Beyond Busy #89 with Daniel Scrivner

Graham Allcott  0:04  

You're listening to Beyond Busy, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And in this episode, I'm talking to the CEO of Flow, former employee of Jack Dorsey and Steve Jobs, Daniel Scrivener. So before we get into the show, I just want to talk to you quickly about my Six Weeks to Ninja programme, which starts in November, still some tickets left. So if you go to grahamallcott.com, you can find out details there. Or just go to Eventbrite and type in Six Weeks to Ninja, it's an evening course, Thursday evenings UK time, so good for those of you in the US as well listening to this. And the idea is that we will spend six weeks going through all the main parts of my book, How to be a Productivity Ninja. So essentially all the main habits that you need to develop really good productivity practices. So if that sounds of interest, then just go to grahamallcott.com, you can find out more at grahamallcott.com. You can also find out more if you just go to Eventbrite and type into the search past Six Weeks to Ninja, you should be able to find me pretty easily from there. It's deliberately quite a small group. And the idea is that we're going to really create community around this. My I guess my experience over the years is there's there's an awful lot of people who have read How to be a Productivity Ninja and probably read other, you know, similar books around self help, productivity, time management, all that kind of stuff. And then just not implemented things. There's also a lot of books on my shelf I'm looking at right now that I've read that I haven't necessarily, you know, then implemented all the stuff in it, there's always a gap between what you've read, and then what you're actually doing and taking action on. So the idea of this six week programme is that we'll create some community around this, create some accountability around this, and actually bridge that gap. So get you to implement all the stuff that's in there. And you know, ultimately really turn you into a Productivity Ninja, someone who's able to do a lot of great work, do your best work and actually lower your stress levels at the same time. So if that sounds of interest, it's called Six Weeks to Ninja. It's at grahamallcott.com, or it's on Eventbrite. And I would love to have you with me for that course. By the way, if you want a little code for that I put this code out on my mailing list. The code is revved up, because my mailing list is called REVUP for the week. So if you wont one in on that if you want a 10% discount, because I'm feeling nice today. Just go put in REVUP R-E-V U-P at checkout, you get 10% off. I'd love to have you there. So check that out. And also before we get into the episode, I have to give a shout out to my beloved Aston Villa. I don't quite know what's going on. We're all keeping our feet on the ground but for wins out for in the Premier League. We go top of the Premier League if we win our gaming hand. It's kind of crazy. having survived by the skin of our teeth last year, but I'm absolutely loving it. It's a lot of fun. To be fair, I'm having more people ask me to gloat about it than I'm actually gloating. And I think the reason behind that someone was asking me today, oh, you must be just ecstatic and everything. And I think this is like a good lesson for life. Which is don't think you're as good as your wins and don't think you're as bad as your losses. So it's a football thing, but it's also a life thing. What's that quote? is a Albert Camus

 quote, which is all that I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football. There you go. Let's talk about this week's guests. I think you're going to really love this one. This is Daniel Scrivner. One of I think my favourite conversations for a while and one that in true Beyond Busy style got into some pretty deep, deep places as well. We talked about Daniel's mental health. We talked about his work ethic. We talked about working for Steve Jobs and Jack Dorsey and ringing the bell on the New York Stock exchange's square floated where he was head of design. We talked about investing and what it takes to build good startups. We talked about being humble, just all over the map with just really rich conversation from someone who has been there and done it basically and just had incredible experiences as a CEO as a designer. And of course, we talk about the geekiness of his current company Flow, which is a an app which will help you with your to do list and help you with collaboration and is really trying to be the market leader in terms of doing both those things have personal productivity app and team collaboration app. So check out Flow. It's really good and less Let's get into this episode one of my favourites for a while I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Here's my conversation with Daniel Scrivner. 

Anyway, I'm here with Daniel Scrivner. How are you doing?

Daniel Scrivner  5:11  

I'm doing wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on, Graham.

Graham Allcott  5:13  

Are you in Colorado right now? 

Daniel Scrivner  5:15  

Yes, Boulder, Colorado. 

Graham Allcott  5:16  

Boulder, Colorado. So that's like where it's kind of like a hippie town. Right? 

Daniel Scrivner  5:20  

It has that reputation. I would describe it. I mean, it's like a mix of it's a fascinating mix of hippie plus crazy athleticism. So there's a bunch of people here that are triathletes or long distance runners or ultra marathoners or bike bikers. And then you also have a lot of, you know, just booming companies here. So it's a fascinating mix of athletes, hippies and business people. You don't find any other place. 

Graham Allcott  5:43  

Nice. And so you're the CEO of Flow. And is that where your HQ is? Or you're, you kind of mainly there or as a team? Have you kind of all over the world?

Daniel Scrivner  5:52  

Yes. So we're a fully distributed team. So we have teammates all around the world. I'm actually the only person based in the US which and the majority of our team is based in Canada and our HQ, if you were to call it that would be in Victoria, British Columbia.

Graham Allcott  6:07  

Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. So you're the CEO, and you've been there since early 2019. Right. 

Daniel Scrivner  6:14  

Correct. 

Graham Allcott  6:16  

So tell me first of all, how did how did you come across Flow as a company? And how did you get involved with working for them?

Daniel Scrivner  6:23  

Yes, it's a fascinating backstory. So Flow is owned by an amazing company called Tiny Capital, you can find out more about them at tinycapital.com. It's run by two partners, Andrew Wilkinson and Chris Sparling, who are both just incredible people, really amazing thinkers. So I've known Andrew for 10 years, and I've been fascinated by what they've been doing at Tiny Capital, and have been following along and you know, just somewhere in the back of my mind. And you know, this was kind of if you were to wind 2018, somewhere in the back of my mind was definitely I would always wanted to work with them more closely. I always wanted an opportunity to learn from them. And we Andrew happened to come into town for coffee in 2018. Went to coffee with him with no expectation, but just to try to pick his brain about all the things that we're doing. And Andrew is a master of this. He just flipped the conversation on me and you know, about five minutes, and it felt like I was I was being interviewed and I was, you know, what are you? What are you focused on? What are you excited about? You know, what are you thinking about doing next. And so long story short, had that conversation continued to talk for the next six months, and and through that conversation kind of bubbled up this opportunity to come in and take over as the CEO of Flow. And a couple things, just that really interested me about it. You know, the majority of my career before Flow is all early stage venture capital, or, you know, larger companies like Apple. And so I felt like as an entrepreneur, I learned a lot about one end of the spectrum, which is how do you take something from zero to one, specifically with with kind of a venture backed model. And what I wanted to learn is what I consider the other end of the spectrum, which is, you know, a bootstrapped company has taken very little outside capital that's been around for 10 years. And some other stuff that was interesting about Flow is, you know, we're in a super crowded market. But I still remember using the first version of Flow 10 years ago, and being astounded by how beautiful it was, how well made it was. And so it felt like an amazing opportunity to take my design background, take some of my product experience, take my desire to figure out how to be able to lead companies and teams, and, you know, through this challenge, try to improve, improve and put all those skills to use.

Graham Allcott  8:33  

So Flow as a as a product is all about helping teams to manage productivity. And so I guess, if you haven't heard of Flow, you may have heard of Trello, and Asana and, and products like that. So you'd used it. Like back in the early stages of it.

Daniel Scrivner  8:51  

Yeah, back when it was an individual product.

Graham Allcott  8:53  

And so your main focus at the moment is on teams and being able to see that much bigger picture view in terms of what what what a team of people are all working on at the same time.

Daniel Scrivner  9:02  

Yeah, the so that is our immediate focus, you know, what what we've been working on for the last 18 months is basically, you know, taking a giant step back and figuring out what this next version of the product that we wanted to build was, we ended up calling that Flow X. And we just shipped that to all of our customers about two weeks ago and had 70% of customers opt into it and decide to start using it full time within the first 24 hours which was an incredible response and felt great. But you know longer term, I think the problem we're solving is much bigger and much more basic than productivity for teams. And in my mind, you know, we're working on an age old problem, which is you, you have a big goal or dream or aspiration that you want to tackle. You've recruited all these incredible people to work with you on it and now when the rubber meets the road, you have to figure out you know, any and most entrepreneurs have have learned this already but it just hiring incredible people and putting them all in the same room and having some sort of a you know, shared division is not enough. There's a lot of blocking and tackling. There's a lot of like, how do you get great at team communication? How do you get great at impeccable agreements, when you agree to do something as a team? And so I see the problem that we're really working on is how do you get multiple people to work together toward one common goal? And how do we build software to help enable that. And so I think that has a lot of applications both on the team side as well as on the individual side. But for me, the problem we're tackling is it's it's huge, it'll never go away.

Graham Allcott  10:29  

Yeah. And if people are listening to this, having read my book, How to be a Productivity Ninja, it's worth saying that all the stuff that I talked about in the book is stuff that you can do using Flow, right. So being able to manage projects, being able to look at, you know, your tasks based on your attention level, being able to look at stuff based on location and where you are. So all that stuff, that's really cool. Productivity Ninja content, and part of the the cord productivity model is all in there within Flow to be able to use so yeah, it's all there. And we were just talking before we hit record about trying to solve this thing, where, let's say, I'm in a team, and the team that I join has Slack, or they have Asana or one of those kind of products. And then I have my own, you know, to do list manager that I'm that I'm using, personally to keep track of my own stuff. Where is that interplay and it kind of feels like no one's really solved that problem, right? So that, you know, if you're joining a team, then you can switch your task management stuff into that team software, it kind of feels like, some of those apps just work much better for teams, and some of them will work much better for individuals. And there's nothing that really seems to be able to bridge that gap and do both together at the same time.

Daniel Scrivner  11:46  

I think that's totally right. I also think that's, that's a commonality in a lot of other places in the world right now. So you know, where we've been in this period, where there's just been a huge explosion of apps, there's more apps than ever to store files, to keep documents to have an internal wiki, you know, for note tools for productivity tools. And I think that, you know, the next phase of innovation we're going to see is not just this continued explosion of tools, because I don't think that leads anywhere that anybody wants, I don't think any of us want to juggle more passwords, have more tools have more subscriptions, we have to bounce between. So I really think going forward, it's going to be how do you knit these things together? In a way that recognises that, you know, I'm not Daniel, an individual and separately, Daniel, you know, a worker at X company, I, you know, have this all of this stuff to manage. I've got my personal life, my family life, my work life. And so how can we start to have tools that knit all those things together really well, so that the software does some of that work for you? And so it's not, you know, just kind of continued mental overload.

Graham Allcott  12:47  

So you're working on that problem? And how to bridge this gap and bring it all together? And why why did you think they were insulted?

Daniel Scrivner  12:55  

I think it's a good question. I think part of it is, I think part of it is just people really wanting to niche in on specific things. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I think, generally, people have a pretty strong Well, I say, would say, generally, team productivity software people think is really boring, although I think it's I, you know, I think it's super high leverage work, I think it's super important work. I think the idea that, you know, so much of what working together in a team is, is having these kind of shared principles, the shared ways of working, which ends up you know, the shared kind of values, all of that stuff, ultimately, is just the glue that helps bind you together as a team and prevents you from tripping over each other and allows you to work together in one direction. And I think that problems like that software solves really, really well. But you know, we haven't had a tonne of focus on that, you know, just in the last five years, you know, with Asana and Monday, have you started to see a lot of capital and a lot of focus come into that space, I think that is now off on its own trajectory separately, you've got individual task management, which I still think is, you know, incredibly basic, for the most part, like, I'm still amazed that most apps don't have notes. Most apps don't have file attachments. You know, they have kind of basic tagging support. And all of this stuff might sound really boring, but I think it's all these. Yeah, I think it's starting to become table stakes. And so what Yeah, what we're driving towards is how do we work on both ends of that spectrum, and solve what I call full spectrum productivity, which is, you know, I think as a company, you're really you know, you're what you're building is a machine that's incredible at solving problems. And in my mind, I think there's very different lessons very different things you learn solving each of those problems for individuals, it's how do you keep it manageable? How do you kind of scope down all the functionality but keep it so it's got the powerful things like notes and tagging and, and file attachments and do times and being able to see your tasks on a calendar and, and all of those things? And then I think on the team side, you solve a very different problem, which is how do you take all these individuals and help them work together? So I think you know, if you can work on both of those at the same time, you'll inevitably be learning things from each side that will help you make a better product for both types of users. And so that, to me is the ultimate goal. And I think it's a big goal. But that's the one we've we've been driving towards. And I'm super passionate about

Graham Allcott  15:11  

when, as I said, Before, we recorded when you saw that I'm going to be your biggest advocate and fan right here in the UK. Because it because the software looks beautiful, as well. So the idea of not only being able to use something beautiful, but be able to use that with the team and individually. like yeah.

Daniel Scrivner  15:28  

That's the goal. You don't have to give up anything, you can have a beautiful workplace, powerful features, simple and easy to use, and be able to use it for teams and individuals. And so in my mind, it's a very achievable problem. It's just we've got to, you know, get there in a few different leaps.

Graham Allcott  15:43  

Nice. And on your biog. It says that when you came into Flow in 2019, it was to help turn around the company. So what did you find when you arrived? And what was the job there in terms of that turnaround?

Daniel Scrivner  15:56  

Yeah, so that was the the business objective. That I was, yeah, I felt like it would be an incredible challenge. And I would learn a tonne out of solving it was, you know, so so to rewind the clock a little bit, you know, Flow launched initially, it got spun out of Metalab, which is one of the world's best product design studios. So right from the very beginning, it had this deeply ingrained culture of making making a tool that's not just powerful, but that's beautiful. And that simple and easy to grasp onto. But it started out as a, you know, Task Manager for individuals, and you could manage your own tasks, and you could share them with a friend or or share them with someone you're working on. But it was much more of an individual product than it was anything for teams. Over the last 10 years, it's transitioned to be almost entirely focused on teams, you know, but like I said, I think before we press record, today, we have about 5% of our users as individuals that are just kind of using this bizarro team product, because it's got powerful features using it individually. And so we already still we see use usage of Flow on both ends of that spectrum. But a lot has changed over the last 10 years. And the competition in the industry has dramatically changed over the last five years in particular, where we've seen over 100 million dollars go into companies like Asana and monday.com and some of the other players in the space. And so I guess what, you know, the reality that I inherited was a business that was contracting, and what that you know, and for any entrepreneur, that's your worst nightmare, because it means that every single month, you've got less revenue, you've got less customers. But to me, you know, so I knew that would that was the reality. But what I saw from the outside looking in is that I didn't see any reason if I kind of peered beneath the hood, that we wouldn't be able to turn things around. And what I meant by that is I felt like we had all the right features, they could just be simplified, refined, and you know, kind of presented to our customers and in a much easier to grasp on to way It felt like we had all the big high level functionality, it felt like we had an, you know, a defensible position. And being a beautifully designed tool that was something when I came in that can you know has continued to kind of just amaze me is when we do a net promoter score poll of our customers, that all of the customers that rate us 10 out of 10. The reason that they use that they use Flow, if they love Flow is you know, they will call us things like the Apple of the productivity space. And what's you know, so an insight for me, I think early on was just that, you know, if I think for us if we can be powerful yet powerful enough that people don't outgrow our product, simple enough that new users new customers can learn it in just a handful of minutes. And focus on being a beautiful tool. And the recognition there is you know, I think, again, we've been in the software proliferation, this this explosion that's happened. And I think, you know, as I said, I think a lot of people view team productivity as an unsexy problem. And so that means that they just kind of don't, I don't think they put in enough effort on what the solution looks like. But to me, what that's akin to is, you know, it's like, it's like going into an office and you've got, you know, terrible grey rugs, and you've got cubicles, and you've got you know, fluorescent light, and it's just a you know, it's a space that you hate being in or going into something like a we work office, where everything's beautifully appointed, you know, it's a wonderful place to be, I think that you know, product, the products we build can have some of those same characteristics. And to me, I think that with anytime there's an explosion of tools that that's, you know, on the one hand, that means everybody has more options. On the other hand, it means that everything kind of blends together. And so you really need to focus on differentiation. And so for me just some of those core principles of what we'll build and why combined with making sure that we always execute that in a beautiful way that felt really defensible. And so, you know, long story short, that was the reality that I inherited. It ended up it's been brutally challenging, you know, to be super honest over the last 18 months. I don't think I appreciate it enough how difficult situation that was to take on. But the good news is that we've turned that around and we're back to growth. And you know, we have a version of the product now that's performing really, really well for customers. As I said, we had 70% of our customers switch over to use Flow X in the first 24 hours. And so we've, you know, I've kind of referred to it with a few people on the team as it's almost like playing a board game. And you know, we had to just figure out how to get to the next position on the board. And unfortunately, you know, well, I wouldn't say unfortunately, for better or for worse, took us 18 months to figure that out. But we have figured it out. And so now we're, you know, we've advanced, you know, a piece on the board. And now we get to think about where we go from here. And so that's what we're, we're focused on at the moment.

Graham Allcott  20:29  

Nice. I'd love to come back and talk more about some of the brutal challenges a bit later. One of the things that's really obvious, just hearing you speak about it, and you mentioned there being the Apple of the productivity space, you talked about, you know, beautiful user interfaces, beautiful design. So your background is in design, and correct, you know, you have this thing on your website, where you talk about being a designer, CEO. So that's not something that you hear as a phrase a lot, the designer CEO. So now, just tell me more about why you think having a design approach to the CEO role can be really helpful.

Daniel Scrivner  21:08  

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I would say that as a blanket statement. And because I've talked to a few people, and they've kind of asked me the question, like, Oh, do you think that, you know, designer should be CEOs and I, you know, for me, it was much more, that was just what all from literally, from the time I was in high school, I, you know, I think I was partly inspired by my family members. But I had an uncle who was an entrepreneur, and had his own business. And I remember growing up just thinking that was the coolest thing in the world. And I don't, you know, I still don't really know why, but I've just always been gravitated towards, you know, kind of being in control of your own destiny, being able to shape the things that you do, and the values you express out to the world being in charge of kind of holding a bar on product quality. And it just felt to me, like, all those things, felt kind of like what I've been called to do, and what's really excited and attracted me. And so those things just happen to kind of mean that, you know, I had a background in design, which is for me is always the the way I kind of I mean, I'm happy to share the story. But I, you know, frankly, kind of stumbled into design. I just happened to do it early on in my, in my life. And I stumbled into this thing that I love. And for me what design has always been is it's this wonderful, amazing, ever fascinating intersection of solving really difficult problems. Sometimes those are business problems, like how do you increase sales? How do you get more people to sign up on your homepage? Some of those sometimes those are product problems, like how do we execute this feature, or what's tripping people up about the way this is executed? Right now, sometimes it's branding problems, but it's always solving a really difficult problem, combined with trying to pull that off in a way that there's some sort of an article twist, and you ideally create something that singular that feels, you know, both very familiar, but very new and interesting. And to me, that's always felt like Oh, man, if you can, it's and it's, it's not like I've got, you know, the magic formula from, from my career so far. But I definitely have some approaches that I know work to try to find those solutions. And so that's my love the design. And, and so I've just, you know, my the natural path for me was, at some point to figure out how I made that leap to being a being a CEO, being an entrepreneur. And, you know, Flow is an amazing opportunity to both like, bring those design skills and that design background, get a chance to really learn what it is to be to be in the CEO role and to be leading a team. And it's it's been fascinating experience.

Graham Allcott  23:24  

Let's just reassure everyone though, like, even though you're a designer, CEO, you're still allowed to have scrappy bits of paper and really bad Google Docs and tables and things like that, right?

Daniel Scrivner  23:36  

Oh, yeah. I mean, like backpacks full of like, sheets of paper and notes. And yes, absolutely.

Graham Allcott  23:41  

But part of your design background, his background is that you worked at Apple? Yes. So I'd love to just delve into that and just talk about what you learned there. Presumably, that's if you're going to be a designer, then that's like the dream place to be, isn't it?

Daniel Scrivner  23:55  

Yes. I mean, so I still think of that as my boot camp. And what I mean by that is, you know, so I, I stumbled into design. When I was in high school, I and as soon as I kind of stumbled into it, learned what it was I that like I had found I'd found the thing and so I was just ever fascinated by that I was always learning about it, I was I wanted to get as good at it and improve my skills at it as quickly as I could. So I just started, you know, just trying to do design as much as possible. So what that meant was I started taking on, you know, projects for free before anybody would pay me. Once I built up a portfolio, I finally was able to get paying clients, you know, and so I literally started at the bottom, the very, very bottom of the totem pole, meaning a freelancer with no real clients, and no one knowing your name, and trying to just kind of work up the ladder of getting better and better and better work.

Graham Allcott  24:46  

These projects software design of a graphic design, like what kind of designing

Daniel Scrivner  24:50  

Yeah, it was. It was a it was a mix. I mean, early on. I did a lot more marketing and branding stuff than I did product stuff. I started really leaning more into product work when I was at Apple But to me, it's always like it's a spectrum. And there you know, you need to, you need to know there's different ways to approach different problems, you kind of you need to have different mental models, inherently salt, like coming up with a, or doing a wonderful, you know, rebranding or coming up with the branding for a company that really works is a very different problem than trying to make a marketing site. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of commonalities that kind of knit, knit all of them together. So over the course of my career, I've kind of done it all. But I've, you typically specialised in one thing at a given moment in time, but kind of the quick backstory is, I never graduated college. So when I was two years into college and felt like I had this fork in the road moment where I could either continue to do design full time, which is what I really felt gravitated towards, just because I love doing it. And to me, it was this trade off of like, I can either spend all my time doing this thing I love and getting better at it. Or I can go to, you know, school for two years, and really dedicate myself to that and kind of push off this thing that I love. So I ultimately chose to stop school for six months, and give it a try to try going and I quit my job at the same time, and decided I would just go all in on design. And that ended up being for me the leap that I needed to kind of start a new trajectory in my career. And so, you know, if you fast forward, I think, I don't know, four or five years, I ended up getting an email getting offered an interview to come and join Apple's marketing communications team, and I initially wasn't sure what that was going to look like, I ended up being there for three and a half years. And, you know, the experience to date is probably one of the best of my career still, like the people that were there are, were absolutely brilliant. And the thing that I took away from it the most is, you know, so what, when, what, when, what this event, this would have been, I don't know, 2008, or something like that this was right around the release of the, the iPad, and, you know, design at that point in time wasn't as esteemed as it is today. And so you know, joining a place, so there wasn't as many opportunities, joining a company like Apple was, I think the best thing I could have done at that moment in time because I, I, the thing I took away from it, at the end of the day is what I call, you know, repeatably excellent design, which is how, what's the what is the process look like? What are the conditions that you need? How do you set a team up for success, to not just solve one problem? Well, every once in a while, because design to be super honest, just like investing or gambling or business or anything else, there is a lot of luck and serendipity involved. And so plenty of people can stumble upon a great solution, and have a wonderful looking wonderful feeling thing every once in a while. But I think it's very different. If you try to create a system for doing that time and time and time again, knowing that what's going to come out the other end is always meets this certain bar. And that's that's really what I learned at Apple, I think at the end of the day, 

Graham Allcott  27:53  

Did you work with Steve Jobs? 

Daniel Scrivner  27:55  

I was never in a meeting with him directly. I saw him around campus, I got to be, you know, some of the most exciting things that when I was there were things like company all hands where everybody got to ask questions, and Steve was the one filling answers and just to see, you know, because he, there's, there's so much I think, to love about Steve Jobs, he was a very complicated person. But, you know, he did not mince words, in those meetings, you know, just like, it has happened in every company, I've been a part of since, you know, sometimes questions will get asked that.

Did that can show either a lack of understanding or a lack of knowledge. And I remember in one all hands in particular, someone answered a question. And Steve just eviscerated the person in the entire company for asking, you know, this particular question. And but that was what it was like at Apple. And I think that, you know, you can see that as a negative, you can see that as a positive. But what I really appreciated there and again, I think this is my experience has been that this is what it takes to create a world class company is you have to have an incredibly high bar for everybody on the team for how you interact for how you communicate. And that and the way that I talk about that is that means you need positive feedback loops and negative feedback loops, because we all need something to kind of keep us headed in the right direction. Positive feedback loops are like, Hey, guys, here's an amazing project. Here's something we should model. Let's share the story. Let's share this work with the entire team. And negative feedback loops or things like that, where it's like, I'm sorry, but if you show up to a meeting, and you ask a question that feels inconsiderate, or considered like we're not going to treat that with a tonne of compassion, and a tonne of empathy. So I appreciated that but it was a you know, a unique experience for sure. 

Graham Allcott  29:33  

With Steve mainly obviously, he was often the purveyor of the negative feedback loops there. But like was he also bringing in the positive ones too? Or was it more about other people having to sort of compensate for his brutal honesty and you know, ability to destroy someone in front of the whole company kind of thing? 

Daniel Scrivner  29:54  

What so that's what that was. One thing I think is is fascinating and I haven't actually thought about it. Just hearing you kind of frame that up. But um, you know, Apple wasn't a company where there was a lot of pats on the back. And but what that doesn't mean and I want to be super explicit about that is that, you know, people weren't in love with what they were doing like at all points in time, none of us all of us on the team loved what we were working on. And we treated it with, you know, if it was something like coming up with a new icon for iTunes, which is one of the projects we worked on or coming up with the smart signs that happened that made their way into the retail store, or redesigning the Apple Store app for iPad. You know, all those were things that we worked on. And, you know, some of those are glamorous problems, exciting problems to solve some of them a little less so, but we all approached it, like we were, like, scientists trying to solve a problem come up with a cure for something. And you know, the joy was in the work, the joy was with all of your teammates, we were constantly just having, you know, fun together. And we just loved getting the chance to come and work with each other. So it wasn't like you needed a tonnes of, you know, no one needed reassurance, we didn't need a lot of Pat's on the back, I think what we, what Apple used as kind of a positive feedback loop is more just sharing examples of things that we're really excited about and proud of. And I think that's one of the most powerful things you can do as a CEO, or team leader is not tell your team, here's what I don't want, here's what i do want, don't you know, because that's inevitably this kind of roundabout way of saying, here's what we're going after, what's a much better way to do that is just really celebrate and really call out the things on the team, that happened to be exactly you know, like, this is exactly the way we should solve problems, we're going to celebrate this moment, we're going to talk about this in front of the whole team, we're going to allow this person to walk us through the process behind it. And by doing that, if you do that consistently and reliably, you know, it's this kind of like you're constantly reinforcing the behaviour that you want the team in, in a really positive way.

Graham Allcott  31:50  

And I guess sometimes as a leader, it's, it feels easier, or the mind jumps more easily to the idea of dictating. Yeah, and sometimes that facilitation of kind of peer to peer sharing, and, you know, sharing those good practice examples, sharing good design examples of what you really need to do as a leader is facilitate, right. And yes, that kind of peer to peer information sharing is, is often more powerful than always being the one setting the rules setting the agenda.

Daniel Scrivner  32:17  

Yes. And now, you know, one might be somewhat related, I'll just try to tie it in, because it's kind of interesting, you just said that. But this was something I was just, you know, writing down and sharing with the team yesterday is there's a book that I really have been enjoying called One from Many, it's written by Dee Hock, who was the founder of VISA, and the CEO of VISA for a really long time. But the there's three pages in the book, it's from page 48, to page 50, that I've underlined a tonne, and to me is the best encapsulation of what world class leadership looks like. And it's totally flipped on its head, you know. And so it starts out with, you know, if you try to think about what the first priority of any manager or any leader is, you know, everyone's first instinct is, oh, it's all about you need to manage down, you need to tell your team what to do, you need to be setting priorities for the team. And what I love about that book, because I think it's the right way to do it. Because a lot of things in life, at least what I've learned is, the best ways to do things are often counterintuitive, or it's a it's kind of you're focusing more on second and third order consequences, and first order consequences. But the basic idea is, all leaders first and foremost have to manage themselves, well, you need to show up as the best version of yourself every single day, you need to be an example for the team. That means that if you're going to be late to a meeting, let the team know you're going to be late. If you said you were going to get something done, and you're not you need to hold an impeccable agreements, you need to either update the team or get it done. But it all starts there, then the next thing you need to do is manage up. Because you know, if you can't manage up all, then you're not, then you and your team aren't going to be free to be able to execute, implement the things that you need. And you know, another way of thinking about that a term I really like that has been bubbling up a little bit lately is this concept of a trust battery, you know, and I think all leaders and managers, you've got to trust battery, that you need to charge up not only with your team, not only with your peers, but also up you know, you need to manage up and then when you manage up well, what you're doing is you're really charging up that trust battery so that you can go and execute and move around and make decisions with a lot of autonomy, because you've got that buy in, then the next thing is still on managing down. The next thing is then you need to manage your peers, you need to be a really great cross team leader, you need to connect the dots between people on your team. And then at the very last thing you need to worry about is managing down. And what I love is when he kind of gets to that point, he says, you know, and you might be a little bit confused, because now it doesn't seem like there's much time to manage down. That's the whole that's the whole point. Because if you hire competent people and you get the rest, right, you don't need to manage them. Nice. And I love to me just that whole idea. I'm like, wow, that and that was that is the dot to connect there is not only as I think that the right framework for how leaders should think about their role, how managers should think about their role, but it's also how we operated at Apple where, you know, it was it was you they were certainly hierarchical and there was a lot of respect for the leaders that were on the team. But at the end of the day, it was very much that model, first show up as, as an excellent person, do a really good job of partnering with the people above you and alongside you. And, you know, focus on the work.

Graham Allcott  35:10  

Yeah, we'll we'll put the link to that book in the show notes as well. One for Many. And I just think that's such a, such a simple but very powerful model really like that. And reminds me also of, I bet as an American, you you may not have heard of Sven Goran, Goran Eriksson's, you know who that is? 

Daniel Scrivner  35:28  

No. 

Graham Allcott  35:29  

So he was probably about brilliant, actually around about the same time as you were at Apple 2008, sort of time, he was the manager of the England football team. And the culture that he inherited there was very much, you know, a lot of players that were paid big money and didn't necessarily respect playing for England that much. And were often you know, going for beers the night before games, and all that sort of thing. And he used to talk a lot about the concept of cultural architects, which I think is a really fascinating thing in you know, think about business culture. And basically, what he identified quite early on was that David Beckham, who at that point was quite a young player, this might be further back than 2008. But anyway, he identified that David Beckham was not necessarily going to be the most vocal person on the pitch, but he was going to always be the one who set the example. And so he made Beckham captain. And really, that that kind of flipping that switch really changed the dynamic within the England dressing room, because suddenly everyone was like, right, we need to look up to how David Beckham is, is carrying himself and how he prepares for games and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, just kind of recognising how important that was, you know, really helped the team dynamic. So just always love that. That idea of cultural architects in it.

Daniel Scrivner  36:42  

Yeah, it's fascinating. And just so just to add one bit on I mean, what I love about, yeah, those pages 48 through 50, and Dee Hock's book is, he talks about that, you know, typically people think you need to command demand, you know, kind of how people should perform. And he says, actually, the best way to do is to induce it. So you just want to have somebody that can model it, you want to have an environment where you have a bunch of people that are all following those principles of leading themselves? Well, managing up well managing, you know, across appears really well. And if you do that, then you don't ever need to ask for demand, because it's either like, here's the bar, everybody's at that bar. So you're either below it, and you're going to get up to it, or you likely need to leave the company, you know, and I think that again, as well, where I think sometimes people can look at that and think it's, you know, I don't know, not compassionate and dispassionate, something like that. But to me, I'm like, No, I think that's just if you want to have a team with world class performers, they inherently want to be around other world class performers, that means you need to have a high bar. That means it is very much a like, everybody is showing up as their best self challenging each other type of environment. And I think you either love that, or you hate that. But I think that that is certainly a recipe for success, depending on what you're going after.

Graham Allcott  37:50  

Yeah. And I think you can also do that in really compassionate ways, too, right? That doesn't have to be a sort of cutthroat environment that can actually be done in in really exciting and sort of inclusive ways to write. 

Daniel Scrivner  38:01  

Yes.

Graham Allcott  38:02  

Let's talk about other stuff that you've worked on. So you're also the Founder and Managing Partner of Blackletter. And so yeah, just tell us what that is, first o fall.

Daniel Scrivner  38:12  

Yeah. So about five years ago, after I left square, you know, I, I been I was at square for a little bit over five and a half years, I joined the team when it was less than 50. I think by the time I left, it was somewhere between 1500 and 2000. People, you know, we had IPOs in that time, I got to be a part of the group that went to the New York Stock Exchange on the day that we IPO. So that to me, you know, my experience at Square was very much a Goldilocks, just kind of magical, I joined it the right time happened to be the right company had a fantastic, you know, experience there learned a tonne. So coming out of that I you know, it was a really intense experience, I was super proud and grateful that I had it. But I felt like I needed to, you know, kind of shake off a little bit of dust. And that I wanted to be a little bit more serendipitous. So a little less focused on one thing for a period of time and a little bit more kind of curious and open. And so the thought in my mind when this started was, you know, can I take some of the money that I that I made from being a part of square and learn how to how to be an investor, you know, learn how to become an angel investor in companies. And as you know, then I discovered advising work. And so what blackletter has become over the last, I don't even know probably six, eight years, something like that now is one we've made direct investments in over 100 companies. The majority of those are in the US. We've invested across all stages and companies lifecycle so we've invested super late in what typically is called like a secondary or growth round. But most of our investments are super early. And then I've also worked as an advisor with a handful of companies that felt like they they met the bar for I could learn with my capital by investing some of my capital but this is a this is A, you know, an incredible team. And I feel like I would just love to work with him directly on this problem. And so in my mind, it's, you know, I'm either investing my time, or I'm investing my capital. And the way that I really think about it is, you know, I went into it not thinking like, I'm gonna make a tonne of money. And you know, I've done super well on the return side. But I think that's just because at the end of the day, that ends up being a second or third order consequence. And what I was really interested in is, I wanted to learn. And so the kind of way I've referred to it, with friends is, it's almost like being a scientist. And I think if you're an entrepreneur, you know, and you have one company, cool, you're a scientist with one experiment that you're watching, you're seeing how, what, how it responds to, but if you can spin up a bunch of those experiments in parallel, and you have all these other companies, and you can see what they're doing well, how they're going about making decisions, how they really can break through and get to that next level. That to me, it's been, it's been, it's been incredible. It's been an incredible experience. And so as I said, you know, we have 100 investments to date, I continue to make make direct investments in companies. And then another thing that I've done, which I've really enjoyed is, you know, as I said, I've worked as an advisor, directly with companies, which has been wonderful. But I've also had the chance to work as an advisor with a handful of venture capital funds. So people like designer, fun notation, capital, combine ventures in San Francisco. And that's been amazing, because it's given me a chance to see, you know, I know what it's like for me to look at a company and look at a team and decide to invest my personal capital and or not, and that's very different than being a GP, and you've raised, you know, 10s of millions of dollars of other people's capital, and you know, you're looking at very different opportunities, you're looking at things through a very different lens. And so again, for me, it all just comes back to learning. And I've always learned best with skin in the game. So it's been incredible.

Graham Allcott  41:44  

That's really interesting. So over 100 investments, and then, you know, lots of other companies that you're looking at through that lens as well. Can you think of particular experiences or, or particular lessons that you've learned, just in terms of what you think makes a successful startup, a successful early stage company?

Daniel Scrivner  42:03  

Yeah, it's a great I mean, so that's still the, like, distillation of all that I've learned is, that's still lies somewhere in the in the future. I mean, I've been thinking about that a lot. I think the thing that stood out to me the most so far is just things that are that are very, very, very surprising. So an example of that. I'll give you two examples. One is Notion and one is Figma. So I first met the founders of figma, this must have been 10 years ago. And it was back when I was I had just joined square. and jack Dorsey who was the CEO, I was on the leadership team. So I knew jack, he connected me with the leader of design team, I forget their title, I think it was how to design VP of design over at Twitter. And so we connected and one day, he said, you know, why don't you come down with me, and let's go down to Palo Alto. And I just want you to meet the team that I've been working with. And it was the most humble beginnings of any company, it was literally basically kind of a shell of an office, they had nothing on the walls, no furniture, nothing on the floor, it was just cement, white walls, they had a couple of desks. And it was just Dylan and his co founder that were chugging away. And at that point in time, you know, if you were I don't care who you are, if you were to go and stand in that environment, you would certainly be like this, this is cool, like these people are, they seem very smart, very motivated, they're clearly working on something. But even if you squinted your eyes really hard, you would have no idea that that was the beginning of what figma has become. And so I think what I've learned, and I've seen now, multiple of those where, you know, I think it's a wonderful story, it's a wonderful narrative where people try to say that as an early stage investor, you know, you kind of just predict the future, and you can go, I just knew that this was going to get there. I'm sorry. But I've seen enough of these now that you never know, even when I was asked where I think one of the fascinating experiences were was, there was multiple periods of time when I was at square, where I thought to myself and multiple people on the team thought that our equity is never going to be worth anything. Like we're, you know, this company is such a hot mess. Like there's, you know, our processes are all over the place, like from the outside from the you know, from the outside world's perspective, things were amazing. And what we were shipping was incredible. But what I've often found is there's a very big disconnect between how you're how you're perceived externally and how it feels internally. And that's, you know, and I think all I've taken away from that isn't that's not a bad thing. That's not a I'm not saying that in a negative way. I think what I've taken away from all those experiences is that's the reality, you know, things are very complex. You never know at any point in time and so really what that's informed that's what that's helped me do. And I'll give an example of something like like notion, I invested in notion five plus years ago at this point, and when I invested I had the I if you were if anyone was to say, do you think this will ever be a billion dollar company, I would have said absolutely not. But it's a wonderful tool for individuals. But you know, but again, it's like so I think what I've in, you know, that investment I've done done over 100 X, you know, on that investment, just a notion alone. And I think what I've learned over time is not your goal is never to try to predict the future, your goal is never to try to have this mystics approach to here's where things are headed. It's very much just to look at what's there. And what you're really underwriting anytime you're making an investment early on, as the person or the you know, do they are they do they have a deep, deep, deep well of motivation. Because founding a company, fighting through all the different stages takes a huge amount of willpower and determination and motivation. I think another one is, Are they aware, you know, can they both hold on to this vision that they have, and also balance that against a really deep sense of the reality that they're facing at the given moment, because, again, there's at early stage companies, those things are often massively far apart, you know, like, here, you're struggling with keeping the thousand customers that you have, but in your mind, you know, that you're trying to go after getting a million customers and being at this revenue rate and having these sorts of customers and, and you need to balance both of those. And that inherently is really difficult to do. And then I think the last one is just someone who, you could throw literally any problem in front of them, and they will overcome it. And I think being, you know, I, that was something I saw at Apple, there was no problem on the creative team that anyone would throw up their hands against, no one would say it's impossible, we would, you know, fight tooth and nail to figure it out and figure it out in a great way. I also saw that at square, we did that at square all, you know, all the time where, you know, we had really, really, really difficult, insurmountable problems. And what I've learned there is just it's not like it's a magical skill set. All it is, is you need to, you know, kind of maintain a sense of centeredness, know where you're headed, don't worry too much about that you're, you know, where you are in terms of where you'd like to be, and just literally treat it like it. You know, again, you're a scientist, you're going through the scientific method that didn't work, what's the next thing I try? And if you can just stay focused on that and celebrate the little wins and stay motivated. And in that fashion, then that can unlock you to achieve really big things. But it's a lot of really hard skills. And so I think what I've learned more than anything is just

yeah, I think, a new appreciation for how complicated it is a new appreciation for how much serendipity and luck, you know, play a role in these outcomes. And I but I think that you know, so to backstop that you're just really looking for characteristics that basically say, Can this person continue to fight another day? And can they hold on to the gains that they have? And can they continue to kind of set the bar higher and higher for themselves and their team?

Graham Allcott  47:37  

Nice. It feels like that brings us neatly back to you describing the last year or so as being brutally challenging. Just a shout out to notion as well, because I'm staring at my screen where I've done all the research for this podcast, and it's all in motion. So I love Notion. I'm a big fan. 

Daniel Scrivner  47:53  

It's a wonderful tool. And they've done they've taken it places I don't think anybody could have imagined. 

Graham Allcott  47:57  

Yeah, I have to say it's never the easiest one. Like when I first coach people and they start using it, people really struggle with it. Like early on, it's not an easy, like you're saying with Flow. It's like you want people to be able to pick that up within, you know, 20 minutes and be able to use it beautifully. And it's like, notion, I think, takes a lot longer than that. It's just because of the level of complexity. 

Daniel Scrivner  48:20  

Yeah, you're very rewarded once you've done it, but it's one of the and I think that's kind of why it works is you know, you're there's enough people that have had success with it that you're willing to push through. And once you do push through, you know, you're able to create something amazing. That's something I've been amazed by is you know, I've there's a great blog, by Dan Schipper called Super Organisers, and he's highlighted a few people who have just created like this. I'm like, Dear God, that's the most beautiful dashboard I've ever seen for their personal life and family life and work life. And so the things you can do with that are incredible. But yeah, the curve is steep. 

Graham Allcott  48:53  

And also just we'll put a link in the show notes to my pal on the south coast of England, Francesco de Alessio, who does quite a few videos around Notion and how he uses it, and it does a really good job with that. So we'll put links in the show notes as well. So let's come back to the resilience thing then. Right. So So it's been a brutally challenging year and a half or so. So just tell me what, what that's meant for you personally? What are some of the things that you've been, you know, really battling over that time?

Daniel Scrivner  49:22  

Yeah, so I think so I've thought about this a lot recently. Because, you know, as I said, we've recently turned this corner. And, you know, our metrics have fundamentally changed. We're back to growth. We see just really encouraging statistics. But you know, what, the last night, literally just a week ago, I kind of recapped for the team, what the last 18 months has looked like from a business perspective, and kind of, here's what our revenue is look like in this time. Here's, you know, what our net profit is looked like, in this time, here's what our monthly run rate and our growth has looked like in this time. And, you know, I think it's a great encapsulation of what it felt like which is, you know, kind of a downward curving graph with no end in sight, and you know, but knowing that we need, we can get to the other end of this, we can figure this out, and that we have a lot of things working in our favour, you know, we have tonnes of customers that love us and appreciate us, we have a lot of really loyal customers, you know, we have a lot of the, we have a huge moat in terms of difficult, powerful features that we've built, that we have that fundamental, you know, technology there. And so we can always execute that in better ways to make it easier to use. But, you know, there's still a lot of inherent things that we have working in our favour. But, you know, it's, it's been brutal, it's been brutally difficult over the last 18 months, and really what it, I think the way to think about it is, it's being in the middle of that disconnect I talked about of, you know, knowing that you can get to the other side of this, and, and being really motivated and really inspired by what you can build, you know, what you can build what you can offer to customers, you know, this vision of what you're building in your mind, but at the same point in time having just the worst, current reality to deal with and navigate. And I think that's what's been so difficult about it is, it's, it's one thing, if you're, I don't know, if you have your venture capital back company, you have a lot of money in the bank, and you're going through a transition period in a company, which, for anyone who's never been a part of, you know, kind of a venture backed company and can look, you know, maybe sees the stories in the news and thinks it's literally just a chart that just goes up into the right, that is not what it's like. And there are multiple points in any company's existence where, you know, it's almost like the world or mother nature or something bigger is challenging you and seeing if you're still, you know, if you can still deliver, if you're ready to still be and be here and play at this level, or if you know, and I've thought about it a lot, honestly, for me, it kind of goes back to evolution. And I think a lot of what competition feels like in the business world is you need to be fit to compete. And what that inevitably means is, you know, you have to have a really great product, you have to be able to offer customers something of value. And if you can't, then people will leave. And so you know, I just so you have all these things swirling around in your mind, I think for me what it took to push through because it you know, it took literally a full 18 months to kind of rebuild the product into a new version of the product that we call Flow X, which is available to for early access now and all of our customers have access to it. You know, we introduced new pricing and plans, we rebranded the company, we redid the entire marketing site, we switched over our billing and subscription system, we, you know, worked with countless customers and had a six month beta period for Flow x where, you know, it's it's, that's one thing I would call out is it's incredibly tricky. I think one thing I didn't appreciate enough, is it's one thing to turn around a business, it's another thing to try to keep customers happy and excited about the product you offer, while also working on this next, you know, kind of this next evolution version of the product that inherently is going to be different. And you're going to have taken some features away and you're going to be changing some of the way things work. And I think that's been the most challenging. And the only thing that we've done there that I would encourage other people to do that are doing that same challenge of like you're trying to keep you trying to carry these customers forward with you as you head off in this new direction. The best way that we've done that is just be overly communicative. And so the I think for us where that really started to fall into places, we I switched to a weekly cycle where every single week we were sprinting on a handful of new features, improvements, bug fixes, and we were shipping that every week, religiously on Monday. And what that meant from a customer's perspective is, you know, over time, and I think this is the other thing is just it, I have a new appreciation for how much time it takes for some of this stuff to really stick with your team, some of this stuff to really stick with customers. But it's not like you move to a weekly cadence in two weeks, and customers are like sweet, this is great, I have a tonne of confidence. It takes three, six, you know, months of steady releases for people to really feel like okay, things are great things are moving in a good direction every single week, you're you're shipping stuff, if I raise an issue or a bug, I know what's going to get addressed. So just be really overly communicative. And I think, you know, on the personal side, I could talk for like an hour and a half about what it's meant. But I think, you know, I've struggled with depression over the last 18 months for a period of time. And because of how different Well, I think to be honest, because at the end of the day of how I was approaching it, and it was all I was I was approaching it the wrong way. And I'm happy to touch on that in a second. But you know, I think so much of of doing that well is just managing yourself mentally and emotionally so that you can again, the whole process in my mind is like, if you if you know that if you have this idea of where you can head and you know, you can get there. And you can prove that you can put one step in front of the other and each time you put a step each time you take a step forward, things are improving. You're you're moving the needle, I think what I have learned to trust and get a lot more comfortable with is, you know, as long as I know, every time we ship this release, we're getting closer and closer to this goal. I know we're not there yet. I know that it still feels frustratingly far away. But I think what you really have to just learn to embrace is You know, and I had a, I tweeted this recently of just like, I think the principle I took away from that is, anytime you're ever feeling de motivated about your progress towards a goal, just forget about, you know where you are, or your sense of where you are, and how far away this goal is. And just look instead at what you're doing. And you know, so for instance, like, if you're working out, if you are, we're able to lift, you know, say you're squatting and you're able to do five pounds more this week than you were last week, you're there's compounding taking place, you know, you are getting stronger, you are getting closer to your goal. So forget about, you know, this kind of beating yourself up and the struggle in your mind and this demotivating cycle of I'm so so far away, and instead again, just embrace the little wins and trust that, you know, I think I was thinking about a better way I could have said that is, you know, the biggest ingredient compounding is time. It's not effort. It's not, it's not anything else. It literally is patience and time. And so what that means is just take those little steps and give yourself the chance to compound.

Graham Allcott  55:59  

And you mentioned depression. Now, I've also had a couple of bouts of depression over the years. And funnily enough, they also have coincided with times where work is felt really hard, and it's felt like stuff has not been moving forward. Yes. What changed in your outlook to... It sounded like you kind of had a breakthrough with how you're approaching your thought process about it.

Daniel Scrivner  56:21  

Yeah, so it was so I mean, the Yeah, for anyone else that's ever struggled with this, I guess just to open about it, to open up about it for a second. When I was going through, and it was a it was a long period, I would say it was somewhere between six and nine months, maybe a year that I was in this kind of depressive period. And for anyone that knows me, I it is completely out of my nature. I'm never depressed or a down person. And so what will you know, what still kind of scares me To be honest, is, if you were to have asked me in any on any day, during that span, if I was depressed, I would said no, I'm not, I'm not depressed. And it's only it kind of took one my wife kind of just raising it and saying, like, I don't know, something's not good. Like, you're just not, you're not yourself, you know, it kind of took her honestly raising the flag a little bit for me to begin to notice. But even then it was a pretty long process. And I think only once I had gotten out the other side, did I really have this sense of like, Oh, my God, no, I really I truly was struggling with with depression. And I think for me what, to try to encapsulate it, it was, it was all the way I was approaching it. And I've been thinking a lot about this. But you know, one is so you know, just take a step back really quickly think about kind of my career, if it was on a chart, it's all been this, you know, kind of upward trajectory. And what I mean by that is my career is I've over the course of my career. So far, I've taken on more responsibility, I've taken on more pressure, I've taken on more demands, I've taken on more things, all of those things, whether consciously or unconsciously, I've done you know, and so what that's meant is over time, it's just like, think of a building think of a, you know, a beam of metal, you're just loading up more and more and more weight on it. And I think and I was just thinking about it this morning, but one I don't know if I'd recommend the book, although the book has a lot of good ideas in it. But I think honestly, so much of the magic of the books just in the title is what got you here won't get you there, you know, and I felt that that ring true for me so many times in my career. But you know, I think what happened is, up until I took on this opportunity at Flow I was able to overcome any challenge by just basically brute force outworking it, you know, and just kind of like, it literally was like, I'm not gonna try to solve this elegantly, I'm not gonna, you know, lean on planning too much, I'm just gonna sprint and get after it and eventually figure this thing out. And lo and behold, and it doesn't take a genius to understand this that is not the best way that at some point in time, if that's your approach, you will absolutely hit a brick wall and it will be really difficult for you to get through the other side because this thing that has worked for you suddenly no longer is lost automatic and it's no longer going to work. And I think the recognition there was I had just passed a point where I could take that approach anymore and so it the depression period where is where I was just trying to brute force it I was stressed at work I you know it it's not want to be really clear, like I was depressed in that I wasn't taking care of all all aspects of myself and I definitely wasn't showing up as my best self to work. And so I was still very motivated, very driven, very excited about what I was working on. But I was absolutely D prioritising parts of myself part of my life in order to go kind of all in on work. And so for me, really the unlock was trying a totally different approach. And it started when I came across Ben Ben Greenfield podcast and then read his book boundless. I've then read other similar books around kind of holistic health and nutrition kind of ancestral wisdom and all of this stuff might sound a little hippie dippie but the basic, you know, the basic idea in all these books is

we if you think about where We came from, you know, we're we, we didn't used to be connected to technology 24 seven, we didn't used to be inundated with all of this demands and information we didn't used to have multiple jobs. And you know, some of this is things that we've done to ourselves some of this is things that I think has just changed culturally over time and become normal. But you know, we're living in a period where just like, the demands on us have never been greater. And I think the only way you can deal with that in a way that you truly kind of rise above it, as opposed to just brute force banging against it and trying to kind of break through a barrier is by going and working at it at a higher level. And so what that is, as an employee that meant is, I'm no longer bruteforcing, I'm no longer just trying to just work more hours in a day get more and more and more done, I've flipped and gone the total other direction in which I think it was the thing I should have done all along, which is basically focusing in on what's essential, what truly matters, what are the one or two things that I really need to move the needle on. And then understanding that perform, you know, as an individual, like, I need to approach my performance holistically. That means I need to focus just as much on recovery on nutrition on exercise on getting sunlight on reading. And I think that that's the unlock is it's almost kind of thought about it a little bit like quantum physics. And, you know, there's this concept of like a superposition in quantum physics where you can be at this position where all these things are intersecting. And I think that that's really what it takes to show up as your best self and really be able to, you know, live out your hopes and dreams is you really do have to, you can't brute force it, you have to become the person that can solve this problem really easily and naturally. And so now it's you know, I'm Do I have a bunch of things that I do every single day to take care of myself, you know, it's not like it's, I'm 100%, perfect, you know, we'll always be this kind of continuous struggle to make sure that I'm keeping all these aspects of my life in balance, but it's been a huge shift.

Graham Allcott  1:01:55  

That's super inspiring. I mean, that basically is Beyond Busy. Right there.

Daniel Scrivner  1:02:01  

Thank you. Because you have to take a different approach, you know, yeah.

Graham Allcott  1:02:05  

And you mentioned connectivity there. And I've seen you write previously about the, the attention economy and opting out of the attention economy. How does that manifest it in your own life?

Daniel Scrivner  1:02:15  

I mean, so this is, yeah, this would be another thing, I guess I would just add a giant disclaimer that, you know, sample size of one this is my perspective, it may not it may work, it may resonate with you may work for you may not. But it's definitely not the norm. And I think, you know, I over the last few years, another big realisation I've had is, you know, we're all here for a very short period of time at the end of the day. And, you know, one of the best books that I try to read at this point every couple of months, but at least yearly is something is something like on the briefness of time or something like that I can, I can find it after this and send it to you. But the whole book is basically it just what it continues to pound in. And it all revolves around this central idea that, you know, life isn't short. It's our decisions approach that make it short. And you know, just how much of our time we you know, give away freely to, you know, the latest show on Netflix, or Oh, I need to go on Tik Tok, or I need to go on Instagram and you know, be connected with everybody. And I've always had a lot of dissonance around that idea, like I've never loved, you know, like, I use Twitter, I use Instagram, and I use them to, you know, share what I'm doing. And I think that's the approach now is for me, those are platforms not so much for, like just getting inundated with what's going on in the world and getting inundated with everyone else's thoughts, but it's my way of at least just sharing my thoughts, the things that I'm working on the things I'm discovering and learning in real time. And so for me, it's almost a way to get to is a helpful exercise in like codifying things that stand out to me and trying to share those with people in a way that it can be helpful. And I find that really positive. But um, I have I have always, I felt like it's been enormously beneficial for me to de emphasise, news de emphasise being on social deemphasize being reading too many newsletters, and, and in order to really make space and allow, you know, just some room for my own thoughts to bubble to the surface. And I think for so many of us, we're just being bombarded constantly with everyone else's ideas and takes and frustrations and observations that if you were to just sit quietly, you know, for a little bit, I don't even know it would probably take you quite a while to have your own original thought bubbled to the surface and so on what you know, what opting out of that, for me has been is just being really intentional about what I take in, you know, and again, I'm better at this sometimes I'm worse at this sometimes but I try on the whole to be really diligent about that. I try to you know, and so some practices I do there is I just went through and kind of cold the newsletters that I read. I just went through and kind of streamline all my email inboxes where now any newsletter that comes in, doesn't pile up up and lead to this sense of overwhelm, and oh my god, I got 20 emails today, but it just, I set up a bunch of Google filters, that stuff automatically gets forward to instapaper. So it's ready for me to read whenever I'm ready. You know, and then I try as much as possible to read, I don't know, 80 90% long form content, and also make more time just to sit down and reflect and write. And I think for me, that's been the most helpful in terms of connecting with my own ideas, and my own sense of where I should head and why. And I think it's just really important, because again, we have, we're here for a very short period of time, whether we realise it or not, you know, there's, we see instances of that bubble up all around us. And then Chadwick boseman, I think is a great example of that recently, who'd passed away of colon cancer, you know, at a really young age, like, we don't know how long we're going to be here. And so I think if you aspire to treat life as an adventure, to set an exciting, and big, scary audacious goal and destination for yourself of what you want to achieve, and who you want to become, then you really need to make time and space for yourself. And I think, you know, that's been a big part of my evolution over time is just becoming more connected with myself and what I believe and what I value. And for me, that's been immensely rewarding, because number one, I know that at all, that's what I want. It's not someone else's vision or someone else's idea. And I've just kind of been borrowing that for a period of time and holding on to it on my own. But the and a lot of this, for me, just the last thing I would say, has come from investing in, you know, one principle and investing that I really like. And there's a bunch of like Maxim's ideas from investing that I use all the time, in business and, and in life. But one is just this idea that you can't outsource or delegate due diligence. And so what does that mean? It sounds super boring on the surface or everybody. But what that means is like, ultimately, if you're going to make an investment, so like, with all my investments, it's ultimately my capital. And so at the end of the day, I'm either going to be super excited about the companies that I've invested in. And I've know that each one of them, I made that decision, I believed in them, and get the you know, rewards or learnings that come from that down the road, or I'm not, and I'm just going to borrow somebody else's, and then it very much as you know, more more to a degree luck. And so it's just this notion that I think,

everyone, I do fundamentally believe that everyone will be happier, everyone will feel more fulfilled, if they are connected with themselves. And the things that they're doing, are their own ideas and their own beliefs put into action as opposed to somebody else's. And so for me, what kind of disconnecting from that attention economy has been as just being super, you know, using social almost never or super sparingly. biassing more for long form content and making a lot more time for myself to just sit down with a blank piece of paper, write out things that are bubbling to the surface, write out things that are surprising me or frustrating me or challenging me or exciting me in the moment. And just spending more time almost in like conversation with myself. If that makes sense. 

Graham Allcott  1:07:58  

I love that thing. The trying to make sure that what you read is 80 to 90% long form content, because that just feels like such a such a good rule of thumb like once that's the way you operate, then you're going to read more books and scroll less Instagram, right? 

Daniel Scrivner  1:08:12  

Yeah. And it's still you know, there's other things there. Like, I think part of it too, is like, don't get out of the rat race. Have I read x many books this year. And, you know, something I've talked about with a few friends is just this belief that, you know, books are almost like people in your life, or it's like a voice or a coach that you can pull off the shelf and spend a little bit of time with at any point in time. Yeah. So rather than thinking about all the books that you haven't read all the books you could read, maybe just reflect on like, what are the five, six books that I would be a better person if I went and reread this every three or four months? And some of that is to like knowing yourself and knowing what you need to counterbalance yourself. I think all of us do. We all have, you know, we all have a highlight side and a shadow side, we all have, you know, things that I think we need to kind of try to push on in order to nudge ourselves in the right direction. And so yeah, just by saying more to for just just more time spent with fewer ideas and connecting more with yourself,

Graham Allcott  1:09:05  

and super inspiring. And yeah, absolutely nailing the whole theme of this podcast. So thanks, Daniel really just loved chatting to you. Just before you go, do you want to just tell us how people can connect with you how they can find out more about Flow and anything else you want to share at the end?

Daniel Scrivner  1:09:22  

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me on grandma's It couldn't have been more excited to be on today. So thanks. And thank you for the opportunity. So anyone can follow me and learn more about me and, you know, read the things that I write as well as see new podcast episodes that I release on Daniel scrivener.com. I've got a podcast that I launched in August that's called outliers. And the whole idea there is I'm trying to interview the top 1% of people across all industries. We've had authors we've had. We have space investors, we've had nprs vocal coach on the show. So it's really trying to be very broad based and just what are all those voices that you haven't heard, and what are all the things we can learn by decoding what this top 1% of people have figured out. And also having them share and learning from what they've learned along the way, just kind of like what I'm sharing with you today. So you can subscribe to that. It's called outliers with Daniel Scrivener on any podcast platform. And you can learn more at Daniel's scribd.com. And then for Flow, you can learn more at getflow.com, and our new version of our products called Flow X. And you can learn more about that getflow.com/flow-x.

Graham Allcott  1:10:31  

Great. So yeah, check out those we'll put links to all of those books and everything else that we mentioned in the show notes at getbeyondbusy.com. And what else does your day have in store? They're in Colorado, I'm finishing mine, but you're in the middle of yours, right?

Daniel Scrivner  1:10:45  

Yeah, I'm just getting started. So I'm excited after this to to get up and go walk around for a little bit outside and get some sunlight. And then I always start the day by just sitting down and trying to map out just the few big rocks that I want to get done that day. And then what all and then the way I typically work is, you know, a work one task at a time, I'm only allowed to focus on one thing at a time. every task I do, I try to assign it what I call a time box. So I'm going to try to get this done in 30 minutes or 60 minutes. And I use a little timer for that. So I'll get into that shortly.

Graham Allcott  1:11:17  

Cool. Well, have you have a great day. And yeah, super inspiring and great to have you on the podcast. So thanks, Daniel. 

Daniel Scrivner  1:11:23  

Thank you so much for having me on.

Graham Allcott  1:11:31  

Thanks again to Daniel for being just such a great guest very candid, very wise, just everything I love about Beyond Busy. So just a real pleasure to to get to know Daniel a little bit there. And I'm also going to do his podcast, his Outliers podcast. We've lined that one up, I'll keep you posted when that goes out. And thank you also to Bre Krieger, Jonathan Barshop, from Lemon Pie, for helping me to set that one up. So thanks, guys for your help with that. And thanks, as always to Mark Stedman and podiums, my producer and platform for the show. This episode was sponsored by Think Productive, if you are interested in productivity workshops, if you want to help. If you want help with making space for what matters, then go to thinkproductive.com we can help you and your team. And one thing I want to just mention at the end is my rev up for the week email I mentioned at the beginning that I've been putting out a weekly email. The idea is that goes out on a Sunday evening. And it's some positive ideas in your inbox every Sunday. So if you want to be part of that, just go to grahamallcott.com, you'll find a little form on the page to sign up for that. It's been a really interesting experiment, which I've started, really from the early part of this year. It's the first time I've ever done a weekly mail out. And it's also the first time I've ever really had a weekly writing deadline. I feel like it's up in my game in terms of writing. I think writing is like a muscle and just really having the the need and the obligation to put out something decent every single Sunday is really helping me to up my game. I think it's you know, it's a craft, it's a muscle, it's something that the more you do it, the better it gets. And little little sneak preview thing I can let you in on right now, which is that I have signed a new deal to write a new book. So I'm currently in the very early stages of research around that. But suffice to say it is on a subject that's very close to my heart. And it's all around leadership, it's going to be quite a diversion away from productivity and Productivity Ninja. So part of what I'm doing with my rev up for the week email is just slowly introducing people to some of the new themes that kind of make up this new book. So if you want to be in on that and on the inside track and hear about it first, then just go to rahamallcott.com and just get on to my rev up for the week email list. And I promise you, there's some little book nuggets and goodies coming over the next few weeks just to get you set for that. While I'm talking about books, I should probably mention that there's a couple of books coming out from me early next year. So there'll be the new How to Have the Energy book, which is actually a revamped version of Work Fuel, which we did last year, Work Fuel we realised was a really crap title, and bookshops didn't know where to put it. So we're releasing that as a much more straight nutrition and lifestyle book. So it's called How to Have the Energy all about how to eat to have the best better energy for work, basically. And then in April next year, I'm releasing with Haley Watts, one of our team at Think Productive a book called How to Fix Meetings, so all about the various different things that you can do personally and culturally, to make meetings productive to reduce the time that you spend in meetings and of course to make the ones that you do have more productive and effective. So if you want to get in on those books, I think they're both on Amazon already for pre order. So How to Have the Energy comes out in January. And then How to Fix Meetings comes out in April. I will of course, let you know a bit more about those near the time here on Beyond Busy. In fact, I'm planning to have both Collette and Haley my co authors on those two books on this podcast. So I have them on at some point in the run up to those books being released. So that is it for this week's episodes. I really hope you loved it. I really loved getting to know Daniel, and yeah, looking forward to continuing the conversation with Daniel on his podcast, as well. And we're back next week. Next week. I've got Olivier Sibony , who is the author of a fantastic book. And it's called, You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake. And it's all about biases. It's it's phenomenal. It's one of the best business books I've read in a long time, actually. So we've got him on the podcast next week. Very excited about that one. I'll see you then. Take care stay warm, stay safe.

Graham Allcott 1:16:05  

Bye for now.

Links

• 6 Weeks to Ninja

• Flow

• Outliers, Daniel's podcast

• Tiny Capital

• One from Many, by Dee Hock

• Keep Productive -- Francesco d'Alessio's YouTube channel

• Blackletter Ventures

• Penguin Great Ideas : On the Shortness of Life

• Superorganizers

• Ben Greenfield Fitness

• What Got You Here Won't Get You There

• Subscribe to Graham's newsletter

• How to be a Productivity Ninja