A behind-the-scenes interview with Lenny Rachitsky on building his newsletter and podcast

Transcript

I just sat down on this rock on a substance of some sort. This was as I was starting the newsletter, and this phrase of I have wisdom to share came through me over and over and over. And I was just watching this crazy visualization of some kind of sitting Buddha thing. And that was for three hours. It gave me the confidence that, okay, maybe I do have things to share. What do you want to say to our mothers right now? Oh no! Do you want to take that back? Do you want to take that back? You started your newsletter in 2019, and it now has over a million subscribers. 1.2 million. 1.2. Something that we've talked about a few times is the best stuff comes from actual experience. You can always say, if you want to write, read. The source of the best advice is from practitioners doing the thing for real. At this point, most of my posts are guest posts where somebody is sharing the best thing they've learned in their career. What do you think you'd be doing right now if you hadn't started that newsletter? On the struggle bus of startup life, probably. And then probably after that failed, I would have joined some company. It was a PM. Do you still like it? I can't imagine doing something more fulfilling and interesting, but the visual I always have is the Indiana Jones boulder is chasing me constantly. It's like this treadmill that you're on. Tell me about a time you've been really stressed in your business. Here's something I've never shared. Today, my guest is my brilliant, incredible wife, Michelle Rial, who turns the table and interviews me. I've had so many people over the years want me to be interviewed on this podcast. And what could be more fun than doing this with my wife? I share things during this conversation that I've never shared anywhere else, including some of the hardest moments from this journey. I get a lot more personal than I've ever been on this podcast. Also, the day this podcast comes out just happens to be my wife's birthday. And she is also about to publish her third book, a children's book called Charts for Babies, which we chat briefly about. Definitely pre-order it. This was so fun and so special. I hope you love it. Let's get into it. Here's a puzzle for you. What do OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Vercel, Platt, and hundreds of other winning companies have in common? The answer is they're all powered by today's sponsor, WorkOS. If you're building software for enterprises, you've probably felt the pain of integrating single sign-on, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs, and other features required by big customers. WorkOS turns those deal blockers into drop-in APIs with a modern developer platform built specifically for B2B SaaS. Whether you're a seed-stage startup trying to land your first enterprise customer, or a unicorn expanding globally, WorkOS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise-ready and unlocking growth. 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They find candidates for you based on your exact criteria, take interview notes automatically, gather insights across your hiring process, and help you identify the best candidates in your pipeline. AI handles the recruiting toil and gives you a real source of truth. That means hours saved per hire and a team focused on what matters most: winning the right candidates. Don't let your competitors out-hire you. MetaView customers close roles 30% faster. Try MetaView today for free and get an extra month of sourcing at metaview.ai.lenny. That's M-E-T-A-V-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E-W-E to have you interview me. And so this is going to be your show. I'm just going to be here. Ask me whatever you want. I have no idea what you're going to ask me. And we'll see where it goes. And I'm going to ask you some questions about your book too. So I'll turn that over to you, Michelle. What do you got? What do you got for me? Well, Lenny. Okay. Babe. Yeah. Yeah. So you started your newsletter in 2019. And it now has over a million subscribers. 1.2 million. 1.2. And your podcast is very frequently one of the top 10. Is that right? Yep. It's right around there. Yeah. Yeah. Top 10 tech podcast. Yeah. Yes. Hell yeah. I love it. When I met you, I think you were something called a product engineer. I was a software engineer. Let's see, when you met me, no, I think it was a, I think it was still a software engineer. Yeah. I think you went from software engineer to product engineer to product manager. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And I'm wondering, what do you think you'd be doing right now if you hadn't started that newsletter? If I stayed in my job? Yeah. If you hadn't. And then that, I mean, I'll get to another question about what do you think is the one moment that led you to your newsletter, but you can answer either one. So is the question, after I left Airbnb, what would I be doing? Or is it like, if I didn't quit? If you hadn't, or if you had gotten a different job, do you think you would have gotten a different job? Yeah. Stayed there. So when I left my job, I was at Airbnb for seven years. I had plan A: start a company again. Plan B: join a startup as their first PM. Plan C: join a big company as a PM. Plan D: advise companies, become a consultant kind of person. Nowhere in that plan was do this crazy thing that I do now. I had a lot of startup ideas. As I was exploring the startup ideas, as you remember, I was just tinkering and prototyping and building stuff. And then on the side, I was writing things that I learned and things I wanted to share. And you were just like, why are you writing? There's no, you can't make money on the internet writing. You should be doing this thing that you're good at, startups and building and tech and stuff like that. And I'm just like, I don't know. It seems like there's a pull here. So I'm just going to keep doing this. I don't know if I say things that you're good at. I just said, I just said, as a person, right, there's no money in this. Putting writing on the internet. I don't make any money unless people buy my book. Yeah. Plug. Yeah. So I guess, to answer your question, I'd probably find another company to start, and it probably would have failed. Considering most startups fail. So I'd probably be in this like, oh no, is this thing a thing I should be doing? I'd be on the struggle bus of startup life, probably. And then probably after that failed, I would have joined some company, I guess as a PM. So then I guess going back to that question of what, what do you think? Do you think there's a moment or a collection of moments that led you to go full in on the newsletter, or even start the newsletter, start the medium post that led to the newsletter? Yeah. It was definitely a collection of moments. It's this little journey that I just followed, a pull that was starting to work. And I'm just like, huh, maybe there's something here. So a few moments along that journey. One was the first thing I wrote on the, this is the first thing I wrote on the internet, did very well. It is this post on what I learned at Airbnb, like medium featured it. It went all over the place. Franceschi shared with the whole company. So proud of what I shared. So that was a nice moment of like, maybe I have something to share. And then I wrote a few more things on medium at this point. And it was more of just like, this is working. People seem to like it. newsletter or even start the newsletter, start the Medium post that led to the newsletter? Yeah. It was definitely a collection of moments. It's this little journey that I just followed, a pull that was starting to work. And I'm just like, huh, maybe there's something here. So a few moments along that journey. One was the first thing I wrote on the internet did very well. It was this post on what I learned at Airbnb. Medium featured it. It went all over the place. Franceschi shared it with the whole company. I was so proud of what I shared. So that was a nice moment of maybe I have something to share. And then I wrote a few more things on Medium at this point. And it was more of just this is working. People seem to like it. Then I had a conversation with a friend, Lee Jacobs, who's a VC now, because I was telling him, I don't know why I'm doing this. Why am I writing? This is not a future. I should be focusing on the startup. And he's just like, you seem to be enjoying it. People seem to be liking it, which was very rare, that Venn diagram of things. How often do you enjoy something and people value it? And maybe there's a way to make money in the future. So his advice was just maybe pursue that and double down on that. And maybe it'll go somewhere. So that was a moment. Another big moment was nine months of doing the newsletter. So I decided I'm going to move to Substack. I'm going to write every week. I tweeted, I'm going to experiment with a weekly newsletter, see how it goes. And so I did that every week for nine months. And I just remember this moment nine months in where I was like, huh, I've been doing this every week for nine months, which means I could probably do this for nine more months. There's this Lindy effect. I don't know if you know this, but there's this concept of something being Lindy, which is, as long as it's been going for, it will most likely last at least that long in the future. So I thought, okay, I could do this for at least probably another year. I have all these ideas and things I want to write about. So let me just keep doing this. So that's when I decided to add the paywall and start charging and to see if I could make money doing this thing. Also in parallel, as you know, I was doing this based on the assumption that my Airbnb stock was going to be worth something and I could take this time to explore. And then COVID hit and Airbnb might've, it was over, RIP Airbnb all over Twitter. And I was like, maybe I need to get a job for real. And so I'm like, I got to make money on this thing. Let me try. So that's when I started the paywall. And it worked. That's the other moment. I think I launched the paywall and it worked. I made meaningful dollars a month in. So speaking of Venn diagram, you said I'm good at it, and people like it. Oh, and I like doing it. You like doing it. That's really good, because I didn't mention that. Okay. That's so true. That's so important, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think you guys like five things, right? It's a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah. But that's a trigger point, because it was just like people like it and I'm good at it, but without the I actually enjoy it. I think you said, and I liked it. Okay, cool. Do you still like it? I do, in almost every way. I can't imagine doing something more fulfilling and interesting. My job is to write about things that are interesting and share people's interesting insights and experiences, and interview people and extract wisdom. It's so interesting. It's my own thing, which makes it extra interesting. But I think a lot about this artist, Finch, who wrote this blog post, How to Become an Artist. And at the top of his post, he's just like, you should not become a professional artist, most likely. Yeah, because once it's a thing you have to do, it changes it. You have to do it. So now I'm on this, this is the downside, but I just want to preface with saying this is incredible, and I can't imagine doing anything else that I enjoy more, but having to write a post or put out a post every single week and a podcast episode every week, it's like this treadmill that you're on. So you have to get used to that. That part is no fun. But again, I can't think of anything better that I could be doing. And it goes up and down sometimes. I love it. I'm so happy I get to write a thing every single week. And then some weeks I'm like, it'd be cool not to do it this week, but that's part of this life, because otherwise you can't do this. You can't survive in this way if you're not doing something consistently and making it awesome every week. So it's a part of it. So the visual I always have is the Indiana Jones boulder is chasing me constantly, because you put out something. I had a post come out, what's today? We're recording on Wednesday. I had a post come out yesterday, and then it's like, what's next week? All right, that's done. All that work you put into it, over, it's coming out next week. And it's like every week. So the big question I don't have an answer to is where this all goes long term. Because someday, whether it's when I'm seven years old or a hundred years old or six years old, I don't know, maybe I won't be able to do this every single week. So I think about where does this all go? I don't think there's an answer to Substack writer podcast life long term. What do you do? According to the Lindy, right? There you go. So 2019, seven years since the newsletter. Seven years. So I think, yeah. Good luck. So we got seven years. I can do that. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of the boulder, you don't seem like a stressed out person. And I don't see you as a stressed out person. Only potty training, sleep, the toddler, or baby sleep stuff. Yeah. I don't see you as a stressed out person. Do you think there's anything behind that? Do you think that's just you, or are you just stressed and you don't show it? I think there's an element of I'm more stressed than I come across as, and even recognize with myself. I get these headaches sometimes. I'm like, what is going on there? Is that stress or is that something else? So I think there's a bit of I'm probably more stressed than it looks like and than I even feel. But I think I'm probably less stressed than the average person. I think part of it is genetics, and then part of it is I work on it. I have learned to adjust the way I think to reduce stress and to not take things seriously. But I think, honestly, it's probably like 70% genetics. I'm just like, yeah, it'll be all right. It'll be all right. As you know, something we argue about, that'll be right. That's some raw chicken. That'll be fine. That's fine. So, okay. Do you have any tools or any kind of, I know you've done different types of meditation. We've done breathing courses together. Do you have a favorite? Oh, to calm down and de-stress and things like that. You did a 10-day silent meditation right before you ended up writing the post. That's true. The Medium post. That's true. That was a big wisdom. Oh, here's something I've never shared. Okay. You asked about going back to the moments that led me to this life. So I went on a bachelor party trip with some friends. This isn't where you think it's going, I hope not. So it was a trip to Joshua Tree with a friend, and there were psychedelics involved on this trip. And I just remember, so we went to Joshua Tree. I just sat down on this rock on a substance of some sort, and this was as I was starting the newsletter. And I just remember sitting there for probably three hours in this one spot. And I was just having this deep breathing happening and this phrase of I have wisdom to share coming through me over and over and over. you did a 10-day silent meditation right before you ended up writing the post. That's true. The media post. That's true. That was a big wisdom. Oh, here's something I've never shared. Okay. You asked about going back to the moments that led me to this life. So I went on a bachelor party trip with some friends. This isn't where you think it's going. I hope not. So it was a trip to Joshua Tree with a friend, and there were psychedelics involved on this trip. And I just remember, so we went to Joshua Tree. I just sat down on this rock on a substance of some sort. And this was as I was starting the newsletter. And I just remember sitting there for probably three, three hours in this one spot. And I was just having this deep breathing happening and this phrase of, I have wisdom to share, coming through me over and over and over. And I was just watching this crazy visualization of some kind of sitting Buddha thing. And it's just like, I have wisdom to share. And that was for three hours. That made you write the post. That made me feel like I can do this. It gave me the confidence that, okay, maybe I do have things to share. Yeah. That was a really powerful moment just to give me confidence that there's something inside me. That's like, oh yeah, maybe I can, I could do this thing. So that was a big moment. What do you want to say? What do you want to say to our mothers right now? Oh no. Do you want to take this back? My mom doesn't know. Do you want to take that back? No, no. Do you want to crop it out? This is, okay, Mom, I did some stuff. It's okay. Okay, so it's time to, time to share. And then, yeah, you've done meditate. You did 10-day meditation. You did a specific type of meditation that seemed to me to affect you in physical ways. Yeah. And then you told me once about a happiness course you took. Yeah. That was actually pretty transformative. I took this online course at University of Pennsylvania about the psychology of happiness. And it was basically all the science of what makes you happier and how to be happier. And that really had a big impact on me because it showed you can increase your baseline level of happiness by doing a few things. And one of the things is just thinking more positively, thinking more optimistically. There's also gratitude stuff that I didn't find as useful, but there's just something about you can, everyone's got this baseline. That was actually a big learning from that course, is everyone's just kind of at a baseline level of happiness. And you could be at a hundred, you could be at zero, probably more, most people are in between somewhere. And something amazing happens, you go way up in happiness. And then you come back to that baseline. Something terrible happens, you go back to that baseline. And the main thing you can do is work on improving that baseline so that you come back to a higher place. So that's what a lot of the work is and what you learn in that class. And one of the things: just be optimistic. Just have a positive outlook and don't let your mind spiral into these, like, it's going to be terrible. So it was a lot of just think more positively. And I feel like my baseline level of happiness has gone up. And I think that, yeah, I think you'd told me exercise too, like you used to run. Yes. That was a really good insight. So exercise, the science, this was like, I don't know, 15 years ago. I'm guessing there's new research. But the interesting thing there is exercise doesn't make you happier, but it brings you out of the negative. So you're negative one without exercise, and exercise brings you to zero so that you're not depressed. Basically speaking of stress. Okay, then I have a question for you. Oh, okay. Let's do this. Let's do this. Because I know on your podcast, you have a lightning round. Okay. We're going to do a thunder round. Is that extra fast? What does that mean? No, it's sound. Your one thing that I think stresses you out the most at times is your misophonia, which is, you want to explain what it is? Yeah. It's funny to talk about it, but it's this disorder. It's a real thing in the brain where I get bothered by certain sounds. And so I get very bothered by people eating with their mouth. Thunder round is going to be top five worst sounds. Or you can rank these sounds. Okay. Okay. You're going to give me the five. Best sound to worst sound. Okay. Right, so 10 is worst. What are like, 10 is best? I don't know. What are the best sounds? Okay. What's, okay. Okay, let's say chewing, chewing one to 10. Chewing with the mouth open, just like the worst? Yeah. I hate it. 10 is the worst. 10 is the worst. It's probably, yeah, it's 10, none are 10. Or nails on a chalkboard. What's that? That's less bad for me. Right. What's the number? If it's someone sitting right next to me, just chomping away. Yeah. And it's so awkward to ask anyone to stop. I hate doing that. It's so weird. You're sweet. But it's just like, what? Yeah. I'm just sitting here eating. Leave me alone. Yeah. That's how I feel whenever I do it by accident near you. Yeah. So 10. Okay. So nails on a chalkboard. What's. It's like six. I don't know. Five. What about, I don't mind. What about a baby crying or your, what's a baby crying versus your baby crying? Hmm. Baby crying. So 10 is the worst. Yeah. So how loud, like very loud. Like in newborn phase, didn't know what to do. Oh yeah. That was really like when Jude was born. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's pretty hard. Thunder round. Okay. Like eight. Okay. Okay. What about when Jude says Papa? Yeah. One, one is the best. Yeah. And. Is there any other sound you. Jude laughing. Okay. Okay. I love it. What about another bad sound? Hmm. I don't know. Okay. You can ask me now if you want. Okay. If you're getting. No, no, no. There's not that many bad sounds. It's just very specific bad sounds that I'm just like. Basketball. If I'm trying to be calm and there's a bunch of commotion, okay. Like a gas blower. Oh yeah. I'm trying to work. That's, I think, a notorious one for people. What is that, a 10? If it's super loud and right in my face, I would say, let's say a seven. Okay. Not so bad. You can ask your question now if you want, or I have more for you. I'm going to ask you a question. So you make these incredible genius, funny charts. There's one example in this book. So you have this first book here called Am I Overthinking This?, which a lot of people identify with, has sold many copies. So you create all these charts that try to synthesize things in life, things people experience, things people feel. A lot of these charts get shared on socials by people that steal your charts and just pretend they made this or just found it. And they cut out your attribution. They make pillows and mugs. And there are all these websites that sell all these charts you've made, just swag that you get no credit for. I know it's bothered you a lot over the years. What makes your charts so shareable? So widely? How do, why do they go so viral so often? By the way, I stopped looking at that because it doesn't help me. That's good. I think that's for the best. Well, I think, what's the good, you know? I think as your thing has gotten more successful, it's not as important to me. I do think it's interesting that they are often detached from me, which is, I don't know why, but yeah, people want to get credit when they do. And it's, I think I can figure out some of them. It's clear when I make it, whether it's like I make it and then I let it sit and then some other, Swag that you get no credit for. I know it's bothered you a lot over the years. What makes your charts so shareable? So widely? How do, why do they go so viral so often? By the way, I stopped looking at that because it doesn't help me. That's good. I think that's for the best. Well, I think, what's the good? I think as your thing has gotten more successful, it's not as important to me. I do think it's interesting that they are often detached from me, which is, I don't know why, but yeah, people want to get credit when they do. And I think I can figure out some of them. It's clear when I make it, whether it's like I make it and then I let it sit and then some other moment happens where I'm like, oh no, this is what it needs. And then I'm like, now I can feel that's really good. And usually it's something that makes me laugh or cackle, even though I made it. It's like, oh, I've already seen this in my own brain and it's still funny to me or makes me kind of tear up. Then I feel like, okay, I think people are going to like this. I am often wrong. And sometimes, too, there are things, there's something from that book that I didn't share at all, but someone took a photo of it. That's how it went viral. It's just a photo of a page of a book that people love. It wasn't even a digital high-quality picture. It's just some random photo. Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting as well. Also, people's attention spans, sometimes they're just what I like to make is things that are really simple and quick and show you something you haven't thought of before. And I think that if it's really easy to digest, people's attention spans are short these days. And if it makes them feel something is another thing. And it's also nice to make something that isn't a lot of physical labor, because some things you can make and it can take you forever to draw out. Because my brain does work in this overthinking kind of way of this, but then, and then that's that's that's that's that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that is good, and I think that's really interesting that that's similar to the way I approach my stuff. I find that when you work on your charts, you think so many levels deep. They're too clever sometimes, and I have to pull, because to your point, people have a short attention span. Sometimes they're too clever, and I have to, okay, this is too many layers you have to understand, and I have to, that's a little much. You have to simplify it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, you're my editor sometimes. I try it, but you're like no. You're like, I don't care. I don't care about your feedback. You're usually probably right. Yeah. Okay, let me ask you one more question, and then we could switch it around again. How do you come up with your ideas for your charts? You have so many, such variety. You had an adult book. You had a children's, and they have a children's book. You're working on charts for parents. You have all this other stuff going on. Where do your ideas come from, Michelle? The ideas come from just living life and noticing a lot of things, and then also kind of observing a lot. I know that I've been really prolific when I've been meditating, and in meditation you learn to kind of observe your own thinking. And if you're anxious about something, like, oh, that's funny that I was anxious about that random thing. I've never thought about it that way before, which is interesting because it is kind of like overthinking every moment, which meditation shouldn't be teaching you to do, but that's what happens. But I've noticed if I focus too much on my work, I stop living life and then I stop having ideas. And it's a little different with children's books, which is what I'm working on right now, because it's not relatable things a little bit, but it's more children's concepts. But the adult stuff has to be just through living life, noticing. Yeah, yeah, noticing makes me think about, I think David Sedaris had this story where he just has to say yes to everything he's invited to, just because he needs to have experiences, because he just has to keep pumping out stories. So he's just like, sure, let's go to Vegas right now. Let's do it. So I feel like that's a lot of the work here, is just to live real life. You can't just sit there and come up with ideas. You have to try stuff and do crazy things. Yeah, so my first children's book, which is out soon, that one actually came out of kind of observing parenthood and early new parenthood moments. That's how I started. I started at the beginning of the notebook writing, kind of trying to make charts for new parents. But we'd been reading so many kids' books together that I just had that rhythm in my head of children's books. And so I just turned to the back of the notebook and started writing more children's book rhymes. Involving the back of a notebook because you're working on a different book, and you're just like nope, in this notebook. I picked it up to put my questions in for you. Yeah, and so I started off in the front. I'm not going to show you. So you started in the front on a different idea. I started off in the front, charts for new parents, and then I got a good amount in, and then I was just in the park, and then I kind of was just like, yeah, but I have always wanted to do these charts for kids or for babies, and I just kept wanting to write that. So I started in the back, and then I filled it up that way. I love that. This is another example of just following pull and not just doing the thing that you're doing. Just like, huh, this is pulling me, and I'm going to try it and just see where it goes. Look at this, what a callback. Okay, back to you, Michelle. Okay, back to you. Back to me, back to you, through me, through you. Exactly. Okay, okay, so tell me about, I do want to ask you this question inspired by our friend who reverse nicknames you and says, like, Leonard is your full name. Leonard, where's Lenny come from? By the way, reverse nickname meaning they give you a nickname without you asking them. Well, there's people who give you a nickname without you asking. Yeah, he gives you the full name. Oh, I see. Makes it long. Yeah, it's not a thing. I'm just making it up. Okay, I like that. Okay, so the question is, my real name, so when I moved to the US from the Ukraine, which we recently chatted about on a podcast with Boris, which turned out to be a big, big muse. Odessa people, Odessa, yeah. My parents named me Leonide, was my real official first name in the US, but they called me Lenny. Everyone called me Lenny. And so when we became citizens, you could change your name, and so my parents just changed it to Lenny. So that's my real name. It's just Lenny, no Leonard. No Leonard. Yeah. Oh yeah, Leonard, just Lenny. Just Lenny, yeah. I love it. And Leonard, as in, it's a Russian name, or there's also the star constellation. Oh, the Leonards? I don't know. I think they just asked their friends, what is my Russian name is Lonya, and so I think they just like, what's the English version of that? And I'm guessing some of their friends are just like Leonard. I don't know if they named it after anything specific. Can I share any of your nicknames? I'm going to assume now. What are my nicknames? Okay, go for it. I don't know what they are, like Lunch. Okay, sure, I could share that. Sure, do you like it? Yeah, people call you that. Well, it's like my family calls me that. Okay, yeah, it's like a Russian little nickname. it's just Lenny, no Leonard. No, Leonard. Yeah. Oh yeah, Leonard. Just Lenny. Just Lenny. Yeah, I love it. And Leonard, as in, it's a Russian name, or there's also the star constellation. Oh, the Leonards. I don't know. I think they just asked their friends, what is my Russian name? It's Lonya. And so I think they just, what's the English version of that? And I'm guessing some of their friends are just like, Leonard. I don't know if they named it after anything specific. Can I share any of your nicknames? I'm going to assume now. What are my nicknames? Okay, go for it. I don't know what they are. Lunch. Okay, sure. I could share that, sure. Do you like it? Yeah, people call you that? Well, my family calls me that. Okay, yeah. It's a Russian little nickname. Yeah. And you, okay, but strangers, can they call you that? No, don't call me that. Okay. And speaking of strangers, how do you feel when people approach you? Is it weird at all? Does it remind you how big your newsletter has gotten? Do you like it? Do you like certain ways of approaching it? Yeah, so I guess what you're speaking to is when I walk around the Bay Area in particular, people often recognize me, which is extremely weird, and started with the podcast. Interestingly, I had the newsletter for four years. Yeah, you got to be stealth. My face was tiny in some Twitter profile. But once I started the podcast, people just, yeah, it was very weird the first time it started happening. And now it happens quite a lot. I like it a lot. It's very cool. I really appreciate it. It makes me feel really nice. I am not bothered by it in any way. It always is very flattering. People are always so nice and just have endless nice things to say. I've never had a bad experience, someone just trying to say hi to me, so please say hi. Okay. And I often ask people what's their favorite podcast episode or favorite newsletter, because I'm just curious. I always ask, just like your founder, your product person, what's your story? Yeah. What about if you're in the middle of, what if you're at a coffee shop, you have headphones on, and somebody says hey? Or if you're playing with your kid, what do you think? I think you're projecting all right about what you wouldn't want, girl. Yeah, people don't do that. I think people have been generally very conscious. There could be a moment of just like, we're getting somewhere and I can't talk for too long and I don't want to be rude, or you're in a focus. But then, yeah, yeah, it hasn't been a problem yet. Almost 99% of people have been very considerate. Yeah, and I don't want people to feel like they can't just talk to me. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, they're always so cool. I like that. Yeah. Is there any instance of delight, Paul, maybe the first time this happened? We live in Marin, and I was walking through San Anselmo with you, as you remember, and there's this guy in a little red car driving by with his son. He's driving by, and we're on the sidewalk, and then he just yells, Lenny, I love your podcast. God. And this wasn't even San Francisco. It's in San Anselmo, and I was shocked. And then he just kept, he held up traffic just to say hello. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah, I wouldn't do that. Yeah, probably wouldn't do that. And then I met him later. He runs a hamburger club in Marin. He's very cool, because I saw him again at another coffee shop. So that was quite delightful. I love that. Okay, you just said something. Okay, people coming up to you. Okay, you're going to have to cut this. See, no, we're not going to cut it, because this is what I go through too as a podcast interviewer. I thought of something, I lost it. This is what I'm constantly dealing with. Yeah, that is a challenge of the interviewer. And I think it's fun for people to see, because you're like, okay, I have to think about what I'm going to say next, and then you stop, and you're like, oh, what's it going to be? So that's why when I do the podcast, I'm secretly writing notes to myself constantly. Oh, sorry. Okay, chicken notes. Yeah, well, okay, I closed me. Okay, I should have written it down. Let's talk about thinking back to what kind of hints that you would start this newsletter, or things that you worked on when you were younger that are mildly adjacent, because you had some websites. You had Atheist Spot. You had some tutorials. Utorials. That's one. So the question is, what are the things I did earlier that helped me with the work I do now, or yeah? Just because looking back, anything that makes it obvious that you would have started this newsletter. I don't think there's anything that would have pointed me or anybody to this being the thing that I do now. It's completely unexpected personally, and I don't think anyone saw coming. I had never written anything online before I started writing. I was always not like, hey, look at me, I've got all the answers and I have all this wisdom to share. I was always like, I'm an introvert. I'd like to stay behind the scenes. So it was a very unexpected path for me. And part of the reason I think I was able to do it is the newsletter started during COVID, so I could just sit there and type and put stuff out online. I didn't have to go anywhere and, hello everyone. I could stay in my little hole. But just to follow through on these things you pointed out that I did earlier, because I don't think I've ever talked about these things, I had all these different side projects before, through college, I guess. Yeah, through college I was a very big atheist, and I'm still an atheist, Jewish atheist, which is many Jews, but I was very into it before, and I'm like, okay, I don't care, whatever. Believe what you want to believe. So I used to run a website called theatheistspot.com, which was Reddit for atheist news, which is not a, you know, Reddit is that. It's fine. You don't need it. But I went to, there's conventions, we went to atheist conventions, so I did that. And the funny thing is, that was during AdWords, when Google AdWords was a way to monetize your site. And so all the ads on the site, because most of the articles were about religion, were all these religious dating sites. So it's like Christian Mingle and all these funny dating sites that didn't make sense for the audience. So I always thought that was funny. And then I worked with a friend on this other project called Utorials, which was so ahead of its time. The idea was Utorials, tutorials for you by you. Nice. And so it was people contributing things they've learned and writing a how-to, like how to make eggs, how to take a quick shower. And it's always like TikTok, right? It's like TikTok. It was before Wikipedia, I think. No, I know, yeah. It's like YouTube. That's what I watch TikTok for, is watching people make, yeah, and parenting advice and things to be afraid of, and Dan's videos. Yeah, so that's what your thing was, or that's what TikTok is. That's what TikTok is, right. Yeah, so yeah, I was really proud of that. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like it was ahead. And Localmind was ahead of its time. And Localmind, so that was my startup. We sold it to Airbnb. That's how I got there. Localmind, amazing idea and not something anyone needs, really. I still need it. You need it once in a while. So just to briefly explain what that is, it was an app that sat on top of Foursquare and Gowalla when that was very cool, and allowed you to ask questions of people checked in anywhere in the world. So if you're like, is there a long line at the Mill, which is near here, should I go? Is there a long line? What's the special? We just use that basically. Yeah, Google does it with their, is it busy? Yes, yeah, all these other ways that you could solve this problem. It was very cool. It was amazing. Nobody needs it, really. There's still things you want to ask, you need once in a while. You need once a quarter. Yeah, and it's, holy, that's so good. But you can't make a business out of that, so I'm glad that we exited. Today's episode is brought to you by DX, the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers to thrive in the AI era. Organizations need to adapt quickly, but many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like: which tools are working? How are they being used? What's actually driving value? DX provides the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift. With DX, companies like Dropbox, Booking.com, Adyen, and Intercom get a deep understanding of how AI is providing value to their developers and what impact AI is having on engineering productivity. To learn more, visit DX's website at getdx.com/lenny. That's getdx.com/lenny. Okay, so you're mentioning the Atheist Spot with a bunch of religious dating sites. Yeah. It reminded me that you were my first online date ever. Hell yeah. On a snatched platform called How About We. And I remember that. I mean, you had other dates. good, you can't make a business out of that, so I'm glad that we exited. Today's episode is brought to you by DX, the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers to thrive in the AI era. Organizations need to adapt quickly, but many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like: Which tools are working? How are they being used? What's actually driving value? DX provides the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift. With DX, companies like Dropbox, Booking.com, Adyen, and Intercom get a deep understanding of how AI is providing value to their developers and what impact AI is having on engineering productivity. To learn more, visit DX's website at getdx.com/lenny. That's getdx.com/lenny. Okay, so you're mentioning the atheist bot with a bunch of religious dating sites. Yeah, it reminded me that you were my first online date ever. Hell yeah. On a snatched platform called HowAboutWe, and I remember that. I mean, you had other dates. Where's this going, anyway? No, but I remember you had a thing for designers. Yeah. And I wonder if you regret that preference, like designer artists. No, not a stereotype. No, no. I'm not. You're pretty neat. Yeah, yeah, it's true. You're kind of chaotic. Yeah, which is, we could talk about your process, but it's a messy process. It's true. We have a good yin-yang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're unstressed, unbothered. I'm bothered. Things everywhere. We got cleaners, they help things out. Yeah, it's true. It's worth it. Okay, so you're okay with designers, still good. And then as I... Yeah, right. I highly recommend. Oh, okay. Yeah, great. So yeah, I was going to ask, do you have any tips for, because there's something you said recently, which is you don't have any co-workers. I was like, I'm a co-worker. We work at home. But yeah, do you ever feel lonely? Because you were always really social, and then this goes into, too, even before you were niche famous or whatever we want to call it, people were always coming up to you on the street, like, hey. Yeah, from Airbnb, because you're organizing things. Do you feel like you miss office culture? I have had people ask me that over the years, and I've always been like, no, it's amazing. I don't need that. I just do my own thing, and I don't need people around. But I've kind of started to feel that a little bit, and I'm just like, huh, there's no one. I just sit at home all day. Our dog likes to be right next to you. Yeah, yeah, sweet. So I do feel like I do miss it now. It's not a huge problem, but it's just like, it'd be cool to just jam with someone on stuff. And I have a team, and I have you and Twitter. Well, you like to go to coffee shops. I like to go to coffee. Yeah, what do you get? But it's like Bowling Alone, kind of. I don't know. That's a good metaphor. And you put your headphones on, and you're focused. Yeah, so it'd be fun. I have an awesome team, and we jam on stuff, but it's not like... I think I do miss having someone next to me that I'm just working with on the same thing. But I also am trying very hard to never have full-time employees. I'm trying to keep things really simple because it's so easy to build this thing into this whole thing that's complicated, and I'm like, what have I done? One of the challenges with this life is you can create a job for yourself that you hate by doing things that people want you to do or by following opportunities that feel big, and then you're like, I hate this. So I'm trying to be really careful about what I commit to and do. Coming back to your question, I do miss it some. It's a new thing I've realized that I miss, being around other people working on the same thing. Yeah, so speaking of other people coming up to you and being around other people, I think it's become harder for you now that people you don't know come up to you, because I think you actually have a little bit of face blindness. Absolutely. People who do know you come up to you, and you're waiting to know if they just listen to your podcast or if... If I know them. Yeah, yeah, this is a big problem for me. It's like another brain disorder, I guess, where I just don't remember people's names. I'm so bad at it. So I'm just like, I know you. Who are you? It's like people texting you from a new number. I'm like, who is this? Yeah, sometimes I feel like The Devil Wears Prada assistant, where I'm like, that's Emily, you worked with her on Airbnb. You don't do that. You need to do that. I do it sometimes. You do that sometimes. Yeah, so bad at that. Okay, so if you come up to me and you say hello and I don't recognize you, please, I'm sorry. I'm really bad at it. And yeah, it's gotten worse because now I know more people through the podcast and newsletter. Right, and you just know a lot of people. Yeah, faces. You're very kind, so people like you. I try. Yeah. Okay, so going back to the unbothered vibe that you have, tell me about a time you've been really stressed in your business, and then a time you've been really stressed in your personal life. Okay, so on the business side, I have this product, Pass. So as a subscriber to my newsletter, you get 23 incredible products, and I used to read them all: Linear, Miro, Lovable, Replit, Gamma. I stopped doing this because there are too many now. At the end of my podcast, I just read through all, and now I can't do it anymore. There are too many. I had a launch about a year ago, actually, where I launched: you get a free year of Cursor and Lovable and Bolt and Replit and v0, I think that's five. So that was way too good an offer. People came for it. Bad people. So I just had so many fraudsters, mostly in China, it turned out, just all these fraud rings in China trying to find ways to steal all these free goodies. So they set up all these crazy attacks, and I had to work with Stripe and Substack to just shut them down. They found all these little exploits in our API that we built. It's such a nightmare because we're just waking up to... every night it was hard to sleep. And I have this engineer, Este, who's so incredible, and he didn't sleep for a week, stopping and filling all these holes, because there are a lot of smart, clever bad guys out there. So that was extremely stressful. It could trickle down into the whole thing falling apart if everyone's like, oh my God, can't trust Lenny anymore. So, as you remember, it was very stressful. I didn't sleep too well, and it was very scary. They just kept popping up, and there were all these rings, and it went viral in China too, in the student network. They just... holy, you get a year free of Cursor and Lovable and Replit and Bolt and v0. So it's very stressful, to answer your question. On the personal side, okay, so when our baby was born, the birth was very complicated. You had to get a C-section because the induction wasn't getting it there. Because, yeah, it was complicated. Complicated. Normally, I feel like I would tell the story, but you weren't awake. But this is also like a When Harry Met Sally, but it's like how the pregnant person almost died. But okay, it's from your perspective because I didn't get to experience it. Right. So yeah, what happened is we had to do a cesarean. They gave you an... so the idea is they bring you into the operating room, they do the anesthetic, the epidural or whatever it's called, and then they let the husband and the partner in. So I was waiting in the hall, waiting for them to do the anesthetic, with your scrubs. They gave me a shower cap. Yeah, super sterile, just standing there in this bunny suit thing. The idea is they do the anesthetic, and I can come in and then watch the birth and all that stuff. Five, ten minutes in, I just hear beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep, and the doctor runs out, scrubs her hands, runs back in, and then two other people run from another room down the hall into the room, and they're like, uh-oh. You were scared. I was scared. I was very scared because I had no idea what was going on. That didn't sound good. Nobody told you anything. Nobody's telling me anything. I'm supposed to be in there. No one's coming out like, here's what's happening. And it was like 10 minutes of just nothing. Yeah, and you were supposed to be in there after a minute. Yeah, it's going to be quick. Yeah, yeah. I was supposed to be like, come on in, we're going to do this, and you're awake during it. Into real life. So I just remember pacing down the hall, coming back to the lessons I've learned, just like, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. That's what I remember saying to myself, just kind of trust that they know what they're doing. scrubs her hands, runs back in, and then the two other people run from another room down the hall into the room, and they're like, oh, uh-oh, uh, and I was like, you were scared. You were. I was scared. I was very scared because I had no idea what was going on. That didn't sound good. Nobody told you anything. Nobody's telling me anything. I'm supposed to be in there. No one's coming out like, here's what's happening, and it was like 10 minutes of just nothing. Yeah, and you were supposed to be in there after a minute. Yeah, it's gonna be quick. Yeah, yeah, I was supposed to be like, come on in, we're gonna do this, and you're awake during it, into real life. So I just remember pacing down the hall, coming back to the lessons I've learned, just like, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay. That's what I remember saying to myself. Just trust that they know what they're doing. We're in a hospital, there's a lot of doctors around, and then eventually they came back and they just said that the epidural went the wrong direction and said instead of going down, it went up your body, and so it was stopping your heart and lungs, and they had to intubate you and do an emergency intubation and get the baby out, and then it took an hour for you to come back. They were going to put you in the ICU to help you come back, so that was very scary because you weren't there. I don't know what's going on, and you got to hold the baby for an hour. Yeah, so that's why he's like, only papa. He's another person that prefers you. Who's the other person? Our dog, because right now, for now, you're his sweet, sweet guy. But yeah, that was really scary. Stressful, yeah, because it's like such a, it's gonna be okay. Yeah, that was the thing that helped, but it was very scary because it's just like life could be completely different now. Something like, you could have, the guy, the anesthesiologist, said it was a one in fifty thousand chance, and it's like the worst scenario that is very rare and very dangerous, and so it was extremely scary. Luckily, he did a great job, and everyone's like, he killed it. He knew exactly what to do. He handled it really well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't have any memory. You don't remember this? Yeah, it numbed my, just came back, numbed my lungs, and I was like, I can't breathe, and then it numbed my spinal, what is it, brain stem, and then I passed out. How about that? How about that? I didn't have to get to have any, yeah. Looking back, are you, we don't have to talk about it. Okay, okay. No, yeah, that's what you said, but it's interesting to not have an experience around it, and the live experience was one, yeah. It's probably the scariest moment in my life. Yeah, and I didn't know anything about it because they put me under general anesthesia, and then I was all loopy, and then I didn't even know really what, and then later I read the report. Months later, I read it. I actually had someone else read it who was in the field, and she's like, it was your cousin Lois, and she moved her thick glasses like, wow. Yeah, she's a nurse back in, yeah. Anyway, stressful moment. Yeah, so you used your tools. Yeah, I used my tools. Otherwise, that's a good point because it could have been a spiral. Yeah, and we had a doula, but she had left. The doula was going to be there, but for cesarean she's like, it can't be here. Yeah. Okay, I want to ask you a question, unless you have something you want to follow up. Okay, so you come up with these incredible charts. They're just like, it's the kind of charts you see on the internet. They're like, oh my god, that's so genius, and watching you come up with it is so wild because it pops out of nowhere, and then there's a little bit of iteration, and that's it. What's the process for you coming up with a chart, and what's the environment that you need to create your best work? I feel like coffee is a big part of it. Coffee is like, not too much. I have one that it's like, it has to be the perfect amount of coffee, so I actually usually get a single shot. Do you know about the Bomber Peak, by the way? Quick tangent. Okay, okay, so there's a concept called the Bomber Peak from xkcd, which is just the right amount of alcohol where you're the most insightful and creative, and then it falls down, which is like, I don't know, I forget why this is Steve Ballmer-related, but yeah. So the Bomber Peak, I have one like that about coffee, but it's made out of a little coffee straw, and it's like, we're gonna show this on YouTube if you're watching this so you can see the chart. It's like, I'm a genius, and then I'm having a panic attack, and so that's me. I'll get to this point where I feel like, I mean coffee is a drug, right? So if I have too much, it is like a drug, and I feel like a genius, and I'm having all these ideas, but then I think it's too, I don't know if this was a real image, but there was an image of spiderwebs, and it's like, this is a spiderweb that ingested some LSD and stuff, yeah, and then this is the spider that had coffee, and instead of a regular web, it's a web that goes like this. It's just erratic and tangential, and I have some really good seeds of ideas in those moments, then I have to go scream into a pillow or something. Was that when you have too much coffee, or is that too much coffee? Okay, but if there's a point right before that, it's a single shot latte is what I get, single shot latte, at least an hour. Sometimes it's good to have somewhere I have to be. It's a time limit, and then I'm kind of like, I feel like a machine. It's like trying really hard to get somewhere, and then the other thing is just a lot of it is writing something down as I'm out in the world, like writing and then trying to put it on paper in a way that visualizes it because I'm not strong at drawing. Yeah, when I was a kid, my dad did a lot of math with me and a lot of fractals and visualization and patterns, and so I think that way, mathematically, kind of, and yeah, so it helps me to visualize an idea in the simplest way possible. Let me just say this is very cool that we're doing this. This is really fun. So sweet. Oh yeah, this was really nice. Yeah, this is our Odessa moment. You're born in Odessa too? No, no, but one of my questions was, I don't know, this would be like if I were in the audience, it would be more like a comment versus a question pretending to be a question. Yeah, our families are both from countries, mine from Venezuela, yours from Ukraine, where people are always like, oh, does that, we didn't just arrive right from Venezuela or Ukraine, so it's not the same. Yeah, so we have to almost make them feel okay, like it's okay. I mean, my family still lives in Venezuela, but okay, so I asked you a question. Okay. Oh, that's back to you. Okay, great. Yeah. Oh yeah, no, okay, let me reflect back what you said because this is really interesting. So a single shot, so it's like some kind of neurostimulation, I don't know, single shot, just enough. I like this deadline piece. That was really interesting. It's like not too much time, not like 30 minutes, although that can be why I'm late. Optimism, like I just, I've almost got it. I'm a time optimist, as you know, that I'm like, I think I have it, and then, but a good time is like two hours, and then I have to be somewhere in two hours. Interesting. Okay, so those are two elements, and then was there another two for optimal creativity? Oh, and a good night of sleep. Yeah, yeah, because if you have the bad night of sleep plus too much caffeine, then you don't have any, you have no ideas. You just have the frantic piece of the caffeine, the mental energy. Anything else? This is really interesting. I think just the idea of what creates creativity, just experiences, experiences and thinking, and almost thinking too much about them. I like that. Maybe overthinking, right? Back to you, Michelle. Oh, back to me, to you? Yeah. Okay, so we did the thunder round. We did the worst things to hear, okay, and the best sounds, which your son's laugh, yeah, yeah, agree. Do you, okay, we probably know your favorite product management books. Do you have a favorite children's book, other than mine, to read to Charts for Babies too? And also, maybe you could do more than one because, you know, maybe there's one when you raise a Creativity, and a good night of sleep. Yeah, yeah, because if you have a bad night of sleep plus too much caffeine, then you have no ideas. You just have the frantic piece of the caffeine, the mental energy. Anything else? This is really interesting. I think just the idea of what creates creativity. Experiences, experiences, and thinking, and almost thinking too much about them. Thinking, I like that. Maybe overthinking. Yeah, right. Back to you, Michelle. Oh, back to me, to you. Yeah, okay, so we did the thunder round. We did the worst things to hear, okay, and the best sounds, which your sons laugh. Yeah, yeah, agree. Do you, okay, we probably know your favorite product management books. Do you have a favorite children's book, other than mine, to read to charts for babies too? And also Maple. And also maybe you could do more than one, because maybe there's one when you raise a baby, like I feel like a chart is, and you never take my ideas because I feel like you don't want to. I don't want to be your ideas. Yeah, but I feel like there's books you love that are children's books and books your kid loves. Yeah, right, and it's like, I hate reading this one, but he loves it, so we're gonna do it. Yeah, so it's like he decides what his favorites are. I love Jon Klassen books. They're so beautiful and just sweet, so those have been really sweet. They're actually not sweet. You're right. There's death in all of them. Yeah, yeah, they all end in death. Yeah, like Jude's new thing is, he ate the bunny. This is the bear book, yeah, okay, he stole my hat. Yeah, yeah. We start the book and he's like, he ate the bunny. Where's the bunny? Like, in his belly, but is, yeah. Is there any overlap, you think? Is there a favorite that one is, that's his favorite that you now love that you didn't love initially? Yeah, like Dr. Seuss, I think. We similarly really feel it's way too long as one, because it's like 50 pages, 60 pages. Come on. Yeah, it's a lot of words, and there's all these made-up animals, and yeah. And he's like, what's a zong? There, that's a zong. You're trying to teach them real things in the world, and then he's like, what was a tail of a zong? It's like, what? Vipper from Vip? Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't like that. But we like reading them. We've kind of, yeah, there's a rhythm. Anything in Spanish I read to him, obviously. And yeah, anything you want to say about, I don't know, is there any sort of product, anything you've learned in product management or growth that has translated to parenting? Product management is all about influence, and that's basically parenting. That's why he likes you better. Why? Because I get influenced? But you also have to make them do stuff. Yeah, yeah, they're like, you do have authority, you know. All the responsibility without the authority, but you do have authority. They have the authority. That's true. Just like, nope, here, you sit there. Yeah, I feel like I see your product management in that. You make him, I should be the one making him a chart, but you make him, like here's how if bedtime gets too long, you're like, here's how bedtime's gonna go. We're gonna read you three books, you get a star, and then also, I'm answering for you, sorry, other things where it's like, things where I'm kind of like, yeah, it just happens the way it's happening. You're like, no, I read a book on it. I read three books on it, and this is how we're gonna do it, and that's gonna work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, right? Yeah, I'm not an intuition guy. I'm just like, what have the smartest people figured out about this? This isn't the first time somebody has tried to shorten bedtime. Shorten bedtime, sleep through the night. Right, yeah, yeah. There's smart people that have tried this stuff before and can tell me what they've done. Small eye roll. Okay, so I guess this is, I think, my last question for you, and I don't know if you want to answer it, but as your wife of however many years, like 10 still, I don't think I know what product management is. Can you tell me in five words? That's hilarious. Okay, I will. My words are impact, collaboration, judgment, alignment, and this is a really good question, and it's almost like the order is how you think about product management. It's like the order you put them in. And what else? I'll just say some stuff because it's really interesting. Coordination, I think it's five. Organizing. Planning. Okay, outcomes. I am just tuned out. There's somebody just like, shut up, so boring, and I'm just like, what should I have said? That's what I'm going to think about now. But yeah, it's like a crazy weird job, all these different things. Yeah, I'm just sniped. I want to keep thinking. Yeah, I keep. I'll give you my definition of product management. Yeah, but you can't say mini-CEO. No, no mini-CEO. That's not cool. Okay. Although I actually do think PM is a mini-CEO. I think people keep saying you're not, but I think you are. Yeah, you can't say not a project manager. Yeah, not a project manager, that's right. I think the way I describe it is your job as a product manager is to deliver business impact by prioritizing and solving the most impactful business problems. Something like that. Yeah, that's many words. Yeah. You're like, this is why I never know what it is. It's so boring. What are you even talking about? Cool. This comes back to the mini-CEO thing, just to close that thread. I feel like the PM on the team basically should be thinking the way the CEO thinks. Their job is to think, what would the CEO do on this specific product or feature? Because the CEO's job is make this successful, make this business grow. And so your job as a PM is to channel that. What will allow this team and product to help the business be more successful? Do you feel like you're doing that as the, I guess you are. I'm everything, you know, in my current world, right? You're editor-in-chief too. Editor-in-chief, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I have a copy editor, an editor, so I have help. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. People ask me what about product management helped me do the job I do now. I don't think there's anything, to be honest, except things I was already into, which is just being very organized, having a very high bar for quality, communicating. I think communication maybe is just how to succinctly communicate points so that people grasp them. That's like, whoa. Whoa, look at this. We're the same. Introducing. The key is just communicating something simply. Wow. Well, let me ask you one more question, so maybe it's to close. You wrote two adult books. You now did a children's book. Why the pivot to children's books? Why did you decide to do a children's book? I wanted to do a children's book based on the first adult book because I thought that charts are a ton of early learning concepts put together. So if you look at children's books, the themes are often opposites, colors, shapes, feelings. And then I was thinking, you can really teach a lot from a chart. And it's so simple. So it's a lot of opposites. It's big and small. You've got going up and going down. You've got overlapping colors becoming another color. You can make a lot of feelings with charts. That's the second book in this series that I'm. It's coming out next year. Yeah, but yeah, I finished it, but it still takes about a year to come out after that. But yeah, it was this, I wanted to work on it in abstract. I had the thought of wanting to work on it, but it didn't come until I started trying to work on another adult book, that I really just had all these rhymes in my, like I had, it was more like a cadence. I had just this in my head. And yeah, I just tried it, and it came really quickly, the first draft. And yeah, I always wanted to make one because as a little girl, my dad wanted me to, he was a geophysicist, he wanted me to be strong at math. He was like, because at the time it was kind of like girls weren't encouraged necessarily to be good at math. But yeah, it was this: I wanted to work on it in abstract. I had the thought of wanting to work on it, but it didn't come until I started trying to work on another adult book. I really just had all these rhymes in my head. It was more like a cadence. I had this in my head. And yeah, I just tried it. And it came really quickly, the first draft. And yeah, I always wanted to make one because, as a little girl, my dad wanted me to. He was a geophysicist. He wanted me to be strong at math. He was like, because at the time it was kind of like girls weren't encouraged necessarily to be good at math. So he, from a young age, was always showing me. I did the same with our son too, always showing him patterns and, oh, if you flip it, it's like that. And it's just really fun for me. And it's cool too, writing the first one with our son growing up, learning from experience, having the experiences of him as a baby and how I'm learning how to teach him things. And then he gets a little older, and that helped me work on the feelings. And I've also learned how to speak to kids as well. When I didn't have any, I was like, I don't know what to say to you. And now it feels more natural. And so I had a children's book that I tried to write before I had kids. And for me, that one wasn't as good. And so I feel like I gained a little bit of just how to talk to a child. That's a really good segue, or not segue. I don't know. Connection to something that we've talked about a few times is the best stuff comes from actual experience. Because you had a children's book, like you just said, that you wrote before you had kids, and then it wasn't good. And now, having the experience, you can actually make something great. Yeah. And then also another thing I thought about was just reading so many children's books. People always say, if you want to write, read. And yeah, we read a lot. We still read a lot of books. And it just got me in that zone too. Yeah. It just makes me think about something I think has been key to my newsletter success is it is based on real life, doing the thing. At this point, most of my posts are guest posts where somebody is sharing the best thing they've learned in their career, like the one thing they want to share, which I love. And it all comes from something I focus a lot on: people on the ground doing the thing, not just floating in the clouds, pontificating. And that's the source of the best advice, from practitioners doing the thing for real, not just pontificating. It's just, I think that's a really good, maybe one takeaway, is just the best stuff comes from doing the thing and then sharing your advice versus just thinking you know what you're doing. And communicating it simply. Simply. And just refining. You don't even get into all the work that goes into refining. And then, yeah, you always talk about that. And another thing I do is I often make things, and it is stressful because I make things and I am not sure if they're good enough yet. And I put them to the side, and then I come back, and I might have an idea, knowing that it's already in my head. I might have an idea like, oh yeah, that's what's going to make that better. Or I go to work on it again and some other thing adds to it. But then, as you've set it aside, then you see something else, you see something in the world, like, oh shoot, somebody beat me to that thing I didn't ever do anything with. So that's stressful, to have something sitting, maybe with your podcast. And yeah, well, let me ask you this, and I'll answer for myself. How many iterations do you do on a chart on average? How many times do you edit it and refine it? Depends. Yeah. What's the median? At least five. Okay. For me, I think it's like 60. I was going to say a hundred. Okay. That's probably the real answer. But I can't even physically do that. It's like, I need, yeah. Yeah. It's just like, well, what do you mean by? So when I write a newsletter post, I go through it probably, let's say, 50 times, making it better. I start as something that's the beginnings, and then read through it and add to it, read through it, add to it, read through it, add to it, improve, improve, improve, improve, improve, like 50 times. And then I have my editor go through it, and I have a copy editor go through it, and the designer helps me. You don't do that with your emails though. No, I should. I do do that with my emails, which should be, I shouldn't be doing that. I read them over and over and over. You do? Okay. I used to. I used to. But no, I do. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah. Let me, you plug. Do you want to plug? Absolutely. When is it coming out? April 7th. April 7th. So it's a few weeks, I think, from when this comes out. Assuming this comes out. Yeah. We'll see how it turns out. We're going to check it out. We'll check it out. If you're seeing this, we checked it out. Yeah. It was a success. It was okay. So Charts for Babies coming out April 7th? April 7th. April 7th. Yeah. All your favorite retailers? Yep. Local bookstores. Local bookstores. Wherever you buy your book. What's the age range of kids? It's two to four. It's called for babies. I did do a chart recently about how long is your baby a baby? And yeah, baby is this, infant is like one to two. And then it's like, it's your baby infinity. Yeah. So I've noticed we still call him, not really anymore, the baby. Like the baby. Oh, for sure. Yeah. But he's almost three. And so yeah, it could be like, I would say zero to four. And yeah. You know what? Should I grab it? Yeah. Let's grab it. Let's just break the frame. I have people on the recording hit, but the first, the endpaper is what this is called. It shows all the things you could learn: sizes, shapes, lines, numbers, directions, feelings, colors, amounts, sharing, concepts, relationships, opposites. Anyway, I'm not good at self-promotion, clearly. So let's all stop it. Yeah. It's a lot of learning. It's beautiful. It's hilarious. It's clever. It's early learning concepts. It's simply illustrated. Check it out. It rhyming. We'll get to it. Yeah. Congrats on releasing this book. Thank you. And it was a lot of work. Thanks. It was a lot of work. I did have a lot of iterations. The secrets of success. Yeah. Iteration. Editing. Editing. Okay. Spending more time is what your old boss used to say. Spend more time on it. Spend more time. Vlad. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. All good. We done? Michelle, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'll ask you my typical questions that I ask at the end. Where do people find you online? How can listeners be useful to you? My website, michellereal.com, R-I-A-L. Or I'm also on Instagram. Not too much these days, but still a little bit. You can look for the book, Charts for Babies. Right? Yeah. I don't know if, when this will be out, you can either pre-order it or order it. Great. One of the, yeah. Parentheses pre, but order. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michelle, thanks for being here. And I hope you like it. And thank you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I know you have a high bar. Absolutely. You hit it. Okay. Great. And yeah, I hope you were okay with the interview. A plus. It's going to do numbers. All right. Let's get out of here. Okay. Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. How can listeners be useful to you? My website is michellereal.com, R-I-A-L, and I'm also on Instagram. Not too much these days, but still a little bit. You can look for the book, Charts for Babies. Right? Yeah. I don't know when this will be out, but you can either pre-order it or order it. Great. One of the, yeah. Pre-order, but order. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michelle, thanks for being here. I hope you like it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I know you have a high bar. Absolutely. You hit it. Okay. Great. And yeah, I hope you were okay with the interview. A plus. It's going to do numbers. All right. Let's get out of here. Okay. Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny's podcast.com. See you in the next episode. find that when you work on your charts uh you're like you think so many levels deep they're like they're like so they're like too clever sometimes and i have to like pull because it's your point people have a short attention span sometimes they're like too clever and i have to like okay this is too many layers you have to understand and i have to like that's a little much you have to like simplify it a little bit yeah yeah you're my editor sometimes i try it but you're like no you're like i don't care i don't i don't care about your feedback you're probably you're usually probably right yeah okay let me ask you one more question and then we could switch it around again how do you come up with your ideas for your charts you have so many such variety you had an adult book you had a children's and they have a children's book uh you're working on like charts for parents you have all this other stuff going on where do your ideas come from michelle the ideas come from just living life and noticing noticing a lot of things and then also kind of um observing a lot i i know that i've been really prolific when i've been meditating and in meditation you learn to kind of observe your own thinking and if you're anxious about something like oh i'm that's funny that i was anxious about that random thing that i i've never thought about it that way before and which is interesting because it is kind of like overthinking every moment which meditation shouldn't be teaching you to do but that's what happens but i've noticed if i focus too much on my work i stop living life and then i stop having ideas and it's a little different with children's books which is what i'm working on right now because it's not like relatable things a little bit but it's um more children's concepts but the adult stuff has to be just through living life noticing yeah yeah noticing makes me think about i think david sedaris had this story where he's just has to say yes to everything he's invited to just because he needs to have experiences because he just has to keep pumping out stories so he's just like sure let's go to vegas right now let's do it so i feel like that's a lot of the work here is just to live real life you can't just kind of sit there and come up with ideas you have to try stuff and do crazy things yeah so the first so my first children's book which is is out soon um that one actually came out of kind of observing parenthood and early new parenthood moments that's how i started i started at the beginning of the notebook writing kind of like trying to make charts for new parents but we'd been reading so many kids books together that i just had this like that it ended it like rhythm in my head of children's books and so what it i just turned to the back of the notebook and started writing more like children's book rhymes involving the back of a notebook because you're working on a different book and you're just like nope in this notebook i picked it up to put my questions in for you yeah and so i started off in the front um i'm not going to show you so you started in the front on different idea i started off in the front charts for new parents and then i was like got you know a few in you know like a good amount in and then i was just in the park right and then i kind of was just like yeah but i have always wanted to do these charts for kids or for babies and i just kept wanting to write that so i started in the back and then i filled it up that way i love that this is another example of just following pull and not just doing the thing that you're doing just like huh this is pulling me and i'm gonna try it and just see where it goes look at this what a callback okay back to you michelle okay back to you back to me back to you through me through you exactly okay okay so um tell me about i i do want to ask you this question inspired by our friend who like reverse nicknames you and says like leonard is your name full name leonard where's lenny come by the way reverse nickname meaning they give you a nickname without you like asking them well there's people who give you a nickname without you asking yeah that's yes yeah he gives you the full name oh i see makes it long yeah it's not a thing i'm just making it up okay i like that okay so the question is my where my real name uh so when i moved to the us from the ukraine which we recently chatted about on a podcast with boris which turned out to be a big big muse odessa people odessa yeah my parents named me leonide was my real official first name in the us but they called me lenny everyone called me lenny and so when we became citizens you could change your name and so my parents just changed it to lenny so that's my real name it's just lenny no leonard no leonard yeah oh yeah leonard just lenny just lenny yeah i love it and leonard as in it's it's a russian name or there's also the like star constellation oh the leonards i don't know i think they just asked their friends just like what is my russian name is lonya and so i think they just like what's the english version of that and i'm guessing some of their friends are just like leonard i don't know if they named it after anything specific can i share any of your nicknames i'm going to assume now what are my nicknames okay go for it uh i don't know what they are like lunch okay sure i could share that sure do you like it yeah people call you that well it's like my family calls me that okay yeah it's like a russia yeah it's like a russian little nickname yeah and you okay but like strangers can they call you that uh no don't call me that okay and speaking of strangers how do you feel when people approach you and and is it weird at all like like oh yeah like does it remind you how big your newsletter has gotten or like do you like it do you like certain ways of approaching it yeah so i guess what you're uh speaking to is when i walk around the bay area in particular people often recognize me which is extremely weird and started with the podcast once like interestingly i had the newsletter for four years yeah you got to be like you got to be stealth yeah like my face was tiny and some twitter profile but i once i started the podcast people just yeah just it was like very weird the first time it started happening and then and now it happens uh quite a lot i like it a lot it's very cool i really appreciate it it makes me feel really nice i am not bothered by it in any way uh it always is very flattering people are always so nice and just have endless nice things to say i've never had a bad experience someone just trying to say hi to me so please say hi okay and i often ask people what's their favorite podcast episode or favorite newsletter because i'm just curious i i always ask just like your founder your product person like what's your story yeah it's what about if you're in the middle of what if you're like at a coffee shop you have headphones on and somebody says like hey or if you're like playing with your kid what do you think i think you're projecting all right about what you wouldn't want girl yeah people don't do that i think people have been generally very conscious you know there could be a moment of just like we're getting somewhere and i can't talk for too long and i don't want to be rude or you're like in a focus yeah but but then yeah yeah it hasn't been a problem yet uh almost like 99 of people have been very considerate yeah and i don't want people to feel like they can't just talk to me and yeah that's cool yeah they're always so cool i like that yeah is there any like instance of delight poll like maybe the first time this happened uh we live in marin and i was walking over through san anselmo with you as you remember and there's this guy in a little red car driving by with his son he's driving by and we're on the sidewalk and then he just yells lenny i love your podcast god and this wasn't even the san francisco's and san anselmo and i was uh shocked and then he just kept he like held up traffic just to say hello i'm like oh my god yeah i wouldn't do that yeah probably wouldn't do that and then i met him later he runs a hamburger club in marin he's very cool because i saw him again at another coffee shop so that was quite delightful i love that uh okay you just said something okay people coming up to you um okay you're gonna have to cut this see no we're not gonna cut it because this is what i go through too as a podcast interviewer i thought of something i lost this is what i'm constantly dealing with yeah that is a challenge of the interviewer uh and i think it's fun for people to see because you're like okay i have to think about what's i'm gonna say next and then you're like they're stop and you're like oh what's it gonna be so that's why on when i do the podcast i'm secretly writing notes to myself constantly oh sorry okay chicken notes yeah well okay i closed me okay i should have written it down let's talk about like thinking back to what what kind of um hints that you would start this newsletter or like things that you worked on when you were younger that are like a little or like a mildly adjacent or like you know because you had some what you had like some websites you had atheist spot you had like you had some tutorials tutorials that's one so the question is like what are the things i did earlier that helped me with the work i do now or yeah just because just looking back like anything that that is kind of like makes it obvious that you would have started this newsletter or like a little more i don't think there's anything that would have pointed me or anybody to this being the thing that i do now it's completely unexpected personally and i don't think anyone saw coming uh i had never written anything online before i started writing i was always not like hey look at me i've got all the answers and i have all this wisdom to share i was always like i'm an introvert i'd like to kind of stay behind the scenes so it was a it's a very unexpected path for me and part of the reason i think i was able to do it is uh the newsletter started during covet so i could just sit there and type and put stuff out online i didn't have to go anywhere and like hello everyone i could stay like in my little hole but just to uh follow through on these things you pointed out that i did earlier because i don't think i've ever talked about these things i had all these different side projects before uh like through college i guess yeah through college i was like a very uh uh big atheist and i'm still an atheist jewish atheist which is many jews but i was like very into it before and i'm like okay i don't care whatever believe it you want to believe uh so i used to run a website called the atheist spot.com which was reddit for atheist news which is not a you know reddit is that it's fine i don't you don't need it but i went to like there's like conventions we went to atheist conventions uh so i did that and the funny thing is that was the during adwords when google adwords was a way to monetize your site and so all the ads on the site because most of the articles were about religion were all these religious dating sites so it's like christian mingle and like all these funny dating sites that didn't make sense for the audience so i always thought that was funny and then uh i worked with a friend on this other project called utorials which was so ahead of its time the idea was utorials tutorials for you by you nice and so as people contributing things they've learned and writing a how-to like how to make eggs how to take a quick shower and it's always like tick tock right it's like tick tock it was before wikipedia i think no i know yeah yeah it's like youtube it's like that's like what i watched tick tock for is like watching people make yeah and parenting advice and things to be afraid of and dan's videos yeah so that's what your thing was or that's what tick tock is that's what tick tock is right yeah so yeah i was really proud of that yeah yeah it sounds it sounds like it was ahead and local mine was ahead of its time and local mine so that was my startup we sold it to airbnb that's how i got there uh local mine amazing idea and not something anyone needs really i still need it like you need it once in a while so just to briefly explain what that is uh it was uh an app that sat on top of foursquare and goala when that was very cool and allowed you to ask questions of people checked in anywhere in the world so if you're like is there a long line at the mill which is near here should i go is there a long line what's like the special we just use that basically yeah we use google does it with their like is it busy yes yeah like you know all these other ways that you could solve this problem it was very cool uh it was amazing nobody needs it really if there's still things you want to ask you need like once in a while you need like once a quarter yeah and it's holy that's so good but you know you can't make a business out of that so i'm glad that we we exited today's episode is brought to you by dx the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers to thrive in the ai era organizations need to adapt quickly but many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like which tools are working how are they being used what's actually driving value dx provides the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift with dx companies like dropbox booking.com adyen and intercom get a deep understanding of how ai is providing value to their developers and what impact ai is having on engineering productivity to learn more visit dx's website at get dx.com slash lenny that's get dx.com slash lenny okay so you're mentioning the the atheist bot with a bunch of religious dating sites yeah reminded me that you were my first online date ever hell yeah on a snatched platform called how about we and i remember that i mean you had other dates um where's this going anyway no but i remember you were like um had see i think you had a thing for designers yeah and i wonder if you regret that preference like designer artists sort of like no not at stereotype no no like i'm not like like you're pretty neat yeah yeah it's true you're kind of chaotic yeah which is we could talk about your process but it's like it's a messy process it's true you know we have a good yin yang yeah yeah yeah like you're unstressed unbothered i'm bothered yeah i'm just things everywhere yeah we got cleaners they help things out yeah it's true you know yeah it's worth it okay so you're okay with designers still good uh and then as i like yeah right i highly recommend oh okay yeah great so yeah i was gonna ask like do you have any tips for because it's like it's you know there's there's something you said recently which is like you don't have any co-workers i was like i'm a co-worker we work at home um but yeah do you feel do you ever feel like lonely not because you were always really social and then this goes into too like even before you were niche famous or whatever we want to call it people are always coming up to you on the street like hey you know yeah from airbnb because you're organizing things and um do you feel like you miss off office culture i have people ask me that over the years and i've always like no it's amazing i don't need that like i just do my own thing and i don't need people around but i've kind of started to feel that a little bit and i'm just like huh there's no one like i just sit at home all day and just like our dog likes to be right next to you yeah yeah sweet yeah uh so i do feel like i do miss it now it's not like a huge problem but it's just like you know it'd be cool to just jam with someone on stuff and i have a team and i have you and twitter well you like to go to coffee shops i like to go to coffee yeah what do you get but it's like bowling alone kind of i don't know it's like that's a good metaphor like and you have your head you put your headphones on yeah and you're focused that's like yeah so it'd be fun like i have an awesome team and we jam on stuff but it's not like like i think there's a i do miss having someone next to me that i'm just working with on the same thing but i also am trying very hard to never have full-time employees i'm trying to keep things really simple because it's so easy to build this thing into like this whole thing that's complicated that i'm like what have i done one of the challenges with this life is you can create a job for yourself that you hate by doing things that people want you to do or by following opportunities that feel big and then you're like i hate this so i'm trying to be really careful about what i commit to and do coming back to your question i do miss it some yeah it's like a new thing i've realized that i miss is being around other people like working on the same thing yeah so speaking of other people like coming up to you and being around other people it i think it's become harder for you now that now that people you don't know come up to you because i think you actually have a little bit of face blindness absolutely people okay people who do know you come up to you and you're like and you're like waiting to know if if they just listen to your podcast or if you like i know if i know that like yeah yeah this is a big problem for me yeah it's like it's like another brain disorder i guess where i just don't remember people's names i'm so bad at it so i just like i know you who are you it's like people texting you from a new number i'm like who is this yeah sometimes i feel like the devil wears prada um assistant where i'm like that's emily you worked with her on airbnb or that's you don't do that you need to do that i do it sometimes you do that sometimes again yeah so bad at that okay so if you come up to me and you say hello and i don't recognize you please i'm sorry i'm really bad at it and yeah it's like gotten worse because now i know more people through the podcast and newsletter and like right and you just know a lot of people yeah it's like people like faces you're very kind so people like you i try yeah okay so going back to the like unbothered vibe that you have tell me about a time you've been really stressed in your business and then a time you've been really stressed in your personal life okay so on the business side uh so i have this product pass so as a subscriber to my newsletter you get 23 incredible products and i used to read them all linear mob and lovable replet gamma i stopped doing this because there's too many now i had the end of my podcast i just read through all and now i can't do it anymore there's too many i had a launch about a year ago it's about a year actually where i launched you get a free year of cursor and lovable and bolt and replet and v0 i think that's five and so uh that was way too good at offer people came for it bad people so i just had so many fraudsters mostly in china it turned out just like all these fraud rings in china trying to find ways to steal all my all these free goodies so they set up all these crazy attacks and i had to work with stripe and substack to just like shut them down and they just found all these little exploits in our api that we built and like this so it's like such a nightmare because we're just like waking up to like every night it was like hard to sleep and i have this engineer uh este who's so incredible and he likes and didn't sleep for a week stopping filling all these holes because there's a lot of a lot of smart clever bad guys out there so that was extremely stressful like could trickle down into the whole thing falling apart if everyone's like oh my god can't trust lenny anymore so as you remember is very stressful i didn't sleep too well and it was like very scary and there's all these they just kept popping up and there's all these like rings and it went viral in china too that's like in the student network they just holy you get a year free of cursor and lovable and replet and bolt and v0 and uh so it's very stressful to answer your question on the personal side okay so when our baby was born the birth was very complicated uh you had to get a c-section because the induction wasn't getting it there because yeah it was complicated complicated and normally i feel like i would tell the story but you weren't awake but this is also like a when harry met sally but it's like how the the pregnant person almost died you know but okay but it's from your perspective because yeah i didn't get to experience it right so yeah so what happened is we had to do a cesarean they gave you an s and so the idea is they bring you into the operating room they do the anesthetic the epidural or whatever it's called and then they let the husband and the partner in and so i was waiting in the hall waiting for them to do the anesthetic with your scrubs they gave me a shower cap yeah super sterile just standing there in this bunny suit thing and the idea is they do the anesthetic and i can come in and then watch the birth and all that stuff and five ten minutes in i just hear beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep and the doctor runs out scrubs her hands runs back in and then all the two other people run from another room down the hall into the room and they're like uh oh uh and i was like you were scared you were i was scared i was very scared because i had no idea what was going on that didn't sound good nobody told you anything nobody's telling me anything i'm supposed to be in there no one's coming out like here's what's happening and it was like 10 minutes of just nothing yeah and you were supposed to be in there after like a minute yeah it's gonna be quick yeah yeah i was supposed to be like come on in we're gonna do this you know and like you're awake during it you know into real life so just remember pacing down the hall using coming back to the lessons i've learned just like it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay that's what i remember saying to myself just kind of trust that they know what they're doing you know we're in a hospital there's a lot of doctors around and and then eventually they came back and they just said that the epidural went the wrong direction and said instead of going down it went up your body and so it was stopped it was stopping your heart and lungs and they had to intubate you and do an emergency intubation and get the baby out and then took like an hour for you to come back they were they were going to put you in the icu to help you come back so that was very scary because you weren't there i don't know what's going on and you got to hold you got to hold the baby for like an hour yeah without so that's why he's like a he's like only papa he's a he's another person that that prefers you who's the other person our dog you know because you're right now for now you're you know you're sweet sweet guy but yeah it's uh yeah that was really scary stressful yeah because it's like such a it's gonna be okay yeah that was that was the thing that helped but it was like very scary because it's just like life could be completely different now like something like you know like you could have like the guy the anesthesiologist said it was a one in fifty thousand chance and it's like the worst scenario that is very rare and very dangerous and so it was extremely scary and and luckily he did a great job and everyone's like he killed it he did like he he knew exactly what to do he handled it really well yeah yeah yeah yeah and i don't have any memory you don't remember this yeah it numbed my just came back numbed my lungs and i was like i can't breathe and then and then i numbed my spinal what is it brain stem and then i passed out how about that how about that i didn't have to get to have any yeah how does it looking back are you are you we don't have to talk about it okay okay no yeah it's uh that that's that's what you said but it's interesting to like not have an experience around it and the experience was like the live experience was one yeah it's probably the scariest moment in my life yeah and i didn't i wasn't i didn't know anything about it because they put me under general anesthesia and then i was all loopy and then i didn't even know really what and then later i read the report like months later i read it i actually had someone else read it who was in the field and she's like it was your cousin lois and she like moved her thick glasses like wow yeah she's like a nurse back in yeah anyway stressful moment uh yeah so you used your tools yeah i used my tools otherwise you know that's a good point because it could have been like spiral like yeah and we had a doula but she had left the doula was going to be there yeah but for cesarean she's like it can't be here yeah okay i want to ask you a question but unless you have something we want to follow up okay so you come up with these incredible charts they're just like you know it's like the kind of charts you see on the internet they're like oh my god that's so genius and watching you come up with it is so wild because you just you just like it pops out of nowhere and then there's like a little bit of iteration and like that's it what's the process for you coming up with a chart and what's like the environment that you need to create your best work i feel like coffee is a big part of it coffee is like it's like not too much there there's one i have that it's like i mean it has to be the perfect amount of coffee so i actually usually get a single shot do you know about the bomber peak by the way quick tangent okay okay so there's a concept called the bomber peak yeah from xkcd which is just the right amount of alcohol where you're the most insightful and creative and then it falls down which is like i don't know i forget why this is steve bomber related but yeah so the bomber i have one like that about coffee but it's not it's made out of a little coffee straw and it's like we're gonna show this on youtube if you're watching this so you can see the chart it's like i'm a genius and then i'm having a panic attack and so that's me is is like is like yeah i'll get to this point where i feel like i mean coffee is a drug right so if i have too much it is like a drug and i'm i feel like a genius and i'm like having all these ideas but then i think it's it's too like i don't know if this was a real image but there was an image of spiderwebs and it's like this is a spider web that ingested some right this lsd and stuff yeah and then this is this that had spider that had coffee and it's like instead of a regular web it's like a web that goes like this like it's like just erratic and tangential and i have some some really good i some really good like seeds of ideas in those moments then i have to go like scream into a pillow or something was that when you have too much coffee or is that like too much coffee okay but but if there's a point like right before that it's a single shot latte is what i get single shot latte at least an hour sometimes it's good to have uh like a somewhere i have to be it's a time limit and then i'm kind of like i feel like a machine uh it's like trying really hard to get somewhere and then the other thing is just like a lot of it is writing something down as i'm out in the world like writing and then putting it trying to put it on paper in a way that visualizes it because i'm not strong at drawing so and yeah when i was a kid my dad did a lot of math with me and a lot of like you know fractals and visualization and patterns and so i sort of think that way um like mathematically kind of and um yeah so it helps me to visualize an idea uh that in the simplest way possible let me just say this is very cool that we're doing this this is like really fun so sweet oh yeah this was like really nice yeah this is our odessa moment yeah you're born in odessa too no no but one of my questions was like um i don't know this would be like if i were in the audience it would be more like a comment versus a question pretending to be a question yeah we're both uh our families are both from countries that like mine from venezuela yours from ukraine where people are always like oh does that like like like we didn't just arrive right from venezuela or ukraine so it's like not yeah the same yeah so we have to like almost make them feel be okay like it's okay i mean my family still lives in venezuela but okay so i asked you a question okay um oh that's back to you okay great yeah oh yeah no okay let me reflect back what you said because this is really interesting so a single shot like so it's like some kind of like uh neuro stimulation i don't know single shot just enough uh i like this deadline piece that was really interesting it's like not too much time not not like not 30 minutes although that that can be why i'm late optimism like i just i've almost got it i just you know i'm a time optimist as you know that i'm like i think i have it and then but but a good good time is like two hours and then i have to be somewhere in two hours interesting okay so those are two elements and then was there another to for optimal creativity oh and a good night of sleep yeah yeah because if you have the bad night of sleep plus plus too much caffeine then you don't have any you know you have no ideas you just have the like frantic piece of the caffeine the like mental energy anything else this is this is really interesting i think just the idea of what is what creates creativity just like experiences experiences and thinking and and almost like thinking too much about them thinking i like that maybe overthinking yeah right back to you michelle real oh to back to me to you yeah okay so we did the thunder round we did the the the the worst things to hear okay and the best sounds which your sons yeah laugh yeah yeah agree do you okay we probably know your favorite like product management books do you have a favorite children's book other than mine to read to charts for babies to and also like maple and also maybe you could you could do more than one because that you know they like maybe there's one when you raise a baby like i feel like a chart is and you never take my ideas because i feel like you don't want to i don't want to be your ideas yeah but i feel like there's a books you love that are children's books and books your kid loves yeah right and it's like i hate reading this one but he loves it so we're gonna do it yeah so it's like he decides what his favorite are i love john classen books they're so like beautiful and just like sweet so those have been really sweet they're like actually not sweet you're right there's like death and all of them yeah yeah they all yeah and in death yeah like uh jude's new thing is like he ate the bunny this is the bear the bear book yeah okay he stole my hat yeah yeah like we start the book and he's like he ate the bunny where's the bunny like in his belly but is yeah is there any like overlap you think there's a favorite that that that one is that's his favorite that you now love because that you didn't love initially yeah like dr seuss i think we've similarly really feel it's like way too long as one because it's like 50 pages 60 pages like come on yeah it's a lot of words and there's just like all these made up animals and yeah and like he's like what's a zong yeah like there that's a song you're like trying to teach them real things in the world and then he's like what was a tale of a song it's like what vipper from vip yeah no yeah yeah i don't know i don't like that uh but we like but we like reading them we've kind of yeah there's like a rhythm well like anything in spanish i read to him obviously and yeah i mean anything you want to say about like i don't know is there any sort of like product anything you've learned in product management or like growth that has translated to parenting you know like product management is all about influence and that's basically parenting that's why he likes you better why because i get influenced but you also have to make them do stuff you know yeah yeah they're like you do have authority you know uh all the responsibility without the authority but you do have authority so it's they have the authority that's true just like nope here's you sit there yeah i feel like i see your product management in that like you make him like i should be the one making him a chart but you may you make him like the like here's how if bedtime gets too long you're like here's how bedtime's gonna go we're gonna read you three books you get a start and then also i'm answering for you sorry other things where it's like things where it's where i'm kind of like yeah it just happens the way it's happening you're like no i read a book on it i read three books on it and this is how we're gonna do it and and that's and it's gonna work sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't right yeah i'm not like an intuition guy i'm just like what if the smartest people figured out about this this isn't the first time somebody has tried to it's like a short in bedtime right short in bedtime sleep through the night right yeah yeah there's like yeah there's like smart people that have tried this stuff before yeah and can tell me what they've done small eye roll and okay so i guess this is i think my last question for you and i don't know if you want to answer it but like i as your wife uh of however many years like 10 still i don't think i know what product management is do you can you tell me in five words that's hilarious okay i will my words are impact collaboration judgment alignment and this is a really good question and it's almost like the the order is like how you think about product management like you know it's like the order you put them in and what else i'll just say some stuff because it's really interesting coordination i think it's five organizing planning okay outcomes i am just tuned out there's somebody just like shut up so boring and i'm just like what should i have i said that's what i'm going to think about now but it's yeah it's like a crazy weird job all these different things yeah i'm just like sniped i want to keep thinking yeah i keep I'll give you my definition of product management. Yeah, but you can't say mini-CEO. No, no mini-CEO. That's not cool. Okay. Although I actually do think PM is a mini-CEO. Like I think people keep saying you're not, but I think you are. Yeah. You can't say like not a project manager. Yeah, not a project manager. That's right. I think the way I describe it is your job as a product manager is to deliver business impact by prioritizing and solving the most impactful business problems. Something like that. Yeah, that's many words. Yeah. You're like, this is why I never know what it is. It's so boring. What are you even talking about? Cool. Like this comes back to the mini-CEO thing, just to close that thread. I feel like the PM on the team is basically should be thinking the way the CEO thinks. You know, like their job is to think, what would the CEO do on this specific product or feature? Because the CEO's job is make this successful, make this business grow. And so your job as a PM is to kind of channel that, what will allow this team and product to help the business be more successful. Do you feel like you're doing that as the, I guess you are. I'm everything, you know, like in my current world, right? You're editor-in-chief too. Editor-in-chief, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I have a copy editor of an editor, so I have help. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. People ask me what about product management helped me do the job I do now. I don't think there's anything, to be honest, except just like things I was already into, which is just being very organized, having a very high bar for quality, communicating. Like, I think communication maybe is just like how to succinctly communicate points so that people grasp them. That's like, whoa. Whoa, look at this. We're the same. Introducing. The key is just communicating something simply. Wow. Well, let me ask you one more question. So maybe it's to close. You wrote two adult books. You now did a children's book. Why the pivot to children's books? Why did you decide to do a children's book? I wanted to do a children's book based on the first adult book. Because I thought that charts are so, they're like a ton of early learning concepts put together. So if you look at children's books, they're, you know, the themes are often opposites, colors, shapes, feelings. And then I just, I was thinking like, you can really, you can really teach a lot from a chart. And it's so simple. So it's a lot, it's a lot of opposites. It's big and small. It's, it's, you've got going up and going down. You've got overlapping colors, becoming another color. You've got, you can make a lot of feelings with, with charts. That's the second book in this series that, that I'm. It's coming out next year. Yeah, but we, but yeah, I, I finished it, but it's, you know, it still takes about a year to come out after that. But yeah, it's, it was this like, I wanted to work on it in abstract. Like I had, I had the thought of wanting to work on it, but it didn't come until I started trying to work on another adult book. That I really just had all these rhymes in my, like I had, it was more like a cadence. I had just like this, like, you know, in my head. And, and yeah, I just tried it. And it came really quickly, the first draft. And yeah, and it, it also, yeah, I always wanted to make one because as, as a little girl, my dad wanted me to, he was a geophysicist. He wanted me to be strong at math. He was like, you know, because at the time it was kind of like girls, um, weren't encouraged necessarily to be good at math. So he, he, from just like a young age, he was always showing me, I did the same with our son too, like always showing him patterns and like, oh, if you flip it, it's like that. And it's just really fun for me. And it's, it's cool too, uh, writing the first one with like our son growing up, learning from experience, like I was saying, like having the experiences of him as a baby and like how I'm learning how to teach him things. And then he gets a little older and then that helped me work on the feelings. And I've also learned how to speak to kids as well. When I didn't have any, I was like, I don't know what to say to you. And now it feels more natural. And so I, I had a children's book that I tried to write before I had kids. And for me, that one wasn't as good. And so I feel like I gained a little bit of just like how to talk to child. That's a really good like segue or not segue. I don't know. Connection to something that we've talked about a few times is the best stuff comes from like actual experience. Like, cause you had a children's book, like you just said that you wrote before you had food and then it wasn't good. And now having the experience, you can actually make something great. Yeah. And then also like another thing I thought about was just reading so many children's books. People always say, if you want to write, read. And yeah, we read a lot. We read still a lot of, a lot of books. And it, um, it just got me in that zone too. Yeah. It just makes me think about something I think has been key to my newsletter success is, uh, it is based on like real life doing the thing. Like at this point, most of my posts are guest posts where somebody sharing the best thing they've learned in their career. Like the one thing they want to share, which I love. And it all comes from something I focus a lot on is from people on the ground doing the thing, not just floating in the clouds, pontificating. And that's the source of the best advice is from practitioners doing the thing for real, you know, not just pontificating. It's just, I think that's a really good, maybe one takeaway is just the best stuff comes from doing the thing and then sharing your advice versus just thinking, you know, what you're doing. And communicating it simply. Simply. And just like refining. You don't even get into just all the work that goes into refining. And then, yeah, we always, you always talk about like, yeah. And another thing I do is like, I often make it's, it's stressful because I make things and I am not sure if they're good enough yet. And I put them to the side and then I come back and, and I might have an idea knowing that it's already in my head. I might have an idea like, oh yeah, that's, what's going to make that better. Or I go to work on it again and some other thing adds to it. But then as you've set it aside, then you see something else, you see something in the world. Like, oh shoot, somebody beat me to that thing. I didn't ever do anything with like, so that's stressful to like, to like have something sitting like with, with maybe with your podcast. And yeah, well, let me ask you this and I'll answer for my own myself. How many iterations do you do on a chart on average? Like how many times do you like edit it and refine it? Uh, depends. Yeah. Yeah. What's like, what's like the median? At least five. Okay. Like for me, I think it's like 60. I was going to say a hundred. Okay. That's probably the real answer. But I can't even physically do that. It's like, I need, yeah. Yeah. It's just like, well, what do you mean by? So like when I write a newsletter post, I go through it probably, let's say 50 times. Making it better. Like I start as like something that's the beginnings and then read through it and add to it, read through it, add to it, read through it, add to it, improve, improve, improve, improve, improve. Like 50 times. And then I have my editor go through it and I have a copy editor go through it and the designer help me. You don't do that with your emails though. I, no, I should. I do do that with my emails, which is should be, I shouldn't be doing that. Like I read them over and over and over. You do? Okay. I used to. I used to. But no, I do. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Anything else? Oh, I mean, yeah. Let me, you plug, do you want to plug? Absolutely. When is it coming out? April 7th. April 7th. So it's like a few weeks, I think, from when this comes out. Assuming this comes out. Yeah. We'll see how it turns out. We're going to check it out. We'll check it out. If you're seeing this, we checked it out. Yeah. It was a success. It was okay. So Charts for Babies coming out April 7th? April 7th. April 7th. Yeah. All your favorite retailers? Yep. Local bookstores. Local bookstores. Wherever you buy your book. What's the age range of kids? It's two to four. It's called for babies. I did do a chart recently about like how long is your baby a baby? And, and it, yeah, it's like baby is this infant is like one to two. And then it's like, it's your baby infinity. Yeah. So I've noticed like we still call him the, not really anymore. The baby. Like the baby. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Um, but he's like almost three. And, uh, so yeah, it could be like, I would say zero to four or, and, uh, yeah. You know what? Should I grab it? Yeah. Let's grab it. Let's just break the frame. I have people on the recording hit, but the, the first, like the end paper is what this is called. It shows all the like things you could learn. Sizes, shapes, lines, numbers, directions, feelings, colors, amounts, sharing, concepts, relationships, opposites. Anyway, I'm not good at self-promotion clearly. So let's all stop it. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a lot of learning. It's beautiful. It's hilarious. It's clever. It's early learning concepts. It's simply illustrated. Check it out. It rhyming. We'll get to it. Yeah. Uh, congrats on releasing this book. Thank you. And it was a lot of work. Thanks. It was a lot of work. I did have a lot of iterations. The secrets of success. Yeah. Iteration. Editing. Editing. Okay. Spending more time is what your old boss used to say. Spend more time on it. Spend more time. Vlad. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. All good. We done? Michelle, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'll ask you my typical questions that I ask at the end. How can, where do people find you online? How can listeners be useful to you? My website, michellereal.com, R-I-A-L, or I'm also on Instagram. Not, not too much these days, but still a little bit. You can look for the book, Charts for Babies. Right? Yeah. I don't know if, when this will be out, you can either pre-order it or order it. Great. One of the, yeah. Parentheses pre, but order. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michelle, thanks for being here. And I hope you like it. And thank you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I know you have a high bar. Absolutely. You hit it. Okay. Great. And yeah, I hope you were okay with the interview. A plus. It's gonna, it's gonna do numbers. All right. Let's get out of here. Okay. Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny's podcast.com. See you in the next episode.