Focused - 40: Like Being in a Boat, with Kourosh Dini

Episode Date: February 6, 2018

Psychiatrist, writer and musician Kourosh Dini joins us to discuss his long journey to being an independent worker, mixing his various jobs, dealing with the stress of being on your own, and much more.

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm Jason Snell, and I'm joined as always by my fellow host, Mr. David Sparks. Hi, David. Hi, David. Hi, Jason.

It's good to be back with you. It is, and we have a guest today. Yeah, that's right. I'm excited. This is one of our interview episodes. Who's our guest? It certainly is. It's our friend, Kourosh Dini.

Welcome to the show, Kourosh. Hey, thanks for having me on, Jason. David, thank you very much. I've been friends with Kourosh for years. I'm very envious of how productive this guy is, but he's a psychiatrist, practicing psychiatrist, has his own practice. He's a writer. He's a musician. The guy's just always doing stuff. When I was thinking about guests for the show, I know you have been out on your own for a long time. Kudrosh, how long have you been a free agent? I'd say between 10 and 12 years, depending on how you count it.

Yeah. In Chicago, has a busy practice, but also manages to get a lot else done. And, you know, welcome to the free agents thank you very much um it's very cool to be here thank you now now there's a lot of doctor friends i have the thing they want most is to get into like kaiser or some big hospital system where they don't have to deal with much but just taking care of patients but that's not you so so how did you how did you get to where you are sure so uh yeah kaiser that's uh that's the west coast uh type of uh medicine yeah so uh wait a second i don't know what that means

yeah yeah so um just there's there's a lot of different uh groups and kaiser tends to be like west coast uh that's that's the group of medicine. That's the large insurance slash medical care thing that goes on out there. In the Midwest and probably the East, that's not at all here. We don't have that. I'm affiliated with private insurances and self-pay. And then also the hospitals tend to be, they have their own contracts with all these various insurances.

But yeah, that's what I meant by that. We have that too. But yeah, it's just like the HMO. In the Northeast, you have Harvard Pilgrim is an HMO, I think. I think it's the same kind of idea. I don't know. I don't know how it all, it gets very complicated very quickly.

Look at that. But what I do know is that you are just probably not a system guy. I feel like you and I have that in common. But you were in a profession that would be very easy to get into a system. So, I mean, how did you, I mean, when did you realize that wasn't for you? Pretty quickly, I would say. So So the transition itself was quick. Once I finished my fellowship at the University of Chicago, I just started as an independent contractor. I was working on staff at a hospital, but I wasn't an employee. And then I would also sublet an office and I was in a couple of clinics. So I was quickly on my own.

But I guess the mindset of it, I should say, took, you know, longer to get there. So I think I knew fairly early on that I wanted to head in that way. I mean, obviously, with a quick jump from fellowship. But that idea of doing my own thing, being my own boss, and having my own voice, probably more accurately, I think was an early sort of thought. Yeah, I always talk about how with my Depression-era parents, it was really a challenge for me to kind of get over some blocks to go out on my own. But that wasn't true for you, right? I mean, your dad also was an independent guy. Yeah. Yeah. No. And for much of his working life, he's been this independent physician. And so, you know, around the dinner table and it was how things were, I always had him to look up to and, and, uh, he kind of modeled this idea of being on one's own. So that, that made a big difference. Now, growing up, uh, you watch him deal with his practice. Did,

did he have any advice for you when you first went out on your own? you when you first went out on your own? Um, yeah, yeah, he did. Uh, I mean, it was a lot and I, I think it was about hiring people that, uh, could do the important things for you, not doing everything on my own. So, uh, for example, uh, getting a biller, uh, would be, I know there are clinicians who do that themselves, but you know, he was like, no, get, get your own, um, having, uh, you know, getting an accountant involved, but he was like, no, get your own. Getting an accountant involved, getting an attorney involved, just lining up the people that would be good to have and then how to go about doing that. And then also having a network, having people around, having people that you can talk to and this sort of thing, these are all, they seem obvious, but they're not. And especially when you start off, you're just kind of like, what am I doing?

And he kind of like helped me, I'd say, really just like, okay, here are the basics. You need these things. Well, I do think that helps. I mean, both Jason and I kind of had a chance to get established in what we were doing before we went out on our own. And you did it, as I understand it, basically from the beginning. Yeah. And partially, maybe I had a worry that if I started getting too much into, let's say, the academic approach. I guess there's three major ways to go about being a physician, if I'm thinking about it. One is going the academic way. One is going the hired way, let's say, by a large insurance or hospital entity. And the third is to do it on your own.

And I was worried that if I did one of the other two um i'd become too used to it i'd become too acclimated to it to want to uh start striking out on my own so i was like okay i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do at the beginning and if i can't do this then i'll make the transition back um so instead of i guess a lot of uh maybe more often you think of it going in the other direction. Let me just try to understand things, and then I'll try to go it on my own. I was like, nope, nope. I want to give this the full run before I do anything else. Gutsy.

Yeah, I suppose so. I didn't think of it as gutsy at the time. But looking at it in retrospect perhaps yes um you know i think the thing is though i had the the drive to always want to say my own thing i always had my own interest in um thinking things through my own way uh managing the practice the way I want to. So for example, nowadays I'm seeing clients for full sessions of therapy and medication, 45 minutes. Usually if you're hired, you're not going to get the luxury of that sort of time. You have less time and your focus is different. And you can do good work, but it's different work.

And I like getting into the nuts and bolts of the therapy aspect of things. So as a result of being able to do my own thing, I get to call that shot. I get to say, you know what, I'm involved in the therapy of things. I don't think I would have even known a nuance like that in my business at the beginning. Was your dad also a psychiatrist? No, no, no. He's a surgeon. And, yeah, so he very much went off in a different direction. Because you really had a lot of knowledge then about kind of the, the basic nature of the practice, but, but you've also got a history of kind of being a, um, uh,

an entrepreneur in other areas of your life as well. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Yeah. And, and this is something I think we have in common, certainly the idea of like doing other things, you know, branching off into uh you know developing uh things besides just like a singular uh a practice um you know so you know you're doing your your books you're doing your other you know the podcast and you know all these things um so i i do music work

and uh i've been doing that for you know since i was I was five. Um, and I just never stopped. And then, um, uh, and then writing, you know, uh, kind of stumbling into one book after the next, um, and just kind of maintaining these, this sort of, uh, uh, uh, writing momentum and building on that. And you wrote, you wrote one book while you were still in school, correct? building on that. And you wrote, you wrote one book while you were still in school, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I wrote the, the beginnings of the, uh, uh, video game, uh, play an addiction book, which was, yeah. So that I think is a good example of where the desire for free agency kind of also was starting to, um, bloom. Uh, you know, it had this sort of idea of wanting to kind of go against the grain. A lot of people within the field had been thinking video games are bad in whatever way.

And I loved those as well since the Atari 2600. Now that's old school right there. That is old school. My school. It's good stuff. You know, I mean, there's got to get it. I don't know if I can shout out to Yars Revenge or anything. Oh, yeah.

Or Adventure. That's if you're really into it. Adventure. When you were the dot. The adventurous dot. Did you ever play the old E.T., the one that they trashed? Yeah, the one that filled a landfill? Yes, yes, yes.

So you like, but tell me about that, because you were in school and you had a different thought on video games from a psychiatric perspective. Yeah, you know, the thing is, I realize that they're not bad. You know, in fact, there's many positives about it. And, you know, socially, they could be very beneficial. And, you know, I play games with my kids. But clearly, there were problems, too.

Some people had issues with it and could use it problematically. So this became a way of, okay, I got to say something about this so i i kind of drafted the you know we had to write a final paper for our um for graduating from the fellowship and this was like this was that and then it went well well received all that and then somebody convinced me i should turn it into a book and then that i think was the seed of like or a seed of like okay i can do other things beyond just um uh psychiatry psychoanalysis you know like there's there's this

other part of me that could be expressed i think we hear that a lot um and we see that in ourselves too that so if you if you have a job that is uh you know, you're employed by somebody to do this job, you know, that job is almost certainly going to be one thing, right? That is sort of like, this is the area we're in as a company and we want you to do this thing. And it could be anything, but that's what it is. that we talk to and who listen to this show and certainly we ourselves have this where you you end up on your own doing a big chunk of this but also a little bit of this and a little bit of that and it's easier to mix and match those different jobs when you've got some control over kind of you know you're out on your own instead of of having to fully commit and i'm not sure whether we're taking advantage of the ability that we don't have to do 100% into any one thing, or it's our interest in doing a little bit in a bunch of

different areas that drives us out. I'm not sure about that one. I think that's a great point. I think the thing is, is we're often, I think, not always aware, at least myself, of where it is I'm heading necessarily. But it is, so it looks like, you know, I'm doing several things, but really I'm doing kind of one thing. So in the sense of, you know, if I'm, if I'm writing music, you know, uh, it's, it helps me understand the creative process. It helps me understand, uh, what to do with anxiety in the moment. It helps me to think about, um, you know, the process of, um, improvisation as being a thing created within a structure. And then those sort of concepts help me understand psychotherapeutic concepts.

It may not seem like directly one-to-one, like it seems like it appears, you know, oh, I learned this, how to play this one phrase of music, and therefore I can say something to a client. It's more like I understand a process of play and it's and it's production and then i can relate to somebody else who is doing something creative within their worlds so you know as a result of having that free agency i can practice piano and know that that is helping me with writing or with being with clients. Whereas if I were hired, you know, good luck explaining, I'd like to go play the piano now and you can pay me for that. That's not going to happen. I wonder how many of our listeners that are free agents are doing more than one thing. I would guess it's a substantial percentage. I think you're, I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right.

percentage. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. Being a free agent is not just about, I don't, it's not just a negative. It's not just, I don't want a boss. It's much more, I think, a positive. It's like, I want to say something, be something, develop a certain lifestyle. And that will require my own agency to do that. You got it, brother. And you've done that. So you've got the medical practice, the books you write, and it's a variety of different topics. You're not just writing about video gaming. You've got books on productivity and software products.

And then the music. How do you balance all that? I mean, how do you figure out, you know, what you're going to do today? Um, so there's certain things that I think are, are kind of major routines and those just stay. And then I have certain, uh, you know, two or three things that I maintain as just channels of work that larger projects will go into. And then as soon as one of those larger projects are ended, I can move some other larger project into that spot. So as an example, music is a standby. That has to be there um every day although i do have an exception right now because the uh piano is um is anyway the computer piano thing is out of whack right now

it's being fixed whatever i'm playing guitar in the meantime but um the thing is is music has to be there. And so I'm up at 5am and, uh, have headphones and I do that. Um, then, uh, you know, there's certain, uh, things like, let's say I'm working on a, on a book that would be one of those three things that I'm touching on daily. Um, and, uh, or, you know, for example, preparing for, for, uh, this interview to talk to you guys, like I'm like, OK, got to make this important sort of something. And I'm moving that into my active sort of things list. And so it's there daily while I work on it until until it's not. And then I can put something else there. So I guess am I summarizing correctly?

You basically have the medical practice that has its blocks of time. Am I summarizing correctly? You have the medical practice that has its blocks of time, and then you have separate blocks that are kind of flexible, that you'll put whatever the other thing is you're currently thinking about into. Yes, yes, absolutely. So I didn't mention the medical because it's already there. So I schedule those clients. So I have, let's say, ranging 6 to 9 to 10 plus minus in a day. Less clients means I can devote more time to that, to, let's say, writing or working on this.

More clients means I might just barely touch something and just be like, okay, that's all I can do for that right now. Now, on average in a week, how many blocks or hours do you get to put into the other thing? I'm really fascinated by this because I think that you're one of the people that we've interviewed that has really capitalized on the other thing. So it's always shifting. It's always changing. For a while, I would maintain two half days open in order to really devote myself to, so it would become one full work day, to writing or other things. And then any time somebody cancels or maybe between clients or something like that, I might be able to squeeze in a few ideas here or there. I might be able to squeeze in a few ideas here or there. I mean, sometimes I'm working, you know, if I'm walking and I'm just like, oh, I have this idea, I throw it into the inbox and then I have a way to integrate that into the work later. So that's not dedicated time necessarily, but the sort of, I guess it's a way of weaving the dedicated time with that, which is just in between time as well.

I don't think I'm answering your question. No, I don't know if there really is an answer. I mean, it's been a challenge for me. I have publicly stated I'm disappointed in my inability to get some books out that I wanted. And traditionally what I've been doing in this free agency is, you know, the law practice is the thing I do every day. And then I make time for the other thing, but I, I haven't been making enough time for the other thing. And, uh, we were just talking in the last episode, how I'm trying to treat myself as a client more now. And now I'm, I'm like, I, I, I dedicate 5 30 AM to 8 AM every day to writing on my next big thing, you know, my big other thing.

And so I just wake up every day and then I do that, take my walk, and now I feel like at least I got some time into that. And if the rest of the day gets blown on other stuff, then so be it. But I'm fairly new into this practice. It's not an established habit yet. I don't know if it's going to stick or not. But I was just curious how you're doing it. Jason, when you're working on a book,

you've got these other big things, too, you do once in a while. Do you block it out, or how do you pull it off? Yeah, I mean, I'm a big believer in blocking off time. So that's definitely a way that I do it. And you also have an idea of what your schedule is going to be. And it's just, it's something you have to do. And I have, I think, it's not quite the same as having patients, but I do have, like, I have podcasts that I have to record at certain times, and so those are blocked off. That's, like, that part of the job happens then, and then you find the time in other places.

You know, the other thing was, one of the recent podcasts you guys have done, I think, Jason, you mentioned you had, like, 10 or 12 or some large number of podcasts to record in that, like, one week or so. I can't remember exactly. And, you know, it makes me think of it's,'s first of all you've got the practice of it right like if i were to do that i'd i'd fall on my face i couldn't do it you know but the second part of it i think um and i think this goes towards david your point of like doing the morning thing like it's about rhythms of work i think there's um and maybe it's just the musical metaphor but i think it's more than that there's you know about blocking this, blocking that, doing this. I'm trying to avoid the concept of energy level because I don't like it so much.

But if you do the same thing over and over again at certain times, or you do it with with some regularity you develop a certain practice you develop a certain habit and then that habit is its own repetition that can be varied and and other you know motifs can be strung through and throughout so it it i think it's if you maintain a good rhythm of work that's more then you're more into the process of it and and and and the products are just are byproducts there are just nice little things that seem to hey look there's a book yay you know uh it's more like it just appears yeah having a pace i think is something that i've definitely learned on my own is is you get into a rhythm you set a pace and you sort of know like i can

i can do this this is how this happens and once that's there that can provide like a little bit of a scaffolding a little framework for you to do you know then you can put other things around it because you've got that structure yeah yeah that's that scaffolding is this is is i think vital and and that's you know to the idea of the the free agent again is this you have to be able to structure yourself, but that is such a, it's not a matter of willpower or I have to do this. It's more like an understanding of oneself and what works well. Yeah, and I think you just have to be willing to roll with it a little bit, too. I mean, it's really hard, and you're going to have days where you have to make adjustments. You mentioned some enviousness of my own.

I'm envious of you, David. You do a lot. I keep looking at all the stuff you're doing. I'm like, all right. There's another post. Do you know how long those things take to write? You know how long those things take to write. So the thing is, I think it appears, perhaps I appear to be more productive.

I am pretty productive, but I think it's always grass is greener type of thing. Maybe that's what I'm trying to get at. This episode of The Free Agents is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move and enter offer code FREEAGENTS at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase. Look, you're a free agent or you're about to become a free agent. What's one of the first things you're going to need when you make your move? You're going to need a website. And I'm not talking about something on Facebook. I'm talking about a real website with the real URL that points at your business. Squarespace is perfect to help you

get started. Squarespace lets you easily create a website for your next idea, and with a unique domain, award-winning templates, and more. I built my website for both Mac Sparky and my Sparks Law legal practice on Squarespace, and I've been using them for years. So maybe you need to create an online store, or a portfolio, or a blog. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that lets you do just that. There's nothing to install, no patches to worry about, no upgrades needed. You don't need to hire a special consultant. You can just make a beautiful website on your own, and you don't need to worry about any of that extra maintenance stuff. Squarespace has got it covered. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support if you need any help, and you can quickly and easily get your own unique domain name when you sign up for the service,

so you don't even have to go somewhere else for that. One of my favorite things about Squarespace is the award-winning templates. They all look beautiful, they're professionally designed, but they also let you customize them so they don't have a standard look. People won't be able to tell it's a Squarespace site just by looking at them. Before I put Max Sparky on Squarespace, I had it on a third-party blogging platform where I constantly had to make sure that my plugins were up to date and that everything had the most latest security patch. And I was really worried that someone would break in and take over my website without me even knowing it. I was so happy to switch over to Squarespace because not only did it give me this really

good looking website, everything is self-contained and held by Squarespace. So I don't have to worry about third-party plugins. It's all there in their system. I've been using Squarespace now for years. Occasionally I get linked by a big publication and my website just gets hammered with a bunch of hits. Squarespace never lets me down. They're always working. I can create new posts, both from my Mac, but also my mobile devices. I just took a big vacation. I post to my blog almost daily, just using my iPad throughout that whole process. And best of all, you get all of this with plans starting at just $12 a month. And you can start a trial with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com. When you do decide to

sign up, use the offer code FREEAGENTS, that's all caps and no spaces, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the free agents. We thank Squarespace for all of their support. Squarespace, make your next move make your next website so have you ever had any any rough patches as you've been going through this i mean hard times rough patches sure yeah um i try to minimize them as much as possible obviously um rough patches, the way I deal with it is I think that initial advice that I got from my dad, which was, you know, have people around to connect with this idea of, you know, if I have a difficult time, if there's something going on with a case I'm trying to figure out, If I have a difficult time, if there's something going on with a case I'm trying to figure out, if there's something going on with my own – when I'm struggling with a book I'm writing, it's having people nearby that you can bounce ideas off of makes a world of difference. I sometimes get caught up in myself and think I know stuff, and then as soon as I ask somebody and they point out something I didn't think of, I'm like, okay, yeah, I should just stop. I should get off my high horse and really learn something from somebody and like all right yes this makes sense so that's i know i'm speaking in generalities here but i think that's having people nearby that you can bounce different ideas off of is a big deal

yeah yeah agreed and and having done it over 10 years now i'm sure there's been times when it seemed like it i guess that's a question has it ever felt like it wasn't worth it that you made the wrong decision at the beginning? Um, there's a lot of times that I wonder what could have been, you know, could it have gone that way? Could it have gone the other way? Um, but I don't think it, I don't know if it's wrong. I think it's more like the human condition of incompatible wishes. and and constantly wondering what what what could have been you know for example um there was a time in in college where i was thinking maybe i would just dedicate myself to music entirely and what could have been and so occasionally i might think wonder how i would be playing right now if i were practicing four hours a day and touring, you know, um, but it doesn't

mean that I necessarily regret it's more like, it's like that that's another path that could have been, but where I am is pretty, pretty all right. It's got its problems. I'm not going to say it doesn't. Um, but, um, you know, there's certainly other, other paths that could have been. So, um, something I wanted to ask about, we, we talk on the show a lot about the proverbial waking up at 2 a.m., wide awake, thinking like, wait a second, what am I doing? And, oh, no, there's this thing that might go away and everything's going to be ruined. And, you know, there's anxiety, there's stress. When you're on your own, you are no longer insulated as those of us who have exited the you know the business world of uh of having a company around us you're insulated from all that

it's not that the uncertainty isn't there it's that you don't have to see it you don't have to think about it every day um as somebody who is a mental health professional and also is not insulated from these things how do you how do you approach this how do you approach the anxiety the stress the uncertainty that comes with being out on your own uh great question yeah so the um first of all is to know that anxiety is there it's not going away um you know anxiety is important it's a part of life um the thing is if you if you don't have anxiety it's it you border on kind of the sociopathic type of thing but seriously it's like it's it's it's um it you gotta have it's gotta be there it's part of the human so if there's one thing i've learned since i became a free agent it's that i'm not a sociopath

congratulations so the thing is we handle it in different ways you know which is part of how you know my job my job is there. We can pretend it doesn't exist, and that often gets us into trouble. Often you even have these sort of proverbial posters that are motivational, that suggest you should just fight past it in some way or another. But it's not about that. You need to feel it. You need to know it.

You need to be aware of that anxiety fully in all its ugliness and then be able to act if it makes sense to work through that in some way or another. So I often will entertain the idea, wouldn't it be nice to work for some organization i could likely uh make more or i could have my health care taken care of my you know instead of having to deal with that differently the retirement i could be dealing with differently i could be you know it's taxes would be whatever vacations i can go on all right i'll stop but um the thing is is i it comes back to this idea of i like making my own schedule i like to be able to shift things around i like to be directly connected um to uh clients i like that um so like with book sales for example if somebody

has a problem they can contact me directly um rather than let's say, going through a publisher or something like that. I guess maybe there is a way to do that directly. But anyway, this way works for me, and I like that I can do that. And the anxiety is just I have to buy into that as part of the package. You know, the example I'll give sometimes is it's like being in a boat, where if you're in a large organization, it's like a large boat. You're taken care of in many ways. You have your singular duty often that you're kind of given, and you do those and you're fine, but you don't get to say where the boat goes. Um, whereas if you're on your own, you're in a small, tiny thing and, and you're subject to all of the whims of the world, the economic, you know, pluses and minuses and, and, uh, you know, and, and you can capsize and, and it won't be the result of something you did, or maybe it is.

and it won't be the result of something you did, or maybe it is. But you get to say where that boat goes. You get to decide where that goes. And so you learn to pay attention to that sense of anxiety. Hopefully it signals things correctly to you in some way, or at least you weigh it against the things you know to make your decisions. And when you do that, and when you really feel like I think you've kind of settled with the feeling of anxiety, when you know you're not getting new thoughts coming to mind, maybe you're starting to ruminate or new ideas,

and you're able to act, then it tends to shift that anxiety to excitement it tends to make it more of yeah another analogy if I can add it is like going on stage, a lot of people deal with stage fright but if you practice it then oftentimes that anxiety shifts into excitement. It depends on that practice. It depends on how well you're starting to feel like you're doing with things. But, you know, I think it's worth it in the end to manage it that way. Like when deciding to go on your own, that was a

very stressful time for me. You know, it was very hard to, you know, is it going to work? Is it going to fail? Am I giving up a job and I'm going to go hungry? And, and my wife and I had several conversations about just that. They're like, well, let's take worst case scenario. You know, let's just get comfortable with that. Let's pretend I quit the job and I go out and I don't have any clients come and nobody buys the books and I don't make any money. Well, clients come and nobody buys the books and I don't make any money. Well, what would you do then? Well, you know, I'd go get a job, you know, so. Right. You're not banned from all other work because you went out on your own, right? Yeah, exactly. World continues. Yeah. Yeah. And just kind of talking through and realizing that, you know, if the absolute worst case scenario happened, I, it wouldn't be the end of the world for me. You know? And once I got comfortable with that, it made the decision to leave trivial almost.

That's, that's a great way to put it. Yeah. I mean, that's a very good point. And I, and I do, that does run in the back of my mind. It's like, you know what, if this doesn't work out, I can get a job. Yeah. That's there. But it does work.

You've been doing it a long time. So, uh, so for those of us out work. You've been doing it a long time. So for those of us out there that haven't been doing it as long as you have, tell us some of the things that you found work particularly well for you as a free agent. Sure. Well, one we've mentioned, which is have colleagues, have mentors,

have people around to bounce ideas. Another one is, sounds promotional, but really isn't, is learn to manage yourself, learn to manage your own tasks, learn to manage, you know, you need to be able to know when to get back to people and how to get back, because the better you are at that, when you can, I think there was an example you gave, Dave, at one point, where, like, you called somebody, like, seven months later, and you said you would do so, and, like, you're able to, and you, like, they, like, startled them. Like, when you're able to do that, you are, you establish yourself as somebody who's on top of things. And when you do that, people will turn to you uh much more frequently uh not only you know it's not just that you're on top of things it's that you um uh you know it it speaks

well for you in general so the they're ready to look at your work you know as for me as a mental health professional as like okay okay, this guy must have the same seriousness that he approaches being on top of things with that sort of seriousness. So learn and it's a skill. I think it's it's it's a lot of times people are worried they can't do that. And I was not on top of things in the past. And then I got on top of things. It's a skill, It can be learned. So that's important. And I think there's a lot of people out there that are really good in their particular field,

but they're also kind of scatterbrained and they need like support staff and people to manage a lot of things for them. And I guess I'd say if you're going to go out on your own, you need to either figure out that yourself or go out on your own and have enough money to hire that support staff because right you're not going to have it if you don't i mean the absent-minded professor type is a is a real thing and it's sometimes the most brilliant uh people who might even benefit from going out on their own but they they will need support and they'll either need to be good enough to find it or or they'll be in trouble right like you do have to be a little bit of a cross trainer or at least be capable of knowing

what you don't know and asking for help yeah yeah because if you that's that's a great point i mean you have to be either um good at yourself or if you want somebody else to do it fine but then you have to have the skills to assess somebody and how well they would work with you or not, which is fine. And if you've got that skill in and of itself, so you could develop that skill instead. But if you don't do either, then you are dependent on somebody else just doing it for you. And chances are you're going to be working for them in that scenario instead of being a free agent which is can be or there just happened to be a you know very kind benefactor and which you

know that'd be great but how often does it happen right so you said you got better at it how did you go about doing that a couple things one my, my own therapy, my own analysis that I went through was huge. It was very helpful to me. Another one was when I started with getting things done and Kinkless GTD on OmniOutliner, eventually OmniFocus, and just practicing that and getting better at that. And meditation somehow has been very powerful for me as well. Those things in general have helped me deal with my attention and being able to set things aside where I want them to be so that they're ready for me when I'm ready for them. where I want them to be so that they're ready for me when I'm ready for them. And give me confidence that I can start adjusting the world in a way that works for me as well.

Yeah, that last part is a trick. I think if you're going to go out on your own, so much of it is about that is figuring out what's, what is balance for you? Because I don't think you know, when you first go out on your own, that's something the question is just coming to me that I have been making a lot of assumptions about what balance is when I really hadn't given it much thought at the beginning. And Jason and I, Jason has heard me talk about that a while lately because it's on my mind constantly. This episode of Free Agents is also brought to you by Fresh Books. Hey, all of you freelancers, free agents out there, you know how important it is to make smart decisions

for your business. This is what we've been talking about on this and every episode of Free Agents. Our friends at FreshBooks can save you up to 192 hours, that's a lot of hours, with their cloud accounting software for freelancers. It's ridiculously easy to use. It can simplify tasks such as invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online. FreshBooks drastically reduces the time it takes for, let's see, so far it's 10 million people to deal with their paperwork, and it can help you too. FreshBooks automates late payment email reminders. You don't have to waste your time checking in on people who are a little slow in paying you. It automates that entire process so that you can just

go and do your work. And the brand new projects feature lets you share files and messages with your clients, contractors, and employees. So you can see how quickly things happen when all of your conversations live in just one place. If you're listening to this podcast and not using FreshBooks yet, you need to give it a try. FreshBooks is offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial to anybody who listens to free agents. You don't need to give a credit card or anything like that. You're not going to get charged while you're trying it. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash free agents and enter free agents in the how did you hear about us section.

Thank you to FreshBooks for supporting us and so many free agents out there. So what doesn't work, Kurosh? I mean, with all these years, I'm sure you've had some discoveries that may help some of our listeners. Sure. Pretending that I have infinite time doesn't work. And I keep doing that in different places. If you saw my book or my video game collection, you can easily see that I delude myself regularly into thinking I have time to do anything with them. Well, you know, everybody says that, you know, you talk about

that. It's like saying no and choosing what to do and realizing that you don't have time for everything. But how do you fight that beast? Yeah. The concrete idea of maxing out on three things that I'm working on seems to be pretty good for me. It used to be more than that, and then I realized that was wrong, and even three is a lot. That's in addition to all the clients that I see and the piano that I play. But if I maintain that number and somehow that works, somehow I just have like, okay, I'm going to touch on each of these things daily. And on the days that I have more time, I can delve more deeply into them and keep going until they're done. That works. and keep going until they're done, that works. I don't need to add false deadlines because there's a huge pile of stuff waiting behind them that are quite real

and give me enough pressure. And somehow just that very concrete way of looking at it works for me. What do you mean by false deadlines? You know, I have to get this, you know, let's say a book out by, if I tell myself I have to get a book finished in the next three months or something like that. I don't know if I'm going to be done with it in three months. I might be done with it next week, but I might not be done with it for a year. I'd rather it be good.

I'd rather just, I want to feel like this makes sense. Of course, that means I have to pay very close attention to whether or not I am ruminating on it in some way, if I am trying to achieve some mythical perfection, if I'm trying to delay doing something else by trying to keep working on this, if I'm, you know, any other different ways that I could be avoiding doing other things or completing it, I have to be just very cognizant of that. You know, I also know from just talking to you as a friend that you're very involved with your kids and your family,

and that's something that has kind of grown up around your being a free agent over the last 10 years. What discoveries have you made in that? And how do you manage to also be there for the kids? So that's a continual struggle. And I'm always trying to get better at it. And I'm always taking notes from others. So I have room to improve. taking notes from others so i'm i'm i have room to improve um but uh hanging out being doing homework with them playing video i love playing video games yeah it's a time that i can yeah

i could keep going about that no uh yeah so but things that it doesn't have to be that it's it's that i find ways to enjoy myself with them. It's not necessarily that I'm their friend, but it's that I can play with them. I can be in a mind state of play with them, and that's important. We just went over to Europe, and my daughter, she's older than your kids. And she's getting a minor in art history. So going through those amazing museums over there and having her there as my docent, I guess, telling me about these paintings. As a father, having your daughter teach you this stuff, honestly, it was probably the highlight of my trip for me.

It was just so fun having her, to see her excited about this and showing me this and telling me a bunch of stuff I had no knowledge of before. It was great. That's very cool. Yeah, I mean, it's that transition from, you know, seeing your child, you know, when they're very young and they present something that looks like, you know, kind of these squiggles and such. And they look pretty neat. And you're like, hey, neat. That's cool. To where, like, you know, they start teaching you something you don't know.

And that can happen even at a young age, too. And they're like, they sometimes come up with the coolest sort of ideas. And they just, when they kind of dumbfound you and you're like, wow, that's amazing. Then it does something not only for you, it does something for them too. When they realize that they can have this really positive effect on you through something they did, it's really impressive. One of my daughters had said something, you know, dreaming, I think, is when you're thinking and you don't realize you're thinking.

And I just went, that's really cool. I really like that. That's awesome. So does that mean we're going to get a book on that? I have no idea. I'll ask her. What's the hardest part about being independent for you? Well, I guess probably the anxiety the

you know there's the sense that there's no even if you're in a big organization the thing is no matter what um there's um nothing stable um for all i know somebody's going to make an app that is you know uh amazing that will uh help hey i don think it'll happen, but it's like it can replace whatever aspects of therapy and medication and this, that, and the other. But the thing is, all medium are under threat of disruption. They talk about disruptive technology and who knows what. Everything is possible to not work at some point.

And, you know, it can broaden it to the point of we're on a planet hurtling through space that could, you know, smash into an asteroid at any point. So we can have that anxiety, too, if we really wanted to. So, but having that sort of free agency, there is a very palpable sort of like, hmm, I'm at the whims of whatever economic something that's going on. What if that – three people wrap up their therapy in the same week, then what do I do about that? And well, okay, I know exactly what to do about that. I can call this person, that person, and say, okay, and say okay this goes oh well maybe i could focus more on my writing at that point but it's like you always have to kind of think through these sort of sort of scenarios and it's always dealing with the anxiety of all these things all at once and the interesting with your boat analogy is that the if you're on the big boat it could be heading for an iceberg and you would be completely

you know, in the dark about it. You wouldn't have any idea. Exactly. As a free agency, you see all the icebergs and you make up a few as well. Yes. So I guess I think it is probably more stressful in that way. I mean, Jason, did you worry about future as much when you were working for the big

company versus now that you're on your own? Well, I was in the media business, right? So from the day I started in the 90s, there was a question about the future of the media business. So it was always there hanging over me. I mean, that was the first conversation I had with a guy over the cube wall from me was, do you think the company is going to get sold? Do you think they're going to shut us down? That was my day one. So, yeah, it was always there, but it was always kind of insulated,

which can be good and it also can be bad. It's a little like being on an airplane, and if you have a little anxiety about flying and you're sitting on an aisle and all the little windows are closed, I like to look out the window, right? And then all the windows are closed, and I'm like, I like to look out the window right yeah and then all the windows are closed i'm like i can't look out the window it was a little like that where it's like i there there were there's lots of stuff happening but in the middle of the big media company

um you don't actually know any of the details it's just sort of vaguely scary so i did it was definitely you know it was not like i was whistling along like oh everything's going to be fine if i stay here and it's all going to be good that was definitely not the case i think that scariness i mean it's just the larger the group it's more just the more buffered the scariness than it is it's not gone it's just it's it's you know as you say there's like this vague sort of scariness that that's there and you might say something and suddenly somebody somebody's eyes light up in a certain way and you're like, uh-oh, what did I just stumble into? I'd like to go back to that just a little bit because of your expertise.

I'm not asking you to help to be a doctor to us all, but there's a lot of people listening to this show that are probably dealing with anxiety as well as part of free agency or thinking about becoming free agency. Is there anything, any simple exercises or, or practices you would share with them to, to try and address that? To, to manage the anxiety itself? Um, I, I wouldn't be able to give like a really clear, like simple something to do. I can say what works for me, um, at least, uh, um, a little bit. Um, Um, at least, uh, um, a little bit.

Um, and, um, you know, like probably the broadest thing that I think has helped me, the simplest thing that has helped me is meditation. Um, it's, it sounds like, um, um, and, and really that's all that is, um, is a regularly practiced focus on some predefined object. is a regularly practiced focus on some predefined object. You choose a thing, you focus on it, and then when your mind wanders, because minds wander, you gently bring it back, and you do that regularly. And some people actually have a hard time with that, so I can't make a general recommendation everybody should try this.

I know some people have, actually they feel worse with it, and i'm like okay well i can't do that i have um because i've been i've had a meditation practice for like 15 years at least actually i have to stop back and think about it and the kind i do is what they call mindfulness meditation it's just basically trying to clear your mind and it's amazing how hard it is when you start and you get better at it with time and for me I didn't see any results from it for like six months when I first started it. But then at the end, I realized that I very rarely got upset about things. It's like I just slowed down my brain enough that I could process things. And I do think that's been a big help for me in dealing with anxiety over the

years for me. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's, it is one of those, it's, you know, whether, and everybody's different and what object you choose, whether it's about clearing the mind, whether it's about focusing on breath, whether, you know, you can choose very, very dire things if you wanted to, if you were really good at it, or you can choose very simple things. Um, and, uh, but everybody kind of has their own reaction to it so anyway so in answer to your question i can't make a general yeah okay uh statement i mean to put you on the spot there i think about yeah um but but it is uh it is helpful to know that we're all dealing with this stuff and uh and it is nice to know that that even kurosh has got to struggle with a little bit

yeah well i mean i'll add one more thing. My own therapy was hugely helpful. I said it before, but I think I can't understate it. I think it was really a big deal. It's not like things would have been horrible without, but I think it was just

the analytic sort of in-depth sort of exploration of self, I think was, was made a big difference and helps me learn how to manage my own anxiety. I know you, you talked about sometimes thinking about what if with other scenarios, but now being in it at least 10 years,

if you had the decision to make over again, would you go free agent again? Yeah, I think I would. Yeah. I think, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm pretty happy with the I think I would. Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah.

I'm pretty happy with the way things are. Ask me on a day where I'm having one of my harder days. Even then, I think I'd still say I'm all right with it. But it doesn't mean I don't whimsically wonder what if. Yeah. Well, thank you, Kourosh, for coming by and sharing your free agent story with us. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate this. Kang, if you want to learn more about Kourosh, you can go check it out. He's got a great book on OmniFocus called UsingOmniFocus.com.

You can also go to KouroshDini, K-O-U-R-O-S-H-D I N I.com. And, and learn more about all the stuff he's up to. He's got some great books, one on being productive, uh, one on video game play and addiction. So maybe that's for you. Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, we'll be back in a fortnight where David and I will talk more about our own feelings. Cause that's apparently what we do now on this show. Um, but until then, thanks to everybody out there for listening. You can get

more by tweet your comments and questions at freeagentsfm and you can go to relay.fm slash freeagents, of course, and click the contact link to email us and to see all the episodes for the show. But until the next fortnight, David, it's been a pleasure as always. Yes, it has and we'll see you next time.