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Love Your Work

Love Your Work

Written by: David Kadavy
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 Love Your Work is the intellectual playground of David Kadavy, bestselling author of three books – including Mind Management, Not Time Management – and former design advisor to Timeful – a Google-acquired productivity app. Love Your Work is where David shows you how to be productive when creativity matters, and make big breakthroughs happen in your career as a creator. Dig into the archives for insightful conversations with Dan Ariely, David Allen, Seth Godin, James Altucher, and many more. "David is an underrated writer and thinker. In an age of instant publication, he puts time, effort and great thought into the content and work he shares with the world." —Jeff Goins, bestselling author of Real Artists Don't StarveKadavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • [NOTE] My next book: Finish What Matters Preview Edition at kdv.co/fwmpre

    [NOTE] My next book: Finish What Matters Preview Edition at kdv.co/fwmpre
    Jan 12 2026

    Hello, Love Your Work listeners, those who still have this pod in your feeds – thank you for staying subscribed!

    I do not have a new episode for you, per se, though I've certainly thought about making new episodes, the bandwidth hasn't been there, because I have been long and hard at work on my next book, Finish What Matters!

    In short, you can buy the preview edition at https://kdv.co/fwmpre, but also let me tell you about it.

    Yes, after all the talk I made on this show about the subject of finishing projects, after all the mini episodes I published with various ideas such as the project halfpipe, the foundation effect, and Leonardo and Raphael, I finally have something ready to show you.

    Ironically, it has taken me a very long time to finish – or at least get close to finishing – this book. I thought I had the answers going into this one, but after digging deep into why projects – creative projects specifically – don't get finished, I have learned so much.

    Basically, there are really good reasons we don't always finish what matters. The creative process is open-ended, some of us have more open-ended cognitive styles, and we just don't know if finishing is going to be worth it! So it's no wonder we succumb to shiny object syndrome and struggle with motivation, and second-guess ourselves when we receive criticism.

    I have surveyed you in the hundreds, I've interviewed you by the dozens. I have studied the great creators throughout history, I have traveled to Italy to immerse myself in the worlds of Leonardo and Raphael. Most important, I have locked myself in a cabin in the mountains, pondering these obstacles to finishing, and what to do about them.

    And now, after five years of work, I have something ready to show you. I have a publicly announced schedule of deadlines by which I will deliver to you every chapter. I have on the calendar a lecture series through which to share these concepts, and even a small-group finishing cohort to help a handful of you get a project done in Q1.

    So if you are interested, please visit kdv.co/fwmpre to learn more and buy the Preview Edition. This is the third and FINAL book in the Getting Art Done series, which I started ten years ago, and which has taught me so much I can't believe. I cannot wait to share it with you, and I can hardly wait to speak to you again here or on some other podcast or some other podcast-like-thing at some date in the future.

    Thank you, happy new year, and here's to you getting it done in Q1.
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    3 mins
  • 308. Why I Quit Podcasting

    308. Why I Quit Podcasting
    Aug 10 2023
    After nearly eight years of the Love Your Work podcast, I'm quitting. Here's why, and What's Next. Podcasting is a bad business This is not the immediate reason I'm quitting, but it is at the root: Podcasting is a bad business. When the indirect benefits of an activity run out, it's hard to keep doing it if it's not making money. I realized long ago podcasting is a bad business, but I kept going for other reasons. I'll explain why in a bit. Though I didn't start my podcast with dollar signs in my eyes, I did at least hope I would grow to earn money doing it. I've earned about $32,000 in the eight-year history of Love Your Work. More than half of that has been from Patreon supporters, many of whom support for reasons other than the podcast. During that time, I've spent: $1,008 on hosting$11,749 on assistance with editing and publishing$241 on equipmentAnd some other expenses, for a total of about $13,000 In raw numbers, I've made a "profit" on the podcast. But, as I broke down in my latest income report, my "wage" was about $6 an hour. My podcast comprised about 5% of my income over these eight years, and took much more than that portion of my time and energy. Of course, I don't think about whether the podcast was worth it in terms of an hourly rate. Creative work happens in Extremistan, not Mediocristan, and I've made massive life choices to be free to explore creatively without worrying so much what I'm earning in the short-term. Ways to make money podcasting But there are many different ways to make a podcast a solid business, and none of them worked for me, for various reasons. Here are some of these business models, as they apply to the "thought-leader" space (I'll ignore the more entertainment/infotainment space that podcasts like Gimlet's inhabit). Be so massively famous, you can pick-and-choose advertisers, while demanding a lot of money. This is where Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan are. They both started with large platforms, and applied whatever talents that helped them earn those platforms to make their podcasts huge. After more than fifteen years as a creator, I have a modest platform, but orders of magnitude smaller.Build a "content machine" that manufactures ad slots. I won't name names, but you've heard these podcasts. They're formulaic and don't seem to discern much who they have as a guest, nor what sponsors they accept. This business model is why my inbox is still full of pitches – they think I actually want more guests, because more guests would mean more ad slots. It takes a very rare set of circumstances for me to be excited to interview someone.Share information that directly helps people make money. If you have tactical and actionable information that's useful to professionals in a specific industry, you can charge for premium podcast content. I'm not as interested in the tactical and actionable as I am in the abstract and exploratory.Cover a niche topic. If you have a leading podcast about a very specific topic, advertisers within that niche will be willing to pay high rates to reach that audience. I didn't want to build my podcast according to a specific topic – more on that later.Have a "back-end" business. If you have a thriving consulting business, or training programs to sell, you can attract more clients and customers through your podcast. As I wrote in my ten-year reflections, "I want to make a living creating. I don't want creating to be merely a marketing strategy for other things. Is that completely insane?" I flirted with success in a few of these business models. Early on, I hoped my podcast would be famous enough to pick and choose advertisers at high rates. For a while, it looked like I had a chance. I was approached by a podcast network, and I had some reputable advertisers such as LinkedIn, Skillshare, Casper, Audible, Pittney Bowes, and University of California. Various times, I thought I was on the cusp of my "big break" – such as when Love Your Work was featured on the Apple Podcasts home screen. But the more I tried to go the "get famous" route, the louder the siren-song of the "content machine" route got. There were plenty of opportunities to do "interview swaps" with hosts I wasn't interested in interviewing. There were a few advertisers that had money, but whose products felt sleazy. Joining a podcast network would have pressured me to crank out content even if I didn't feel like it. There was (and still is) the never-ending stream of pitch emails for guests. I had too much wax in my ears to go the "content machine" route. Not included in my lifetime revenue-estimates for Love Your Work is money I made through the "back-end business" route. I was somewhat comfortable with this model, but I haven't made a course in years, as I've been focused on writing books. And as bad a business as people say writing books is, it's better than making a podcast. The podcast has helped me sell books in more ways than one. One way is that people who listened to the ...
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    11 mins
  • 307. A.I. Can't Bake

    307. A.I. Can't Bake
    Jul 27 2023
    You've probably heard that, in a blind taste test, even experts can't tell between white and red wine. Even if this were true – and it's not – it wouldn't matter. I was in Rome last month, visiting some Raphael paintings to research my next book, and stopped by the Sistine Chapel. I've spent a good amount of time studying what Michelangelo painted on that ceiling. There are lots of high-resolution images on Wikipedia. But seeing a picture is nothing like the experience of seeing the Sistine Chapel. You've invested thousands of dollars and spent fifteen hours on planes. You're jet-lagged and your feet ache from walking 20,000 steps. You're hot. When you enter, guards order you to keep moving, so you won't block the door. They corral you to the center, and you can finally look up. When you hear wine experts can't tell between white and red wine, you imagine the following: Professional sommeliers are blindfolded, and directed to taste two wines. They then make an informed guess which is white, and which is red. In this imaginary scenario, they get it right half the time – as well as if they had flipped a coin. If it were true wine experts couldn't tell between white and red wine, the implication would be that the experience of tasting wine is separate from other aspects of the wine. That the color, the shape of the glass, the bottle, the label, and even the price of the wine are all insignificant. That they all distract from the only thing that matters: the taste of the wine. There's some psychophysiological trigger that gets pulled when you tilt your head back. Maybe it stimulates your pituitary gland. When you have your head back and are taking in the images on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, you feel vulnerable. (You literally are vulnerable. You can't see what's going on around you. You'd be easy to physically attack.) What you see is overwhelming. As you try to focus your attention on some detail, some other portion of the imagery calls out and redirects your attention. This happens again and again. After a while, your neck needs a rest, and you return your gaze to eye-level. And this is almost as cool as the ceiling: You see other people with their heads back, their eyes wide, mouths agape, hands on hearts, tears in eyes. You hear languages and see faces from all over the world. You realize they all, too, have invested thousands of dollars and spent fifteen hours on planes. They, too, are jet-lagged and hot and have walked 20,000 steps. You can look at pictures of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the internet. You can experience it in VR. In many ways, this is better than going to the Sistine Chapel. You can take as much time as you want, and look as close as you want. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars and fifteen hours on a plane, take time off work, or even crane back your neck. But seeing the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the internet or even VR is only better than seeing it in person, in the way that a spoonful of granulated sugar when you're starving is better than a hypothetical burger in another iteration of the multiverse. We've seen an explosion of AI capabilities in recent months. That has a lot of people worried about what it means to be a creator. Why do we need humans to write, for example, if ChatGPT can write? The reason ChatGPT's writing is impressive is the same reason there's still a place for things created by humans. Anyone old enough to have been on the internet in the heyday of America Online in the 1990s will remember this: When you were in a chat room, most the conversations were about being in a chat room: How long have you been on the internet? Isn't the internet cool? What other chat rooms do you like? Part of the appeal of the question "ASL?" – Age, Sex, Location? – was marveling over the fact you were chatting in real-time with a stranger several states away. Or maybe you remember when Uber or Lyft first came to your town. For the first year or two, likely every conversation you had with a driver was about how long they had been driving, about how quickly the service had grown in your town, which is better – Uber or Lyft?, or which nearby cities got which services first. The first few months ChatGPT was out, it was seemingly the only thing anyone on the internet talked about. But it wasn't because ChatGPT's writing was amazing. ChatGPT is a bad writer's idea of a good writer. It was because of the story: Wow, my computer is writing! Now that much of the novelty of ChatGPT has worn off, many of us are falling into the Trough of Disillusionment on the Gartner Hype Cycle. We're realizing ChatGPT is like a talking dog: It's impressive the dog can appear to talk, but it's not talking – it's just saying the words it's been taught. ChatGPT is very useful in some situations, but not as many as we had originally hoped. What made us talk about the internet while on the internet, talk about Uber while in Ubers, and talk about ChatGPT while chatting with ChatGPT...
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    9 mins
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