139 Josh Terry: From Overworking to 1.3M Tiktok Followers in 2 Years

[00:00:00] CK Lin: My guest today is Josh Terry. He has built an audience of 1.2 million followers on Tik TOK. And the last two years is a writer. He's a content creator is an investor focusing on learning theory, self development and mental model and Bitcoin. I'm so excited to have you here with us. Josh. Thanks so much.

[00:00:20] Josh Terry: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:22] CK Lin: All right. So let's jump right into it. Uh, I'm new on tech talk and I am a fan of you, and I want to let you know this publicly. You are the reason why I started creating on Tik TOK, because when I saw you, I said, oh my God, this guy is very much of a kindred spirit, right. Is a huge, uh, FSU natto about mental models, learning, you know, thinking long-term the ying and the yang.

All right. So if he can, if he can do this. So can I, so thank you so much for inspiring me for being

[00:00:55] Josh Terry: on Tik TOK. It's about pleasure. I'm really happy to hear that. That's that's [00:01:00] wonderful news.

[00:01:02] CK Lin: So let me ask you this. Someone who I know tons of knowledge creators, and they're looking at tech talk today as like, oh, okay.

Only kits are on Tik TOK still. So if someone who's invested two years into doing. What do you think makes it different than other platforms let's start there?

[00:01:24] Josh Terry: Well, um, one is I think the discovery algorithm from, from a technical perspective, that discovery algorithm on Tik TOK is different. Um, it's seemingly a little bit more random and add. But I think it's really just more matching to how humans work, which is we want to find whatever sparks our interest in the moment and take talks seems to be really good at that.

And that birthed a bunch of new, you know, short form things as every other platform started jumping on this. And [00:02:00] I think the result of that is a new form of expression and communication. Uh, you, you know, when, when blogs came out initially it was an amazing opportunity. Well, first it was just hobbyist, but then it was an amazing opportunity for, uh, people to, you know, build businesses, uh, you know, different ways to gain wealth, things like that.

But then eventually it became oversaturated and a lot of people moved on at that point, but. One of my favorites, Seth Goden, um, began making classes around blogging and he said, it doesn't matter if you're going to get financial success with this thing, it's going to make you into a better human. And I thought that was amazing.

He, he, he doesn't teach blogs as a way to get necessarily financial success. He teaches blogs as a way to understand your own thinking to, to clarify your own thoughts. And one of the aspects of, of blogging is it's [00:03:00] it's in a way it's very short form. It's, it's often short form to a length, not much longer than, than, uh, maybe one of my one minute tick talks.

I mean, I post my tech talks as blog now and the. The tick talks are another way, I think, to explore an idea, uh, in a short-term way so that you can get more reps on exploring ideas. So as a, as a personal exploration, I think is phenomenal. Um, on top of that, I mean, if, if you look at just a Gary V model of marketing, uh, the, the standard Gary V model of marketing is go on the fastest growing platform and focus on that until it's not the fastest growing platform, then go somewhere else and, uh, use that methodology as a way to grow and take talks to the flash fastest growing platform.

So there's a, there's a, uh, a logic to it from a marketing perspective as well. Um, but [00:04:00] for me as a crazy artist, I really like the fact that it, it gives me a chance to explore something in a way that if I want, I can go from. And if I decide that this isn't a route that I want to explore, I can just start a new topic.

Um, it gives me immense freedom of subject material I've noticed. And, and that's been a huge unlock for me because I'm a person who is interested in many subjects.

[00:04:32] CK Lin: I appreciate that. So, so there's a few different points. I really appreciate that. Where you answered this question. So first and foremost, you said it's a self exploration platform for you first and foremost.

And then the second is more on the marketing side. And the third is what was that again? Alright. Is it R and D lab for you to explore different, um, interests that you have because you're a polymath, you know, different interests and so forth. Um, I want to do a quick [00:05:00] call-out for me, people ask me the same question.

Why are you on Tik TOK? What's you know, what's the point of view. I would say, yes, there's certainly a marketing aspect of it, for sure. But 80% of my primary intrinsic motivation is to self excavate. Cause I err on the side of thinking too much and I shipping in enough and this to me, as you said, it's a first and the third point that you're making, this is a way for me to synthesize my thoughts and ship and you know, productize or package, um, what is my current thought of the moment?

And then at the end of the year, I can then look it back and say, Hey, here's a body of work. If there's any questions that you may have on something, I can now send them a video instead of having to answer that questions over and over.

[00:05:49] Josh Terry: Yeah, I, I think this is probably the primary benefit for me as well is for people that are very exploratory, creative, uh, [00:06:00] uh, very, uh, mental, um, th they, uh, typically, I guess maybe farther on the neurotic end of the spectrum, high end creativity and openness, these sorts of things.

They struggle often with the execution side, they have amazing ideas. They have amazing things that they could bring to the world. Um, I mean, that's actually, what they're wired for is to bring new things into the world. That's, that's the potential benefit to the world, but they struggle to, you know, connect that to the real world because they're, they're busy connecting the dots and they get one realization and they go, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

Let me go on to the. And, you know, you, you can't build a 40 year empire very easily. Uh, if that's the only thing that you do. And I think that Tik TOK is a really powerful tool for people like that, because it's not that creatives aren't good at executing. [00:07:00] They're phenomenal at execution. It's not good. I mean, it's not true that people that are, uh, neurotic, uh, indecisive, et cetera, uh, that the one of, you know, think about a topic deeply in the move onto the next topic.

It's not that they can't apply what they think is this. They usually don't have as much practice does most practice as most people because they've had this strength of thought that they've leaned on throughout their lives. So in anything that you're really good at you consciously or unconsciously lean on it in some way.

So somebody that's extremely creative and thoughtful has learned to get through life in a bunch of ways using that and then had about. You know, costly dilemmas that have come as a result of it. And the costly dilemmas is usually they're not good at bringing their ideas out in the world. And the way to get through that is to give yourself reps on it.

It's to it's [00:08:00] really, to just think of execution as a skillset. And I think that Tik TOK for some people is a phenomenal way to practice execution. Uh, it's a way to be because I'm going to refer back to Seth Goden. There's something that Seth Godin talks a lot about, which is. Right. So the goal is to ship the product, ship it, and you need practice doing so.

So what people often do is they'll think of an idea for a book and they'll start their, their authorship career by, by thinking of hundreds of ideas for books. And they'll go, okay, now I'm good at ideas for books. And then they'll think about like, okay, well now I need to learn about book structure. Okay.

So I'm going to write hundreds of book structures and they'll, they'll try to go through this process with the idea that once they get to the end of this process, there'll be really good at writing books. And then there'll be able to ship a lot of books. But the reality is sometimes you need [00:09:00] to switch it from this, like, thinking about getting really good at step one to actually.

Considering all of the steps of step one. So it's like, I'm going to go from getting an idea for a book to writing a form for a book to writing the book, to publishing the book, to selling the book to my mom, to selling the book to my brother, to selling the book to my neighbor, to selling the book to one person on Instagram.

And now you have a full view of the process and, uh, you might end up at that point that realizing that you hate writing books, and then you can go do something else, which is, you know, a huge relief, uh, because otherwise you would have, you know, wasted decades of your life. But also if you realize that you like it, now you go, okay, that's the process.

Now, if I do that again, I can get better at that. And this is. A very practical way to think, but very few of us naturally come to it. We, we normally [00:10:00] look at learning as something where we will come to it from a beginning set of fundamental reps that will work on that, which will then give us permission to do the next set of raps.

And I think that tick-tock gives us practice going from an idea to a completed published profit, to a completed published product faster so that we get a wrap on an entire process of shipping something. And then it allows us to learn this skill and then we can apply the skill of shipping it or execution to other things.

[00:10:33] CK Lin: I love it. Thank you for sharing. That actually reminds me. So what you're saying, by the way, my styles recap, and then we can elaborate further. Okay. So what I'm hearing is, is really important for those who are more cerebral and to complete entire cycle. From the ideation all the way to shipping you.

Ashley reminds me of something that David Parell, uh, share. He's the guy who has, um, a [00:11:00] program called write a passage and he, he distinguish a printer method versus a pixel method. And let me explain what that is. So printer method is when you print something it's line by line by lines. Perfect. Clarity print, print, print, print, print, print print versus a pixel method is, is really blurring the beginning and it gets progressively more clear throughout and, uh, our school system.

Teaches us. There's a step-by-step process. You get phase 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then it finally tied on the end. It's complete. Perfect. But in reality, especially in the creative process, what I came to appreciate is really is more of a pixel method. Now, if you have the, a gift, we get divine download perfect for a shot.

Congratulations to you. That's awesome. But, uh, at least for the rest of us, uh, my experience is more of the pixel method. What

[00:11:53] Josh Terry: do you think about that? I think it's great. So I want to break down real quick, the good side of the line [00:12:00] method, because if we understand the good side, we can understand why we might not want to apply it in other places.

So the line method comes with an assumption that we know what the hell we want to make. And if we just learn how to. You know, do all of the steps to get us to that thing. Then we will have what we want. So this method of learning, the complete version of something is really useful. For example, in learning an ancient skillset, that's been passed down for generations and has been optimized.

So if you are learning martial arts, it's really useful to have a teacher not put you in a fight the first day, it's really useful to have a teacher set you down and teach you about your center of gravity and get you to just learn this process of balancing yourself, making yourself more stable. And you know, maybe you would explore that for a [00:13:00] week where, you know, the teacher just kind of pushes you on the shoulder and you fall over and you realize, oh my gosh, if I would have shifted my foot this way a little bit, you know, I would have been more stable.

So that. Uh, line by line process and the sense that you're not learning how to fight in studying martial arts. That way at that moment, you're learning just this stability factor, which will make you better in fights. Right? So the reason why that's useful is one, it reduces risk because, you know, if you dive into a fight when you're in capable, it you're much more likely to get injured, but, but two is you have a teacher that knows exactly where you're going.

He's, he's studied, fighting his entire life. And he knows that if you learn these center of gravity ideas, then you will have an awareness that you carry through all of your other training.

[00:13:55] CK Lin: This is the Nobel warrior podcast. So we use the dojo analogy quite [00:14:00] a lot. So I definitely appreciate the whole idea of going to the dojo practicing. And I also have a sense, they have a master pointing out to you that this is a at this works.

[00:14:12] Josh Terry: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, let's continue with that. So, so if, if you're, if you're, if you're learning your, uh, if you're learning your skillset from a very skilled teacher, you can go into it almost blindly with a bunch of faith in the teacher and actually learn faster because he'll just feed it into you and you'll, you'll learn this one fundamental basic, then you'll learn a second basic and then you'll, you'll start stacking everything and you'll be very, very good.

But let's say you want to come up with a product that's never been. Or you want to invent something that's never been invented. So if you want to invent something that's never been [00:15:00] invented with about 99.9% certainty, we can be, be pretty certain that your first idea for how that thing is supposed to be is wrong.

It's terribly, terribly wrong. So if you were say working on invention and you use this method of, okay, so if I want to get to this new type of engine, for example, that I want to invent, and I know exactly how that engine is going to be. All right now, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to use the best material to make this engine I'm going to use, you know, I'm going to study every element of this thing to make sure it's all good from the bottom up.

Then now you get to wait 5, 10, 15 years before you find out that you had a terrible life. And so it really depends on what type of thing you're working on, uh, which, which method you want to [00:16:00] use, whether you want to use a sort of, uh, let's call it a vertical method, which would be the pixel method of like trying to figure out all of the steps, trial, the steps to learn about them versus the horizontal method or the line method of trying to figure out the base level fundamentals, and then the next step and the next step.

And one last piece of this would be inside of the, back to the dojo analogy. There's a point where you get, you need to develop your own style inside of the dojo. And it started inside of the martial arts. There's a point where you need to build an original skillset and the people in martial arts that studied this horizontal technique of here's the first fundamental, here's the second top fundamental.

Those people get skilled way faster than other people. And then they really struggle when it comes time to. Develop their own style, their own ability to improvise their own way of moving [00:17:00] somebody who I starts with that is then going to struggle with the fundamentals. There's, there's almost always a struggle between these two things and you almost always, if you go far enough in a field need to work on both of them, but if you understand what the strengths and weaknesses of the two ways of thinking and learning are, then you can figure out when to apply them.

You can look at a situation and go, okay, this is the thing where I just need to have blind faith in the fundamentals. And I needed to just learn that thing and just slam it into my brain and into my physiology. And then I'm done. And then there's other things where you can spot it and you can be like, oh, this is a moment where I need to improvise.

And I need to go through the whole process to see what it's like. And then wrap on that so that I understand that. That you know, I was an imbecile and this first idea was terrible. And I, I want to go through the 10th iteration to find the thing that's right for me.

[00:17:54] CK Lin: What kind of musician are you by the way?

Just for

[00:17:57] Josh Terry: my reference, I went to college for [00:18:00] classical violin performance, and then I, uh, became a music teacher where I taught violin, piano, guitar, voice, uh, musical composition production.

[00:18:09] CK Lin: That's awesome. Okay. Thanks for that. I appreciate that we can use martial arts and music analogies and book learnings, and, you know, kind of mix them together.

That's great. Let's go. Uh, circling back to your earlier point, you said, um, first point was self excavation, right? Self exploration. The second point is this is where, you know, Gary V this is where people's attention is going. Let's go down that rabbit hole and just a bit, um, I really like how Tik TOK provides a lot of engaging.

And therefore it gives you real time data, how useful that piece of content is. And from that, then you can, um, well, I mean I'm 40 days in, right. So I can then navigate like, okay, how do I say this to really deliver the kind of impact and, [00:19:00] and, and, and value that I want to create. So can you say a little bit more about how Tik TOK is it because you are in other places too?

You're on YouTube. You're on your own IgG. You're on Twitter. I'm oh, that you have your own blog, right? So this is not the only place, but you're most active on TechTalk. Can you say a little bit more about how take time generates that flywheel effect to help you find your voice, find the niche that you want to create value in?

[00:19:31] Josh Terry: Yeah. And, and additionally, Tik TOK drives my creativity on all the other platforms. So, uh, take talk is, is the thing. Makes makes it more easy to, to do whatever else I'm going to do.

So I think the main part of what you're talking about is, is the feedback element, is that right?

[00:19:54] CK Lin: Uh, yes. The feedback for me, why this is useful for me, because then it's, [00:20:00] I get rapid feedback. I can do hundreds of experiments every day am I can do a experiment every day and then I get feedback right away.

And that's useful for, especially for someone like me doing this type of knowledge creation effort that I

[00:20:14] Josh Terry: do. Yeah, I agree. So it's, it's really similar in the sense that it it's, it's a short form platform that also, because it's a short form platform, all of the other interactions are sort of extrapolated out from that, that, that short form behavior.

So the, the, the comments, the, uh, the trends. The, uh, just all of the different discussions, they have a accelerated pace to them. So, you know, you can have a trend go wild on Tik TOK. In a couple of days, you can have a viral comment on Tik TOK that that's, that's always like a serious when I always feel so proud of myself.

And

[00:20:58] CK Lin: what is that?

[00:20:59] Josh Terry: [00:21:00] It's, it's, you know, it's just a comment that, you know, it gets to the top of the, the, the, the page from so many likes and, and it's, it's so funny because you know, it's, it's not, it's usually not on your video. It's not on, uh, you know, anything maybe that you have a, uh, sense of relation to, but you get a sense of pride when you're like, oh yeah, I commented.

I commented something and I worded it just right. So that, you know, everybody liked it. And it went to the top, like a Reddit page, if you will. That, that feedback loop is all over the place on Tik TOK. And I think it goes back to the idea of shipping it and getting reps where basically not only are you getting reps on your experience of creation, but you're also getting reps on the social elements.

So I think that tech talk isn't a lot of ways an accelerated learning tool because you can, you can learn how people work, how people think, how people react to what you do [00:22:00] faster here than everywhere else. Um, uh, one thing I, I, when I talk to companies about Tik TOK, I tell them, look, Tik TOK is the fastest way not to not to grow your brand.

I'm not talking about marketing here in the sense of like getting lots of people. Sure. You can do that on ticktock. But Tik TOK is the fastest way to find your brand voice, because you can get the more reps on it here than anywhere else. You know, you can get one of your employees to walk around some event and, you know, film 20 things with 20 different moods and you can start to figure out, okay, how do I actually want to communicate?

And I think, I think that's tremendously valuable.

[00:22:43] CK Lin: Hmm. I love it. So,

[00:22:46] Josh Terry: um, I didn't mean to like, become a, a salesman for Tik TOK, but Hey, they did come in.

[00:22:53] CK Lin: I mean, we're using it as a, as a, as a, as a proxy to discuss this because take tacos is here [00:23:00] today. It's just like IgE was little while ago. It was just like Facebook a little while ago.

It's good for now. But at some point the platform will evolve and it won't be as generous with organic traffic anymore. Yeah. And then we move on to another thing. So to me, as a, as a knowledge creator, as someone who is eager for impact and, and also income, uh, you know, this is, these are just ways to, for us to understand the mechanics so we can best events our message, our story, our mission in the world.

So, um, I'm merely using it as an example, but I think talking with just a thing, right? W w I'm personally agnostic to it. It's just the tool.

[00:23:46] Josh Terry: Totally totally. And, uh, I mean, from a super meta perspective, because I can't help myself and that's what I do. I'm

[00:23:53] CK Lin: also totally, I get it. Let's go.

[00:23:57] Josh Terry: These things that I talked about with, you [00:24:00] know, why Tik TOK is good, all of these things, they're good because they help you.

So all of these things, and I mean, I've, I've noticed this in my own work, but I I've pointed this out to other people as well as is all of these things that are working for you on Tik TOK. If that stuff works for you can apply it in your own life. Right? So it's like the point isn't making short from on Tik TOK, the point isn't making short form anywhere, the point is realizing that, oh, if you shorten the time to production on a thing, you get more reps, which means you become more capable faster.

So. All of these things that I laid out as being, you know, positive traits, I consider them positive traits because they're all things that if you apply them in your life, they're useful. I think they're incredibly useful. So, so, okay.

[00:24:56] CK Lin: So let's talk about that. Let's philosophize just a little bit. [00:25:00] What are some of the meta skills of short form content creation?

Let's talk about that.

[00:25:08] Josh Terry: Yeah. Okay. So one number one is the reps thing, and I already went into that. So I won't, I won't drill too hard on that. Um, another one

let's see, it was just in my head.

What was it? Completely lost? My train of thought. Well,

[00:25:33] CK Lin: maybe I could share my, and then see if that inspires some ideas on your side. So in my mind, we're in the age where attention span is getting less and less. So the meta skills is how do I capture your attention? Rise above the noise? Cause noise is everywhere.

How do I capture attention? How do I write hooks that actually have you go, oh, this is different. This is unique. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, how do I retain your attention? Cause take [00:26:00] tags the worst, right? You got three seconds. If it's not, you're not relevant. The next thing.

Right? So how do I retain your attention? Then it's about boys and Indonesian and engagement and storytelling and all these other meta skills throughout. And then eventually you, you know, whatever it is that you want to guide them towards. So does that inspire any new thoughts as. Yeah.

[00:26:24] Josh Terry: Yeah. And I, I remember the thing I was going to say, and then I forgot.

I remembered it. I might've forgotten it. Um, but no, the, the, uh, you know how that goes, but, um, the, the, the other element I think that I was thinking about was around, uh, your own personal voice and what gets you to create the thing that you want to create. And I think a ton about this subject, I think it's fascinating.

Um, and one of the things that you do on Tik TOK is you, you make a lot of [00:27:00] stuff, which is those, that reps feature. But one of the elements of that is it puts a high demand to make a lot of stuff. Well, when you have a height man, to make a lot of stuff, you're going to make things differently. And one of the things you're going to do is you're going to start leaning on your strengths out of necessity.

And I have a whole rant on, on people not spotting their strengths, which is basically like we're biologically wired not to see our strengths because we're, uh, imitative creatures. That's how we learn from childhood. So we spend our entire lives looking at people around us, comparing ourselves to them.

And then we, we, uh, use that information to, to integrate new skillsets and become capable of survival and that's good and absolutely necessary, but also it makes us ignore everything that is unique to us because we assume that, you know, that's not necessarily going to make us [00:28:00] capable of survival. So we, we spend most of our childhood taking out the wiring of looking at what we could actually bring to the world.

And when there is a high demand put on you and I believe this is why a lot of self developments like encourages pushing yourself. When you put a high demand on yourself, you actually have to fall into your personal slots of capability. You have to fall into the pocket that works for you because you can't deliver, you know, 20 times the number of products than you're used to delivering, doing it a way that you're bad at.

You can only do that in a way that you're good at you can't create. Uh, I mean, for a lot of content creators on Tik TOK, they have to make a lot more content than most other places. You can't have to make two or three times as much content and do it in a way that you're bad at. [00:29:00] You actually have to use the tools that you are more adept at.

And from that. You then get to spot your strengths. And I think that is, is, is a phenomenal quality. This is incredibly important and you can, you can do this in creating short form content and you can do this in other ways. Um, this is part of the, uh, ethos of Silicon valley startup companies, where they, they try to the, the goal of the MVP, the minimum viable product, you know, create an, a product in a very short period of time and getting it to market so that you can see what the market wants.

The whole point of that is, is the idea of like, you know, well, you don't really know what you're going to make. You don't really know what's going to succeed. So let's just put something out to figure it out and then we'll move from there. But additionally, if you do that, if you push like that, you're going to have to do the things that you're most [00:30:00] capable of because everything else has to go out.

So I think there's that ass other aspect built in, which is if you move fast, uh, you, you get to start spotting those things that you're really talented at that you might not ever be able to see otherwise.

[00:30:20] CK Lin: Um, okay. So how did you do that for yourself? I'm kind of opening new loops as you're answering. How did you identify your superpower in the two years time?

Was there a pivotal moment? We like, oh, people really like this thing that I do, or this tone that I use or this character or that portray, or this topic that I talk about. Is there any pivotal moments in two years time that will have you go this is it, let me double down on that.

[00:30:48] Josh Terry: Yeah. So it started far beyond that.

So it, it it's almost like it started working two years ago. Right? Uh, I I'd say I started. [00:31:00] Spot my strengths maybe five years ago. Um, it's probably been at least five years, maybe a little bit more that I started to really hone in and realize, okay, this is, this is what I can do. And, uh, that didn't result in me.

All of a sudden being, you know, successful and things working for me, I was actually a bit of a wreck at that, that time of my life. Um, because even if you discover things about yourself, that doesn't mean you can do them. So a lot of skillsets when we discover something new, our old skill set is so ingrained that we can't apply it.

So I realized, for example, that I'm super conceptual and this, this applies differently in different fields, but in music, one of the ways that applies is an improvisation and composition, and sure enough, I had a really strong talent there, but I spent years. Trying to be [00:32:00] technically good. And that became my whole world was, was trying to be technically good.

And I dis I, I B I came to terms. I started to really understand what my skill sets were, maybe 5, 6, 7 years ago, something like that, but I'd already done music for 5, 6, 7 years the other way. And I would try to apply these, this new understanding of, Hey, look, you've got to let yourself be looser when you do this thing.

You've, you've got to be more improvisitory cause that's you. I would try to apply it. And I would fail miserably because I would, I was so locked into the perfectionist mindset from all the old habits that I couldn't apply it two years ago. What I did was I, I took a bunch of those discoveries that I'd made in other fields, and I applied them to tick talk cause I had no.

Ruts in the ground where I was just so stuck, uh, [00:33:00] with, on a specific path that I couldn't get out. It was, it was a new thing for me. So I came with all of the past experience with none of the past bad habits and, and that's, that's, that's when things started taking off on Tik TOK. Was that

[00:33:15] CK Lin: got it. Okay.

Okay, great. So what I'm hearing is also the ability to unlearn things, all patterns as well. There's, there's a hidden Meadows skill that one needs to also do as well. Yeah.

[00:33:32] Josh Terry: So yes, and also I didn't unlearn it. Right. Um, I mean, if I were to go back to music right now, I, I would do much better. Um, but, but I, I didn't actually get to. Where I wanted to be in the thing that I was already working on. I actually did it by changing gears so that [00:34:00] I could, I could learn it in a new, in a new way.

And I think you can do this within a field, but, but, but this idea I think is important where it's not just about taking an old habit, breaking it down, unlearning it. And then, and then using your new knowledge to apply it to the same thing. Uh, I think that's maybe one of the most difficult ways. I think the, the accelerant is, is, is giving yourself, you know, a new place to play with information supported by the old stuff.

And I think that

[00:34:34] CK Lin: they used to jump into a Ted talk cause you started the in of 2019. If I recall correctly, right?

[00:34:41] Josh Terry: November. I didn't want to do it at all. Okay. A friend of mine convinced me, um, and I, I made content for like 10 years and nothing had worked and I was kind of discouraged and just wasn't into it anymore.

And a friend of [00:35:00] mine just over and over again, said, man, you got to get on Tik TOK. I know you can do something here. Like, I don't know what you'll do, but I, I know that this is the right thing for you. And, uh, and uh, I finally said, okay. And I, you know, download the app at like 11:00 PM and texted them at 2:00 AM going, oh my God, you know, you go, you go down a rabbit hole.

The first time you get on tick-tock you don't realize how addictive the thing is. Um, and. So that, that was what I initially did. And then once I saw what a cool thing it was, I started making content and it was the same terrible content I'd always made before. Um, uh, I take, you know, full, full responsibility for my content failing in the past.

It wasn't good. Okay.

[00:35:49] CK Lin: Okay. Well, hold on one second. Thank you. Yeah. What would you say that makes the difference between the earlier stuff that you did on take talk to today? Like what's the main difference?

[00:35:59] Josh Terry: Yeah, it's very [00:36:00] specific and it happened all at once. Um, so I, I started to make this, the old same old stuff and, uh, I, uh, but, but it wasn't like ingrained habits because it was just old things that I'd been doing.

Same thing just recorded in vertical format. And, uh, but throughout my life, um, Is another story. But throughout, throughout my life, I'd been going through this process where I'd kept asking myself this question of what can you do? Like just what's within your capability, not like stop trying to have this big, old dream of the most amazing thing you could possibly do.

What's actually within your capability right now. And what that started to do was make me give up on things that I was bad at. And I had made a bunch of music content on Tik TOK, and I was personally researching houses because I was thinking about getting into real estate investing. And [00:37:00] I, uh, saw something that I thought was interesting and I thought, huh, well, I want to make a video about that.

And I tried, I tried to make thought content in the past different things about my ideas. It didn't take off because I would look at a camera and I was terrible looking at a camera. I would, I would just lose my train of thought and I'd feel self-conscious and just all of these. And, you know, the, the self-development narrative says push through it and be better.

And it's like, ah, maybe, um, I was terrible at it. And like I struggled in, in order to Nutley larger amount too much. And I did that for a long time. And when you struggle with something for years, like, do you really want to keep struggling at it? Not necessarily. So what I did was I gave up, I went, well, what if I don't look at the camera?

And, uh, and then, uh, I started to do, to fill it again. And I was like, I tried to memorize the thing I was going to say. [00:38:00] And I was like, oh man, oh, I've been trying for years to memorize things. I'm terrible at memorizing things. What if I read it off the monitor, like a zombie and, and there were like three or four other things like that.

Um, and they were all me giving up. They're all me going, you know what? I'm not the amazing. Talented person that I think I am. Let's just do the things that you are capable of. And this, this, now this all sounds like a moment of like light bulb moment. But in reality, this is like five, 10 years in the making.

Right. You know, I've been working on this concept, but I, I finally applied it here in content creation and it went viral instantly.

[00:38:46] CK Lin: They really like it. Do you know why they like it? It was just unique and different?

[00:38:51] Josh Terry: No, I don't think that's it at all. Um, I think, I think it's, uh, it's the thing that I can do.

Um, and I think that's the case [00:39:00] for almost all content that we like is it's a thing that somebody likes and they're capable of, and maybe they're really good at, and it's it's about that. I, you know, like, like, don't get me wrong. Like, like there's, there's many things to break down inside of that, but, but I think that we really remember how I said we're imitative creatures.

We have an instinct to look away from the simple fact that I did something that was in my wheelhouse and we have it. And we, what we want to do is we want to look at it and go, okay, so what did he do? Right. You know? And it's like, You can break down these videos and find things that I do. Right. And sure.

I, I, I know stuff about story structure and I know stuff about how to word English so that it's interesting and, you know, so on and so forth. But the reality was I did [00:40:00] something that was, you know, I was capable of. It was, it was a thing that was, you know, in my wheelhouse. And, uh, this is something I was, I just had a conversation about this earlier today.

Uh, I talk with people a lot about Mr. Beast, because I think a lot of people misunderstand Mr. B's, uh, people really like to break down Mr. D beast and study them like all of his analytics and, and all of the things that he does that are so effective. And it's like, he's the guy that went on YouTube and counted to, I dunno, a million just verbally, just 1, 2, 3, 4.

And I think he can still find the video and it's, I think it's got tons of views. Like he's that guy and. The fact is I think that he, what, the things that worked for him were the things that he was more capable of. It was his strengths. So he was the type of guy that was willing to say, I give up, [00:41:00] I've tried this for a long time.

I'm going to count to a million or whatever number. Let's see what happens. And I mean, you can see the video, it's hilarious. He's 1, 2, 3, 5 11, you just on and on and on and drums on for hours. And, and then that level of willingness enables you to, to try enough things, to find something you're good at.

And we look at it and we think, oh, he tried these things until he found a thing that worked, and that was the right thing to do. And therefore we should all do that. And it's like, sorry. Sort of the things that worked, we can learn from there are skillsets within with what Mr. Beast does. But also the thing that worked, it worked in that case, not just because it was the right thing.

It was because it was Mr. Beasts thing. It was him being able to fall into his pocket. He's good [00:42:00] at what he does. I would be a terrible Mr. Beast.

[00:42:06] CK Lin: Yeah. So on noble warriors, since we talk a lot on purpose and legacy, and you know, this has a little bit of a spiritual flavor. A lot of the time when we talk about like dharmic path and discipline things, I don't know what your spiritual beliefs are, but the whole idea of it is we are all here.

We all have something unique to bring to the table, whether it's DNA, you know, parenting education, perspective, experience, just, we are, what is it that Jeff Spencer said? There's only one of you in all of internal. Not ever in the past, not ever in the future, therefore bring forth what's unique in you. And so that's, that's why I want to double click on this very point that you'd talked about because, um, even for seasoned knowledge creators, they have a huge platform elsewhere, New York times bestseller, this and that.

And you know, the successful entrepreneurs will, when they look [00:43:00] at a new platform like a tech talk or a new art, you know, framework, you know, three minutes only, how do you convey your soul signature, your soul expression to me, if we can do more and more of that, that's the unique genius, the unique expression.

And that's to me is the X-Factor. So hence why I'm double click on double clicking on not the thing that you did, but how you discover your X-Factor so to speak.

[00:43:36] Josh Terry: Yeah, there's a bunch of different elements to it. You know, part of it is just what you're, you're interested in a really underrated concept, I think is what you desire. I think that's, that's not tapped into enough. Um, I think a lot of about this in terms of a balance of order and chaos. So when you're trying to figure out the things that you [00:44:00] want to make, uh, there are often orderly and chaotic elements that you have to sort out, and it often leads you to the thing you want to make.

And what I mean by that is, for example, somebody that's like trying to find their niche, um, or, or their brand, their brand voice, that kind of a thing. Uh, they tend to. Try to, you know, find what's in, in quotes, right. They, they try to, you know, go and try a bunch of individual things, but they're not looking at themselves as a creative individual.

They're just looking outward at all of these things of let's test this let's test that let's test that when in reality, it's like, we need to test you. So if you are creating, let's take me, for example, I have the same camera angle most of the time. Okay. So if I change camera angles, what happens to my brain?

Oh, well I now have infinite [00:45:00] options and I'm super slow. I, if you give me a camera where I can put it anywhere, um, I will create much more slowly because I'll be indecisive about where to put the camera. So it's, it's a waste of time for me to do that. So I locked that thing into a piece of order where it's like, okay, that's a piece of order that keeps me safe.

And if people are wondering about ordering casts, the easiest way I lay it out is a garden can't grow without a fence. And offense has no point without a garden and offense is order and the garden is chaos. So there's these creative elements that you want to explore and create and just find all of the new things that could be.

But at the same time, you can't do that. Infinite. You can't do that in every way or it'll overload you. So the analogy of a garden and offense makes a lot of sense. So that's why people say, tell you to niche down is they tell you to [00:46:00] put bumpers on it so that you can explore inside. So I'm not sure if I'm drifting.

Am I drifting away from your original cross question here?

[00:46:09] CK Lin: That's okay. Okay. Now on this podcast, we drift a lot. We open rabbit holes. Sometimes we go into them. Sometimes we don't and people complain, people don't complain. It's okay. It's part of the unique flavor of normal warrior. It's all good. So actually that may double click on sort of the metaphor on this podcast.

We do talk about the creative energies, kind of like, um, water, right? Water. You need, you have rivers and river banks. The banks are your bumpers. You know, how, how can you change? This creative surge that you have within you to generate energy or what it is that you want to do. Right. So you can create a dam or you can create this other thing or whatever it is that you want.

So I really appreciate you talk about not only the creative, but also the structure on personal on it.

[00:46:56] Josh Terry: Yeah. I, I think, I think you were, I think you were originally kind of [00:47:00] asking around how can skilled creators that, that already have done a lot of this stuff find their voice in a new medium. Was that, that kind of where you were going with this?

Yeah. How

[00:47:10] CK Lin: do you, how did you in the two years time find your X-Factor? Because 1 million, 1.2 is not an accident. People don't just all of a sudden, you know, and it is a slow burn. You didn't do it in 30 days, right? You didn't do any one, one viral thing is you're really, really consistent at your craft for two years.

So I was wondering. Not the exact thing that you did, but how did you

[00:47:37] Josh Terry: find that? Yeah. Got it. Got it. Yeah. And, and I, yeah, I did work hard. Um, uh, thank you. Uh, so I overproduced on set inside of set limitations. And what I mean by that [00:48:00] is I created this set of orderly things, right. Uh, a camera that was in place.

Um, I read off of things like a zombie, you know, I, I used notepad for crying out loud for, for about half of this process. Um, I, I didn't even graduate to Google sheets for quite a while. Um, and what I did was I had these things locked in place that I didn't care about so much. And then I gave myself immense freedom everywhere.

So me the creative, my first video that goes viral on Tik TOK is a real estate video. Um, you might, you might relate to this quickly, but a lot of people, this might sound very strange, but, but, uh, my first thought was not happiness. My first thought was terror of, oh my God, am I a real estate creator now?[00:49:00]

Right. Is that all I'm going to do forever for the rest of my

[00:49:02] CK Lin: lasting? Yeah.

[00:49:05] Josh Terry: Yeah, yeah. So I had to test my boundaries. Right. I had, I did that and I made some more real estate stuff. Of course. And then, then I, you know, made something about the stock market and that took off and I was like, oh God, okay. Oh no.

Am I a financial tech talker? Is that, is that do I mean, I just, uh, fin talk. Is that, is that all I do? Oh, no. And then I made something about psychology and that was the point where I started to loosen up a little bit and I started to realize like, okay, no, no, no, this I can explore here. I have some freedom.

So I had to give myself freedom. So I gave myself restrictions in places that I didn't care about. Camera, angle, uh, performance of, of, you know, what I looked like on, on video, things like that. I just solidify, stopped thinking about it. And then I explored in the places that I [00:50:00] wanted to. And, uh, Jack the CEO of Patrion.

I believe it is. I had, has a phenomenal video about this on YouTube, somewhere before Patrion. Uh, he was a musician in a band called Pamplin mousse. And, uh, he describes this as there. We have boxes of things that we care about and boxes of things that we don't care about. And we can move really far in life if.

Solidify the boxes of the things that we don't care about and then optimize the boxes that we do care about. So when he was a musician on YouTube, he really struggled. Um, uh, he, he, he and, and, and, uh, his partner in Pompe llamas, they, they, they were not successful. They were not doing well. And one day he sat down, he was like, what do I care about?

What do I not? And he's like, okay. I care about harmonies. I [00:51:00] care about melodies, rhythm. Uh, I don't really care about form so much. Um, I don't care about, uh, I don't care about what song I'm. Oddly enough, he realized, and he, he had been writing original songs and producing those and he realized he actually didn't really care.

What song is performing. He cared about how the song sounded. The tambours the thing inside of the song was what he cared about. So it covered Brittany Spears and he became one of the first successful YouTube cover bands. Hmm.

[00:51:35] CK Lin: That's a great story, huh? Huge.

[00:51:41] Josh Terry: Huh? Yeah, they become wildly successful. So wildly successful that, uh, it was worthwhile for him to start a company called Patriot, uh, like, like it was a direct extrapolation from

It was, uh, he, he had trouble monetizing Palomas and he did use Patrion to do it. He made Patrion [00:52:00] out of that. And, uh, what he did was he realized he didn't care about what songs. As a result, he would go with the most orderly mainstream thing. So he was the default mode, right? Oh, Britney, Sarah is as popular.

I'll cover Brittany Spears solid. And for somebody that's super artsy this on the surface sounds terrible. It sounds like, oh my God, I'm never going to cover Britney Spears. That's not my thing. It's like, cool. That's fine. Do you care? What brand of guitar you, you use? Do you care what the tambour of your guitar is?

Because there's some original songwriters that care so much about the lyrics and they care so much about the instrumentation. They do not care which guitar they use. They just don't. Um, there's, there's something, there's something that you don't care about or something that you're really bad at that you wish you could just let go of.

And those are the things that you want to submit. You want to cement them in the [00:53:00] mainstream dialogue that everybody else does, and it works and you don't have to worry about it. You know, it's, it's, it's like, you don't want to, when you build a building, you don't want to build it from scratch. Generally speaking, generally speaking, you want to use a bunch of past knowledge and engineering to do it.

And, and so w when you go to make your own creation, you want to figure out these things that you really care about, and then just let the rest of it go. And I think this, this applies to any of the, the bigger creators out there is, is just, just take, take the thing, the part that you care the most about in what you've done before.

Maybe even that part that you know, like was your baby. Plunk fat into your new creative endeavor, but leave the rest up to just whatever works now.

[00:53:48] CK Lin: Okay. So let's double click on that. I see a few creators watching, um, our conversation right now. So let's unpack where you just say, I think this is worthwhile.

So double, so [00:54:00] reinforce your non-negotiables. You reinforce the thing that's, that's, that's so important for you. That's, you know, if you were to sell on that, you'd be selling out your soul, but you know, also be really cognizant about a lot of other things that you don't care about. So regarding let's say knowledge creation, uh, content creation, there's topics, structures, camera angles, right?

Style, voice tonality, as just kind of help them out with like, thinking about some other things. Are there other things that we can

[00:54:30] Josh Terry: help them think about it? I, I break it into these two chunks is I think of it as stylistic limitations and logistical. Um, and I th I think a lot of people don't think about it this way.

And what I would call stylistic is genre, tone, feel subject matter mood, those sorts of concepts, sometimes color wouldn't be in there. Color is one that could work in either one. All of these could, they're just concepts, but, but these, these sort [00:55:00] of, uh, you know, mood genre ask things, stylistic, that's one type of limitation.

So you could be a person that says, you know what, I want to only make pop music, but then there's a lot of musicians that are like, oh my God, I could never just make pop music. I want to make country. I want to make blues. I want to make rap. I want to make jazz. Okay. So you get to use logistical limitations.

How long is the content you create? What instrument are you using? Where are you located? Uh, like, you know, how long do you have to build the thing? All sorts of things. And what I found is a lot of people give advice around stylistic limitations because that works for the majority of society. The majority of society, uh, psychology wise are on the less creative end of the spectrum.[00:56:00]

They're more on the practical end of the spectrum. The, the creative mindset is a minority mindset. So this advice of niche down by locking in on your a country artist that works so well for somebody that is less on the creative end of this. For somebody that's farther on the creative end of the spectrum.

That is torturous it's. If it feels it makes them actually feel useless because their real offering is basically new styles, new ideas, new moods, new genres. That's actually what they have to offer the world. So they often feel useless when they niche down that way. But there are so many creative people that you can give them a roll of duct tape, a banana, three toothpicks, a couple of bricks and a log and some matches and tell them, make something and they'll be like, I'm on it.

I got this.

[00:56:59] CK Lin: [00:57:00] Um, okay. So, all right. Let's shift gear a little bit. So now that you have a sizable audience, what's the vision, what do you plan to do with it? I know that you're really solid, you know, hone in on Bitcoins. So you're doing projects in the infrastructure side of things. Uh, is that your infinite game?

And if so, how do you tie this to what you're doing here on media? So,

[00:57:24] Josh Terry: yeah, so I think Bitcoin is a solid enough to get infinite game. I think that's one of them I really care about, uh, what's going on there. I honestly believe that there's elements of Bitcoin that can help the world. Um, it's, it's, uh, it's a phenomenal thing.

So yeah, I'm working on a Bitcoin mining project there, uh, a bit volt is what it's called. So, uh, that's something we're trying to sort out and, uh, I I'm really excited about that. Um, and then on the other side, sort of on more on the personal development side, um, I'm going to be publishing a [00:58:00] book. Um, oh, w I would you like to be the first podcast where I tell the title?

I do. I think, I think that would be today

[00:58:10] CK Lin: is the

[00:58:10] Josh Terry: day the title of the book would be a pullback to push harder, the competitive edge of strategic. Um, and it looks at a lot of self development stuff through the lens of ordering chaos of this idea of like putting boundaries on things in order to perform better, uh, putting boundaries on things in order to enable better chaos, if you will.

Um, so yeah, it's uh, in the finance world, Bitcoin is what I'm super excited about. Um, in the self development world, I'm really interested in these ideas of, of, you know, establishing an order of balancing order in chaos, learning to become dangerous. Um, those, those are two of the main spots. And then also I'm building out a creativity workshop that I'll [00:59:00] be launching again pretty soon.

[00:59:02] CK Lin: How, how does all three, what is the common thing? I mean, obviously you, the human being is the common denominator, but what's the thematic common denominator between the coin creativity workshop and helping people finding strategic rest. Honestly. How

[00:59:20] Josh Terry: do you tie them together? Yeah, we're doing chaos, honestly.

Ordering chaos. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I'm really fascinated by this and I'd like to write some articles about it down the road, so let's, let's see, where do I start? So, so creativity, uh, we actually talked a lot. The, my, my theories of creativity in this, this conversation around, around, you know, content creation, which is, is you want to learn how to establish limits, but you want to learn how to do it in a way that enables you, not, that feels constricting, right?

So the way a lot of people niche down, they struggle with it, but there's ways to [01:00:00] niche down that actually feel empowering. Right? So, uh, my, my overall philosophy there is benevolent order enables positive chaos. So when, when you're establishing order with the, with the right intention and in the right place, it makes things better.

Right? If you think about the garden and the fence, again, you know, the, the fence, isn't there to make the garden feel constricted. It's, it's there to make the garden feel as safe and abundant. Like it can, it can play and grow, right. And, uh, I believe that is a phenomenal way to approach. Great. Um, inside of, uh, let's, let's flip it to technology inside of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is I think a fascinating extrapolation of this because, uh, Bitcoin, uh, for one is a very orderly, dumb technology. It's something that [01:01:00] does a couple of things really well constantly, and it just keeps doing them. But the way it does it is by harnessing chaos, the fundamental aspect of, uh, uh, a Bitcoin miner, finding a block and being able to update the Bitcoin blockchain to, to maintain that network is the computer that finds the answer to a random problem or finds the random answer to a problem, uh, is, is the, the computer the wins.

So everybody's looking for a random number. And that's the most chaotic thing possible, right? So there's an, there's a math problem that we have to solve. And the way you, the only way you can solve is by trying random numbers. This is the most stupidly chaotic thing imaginable. But when you place that in a bunch of computers all around the world, it creates a system where nobody has an unfair advantage [01:02:00] and that enables then an economic order, right?

So there's an order in chaos within the Bitcoin network of how that plays out, right? You use lies, random chaos numbers to create an orderly, a network. And then that orderly network. Well, what that does is it's, we have this, this economic system where, you know, we will never have more than 21 million bucks.

Uh, uh, how the network operates is super predictable. Um, uh, you can't go back on a transaction. You, you can't, you know, uh, uh, change any of it. All of these things are a bunch of orderly structures that humans now get to look at and react to.

Society's you could think of as, as chaotic structures, they're the innovators societies come up with interesting, fascinating things they explore, [01:03:00] but they need structures to do it off of. So this is why in times of, you know, really good rulers that have, and really good laws, societies developed and, and, and operated really well.

But in times of unpredictable rulers and unpredictable laws, societies done really poorly is because those are the, those rule or those rulers and laws are structures that enable all of the innovation and exploration. So to me, Bitcoin is an economic, uh, manifestation of order that enables economies to play in a more predictable environment, which makes that I believe them able to go farther than able to experiment and innovate farther than they would in any other.

[01:03:49] CK Lin: Um, you know, actually, uh, let's put a pin on that just for a moment and I will follow that with that question, but I'm curious to know when you write that book, the strategic rest, how do you [01:04:00] deal with your own burnout? And one of the things that we hear people say a lot, we teach what we need most. How do you deal with a tension between teaching someone, something, but also dealing with your own anxiety and nervousness as well?

Right. Internally. How do you deal with that? As a, as a teacher, as a public

[01:04:17] Josh Terry: teacher? Okay. Yeah. My, my editor made a post recently about, uh, working with, uh, some personal development guy about like how to kick alcoholism. And it was like almost done with the book. And then he like was like, man, I can't contact this guy.

And it turns out like the guy went on a bender and, uh, I couldn't help, but laugh at that. As I, as I thought about like how tired I got writing this book and. Well, and we all go through phases and cycles, right? So there are times when it's appropriate to push yourself to, I was workaholic when I was 20.

Um, that that's just an element of who I am, and [01:05:00] these are the lessons I learned to get me remotely functional. And by remotely functional, I mean, that's really good, you know, for, for, for somebody to get somewhat functional is awesome. Right. So I feel like I got myself to a place where I'm performing at a level that's beyond what I've ever performed at before.

I'm very happy with that. You know, like that's, that's, that's something, you know, and there's many ways I could learn to perform better. There's many things that I still struggle at, but as I wrote this book, it was fascinating because I felt like it was reinforcing everything in the book. So I would start to write the book.

And then I get to a point where I'd made some good progress and I get excited and I try to write more, more than I should in a day. And then the next day I'd be so tired and so sluggish, and I'd be like, man, I was just writing about how you have to like, limit your [01:06:00] enthusiasm on something in order

[01:06:03] CK Lin: to maintain a celebrator as you're writing the book.

Yeah,

[01:06:08] Josh Terry: yeah, yeah. And it really kind of validated everything because, I mean, yeah, sure. I got tired occasionally, but in reality, I wouldn't have been able to write that book. If I wouldn't have learned the lessons in the book, the lessons made me the type of person who could write a book and, uh, that I'm very happy with.

Um, but, but yeah, I had to really be present to the things that I was. Talking about, um, as I wrote the book, cause, uh, I mean, I I'm, I'm guessing you relate to this. Another thing of people that are interested in these ideas, they often want to share them with other people that they often have a really strong desire to share these things and, and, and teach and help others.

And that, that can flatten you, you know, w [01:07:00] what does that mean for you when you, when you have a really strong desire to help others, you can, that can easily destroy you by you just, just, you know, going all out, forgetting about who you are forgetting about, whether it matters to take care of yourself and, and just putting all of your concentration on the people around you.

And one way of doing that is with a book, right? So I thought, man, you know, if, if, if I can write this book, well, you know, I could help some people and that matters, you know, if that matters to me, uh, and. So as a result, it's very tempting to put, put everything all at once and to the book. And the reality is that won't get you a good book doing it that way.

Won't get you the product that you want, and it won't get P give people the help that they want. And so that's a really

[01:07:50] CK Lin: interesting point. Why did you say

[01:07:51] Josh Terry: that? Well, um, it's like killing the golden goose, right? So it, [01:08:00] any, any time you're helping other people, you are taking something from within yourself and you're giving it to them.

And so if you use the analogy of the golden goose, let's, let's say you, I mean, this, this might get weird, but I mean, you, you give them a medicine that makes them lay too many eggs for that, that goose to function. Well, now the goose is going to die, right? So there, everyone has. And amount, a pace that they can work at in that pace can be developed and accelerated and strengthened so on and so forth.

But everyone has a pace that for that time in their life, they, they need to understand and work at. And if they go over it, they'll just drain themselves and perform worse. So a big aspect of, of what I've been talking about, um, is how, if, if you, if you are super desirous of helping [01:09:00] others, you're super ambitious to push your thoughts out in the world.

And, and just however you want to help, however you want to be better and it might not be helping. It might be competition, whatever it is. If you have this strong desire to push forwards and accomplish on an honest, powerful level, if you don't limit it in some ways, you'll get a worse. So, if you can pull back and say, you know what, this is how much you're going to do today.

And know you're not a week lean cause you did, didn't go farther. You're actually strong because your instinct is to push harder. You held yourself back. If you hold yourself back like that, then what that does is it fills you with energy and it, and it fills you with a type of tension that makes you want to spring forward again.

Right? So people that are really excited to go act out in the world, the people that, that want are [01:10:00] ambitious, ambitious, for example, sitting on the beach, doesn't really relax them. It makes them almost jittery. Right. Whereas it's like, all right, here we go. I want to, I want to go to this thing and that's good right now on one hand, you need to learn to relax a little bit, but on another.

If you have these things that you want to do in the world, and you can pull back and sit on the beach for a little bit where you pull back and say, all right, this is the limit of how much I'm going to do. Then you're going to build up this energy that makes you excited to take the next step. And over and over again, I see creators and passionate people and ambitious people who have such ginormous dreams, chase after them and get less and less enthusiastic over time because they're trying as hard as they possibly can.

And every step they're light saber is a little bit heavier. [01:11:00] Every step they're just a little bit more drained, but if instead you recognize your dreams, you recognize your passions and you say, okay, I see you. I see what you want to do. Now. What's a small, tiny thing you could do that would make yourself better.

That would make yourself into the type of person who could do that. And you go do that. And then your brain says, oh, but I could take these other five steps to get towards that thing. And you go, no, you already tired yourself out. Stop. It's like, over-training in the gym. Stop, take a break, pull back weight, recover, learn from the experience.

And then you go, oh, now I'm really excited to do the next step and maintaining that energy, that excitement, the hope and particularly the desire to [01:12:00] move forward. I think that's, that's one of the fundamentals of success.

[01:12:08] CK Lin: Mm. I like that. This is, um, counterintuitive to what everyone else is seeing. Right.

Hustle David Gargan. Right. Definitely go out and, you know, Tame your inner bitch is the opposite of his advice, right?

[01:12:27] Josh Terry: Yeah. So I I've actually really liked David Goggins. He's hilarious.

[01:12:34] CK Lin: He's a special human for sure.

[01:12:36] Josh Terry: Yeah. So I consider his philosophies to be the flip side of the coin to this, or this is the flip side of the coin to David Goggins.

So, uh, earlier I was talking about, um, stylistic versus logistical limitations, and I said that, uh, you know, creatives tend to prefer one type of limitation and then, uh, people that are, uh, on a more practical end of the [01:13:00] spectrum tend to like other types of limitations.

Advice is contextual and based on psychology, right? There's, there's things that help some people and things that help others. And so I think there's a very large portion of society that really needs David Goggins messenger. And it's the best thing they could possibly hear. And I think there's another subset of society that will, that can hear that message and destroy themselves by following.

It just absolutely wreck their lives because they're the people that are ready, want to push. They're already pushing as hard as they can. And they've been doing it since they were born and what they need to do is stop. So I, I love David Goggins actually. And if I were to have followed his advice, uh, it probably would have destroyed me because I was already wired to do that, that type of thing that I [01:14:00] had that desire to push.

I, uh, I didn't have things that were telling me to hold back. I had things that were telling me to push forwards. So I th I think it's incredibly valuable advice, but I think it depends on the person and. You know, maybe, maybe a larger segment need David Goggins then than mine. And my might be a 60, 40 type of thing.

I'm not sure, really. I don't know, but I do firmly believe that there there's two types of psychologies here, at least where, whereas some people really need a message of, Hey, take everything you have and put it into this one point of focus and drive so hard that your mind silences and you can, you can actually see the world for what it is.

And, and, and from what I understand, that's that is where David Goggins is coming from. Take everything you have and put it into this one thing and push [01:15:00] so hard that it silences the inner bitch. And I think for another subset, I think that's what they're already doing. And they're doing it in a very undisciplined banner because it's probably the part of them that's praised because they've probably been getting things done most of their lives.

I w I was a good student. I was a overachiever in a lot of things. And like, it was how I would get validation. It's probably the parts of the praised, but at the same time, they're doing it in an overkill fashion, in a bunch of scattered ways. And it's, and it's ruining them because they're there, they're just flattening themselves energetically every single day.

And these are the people that have to set limits and say, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do this other thing. I'm going to, I'm not going to [01:16:00] go to level 12. When I was at level nine, I'm actually going to go backwards. I'm going to work on level six and level seven, and I'm going to play with it.

I'm going to learn how to actually smile for once and enjoy it. Ironic made the guy that doesn't smile on Tik TOK. I know, but if, if we, if we learn how to play and enjoy with a thing that we already are familiar with, I think that is another way forward that a lot of these hyper ambitious people are not understanding.

[01:16:32] CK Lin: Yeah. As you're speaking, a visual comes to mind. So Nobel warrior would talk about the gang gang sign a lot. Right. But those who are typically inactive, they don't take action. They think too much and right. Or they get lazy or complacent, whatever Ava, Goggins is, advice is great. Get you to action so that you can, um, you know, get going, get real data for those who are driving.

And they are losing [01:17:00] themselves due to burnout. And you ended up burning their, their health and burning their relationships that also that's not working too. Then if we're those people, your advice is strategic rest. It's phenomenal. In my mind, what I'm hearing is find the middle ground, right? The middle way to find that inner harmony between the two, whatever that works for you.

And the only person that can have an answer is not Josh Terrio. See Kaylee, no, David Goggins, the only person who can know the difference is oneself. Find the discernment between the two. You find that middle point where you do have that harmony. You also mentioned this, you find that excitement again, a liveliness again, then you go, otherwise something is off harmony and you need to take some action somewhere.

Is that a accurate recap of what you just described?

[01:17:53] Josh Terry: Yes. Yes. Um, when I got out of college, [01:18:00] Uh, with a bachelor's degree in music and almost straight A's I got a job doing manual labor where I stared at a white wall, every break. And it was a relief because I was so overworked and overwhelmed from how hard I had pushed that I had nothing left.

It didn't make me a better musician.

It didn't make me a better musician to, to push that hard because you can't push that hard constantly. Right? Like you can't. And if you look at the people that, that praise pushing hard, you'll see that they value pushing hard because it enables them to sleep well at. Right. And I, wasn't the type of person that would sleep well at night.

I wanted [01:19:00] to work til 3:00 AM and I was annoyed that I had to get into bed. And then I would go to bed and I wake up in pain because my mind was probably obsessing about the creative things I wanted to do while I was asleep. And then I wake up and immediately go again

and it didn't make me better because it was an addiction. I was chasing it. I wanted to be good, so bad that I was willing to let go of my entire existence to be good, but that doesn't make any sense because the person needs to be good as you, right. You know, if you want a skillset, it's not like you're sacrificing yourself for the skillset that doesn't work because you're the person that's got to have the skillset, so, okay.

[01:19:53] CK Lin: So on that note, since that's circling back to you a book, what you just said, the [01:20:00] overachievers, the people who have is that the brink of burning out, they probably know that they need to rest logically. What would you say to that person so that they interrupt their normal behavior, their addiction to get the rest they need, or the other way around the people who was normally complacent, they intellectually know they need to get their ass off the couch to stop watching Netflix, listen to David Goggin yet they don't.

What would you tell them to interrupt?

[01:20:36] Josh Terry: You have to address your reward systems. Hmm. So if you're a person who is just pushing and on every avenue that he can, and you're, you're just addicted to pushing. Overworking everywhere your reward systems are firing in such a way that you believe that you are a good person.

If you do that, [01:21:00] some part of you, uh, some part of you thinks that you're more likely to survive. Some part of you thinks that it's the only way to be loved. It's the only way to be successful, whatever it is, there's something there's something there that makes you think this is the way.

And if you stop, you will feel immense, guilt and shame. You will feel like a bad person. You will feel like a sinner to sit down and take a break. You will feel like a sinner to take a bubble bath, because it means you failed according to your mental wiring and.

It sounds nice to say, oh, well you need to flip that and figure out that, you know, oh, that's not the way it is. And you need to teach yourself how you know, how wonderful it [01:22:00] is to take rest. And that's not realistic. It's very, very hard to change your wiring. What you have to do is you have to learn to sit with guilt.

You have to realize that you're going to sit down in a bathtub and take a breath, take a rest. And you're going to feel horrible. You're going to feel like you're a terrible person for sitting in that tub and taking a break. And that's your job. That's your job is to endure that emotion. And the reason why you got to do it that way is because you're an ambitious person that has spent your life learning to be wired, to overcome horrible things.

And guess what? The emotions that come up when you rest are horrible. So now it's your job to endure them. Well, now your wiring is rigged. So that sitting with that guilt is a triumph [01:23:00] learning to sit there and experience whatever comes up. When you say, you know what, it's time to take a break and immediately your brain kicks back with, oh yeah, you're a total wimp.

Obviously. Uh, you could do like the least three more hours and you say, no, it's time to take a break. When you listen to yourself and you go take a break, you don't magically suddenly feel like you're not weak anymore. You feel like you're weak. But if you know that you're going to feel that way. If you know it's coming, then you can decide, this is my task is to deal with this emotion.

That's going to come up and. When that's done, it's a triumph and you can feel that and you can learn that and you can realize, oh, this is my job too. This is my job to, to be like a Viking, th th the night [01:24:00] before battle, and to sit in this bubble bath and prepare, this is my job is to rest.

[01:24:09] CK Lin: I like it. Uh, this is my interpretation of what you just said is to treat yourself like a professional athlete would do professional athletes, exercise the body knowledge, creators, exercise, their mind, and huge part of being a professional is not just push, push, push, push, push on the field, a huge part of being a professional athletes, recovery.

So to only push and not recover, it reduces the lifetime value of. Career. It's the same thing when it comes to knowledge creators. So if you want to truly optimize your throughput as a professional, intellectual, professional knowledge worker, and whatever you call yourself is really important to have covered entire loop, rather than just, [01:25:00] I'm only productive when I'm exerting myself.

That's not true. That's kind of what I'm hearing as, as you're speaking.

[01:25:07] Josh Terry: I don't know what one other way to look at it is to go after a thing that you want without limits is what a child does. A child says, I want it. And we, we often fool ourselves into thinking that we're accomplishing great things because we're trying really hard.

We're working really hard and we've been told that it's noble and good to work. But the thing is, is you're working hard, just all in service to this thing that you want, that you're chasing after. And that's what children do. People that are responsible for children, people that are responsible for, for their, their family and the ones that they [01:26:00] love.

They tell them to go to bed. And I, I think that's the difference is it's, it's basically to parent yourself to, to be the adult that says, all right. Yeah, you've got these ambitions, but also you got to pay your toll bill. You gotta, you gotta go and eat a decent meal and you need to, you know, you need to go to bed, take a break and then go, go have some.

And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's the adult thing, taking responsibility for yourself and, and caring for yourself as you is. If you have responsibility over you and you need to care for yourself.

[01:26:51] CK Lin: Hmm. Thanks for that. So as you're, let me circle back to being a tick talker, your journey of [01:27:00] 1.2 million follower.

There's probably a lot more meta lessons cause I'm already 40 days in I'm Laurie learning. I've had my first troll. Congratulations to me. That was awesome. I love it. Nicely done.

[01:27:12] Josh Terry: It means you're waiting.

[01:27:14] CK Lin: And then also notice how, uh, seductive it is the social media followers and likes and so on and so forth.

Right? So, so what are some of the. Journeys or insights that you have shifted on your way to 1.2 million that you could share with

[01:27:32] Josh Terry: turn off notifications. Okay.

[01:27:37] CK Lin: All right.

[01:27:39] Josh Terry: Okay. And, uh, if I, if I would change anything about that, looking back, I'd say turn off notifications, preemptively, don't turn off notifications when they're too much to handle, turn off notifications.

When you, when you go. Oh yeah. I could see how, if this got a little bit more, it would be too much to handle. Turn it off then. Um, [01:28:00] why? Because, uh, dopamine streams, right? So, you know, it's, it's, it's just notifications getting, get you stuck in the, in the dopamine loops. Um, but additionally, uh, we were talking about feedback earlier, too much.

Feedback is problematic. You still need to be a person who. Say what's on their mind and create things without too much, uh, interference from others. So, uh, you have to be willing to, you know, set all of those notifications aside so that you can, um, think for yourself and, and, you know, decide, you know, what I want to make this today.

Um,

[01:28:42] CK Lin: okay. So got it. So you don't have a social media manager, you, you just turn it off you and then you create from what's alive within you.

[01:28:53] Josh Terry: I mean, I th I think that's a really good first step, I guess probably the next would be start to make [01:29:00] connections. Um, I don't have a social media manager, but I, I do have people.

I have somebody that works for me now. Um, I have people that I'm working with, um, Uh, like I'm getting help with video editing in different aspects of it. Uh, um, somebody that's working on sponsorships fit various elements of this, uh, just as it grows, you have to realize you're not going to be able to do it all.

Um, again, it's, it's, it's about setting those limitations and go into, you know, what, like let's figure out what part of this, you know, you're going to be really good at and, and hone in on that. And, and there's, there's so many things, uh, in this process of building out, uh, a presence like this, that, uh, as I look at it, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't be doing that.

I shouldn't be working on that part. That that would be a disservice to myself and, and the people that I create content for, [01:30:00] I should, somebody else should be doing that. Um, so more and more, you have to think that way.

[01:30:07] CK Lin: What, what? So what's the dream is the dream to potentially launch your own, this scored, you know, your investment.

What do you call those, uh, syndicates or like what's the dream? What would you like to what's division? Yeah.

[01:30:24] Josh Terry: Well, uh, I mean, I've got a discord, uh,

[01:30:28] CK Lin: I didn't know that. Why is it that

[01:30:30] Josh Terry: I need to, I need to put it back up in the links. Um, but that's where we held the last creativity workshop. Um, but so, I mean, short term, it's the Bitcoin mining company that's already launched everybody.

Check it out on. We funder. Um, don't, don't listen to the, the scammer DMS go to the Lincoln bio, please. Uh, then, uh, the creativity workshop and, um, the book, like those are the [01:31:00] main focuses, right? Uh, if those things go well, I think I probably want to keep expanding out in those directions. So I think there's so much to be done in the Bitcoin space.

Creativity is always been near and dear to my heart. So I would, I would love to explore, you know, different ways to teach people that and to explore that. Um, and then, you know, if this book goes well, I'd, I'd love to do another. Um, and, and another after that, I th I think I could go pretty far there. Um, uh, and over time, I think, I think doing some sort of a retreat, um, collaborative workshop type type of thing, I think is probably in my future, but, but Bitcoin creativity and, and self-development through order chaos being dangerous.

I think that's, that's my wheelhouse. Are there

[01:31:54] CK Lin: new technologies? Are you paying attention to regarding. Creativity [01:32:00] self-development or Bitcoin, things like that. So for example, things that I pay attention to recently, I came across a really cool neural feedback, hardware that's wireless. You can actually track, you know, how your brain works and it has a positive neural feedback loop.

Right? So as a biohacker, I loved that kind of stuff. So are there technologies like that where you're paying attention to that's, you know, helping creators or be more creative or, you know, things

[01:32:28] Josh Terry: like that. I'm really interested to experiment with that stuff over time. I haven't in that particular arena, but I, you perked my peaked my interest when you said that, um, I mean, Bitcoin itself, right?

That's that's still a new technology and, uh, that's, that's, uh, a big place for my attention, uh, beyond that. Um, is there a place

[01:32:51] CK Lin: that you, Hey, I, on the, on the social web around Bitcoin, like we can,

[01:32:57] Josh Terry: I mean, Twitter is pretty fascinating. Um, [01:33:00] there's, there's a lot going on there. Um, and then the three defaults that if people are asking about Bitcoin, I generally point them towards Anthony, Anthony pump Liano, uh, Michael Saylor and Robert Breedlove, um, oh, in a YouTube channel and to NOP, I think is how you pronounce it.

Um, and then I've got a little, uh, Bitcoin course, um, that could be found around. It's very nicely done. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I wanted to experiment with a different format. Like, uh, I, I decided, well, you know what, I'm just going to make a course. That's like tick talks and see what happens. And I got a lot of compliments.

A lot of people liked it that way. Um,

[01:33:40] CK Lin: sure. It's simple. It's very Emmy. You can do it in, I don't know, 15 minutes or something like that. Yeah,

[01:33:47] Josh Terry: yeah, yeah. It was, uh, it was, I I'm, I'm happy with how that worked out. Uh, and then, uh, I'm real interested in AI creation, uh, era AI assisted creation. I think [01:34:00] content creators in particular probably could, could benefit incredibly from their, um,

[01:34:05] CK Lin: any specific platforms.

So you pay attention to what's AI creation for content creators. What is that?

[01:34:12] Josh Terry: I mean, GPT three seems just terrifyingly. Amazing. Um, and I think that some, some amazing things could come out of utilizing GPT three. Uh, uh, I haven't really been. Diving into it yet, but whenever I get some, some free bandwidth, I do want to experiment like, uh, you know, maybe making some channels that are, uh, you know, AI specific.

Okay.

[01:34:39] CK Lin: All right. So there's a possibility you're going to make another channel.

Is there anything that, so one thing about it I'm particularly interested in it, but I haven't seen any real, real attempt at it is, um, take talkers. Right? [01:35:00] We make educational content, but the, most of the benefits is being read by the platform themselves. We have 2.0, right. The whole idea of what? 3.0 is smart contract, profit, perpetual royalties and things like that.

I just haven't seen that. So I've seen that done for, for music. And for other things, but not exactly in the training space yet. Have you seen anything interesting in that?

[01:35:30] Josh Terry: No, not yet, but I agree. I think there's something there. Uh, I mean, for one, the, uh, what's the Oculus rift stuff, um, uh, full 3d VR stuff.

Like that's going to be phenomenal for training videos over time. Um, and then, um, yeah, I mean, just the whole royalties copyright stuff. Th the ways that [01:36:00] crypto could help that I think is phenomenal. Um, but yeah. Yeah. I th I think it's. To be built in the educational space. If somebody could create a better version of Google, I'll be, uh, infinitely grateful, um, because Google was getting creepy and, and, uh, uh, tired, um, at all at the same time.

Uh, I, I don't, I don't know how any it's, it's amazing to me that we could make Google worse, but somehow we did it. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, if I suspect there will be some sort of search engine technology that comes about from decentralization, and I think that could be a very wonderful, good,

[01:36:44] CK Lin: um, beautiful it, Josh.

I really, really appreciate. So let me, let me share a couple of things, a huge takeaway that I got from our conversation. Okay. So we talk a lot about your journey from zero to 1.2. I keep wanting to say 2 million, but it's [01:37:00] 1.2 right now, 2 million to come, right. A huge part of our conversation. How to find your voice by being consistent, showing up and leaning to your unique strength and let go of everything else, and then keep testing different approaches.

And at some point a platform like Tik TOK would be able to garner a and send audience that it is a good fit for you. That's one. The second thing that we talk a lot about is strategic rest. We gave all kinds of different metaphors, the garden and the fence, or the ying and the yang, right? Talking about David Goggin as a way to find the inner harmony to do that and do that well.

Uh, what else? We also talked a little bit about your creativity workshop, um, your Bitcoin mining projects, how you're bullish about it. And

your book. Is there a [01:38:00] website that you want to send people to, or just Josh tear, replace?

[01:38:03] Josh Terry: Um, there's Josh Terry place.com. I'm slowly building that out. Um, we've started a blog on there and, uh, eventually I'll have a lot more stuff on there. Um, besides that, yeah, just Josh J plays across all the social places.

How old Josh J plays podcast. Yeah. Right.

[01:38:23] CK Lin: Um, do you want to say something or like a podcast? Cause that's a different art form altogether. We didn't even talk about that. So you want to say a little bit about how that differs from looking into the camera depth pen style to podcast to life

[01:38:40] Josh Terry: you want to, I'll just brief briefly, I'll say.

Basically, what I've realized is, is there's so much of a strength and Tik TOK that I, I need to bear down on it. Um, a little bit. So I've, I've kind of, I haven't released new episodes, uh, in a little while in the podcast, but I mean, there's great stuff there. Uh, the [01:39:00] last one I had I think was, uh, uh, Robert Green, green.

Clough's great. Um, yeah. Are already had some awesome stuff. Um, and I'm looking forward to doing more. Um, but just for a little while, I'm trying to hone in on Tik TOK, uh, in, in terms of podcasting, uh, yeah. It is a whole new skillset and I definitely like tried to come at it with the, the, the, uh, approach of the, the, the righteous imbecile.

Right. You know, like trying to just like, okay, it's a new thing. Let's, let's figure it out. So, uh, you know, it's growing, I'm learning and, uh, the last couple episodes I've been really happy with, and I'm going to start experimenting with some formats. I'm probably gonna write some essays and read those off as podcast episodes and try some different things.

Um, but yeah, I'm, I am not abandoning the podcast. I definitely want to build that out

[01:39:53] CK Lin: well from a fan to you from one podcast or to another. I really, uh, so I listened to [01:40:00] the last one with Robert Green was really excellent. You ask really good questions. How really amazing. And I believe God, something new out of Robin green, which is in itself quite an accomplishment.

[01:40:13] Josh Terry: Thank you. Thank you. He's he's an amazing writer and, uh, it's a, it was a pleasure to have him on he's his man, man of brilliance, for sure.

[01:40:22] CK Lin: All right, Josh, I really appreciate being here on noble warrior. I'm looking forward to our next chat and until then guys, go by Josh new book and take his workshop.

[01:40:34] Josh Terry: Pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for having me.