Crazy Wisdom

Crazy Wisdom

Can you view stress as a motivator instead of as a disease? - Keith Rabois of Founders Fund

May 22, 2018 · 44 min

MP3 · Apple Podcasts · Spotify

About this episode

One of the most powerful lessons I learned from this interview is that Keith is a relentless self-experimenter. Everything he talks about in this interview he has tested on himself. What of the most effective ways to learn is to learn the hard lessons from other people so you don't have to learn them yourself the hard way. Keith offers a lot of wisdom here for you to absorb.Keith suggested the book "The Upside of Stress" to me on our twitter exchange. This book basically says that the conventional wisdom that stress is harmful is totally crazy. Instead, stress is an inevitable part of being human and that the stress response can be a huge tool for growth when you view stress not as a threat but as a challenge. We talk a lot about this.We also talk a lot about the evidence behind High Intensity Interval Training and how it can lead to feeling better throughout your life. Keith gives a lot of wisdom about his own HIIT practice and how it helps him to stay productive throughout the day.

Episode transcript
Guest00:00

Is that the most creative people on the planet generally succeed by producing more works of art than the less creative people. So most of the people that are famous, the Beethovens, Mozarts, et cetera, actually, or Thomas Edison, however you want to think about it, in different fields, actually succeeded by producing just more output than other artists. And then some fraction of that output was incredibly high quality. So it's not as if they were sitting around brainstorming all day and then they have this epiphany and they produce piece and out as the masterpiece. Although there are some examples in the creative world of that. More of the most famous world class creative types are just actually producing a lot at a velocity that's unprecedented for their field.

Stewart Alsop III00:49

Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom podcast where I interview creative people about the stress that comes from living a life of creative work. I search for tips and strategies for how to integrate and work with the inherent stress that comes from creating that which you are here to create. Today I interviewed Keith Raboy, the legendary tech investor and entrepreneur who had key roles at PayPal, LinkedIn and Square. He agreed to come on my show after I confronted him about his views on work life balance on Twitter. Since this debate, my own views on stress have come to a 180 degree turn. And I now view the stress response as a beneficial tool that evolution has bestowed on us. To live in a world that is inherently uncertain, it's a gift. Use it like one. If you like this episode, please consider subscribing on itunes by searching for Crazy Wisdom and hitting the subscribe button. You can also find me on Instagram by searching for ogastew. Thank you and have a wonderful day. So what's your name?

Your first full transcript is free. After that, an email opens every transcript in the index — a list of readers we can write to, not a guest book.

Subscribe