes from the ADHD, but I can collaborate with people.

And I think there's a lot of people that are entrepreneurs that that have the same struggle.

Srini Rao: Yeah, no, absolutely. I can totally relate. I want to not to make this completely about Cobra Kai, but I think it's just such a perfect backdrop for everything we're talking about. The thing that I think really struck me most about the show was just the level of emotional resonance it had in culture.

And the other thing was how they were able to basically take all these open loops from God knows how long ago, 30 years. And I wonder what it is that enables that because there's something that Machio said in his memoir that really struck me. And I remember when this is one of the quotes that I clipped into my book notes.

It was whether it be in the John Hughes movies or Back to the Future, The Karate Kid or others from that era, they were specific to that time. There was an innocence and an adolescent openness and vulnerability that we don't often see as much in films today. Perhaps it was a simpler time. But you guys really have brought back a lot of what he's talking about

Zack Arnold: and what is it?

Why is that? What? What's how does that happen? The first thing that I'll just throw in as a shameless plug you may already know this, but for those that are listening, I actually just released an extensive podcast interview with none other than Ralph Macchio talking about this concept and talking about the other things in his book.

So I want to make sure that anybody that wants to do a much deeper dive into this, I'll do my best to answer it in a couple of minutes. But I think that, yes, it, number one, it was a simpler time. And I think one of the reasons that we have so much 80s nostalgia in everything, even things that just have no business having 80s nostalgia, they're just doing it for the sake of the 80s nostalgia.

But the reason is that I think that's maybe not the very last generation, but that's as close to being one of the last generations before the internet. Where it was the simpler time of when it was summer vacation, your parents just opened the door when the sun came out and they literally kicked your butt out the door and they said, and nowadays, like even with my own kids, I desperately want to be able to do that, but I live in Los Angeles and I can't, but when I take my kids back to the farm, because my parents still live on the same farm where I grew up. We go there during the summers and we call it farm camp. And basically they don't need the internet and they don't need their phones.

And we kick them out the door. And we're like, we'll see you guys for dinnertime. Actually, technically it's for suppertime because things are different. I'm on the farm. You've got breakfast and dinner and supper. That's a whole nother conversation. But at first you're like what are we supposed to do?

I'm like, I don't know. Find a pile of sticks, do whatever you want. Just figure it out. And they started to figure it out and got really creative. And by the time we were there for two or three weeks, they weren't even reaching for their phones and reaching for their laptops. And I think that the, even though it doesn't directly talk about it, the Karate Kid has that simpler time.

And I think one of the most brilliant choices. That they made in creating a Johnny's character in the creating the version of his character nowadays is his level of both simplicity and ignorance about modern technology. I think that's a throwback to the simplicity where like one of my favorite lines of the entire series is when he and Daniel are having they're having a drink, I think it's episode 109 and they're talking about what Allie's up to and he's, he was showing, he's I saw this post on Facebook and Johnny says.

What's a Facebook? That to me was the perfect encapsulation of the level of simplicity that the show employs. And now that we're deep through the end of season five, it's harder to be able to sell that he's not catching up on all this stuff. But there's always at least one or two storylines a season.

For example, it's the, him being the Uber Eats driver again, in episode 504. He doesn't understand smartphones. It's little things like that. But I think using that as a vehicle, as a throwback to the simplicity is a really important core part of the story because everything else is modernized.

All the kids have their phones and Daniel LaRusso's in the nice house and I'm guessing it's a smart house and has all these. Fancy tools and technology. But Johnny just reminds us of that that world that no longer exists. And I think that's one of the biggest things that makes the show so charming and endearing is the fact that it just, it does hearken back to that simpler time.

Wow. This has been amazing. I could talk to

you all day. I've ditto. I'm loving this. I feel like we just got warmed up. I might have to have you on my show.

Srini Rao: Yeah, no, we will. We'll definitely. There's so much we seem to have in common. But in the interest of time, I want to finish with my very last question, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the unmistakable creative.

What do you think it is that makes somebody or something

Zack Arnold: unmistakable? I think it's their willingness to embrace their own authenticity and put themselves out there regardless of the fear that they might be facing. I think that it's one thing to stumble into success or become somebody else's version of success, but I think you can unmistakably be creative or successful on anything if you're willing to just embrace the authentic version of who you are and put yourself out there despite all those fears.

I don't see any other way to do it because I tried doing it the other way and it's just not fun and it's just not fulfilling. So if I'm going to be successful by my own definition, I can only be successful by my own definition if it's encapsulated with authenticity. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your stories, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners.

Srini Rao: Where can people find out more about you, your work and everything

Zack Arnold: that you're up to? Yeah, sure. So the simplest place is they can just go to optimize yourself. me and learn more about my story. And they can listen to the podcast, read blog posts learn about the coaching program. But what I've also put together for podcast listeners for anybody that wants to get started designing the more authentic version of their life, I believe that one of the most fundamental meta skills that you must develop to be a better storyteller is time management.

I think you have to learn how to more effectively structure your day and structure your life. So you're doing the right things as opposed to doing the things that everybody else wants you to do. So if they go to optimize yourself, that me slash unmistakable. I have a simple exercise that I take my students through to help them create their ideal week.

It's a very simple thing to get them started and make sure that their time is more in alignment with their values. Amazing.

Srini Rao: And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.