Well, back in 2008 this other guy named Mike Merrill was having a little “identity crisis”.
He was bored with his job at a software company, he didn’t know what decisions to make next, etc.
So he decided to do what any person would — he split himself up into 100k shares, sold them for $1 each, and would let his shareholders make the decisions for him.
He calls it Community Through Capitalism.
More like Community Through Craziness…But what’s crazier is, at the peak, Mike’s shares were going for ~$20. 🤯
His value has gone down since then, but his shares are still going for ~$6.50.
And now Patrick thinks it’s time to invest.
He thinks Mike is a diamond hidden in the rough and is betting this could be his next big win.
He’s so convinced that he just did a “hostile takeover” where he calculated how many shares he’d need to be able to vote any proposal in his favor.
Patrick now pretty much “owns” Mike, in a sense.
He could make Mike do some pretty crazy stuff.
And that’s exactly what Patrick plans to do.
We aren’t talking “go rob a bank” type stuff, but he thinks that pushing Mike out of his comfort zone will help get more eyes on him. Which will increase his value.
Here are some things that have been voted out in the past and how the votes went.
Get a vasectomy? No (talk about a ballsy one)
Buy a media company? Yes
Switch to an Android phone? No
Use psychedelics? Yes
The last proposal was whether he should take a new contracting gig with an NFT project called Fingerholers.
It was approved with 66% of the votes in favor of it.
Welcome to Web3, Mike.
This is insane and amazing at the same time.
There are 10,000 questions going through my head…
What if they vote for him to do something like break into area 51 and find the aliens? Does he have to do it? If he gets caught, is he just gonna pull the “Patrick made me do it” card?
Anyhow…
If you think about it…
It’s sorta like the salary person (or the good ole retainer), which kinda sorta means the boss man owns your arse from 9–5.
To say things are a chain-gin would be an understatement.
Humans weren’t made to sit at a desk from 9–5.
Come home every night to watch Netflix.
Explore the world for 2 weeks out of the year.
Have ZERO creativity.
Have every single aspiration beaten out of them.
Overdose brains with trash dopamine.
There’s so much more to life.
One of my favorite things to do while coaching clients is decipher their core motivators.
(You might want to save this email for reference and forward it to friends who can benefit)
I’ve realized that it boils down to 3 core types.
And we all embody all three at different points:
Desperation: This is where they feel like the world will end/ bad things will happen/ they will die if they don’t get the desired outcome. So they take action in a desperate attempt to stave off the otherwise inevitable outcome. I’ll explain the pros and cons of this in a second…
Rationalization: This is where they have thought about what they want to do and they have MANY good reasons to do it. These are all reasons that look terrific on paper. They make logical sense. The more reasons there are, the more there’s this unconscious pressure that builds up where their “purpose” now feels like a burden because they SHOULD or HAVE TO do it the way it’s been rationalized…
Inspiration: You know you’re playing from inspiration when you have this electricity to your thoughts — where you have butterflies in your belly and need to take the action in question for almost no good reason. In fact, inspiration often is presented as the opposite of rationalization — the timing is terrible, you don’t have all the pieces or resources and you have to take some sort of risk. But you can’t help yourself. It’s like finding your favorite chocolate cookie in the cupboard right after you decide to go no-carb.
This isn’t to vilify any of the types of motivation.
We can do brilliant things starting from any of these places. But only one of them will allow us to get to our goal and still have the energy to enjoy ourselves.
The other two might bring us to our goal, but we’ll often get there burnt out, exhausted and mistrusting ourselves because getting what we wanted came at such an immense cost.
There’s no point denying you feel desperate when you do.
Or ignoring your rational mind.
These voices are important.
So here’s how to work in harmony:
Desperation is a great igniter of action.
Desperation can be the force we need to pop us out of inertia or inaction. But it is fast burning and tends to burn us out longer term.
So you can start from desperation, but understand that it’s best to look for a way to switch to inspiration ASAP so you have staying power.
Rationalization is a fantastic tool for reassuring both self and key stakeholders.
But it’s a front.
If you do things purely because they’re logical (when you don’t deep down want to do them just because… all accomplishments will feel emptyish).
Some of us are wired to be more analytical and I find rationalization can be a great step 2 to create “legs” under your inspiration.
In other words, you want to start with something that inspires you and then use rationalization to create supporting arguments for why it’s worth pursuing.
Don’t worry if you only come up with a handful of reasons.
Tables don’t need 100 legs — they only need 4 to be solid. It’s the same with inspired ideas.
Just have 3–4 solid rationalizations to support your inspiration and you’re good to go.
How to know if you’re inspired?
This is where the mind-body connection comes into play. Reread my definition of inspiration above.
Notice how I include visceral or body-based feelings. Your body is your compass when it comes to inspiration.
Butterflies, bursts of energy, goosebumps, feelings of euphoria, a sense of 50–50 fear and excitement — all these signal inspiration.
Listen to your body.
It’s an incredible tool to excavate your truth.
