You can listen to the podcast and read the show notes here.
In this interview, I spoke with Dan Norris.
Michael Smith: All right, so I'm here with Dan Norris, author or the 7-Day Start Up and latest book, Create or Hate. I'm intrigued about this creating thing because I'm so interested in how we use our intuition to create things.
Dan Norris: Yup.
Michael Smith: Tell us a bit about how you came up with this create or hate.
Dan Norris: I guess I started thinking about what had worked for me as an entrepreneur and one of the things that I've noticed was I tend to get a bit cynical when people tell people how to be successful and they say like, work hard and that kind of stuff which really doesn't … We're all working hard so if it was about working hard, we would all be successful. That can't be the blueprint to success.
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: I just starting thinking about the thing I'd done that other people hadn't done or that I hadn't done before that really I thought had an impact on my success. Really, all it came down to was just creating a lot more stuff that most people. I've created probably 20 plus businesses and really only 1 or 2 worked. I've created 500 plus blog posts and probably only under 20 or 30 had actually got real traction.
There was that happening and then I also had a quote from Ricky Gervais which was, “It's better to create something that other people criticise than create nothing and criticise others.” That quote just made me think like, it's easier …
Michael Smith: Now why is that? It's better to create something yourself than criticize others?
Dan Norris: I think he probably just said it out of frustration of just having his stuff criticised.
Michael Smith: Okay.
Dan Norris: But for me, the way I read it was like you can do one or the other. You can be super critical of everything, you can winge about everything. You get on Price Book and say everything that everyone else makes is shit. Or you can just make a lot of stuff yourself and be grateful for all the stuff you have. Be grateful for the stuff that other people make and have some empathy for the people that put time into making things, writing books, doing podcasts and all that.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Dan Norris: I just saw that as you can be the hater or you can be the creator. Both of them are in us.
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: I think …
Michael Smith: But you can't be both at the same time.
Dan Norris: Well, that is something I didn't address in the book. I didn't want to talk about it in the book. I could talk about it if you want to. I think you probably can do both at the same time, but the point of the book was feed the creator and starve the hater.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Dan Norris: And as a result, create a lot more stuff.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Dan Norris: Launch the podcast you wanted to launch. Write the blog post you wanted to write. Start the business. Stop being so critical of everything everyone is doing and just be grateful for the stuff you have and create more stuff yourself and I think you're much more likely to be successful
Michael Smith: That's because you … Partly it's a numbers game.
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: You just get far more things out there. You fail faster.
Dan Norris: I also think you become a better person like, I think that impacts your success. I think if you're constantly winging about what other people are creating and you're not grateful for it you're missing opportunities. You're probably just getting into this mindset that is just not the mindset that brings ideas to you.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: I think if you become more grateful, if you can become the sort of person that is championing creation rather than bagging it then a lot more opportunities are going to come to you anyway.
Michael Smith: Because you're going to champion your own creations. Your own mind.
Dan Norris: That as well as …
Michael Smith: And other people will support you more if you support them.
Dan Norris: Yeah, other people and your own. Yeah, for sure.
Michael Smith: Now, I thought it was a pretty ballsy move when you put this dream you had in the first chapter. Tell us a bit about this dream that inspired this book.
Dan Norris: Yeah. I had the idea for the book already and then I had this dream about, I was just like a cartoon character and I was walking around a canvas putting my little red stick onto the canvas, painting different sections of it. Opposing me was walking around, was following me around, dabbing my canvas with a grey one.
Michael Smith: What a bastard!
Dan Norris: He was a bastard! But I didn't realize at the time they were both me. Eventually he just kept doing it and then all the color went out of mine and then I just stopped my creation.
Michael Smith: Wow.
Dan Norris: Then when I woke up I kind of realized that they were both me. It was just a matter or which one I was giving the attention to. I don't know why I put it as a first story in the book. I just kind of, I didn't have a better idea of what to put in there and I thought it's going to be very different for my audience to read that compared to reading this …
Like my audience, I've only ever done business books. I've never mentioned creativity or empathy or gratitude or any of these concepts that are in this book but I've been heavily influenced by my girlfriend who's into all this stuff so I thought it would be a cool way to put that in the book and set the tone.
Michael Smith: Yeah. I thought it was a great move and it helped connect with your intuitive side, your creative side.
Dan Norris: Yeah. I had some people, like I had some person snap me on Snapchat and said like, why did you put that at the start of the book? I replied and said just because I wanted to.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: It's my book.
Michael Smith: And how's this book done? It's been out for 2 weeks now.
Dan Norris: Yeah, it's been really cool. We did like a free giveaway for the first week. We had just under 12,000 downloads.
Michael Smith: Wow.
Dan Norris: After it went to paid on Amazon we were up to about 120 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.9 stars and ranking either 1 or 2 in creativity and innovation. It was in the startups ranking. A bunch of categories it got to number one which is, yeah. Super exciting. It's a really small book so it's not like your traditional book.
The other thing that is exciting about it is people are actually creating things. The whole point of the book was like, read this book as fast as you can – that's why it's short – and it hopefully will give you a burst of inspiration to just go and make something. That has happened. I've got people who have made tee shirts and pillow cases with Create or Hate branding on it. One lady made a necklace. One lady started a book and started a blog. Another person started a podcast. I know people are actually doing real things as a result which is like the ultimate indicator that something has worked.
Michael Smith: Yeah, and you get joy from seeing people create stuff from your books?
Dan Norris: Yeah, I mean that's really the only … I think the analytics and stuff because my brand works that way. I get excited about the line charts and the numbers and the conversions and the rankings and stuff. Really with the 7-Day Start Up book, the ultimate telling that that book had an impact is there's people who have started 7 figure businesses that read the book and started the business after that.
These people [inaudible 00:06:42] conference started after reading that book, and now a 6 figure business that everyone in this community has heard about and there's heaps of examples for that. The book sales are great but the actual action like the real action proved that people actually changed something as a result. That's the ultimate motivator, I think.
Michael Smith: Yeah, making a change in the world. Making a difference. That's a big motivator for a lot of us.
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: How much of this, when you're writing a book, how much of it is your logical brain and how much is the intuition and creative brain involved? It sounds like you've got both going on there.
Dan Norris: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. I think it's probably a combination of logic … Like, I do tend to analyze things so with the 7-Day start up I'm like well, how do I break this down? What do we do on day one? What do we do on day 2?
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: I also weave a story into it because I personally can't read a book unless it's got some sort of story, or multiple stories, in it. I just get bored.
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: I put it down, so I wanted to weave my story into it. Sometimes other stories like content machine. I had a bunch of case studies from other people and told their stories as well because I kind of got sick of just talking about myself all the time.
But yes, probably logical and I guess creative you could call it and and partly story telling I think is how I go about it. That's what works for me.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative). With this creative well hey, was that an inspiration you had?
Dan Norris: Yeah. There's really …
Michael Smith: Kind of came out of no where?
Dan Norris: Yeah and just float out like, it took me 3 days to write, which pisses a lot of people off who have spent years writing books. It just really like, I just …
Michael Smith: I guess you took your own medicine from the book. You just had to get it out.
Dan Norris: I had to. Yeah. I set myself a deadline which turned out to be like I needed to write 10,000 words, 2/3 of the book, on the day before the deadline I'd set. Because I said I'll have the first draft at the end of my 7-Day Start Up challenge and I was on day 6 and I wrote the first draft, had it done the next day. Once that was done, I knew it was going to be published.
Really, I don't know why I like that book, I just felt like I really wanted to write it because I know that's such a huge thing … Probably a bunch of reasons. One is I know it's such a huge thing for entrepreneurs like they just get stuck. There's never any logic to it. It's all in the head and if there's something that can get you out of that like I want to have that book and also I just thought it would be a cool topic for me to write about. It wasn't really business.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: I hadn't written about that before and … Actually there was 3 reasons. The other one is this book called Big Magic which, have you read that?
Michael Smith: It's on my Kindle list. I know it well.
Dan Norris: Yeah. That book, I didn't even know it was that.
Michael Smith: Oh wow.
Dan Norris: I just saw that book in an airport or somewhere and I'm like, oh that looks cool.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: I read that book and I was like, this is like the best book I've ever read. I loved it.
Michael Smith: Yeah. What did you love about it?
Dan Norris: I love the stories, I don't know. I think with books I'm not looking to get anything actionable out of books. I don't read that many books but when I do read, I'm really looking to like, at the end feel different about something or really get … I actually cried reading that book.
Michael Smith: Wow.
Dan Norris: When she told one of her stories.
Michael Smith: Yeah. She's a great story teller.
Dan Norris: She's very good and just, I mean, there's so much in that book just about reducing the pressure on yourself to create stuff. A lot of the messages in that book are the messages I wanted to give to my audience but I knew a lot of my audience are not going to buy a pink book written by the author of Eat, Pray, Love cause we're a bunch of dude online marketers for the most part.
A lot of people in my group do like the book but I wanted to write the self funded software start up version of that book.
Michael Smith: Right.
Dan Norris: I mean, that's a very big task to take on but it's just …
Michael Smith: Well hers is a much longer book too.
Dan Norris: Yeah. The other thing, there was also a couple of other books that I really liked that actually solve the problem that I'm trying to solve. One was the War of Art and the other one was Steal Like an Artist. They're very small and you can read it in an hour and a half and if you're stuck on doing whatever you're doing, it'll define that for you and it'll give you the motivation hopefully to get unstuck and just publish something.
I guess those are the inspirations and I thought it'd be really cool for me to write one of those books. I thought it would be fun to put out to my community.
Michael Smith: Yeah, well it's turned out to be fun and it's taken off, so this is cool. I know you have several businesses going. I think you've got like 3 or 4 businesses right now?
Dan Norris: Yeah, too many.
Michael Smith: Too many businesses, yes. What role does intuition versus logic play in your businesses?
Dan Norris: I think for the most part I'm pretty logical from my businesses. Where I really exercise intuition or creativity is in the self published stuff, in my content. With that kind of stuff like the Create to Hate book for example, that's not … There's nothing really driving that other than me just, I felt like writing that book.
Michael Smith: It's almost like the book wanted you to write it.
Dan Norris: Yeah. That's the other thing. That's the cool thing about … I had that story in there, which is a Wayne Dyer story who talked about that. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about that really powerfully in her books.
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: Steven Pressfield talks about that as well in interviews and is his book. Just like, you get that feeling where you're like, this needs to come out of me.
Michael Smith: Right.
Dan Norris: I don't really get that with my other businesses cause it's just logical, but I get it with my content. I kind of get in the flow zone with my books, and that's really the reason I write the books, is cause I enjoy the process of doing it.
I think for the books it's almost 100% like there's not really any motivation to write the books other than I feel like it wants to come out.
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: So I'd say close to 100% intuition. Business is probably not as much. I think at the early stage when you're brainstorming ideas and stuff probably a lot more. Once they get to the point where it's just operational doing your job, maybe not as much.
Michael Smith: When you created WP Curve, you did that in a week, right?
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: Some of that I've got to believe was creative spark and intuition as to what to do, some of it was logic.
Dan Norris: Possibly, yeah. I think a lot of it with a new business in the situation I where I was then which was like, I was desperate. I was desperate to start a business. I was going to have to go back and get a job.
Michael Smith: A job?
Dan Norris: A job, yes. I really didn't want that.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: That kind of came out of desperation. I guess there was some intuition, like I guess I had some intuition I guess from my audience some. There was a little bit of creativity in the business model cause that hadn't been done before, like the monthly unlimited thing.
Michael Smith: Yup.
Dan Norris: I think at the initial stages of businesses that is more present for me. Once it becomes operational and it's kind of business as usual like WP Curve, I'm not super involved in even Black Hops, the brewery I've got. The first year I'm in there. I'm thinking up all crazy ideas and doing all of that. Like thinking what's going to work and being close to the community trying to figure out what's going to get traction.
After it's all up and running and operational, I think that kind of tapers off a bit and I sort of become a little bit less interested.
Michael Smith: Yeah, you like creating and starting things, and the same maybe with the books. Sounds like you like the writing process and the promotion but then once the book's moving on, you …
Dan Norris: Yeah, I'm done. I'm onto the next thing.
Michael Smith: Yeah. Well, cool. Are there any other areas in your business that you use your intuition? Like hiring for example?
Dan Norris: Yeah, probably hiring. I think that's something I probably have to work on to be honest. I think there's a lot of examples where I've … It's a lesson I learned over and over again that initial gut reactions are always right.
Michael Smith: Really?
Dan Norris: Yeah. I keep making the mistake and I'm hoping to make the mistake less and less but it did happen recently when we made a hire and it just didn't feel like the right fit but we did it anyway because he had the right experience.
Michael Smith: Oh.
Dan Norris: I kind of knew it wasn't right but 2 months down the track we had to get rid of him, find someone else.
Michael Smith: How much did that cost you in terms of the time you spent hiring them, any advertising, the 2 months you invested in training him?
Dan Norris: I don't know, a lot. There's more than that too because the job, his job was to sell product and not enough product got sold.
Michael Smith: Want to put a rough figure on all that?
Dan Norris: I don't want to know.
Michael Smith: You don't want to? Well …
Dan Norris: I don't want to think about that.
Michael Smith: We're just going to draw it out of you then. I'm just going to think north of 50k.
Dan Norris: Yeah. Probably not. We dealt with it very quickly. It could have gone on a lot longer.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: It could be $10,000. Who knows. A lot more than it would have been if we had have just done the right thing.
Michael Smith: Well how much of your time got spent on this hire?
Dan Norris: Yeah, it's all the founders. It's their time. It's the opportunity cost of the job not getting done properly. It's also putting people through something that they shouldn't be put through.
Michael Smith: Yeah, it wasn't pleasant for the guy and for the team members probably got a little disillusioned through the whole process.
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: I think you're going to find that if you actually sat down – I know you don't want to – no one wants to go to the dentist but like, you got to find it's north of 10k.
Dan Norris: Yeah, you're probably right.
Michael Smith: Like well, well north. You're probably right. 2-3 months of time out of the business, opportunity cost, direct hire cost.
Dan Norris: You're probably right. I try not to think about that.
Michael Smith: Well, I'm just encouraging you to listen to your gut next time you're thinking of not listening to your gut so you can say oh I'm going to write a check out for 10k.
Dan Norris: Yeah. It's a thing you have to work on thought. It's sometimes you get feelings that you should listen to and sometimes you get feelings that you shouldn't listen to.
Michael Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yup.
Dan Norris: It's working that out. It's an ongoing process and something you need to get better at.
Michael Smith: Well what would it take for you to improve that process so you knew when to listen to your gut and when not?
Dan Norris: Next time, I think I'm just going to remember. I'm going to remember the pain of the mistake.
Michael Smith: Yeah.
Dan Norris: Experience is a great teacher.
Michael Smith: Yeah. I have a rule in hiring, if it's not a “hell yes,” then they're not hired.
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: Any doubt between me or any of the other team members doing the hiring. We don't have to be able to explain why, they're just not a hire.
Dan Norris: Yeah, that's a good rule.
Michael Smith: We may miss out on some good hires that way but we avoid hiring disasters.
Dan Norris: Yeah. It is hard to tell with hiring. It's kind of hard to tell whether someone's going to work out but in this case, looking back …
Michael Smith: I think your intuition always knows.
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: Have you ever kept a decision journal for that kind of thing where you wrote down here was my first impression, here was the logic behind why I took the decision, or … ?
Dan Norris: No, that's a good idea though.
Michael Smith: Yeah. That's a way to tune up your intuition and you can look back 6 months later and see, was that first impression right or was it confused for whatever reason?
Dan Norris: Yeah, that's a great idea. I will do that. I've never done that. I should do it because I know I change my mind a lot about stuff and I kind of forget decisions I've made and …
Michael Smith: Oh, we all do.
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: The first impressions are easy, they're just fleeting and they say in the first few seconds, that's the Malcolm Gladwell book Blink. He gives an example in there of he was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and they spent $2 million on some statue and all the experts said logically this is worth millions. Then someone else came in and within 2 seconds she was like, no this is fake. They dug into why she said that and they found that it was a fake and they spent $2 million on a fake statue.
Dan Norris: Oh god.
Michael Smith: Yeah. Even though the paperwork was real and …
Dan Norris: Yeah.
Michael Smith: It's definitely worth looking at that instant reaction again.
Dan Norris: Yeah. I'm going to try and prove that. I like the decision journal thing. I'm going to put that in my long list of notes to do after this conversation.
Michael Smith: Oh yeah, long list. Well, great. It's been wonderful talking with you Dan. Have you got any closing thoughts on intuition and business and logic you want to … ?
Dan Norris: I guess just like, keep working on it. Don't be afraid to get into the more spiritual, creative parts of a business. That's something that I've really only been thinking about in the last kind of year or so and I think that it's really changed me as a person an as an entrepreneur.
Michael Smith: How has it changed you?
Dan Norris: I just think I'm a better person. I think I'm much more empathetic towards other people. I think I'm much more grateful because I'm actually practicing some of these things now. I know what to do when I'm stressed out. I meditate more. All these things I never really used to do, never used to think about.
Michael Smith: Wow.
Dan Norris: If the person listening or reading isn't using that position, I would encourage them to explore some of those things.
Michael Smith: Yeah, no those are all great things to do. Help you get in touch with your creativity, with your intuition. If folks want to find Create or Hate, where would they go to to locate it?
Dan Norris: Yeah, just Createorhate.com and just on Amazon.
Michael Smith: Excellent. Well thanks very much Dan Norris.
Dan Norris: Cool, thanks Michael.