Stone Cold Steve Austin has a podcast and is pretty much his wrestling character because his wrestling character was him. From an IGN interview (2005):
I didn’t know, so I asked Rick Rude and Ricky Steamboat what I’m doing wrong. I was a great mechanic, but the entertainment value was clearly missing, so when I finally began making the transition to “Stone Cold”, and was venting my frustrations through the character, it all sort of fell into place. Letting loose and being myself I owe to those guys.
It’s a great position that he earned and has taken advantage of to have great things post-wrestling. In 1998, he was working the same character that he would be happy to work 20 years later.
That’s worth striving for. Even if you work at a desk.
Jason Fried and DHH released “It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work” this week. “The Calm Company” was the working title. If you think calm is a good thing, you’ll enjoy this book.
If you like things crazy, this might go a step toward changing your mind.
Particularly if you think the craziness is only temporary. For now. To kick start things and then you can calm it down later.
From “It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work”:
You have to keep asking yourself if the way you’re working today is the way you’d want to work in 10, 20, or 30 years. If not, now is the time to make a change, not “later.”
We always think we can do things later. That things will be better later. After you get through these three years grinding then you can relax. But if you grind for three years (or, hey, ten) and attribute it all to hard work, you’ll be pretty hesitant to take your foot off the pedal.
I like that the book’s themes can apply generally outside of just working in tech. You carry around a portal to be everywhere except where you are. There are notifications for everything. You can over schedule yourself with a few taps here and there. Then fill the gaps in looking at other people’s perfect lives.
It’s great to step back and calm down.
Pair this book with a podcast…
DHH and Jason Fried have each been on Tim Ferriss’s podcast (DHH Oct 2016, DHH Nov 2016, Jason Fried Jul 2018) and they’re some of my favorite episodes of any podcast. On one of those episodes, Tim and DHH talk about people who drive themselves hard to build and sell a company and then end up unhappy on the other side of that.
Something that’s stuck with me and that jives with the idea from that book excerpt above is that you should practice being rich. Because you’re not just going to flip a switch 10 years from now. You have to start changing today.
If you’re on a path to become rich, you better start practicing being rich:
If you want to be good and you hope to enjoy all these things by using your time for fun when you have money, you have to practice that before you have money. It sounds ridiculous, but I think that money is like alcohol in the sense that it just makes you more of who you already are.
Stone Cold always says he was just himself but turned up a notch or two. He became successful being himself so it didn’t really change all that much when wrestling ended.
Lastly, if you remember one thing remember this: if you’re ever in doubt, ask Rick Rude and Ricky Steamboat.