All right, picking up the pace moving right along We have Jeffrey Just my papers here. All right, Jeffrey. What do you have for me? Jeffrey says what do you do when your passion might start to become economically viable? Currently, I have an okay thing going as CFO for a small company, but for a long time I had a hobby Writing fiction.

I got some short stories published in professional publications I even received a few prizes and caught the interest of an agent At this stage, I realized that the next step was to write a full novel But this would take significant time as a consequence I'd perform some basic economic analysis determine how best to spend my time I'll spare you the details of all of Jeffrey's analysis, but basically he worked out that if he wrote one hour per day It would take him three years to write the novel and then he had a lot of issues about that Would he lose interest if he had to drag it out that long Though he has time to do that Would that be time he could have spent on other activities that would help him advance in his career as a CFO?

So he's trying to figure this all out All right. So Jeffrey my thoughts Hey, it's clear from your tone that you're Interested in novel writing and not super psyched about your job. You say it's fine. I like my boss It's manageable, but not super exciting you in your elaboration.

You say that multiple times. So that's interesting to me So what you want to do it sounds like is seriously explore the possibility of making more of Your income come from writing spend more time writing now. I think we have to do a Derek Sivers thing here, right? We need to use money as a neutral indicator of value.

We can't just guess Especially when it comes to fiction writing We can't just guess how much am I gonna make as a writer and plan based off of that? you need to make money as a writer and say here's how much I make as a writer and Then you can make really informed tactical decisions about what to do with your job So, how do you get to that information faster?

Well, I'm gonna say first of all, you got to write more than an hour a day I think you should find out how to get the 20 hours a week. I think you can do that I think you need two hour writing blocks, which means you probably have to start earlier in the morning and A large weekend block as well.

I think do at least that you can get the 20 hours a week Now we're greatly Accelerating the pace and even if you're only doing 15 hours a week, you're greatly accelerating the pace and then to take time off Take two weeks off Don't even have to be vacation.

Look You're gonna assume that you're gonna sell the novel and agent is interested roll the dice and take a two-week leave of absence You can get easy 50 hours in two weeks So you can get like a big push to finalize and polish it So that's what I'm saying like 20 hours a week 15 20 hours a week Four months from now take a two-week leave of absence knock that thing out.

So let's get the feedback soon Get that novel out there. See if you sell it how much money What does my agents think was my editors think what's what are the reasonable case scenarios for my career here as a writer? Then you have the data To make the right decision and the right decision maybe bees full-time writing Maybe I mean if you're if your spouse also works and you can live kind of cheap that might work Maybe and Jeffrey I'm looking in between the lines here.

If Jeffrey is a pseudonym for Brandon Sanderson I Would say you probably are okay You're probably okay. You can probably quit your job or maybe what it is is you change your job you know, you're a CFO of a small company that means you could be a Financial consultant for companies we see this all the time part-time CFOs that smaller firms and smaller nonprofits hire to spend 10 hours a week They keep their books and help them make decisions, but they can't afford a full executive go to that work and like great And I'll be able to do that 30 hours a week and I'm writing the rest Then when my books get more successful I can drop that the 10 hours We like there's a lot that will be open to you But you need the hard data and you have to publish the book or at least sell the book Sell the book to get data to make that decision and I'm just gonna say don't take three years Work harder take time off take some but manageable risk risk not like quitting your job, but like leave of absences or Putting aside all promotion activities for a few months get the book done.

See what happens As Brandon Sanderson learned when he wrote name of the wind You sometimes you got to just write All right, Jesse. It's not an episode if we don't annoy Not only is that a noise fantasy fans, but a noise everyone who's not because they have no idea what the hell we're talking about So that's another double whammy.

That's the type of stuff you're gonna get with our triple threat show Once things died down. He's probably your first guest Brandon. He'll be in here. He'll like to coma coffee. Where's he? Where's he based? He's like Utah or something. He's probably got enough money to fly here though Yeah, you gotta fly out here.

I Do want to have I mean we do want to do guests. We're trying to think through like what the right Format is do we want? People who are living interesting lives what famous people do it, whatever. We're trying to figure that out selfishly I want you to talk to a bunch of people.

I want you to talk to Elon I want you to talk to mark Jesse has the most unreasonable plans for I think they all want to talk to you Jesse has Ridiculously unreasonable plans for who's gonna come in here. I can pick them up from the you know, the train in my truck Let me awesome.

You picked up Elon in your truck. It's not gonna bring your truck You know how many publicists would get fired if those people came here and like they came with their publicist They're like, oh my god. I'm terrible at my job. No, I like your optimism I like it But anyways, we're gonna have guests and and I for sure at the top of my list is I I want to have novelist on I think just be cool to talk to I'm gonna talk to working not literary novelist because that seems unapproachable and hard but genre Novelist and like tell me about your life.

Yeah Speaking of publicist real quick. It's in some of those shows like the super pumped one and we crash one They have publicists in there and they get treated horribly the publicist. Ah Just by those like really rich CEO dudes who like a tenacious. Oh, man, I just get and by the wives.

Ah well Hopefully Lillian and Margo. You don't feel like I treat you that way. I Try to be I try to be nice. We got a great team of publicist at portfolio Been dragged around various cities with me to going to various various places and studios and I Always appreciate what they do.

So Lillian and Margo you have my appreciation. I will try not to be like the we work guy