How I built a 1M+ subscriber newsletter and top 10 tech podcast | Lenny Rachitsky

10:23Michelle Rachitsky:I like it. Okay, cool. Do you still like it?

10:26Lenny Rachitsky:I do in almost every way. Like I can't imagine doing something more fulfilling and interesting. Just basically 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 just like so interesting. It's my own thing, which makes it extra interesting. but I think a lot about this artist Finch wrote this blog post how to become an artist and at the top of his post he's just like you probably you should not become a professional artist most likely because yeah because once it's a thing you have to do it changes it you have you know you have to do it so now I'm on this like 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.

11:22Lenny Rachitsky:You know, it's like this treadmill that you're on. So you have to kind of 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 kind of goes up and down sometimes. Like, 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 to do it this week. But that's part of this life, you know, 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 that's a part of it. So the visual I always have is the Indiana Jones boulder is chasing me constantly.

11:55Lenny Rachitsky:Because you put out something, like I have 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 the 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 a seven years old or a hundred years old or six years old, I don't know, like 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 like Substack writer podcast life long-term.

12:29Lenny Rachitsky:Like what do you do?

12:29Michelle Rachitsky:Like according to the Lindy, right? There you go. So 2019, now seven more years. Seven years since the newsletter. Seven years.

12:36Lenny Rachitsky:So I can, yeah. Good luck. Seven more years. Hope you don't run out of ideas. Okay, so we got seven years. I can do that.

12:42Michelle Rachitsky: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 like potty training, sleep, 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? And or are you just stressed and you don't show it?

13:07Lenny Rachitsky:I think there is an element of I'm more stressed than I come across as and even recognize with myself. Like 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 that 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. Like I just 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.

13:40Lenny Rachitsky: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 all right. That's some raw chicken. That'll be fine. That's fine.

13:51Michelle Rachitsky:So, okay. Do you have any tools or any kind of like, I know we've done different types of meditation. We've done breathing courses together. Do you have a favorite?

14:01Lenny Rachitsky:Oh, to calm down and de-stress and things like that.

14:04Michelle Rachitsky:And you did a 10-day silent meditation right before you ended up writing the post.

14:10Lenny Rachitsky:That's true. 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 was 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 like 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.

15:12Michelle Rachitsky:That made you write the post?

15:14Lenny Rachitsky:That made me feel like I can do this. Like it gave me the confidence that like 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 could do this thing. So that was a big moment.

15:28Michelle Rachitsky:What do you want to say to our mothers right now? Oh no! Do you want to take that back?

15:33Lenny Rachitsky:Do you want to take that back? No, no. Do you want to crop it out? This is, okay, mom, I did some stuff.

15:42Michelle Rachitsky:It's okay. Okay, so. It's time to share. And then, yeah, you've done meditation. You did 10-day meditation. You did a specific type of meditation that seemed to me to affect you in like physical ways. Yeah. And then you told me once about a happiness course you took.

15:58Lenny Rachitsky: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 you can increase your baseline level of happiness by doing a few things. And one of the things is just like thinking more positively, like thinking more optimistically. There's also like 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 this baseline level of happiness and you could be like at 100 you could be at zero probably more most people in between somewhere and like 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 kind of have a positive outlook and don't let your mind kind of spiral into these like it's going to be terrible.

17:03Lenny Rachitsky:So it was a lot of just like think more positively. And I feel like my baseline of level of happiness has gone up. And I think that, yeah, I think you told me exercise too,

17:13Michelle Rachitsky:like you used to run.

17:14Lenny Rachitsky: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 your negative one without exercise and exercise brings you to zero so that you're not depressed basically.

17:32Michelle Rachitsky:Speaking of stress.

17:33Lenny Rachitsky:Okay, then I have a question for you.

17:34Michelle Rachitsky:Oh, okay. Let's do this. Let's do this. Because I know on your podcast, you have a lightning round.

17:41Lenny Rachitsky:Okay.

17:43Michelle Rachitsky:We're going to do a thunder round.

17:44Lenny Rachitsky:Is that extra fast? What does that mean?

17:46Michelle Rachitsky: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?

17:56Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, it's like, it's funny to talk about it, but it's this, it's like this disorder. It's like 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.

18:11Michelle Rachitsky:Okay, 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? Like, best sound to worst sound. Right? So like 10 is worst. Okay. What are the best sounds? Okay, let's say chewing. Chewing 1 to 10.

18:30Lenny Rachitsky:Chewing with the mouth open. Chewing the worst. I hate it. 10 is the worst. 10 is the worst. It's 10, 9 or 10.

18:40Michelle Rachitsky:Or like nails on a chalkboard. What's that?

18:42Lenny Rachitsky:That's less bad for me.

18:43Michelle Rachitsky:Right. What's the number?

18:44Lenny Rachitsky: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.

18:56Michelle Rachitsky: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?

19:03Lenny Rachitsky:It's like six. I don't know. Five. What about? I don't mind this.

19:06Michelle Rachitsky:What about like a baby crying or your, what's a baby crying versus your baby crying?

19:10Lenny Rachitsky:Baby crying. Like, so 10 is the worst. Yeah. So like how loud? Like very loud.

19:15Michelle Rachitsky:Like in newborn phase, like didn't know what to do.

19:19Lenny Rachitsky:Oh, yeah. That was really, like when Jude was born. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's pretty hard. Thunder out. Okay. Like eight.

19:28Michelle Rachitsky:Okay. Okay. What about like when Jude says, papa?

19:33Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah. One. One is the best. Yeah.

19:36Michelle Rachitsky:Is there any other sound you...

19:38Lenny Rachitsky:Jude laughing?

19:39Michelle Rachitsky:Okay. Okay. I love it. What about like another bad sound? I don't know. Okay. You can ask me now if you want. Okay. If you're getting stressed.

19:50Lenny Rachitsky:No, no, no. Like there's not that many bad sounds. It's just like very specific about sounds that I'm just like. Basketball? You know, if there's just like, if I'm trying to come like be calm and there's like a bunch of commotion, like, OK, like a gas, you know, blower. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to work.

20:07Michelle Rachitsky:That's, I think, a notorious one for people. Is that a 10?

20:10Lenny Rachitsky:It's like if it's super loud and right in my face, I would say, let's say a 7. OK. Not so bad.

20:15Michelle Rachitsky:You can ask your question if you want or I have more for you.

20:17Lenny Rachitsky:I'm going to ask you a question. So you make these incredible, genius, funny charts. There's one example on 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 like they made this or just found it. and they cut out your attribution. They make pillows and mugs and there's like all these websites that sell all these charts you've made just like on swag that you get no credit for.

20:58Lenny Rachitsky:I know it's bothered you a lot over the years. What makes your charts so shareable so widely? Why do they go so viral so often?

21:06Michelle Rachitsky:By the way, I stopped looking at that because it doesn't help me.

21:11Lenny Rachitsky:That's good. I think that's for the best. Well, I think like, what's the good?

21:14Michelle Rachitsky:I think as your thing has gotten more successful, it's like not as important to me. I do think it's interesting that they are often like detached from me, which is, I don't know why, but, um, Yeah, people want to get credit. When they do. Um, 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, some like moment happens or I'm like, Oh no, this is what it needs. And then I'm like, now it's, now I can feel that's really good. And usually it's like, it's something that makes me laugh or cackle, even though I made it.

21:46Michelle Rachitsky:It's like, Like 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 like tear up. Then I feel like, OK, I think people are going to like this. I am often wrong. And sometimes, too, like 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 is like just a photo of a page of a book that people love.

22:09Lenny Rachitsky:Like it wasn't even like a digital high quality picture. It's just like some random photo. Yeah.

22:12Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah. Which is interesting as well. And 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's that isn't a lot of like physical labor, because some things you can make and it can take you forever to draw out because my brain does work in this like overthinking kind of way of like this, but then, oh, this and this.

22:52Michelle Rachitsky:People like it when it's really simple.

22:53Lenny Rachitsky:yeah i love your point about like the way you know a chart is done is intrinsically you feeling like this is hilarious this is makes you laugh makes you feel something and that's similar to the way i think about my newsletter post and yeah more the newsletter than the podcast is it just to me it feels like this is like really interesting and really good it's very like not waiting for other people to give you you know approval or feedback it's like i feel this 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're like, you think so many levels deep, they're like, they're like, so they're like too clever sometimes.

23:35Lenny Rachitsky:And I have to like, because to 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.

23:47Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, you're my editor. Sometimes I try.

23:50Lenny Rachitsky:But you're like, no, you're like, I don't care. I I don't care about your feedback.

23:53Michelle Rachitsky:You're usually probably right.

23:56Lenny Rachitsky: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 book. You're working on like charts for parents. You have all this other stuff going on. Where do your ideas come from, Michelle?

24:14Michelle Rachitsky: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 that 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.

24:56Michelle Rachitsky: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 more children's concepts. But the adult stuff has to be just through living life. It's noticing, yeah. Yeah, noticing.

25:15Lenny Rachitsky: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

25:37Michelle Rachitsky: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 rhythm in my head of children's books. And so what I just turned to the back of the notebook and started writing more like children's book rhymes involving charts.

26:10Lenny Rachitsky:This is the back of a notebook because you're working on a different book and you're just like...

26:13Michelle Rachitsky:In this notebook. Oh, this is the notebook? I picked it up to put my questions in for you. What? Yeah, and so I started off in the front. I'm not going to show you.

26:20Lenny Rachitsky:So you started in the front on a different idea.

26:22Michelle Rachitsky: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.

26:45Lenny Rachitsky: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. OK, back to you, Michelle.

26:59Michelle Rachitsky:Back to you. Back to me. Back to you, Lenny. Back to you through me. Yeah, exactly. OK, OK. Okay, so tell me about, 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 from?

27:18Lenny Rachitsky:And by the way, reverse nickname meaning they give you a nickname without you like asking them to?

27:21Michelle Rachitsky:Well, there's people who give you a nickname without you asking. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. He gives you the full name.

27:27Lenny Rachitsky:Oh, I see. Makes it long.

27:28Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah. It's not a thing. I'm just making it up. Okay, I like that.

27:33Lenny Rachitsky:But OK, so the question is my real name. So when I moved to the U.S. from the Ukraine, which we recently chatted about on a podcast with Boris, which turned out to be a big, big news. Odessa. Odessa, yeah. My parents named me Leonid was my real official first name in the U.S. 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. Leonard. No, Leo. Yeah.

28:04Michelle Rachitsky:Oh, yeah, Leonard. Just Lenny. Just Lenny. Yeah. I love it. And Leonid, as in it's a Russian name or there's also the like star constellation.

28:14Lenny Rachitsky:Oh, the Leonids? Leonids. I don't know. I think they just asked their friends just like, what is my Russian name is Leonia? 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 Leonid. I don't know if they named it after anything specific.

28:29Michelle Rachitsky:Can I share any of your nicknames? I'm going to assume no.

28:32Lenny Rachitsky:What are my nicknames? Okay, go for it. I don't know what they are.

28:36Michelle Rachitsky:Like Lunchik?

28:37Lenny Rachitsky:Okay, sure.

28:38Michelle Rachitsky:I could share that? Sure. Do you like it? Yeah. Can people call you that?

28:42Lenny Rachitsky:Well, it's like my family calls me that. Yeah, it's like a Russian little nickname. Lunchik.

28:47Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah. And you... Okay, but like strangers, can they call you that?

28:52Lenny Rachitsky:No, they'll call me that.

28:53Michelle Rachitsky:Okay. And speaking of strangers, how do you feel when people approach you? And is it weird at all? Like, like, like, does it remind you how big your newsletter has gotten? Or do you like it? Do you like certain ways of approaching it?

29:07Lenny Rachitsky: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. Like, interestingly, I had the newsletter for four years.

29:20Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, you got to be like, you got to be stealth.

29:22Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah. Like my face was tiny and some Twitter profile. but 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 so I'm just trying to say hi to me so please say hi okay that's great and I I often ask people what's their favorite podcast episode or favorite newsletter because I'm just curious.

29:56Lenny Rachitsky:I always ask just like your founder, your product person, like what's your story? Yeah.

30:00Michelle Rachitsky:What about if you're in the middle of like if you're like at a coffee shop and you have headphones on and somebody says like, hey, or if you're like playing with your kid, what do you think?

30:07Lenny Rachitsky:I think you're projecting. 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.

30:21Michelle Rachitsky:Or you're like in a focus.

30:22Lenny Rachitsky:suits yeah but but then 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 say

30:33Michelle Rachitsky:yeah that's cool yeah that was so cool i like that yeah is there any like instance of delightful

30:38Lenny Rachitsky: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 in San Francisco. It was in San Anselmo. I was shocked. And then he just kept, he like held up traffic just to say hello. I'm like, oh my God.

31:10Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, I wouldn't do that.

31:11Lenny Rachitsky: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.

31:21Michelle Rachitsky:I love that. Okay. You just said something. Okay. People coming up to you. Okay. You're going to have to cut this.

31:31Lenny Rachitsky:See, no, we're not going to cut it because this is what I go through too. As a podcast interviewer.

31:36Michelle Rachitsky:I thought of something. I lost it.

31:38Lenny Rachitsky:This is what I'm constantly dealing with. 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 either stop and you're like, oh, shit, what's it going to be? So that's why when I do the podcast, I'm secretly writing notes to myself constantly. So, okay. Chicken notes?

31:56Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, well, okay. I closed my, okay. I should have written it down. Let's talk about, like, thinking back to what kind of hints that you would start this newsletter or, like, things that you worked on when you were younger that are mildly adjacent or, like, you know, because you had some websites. You had Atheist Spot. You had like you had some tutorials. Tutorials. That's one.

32:25Lenny Rachitsky:So the question is like, what are the things I did earlier that helped me with the work? I do know.

32:29Michelle Rachitsky: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.

32:37Lenny Rachitsky: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 kind of stay behind the scenes. So it's 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.

33:08Lenny Rachitsky:I didn't have to go anywhere and like, hello, everyone. I could stay like 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, like through college, I guess. Yeah, through college. I was like a very big atheist and I'm still an atheist, Jewish atheist, which is many Jews. But I was like very into it before and now I'm like, okay, I don't care, whatever. Believe it, you're on a 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.

33:47Lenny Rachitsky: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 I worked with a friend on this other project called U-torials, which was so ahead of its time. The idea was U-torials, tutorials for you by you.

34:24Lenny Rachitsky:Nice. And so it's people contributing things they've learned and writing a how-to, like how to make eggs, how to take a quick shower.

34:32Michelle Rachitsky:That's like TikTok, right? It's like TikTok. It was before Wikipedia, I think. No, no, no, yeah.

34:37Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, it's like YouTube. It's like, yeah.

34:39Michelle Rachitsky:That's like what I watch TikTok for is like watching people make.

34:42Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, and parenting advice and things to be afraid of. Yeah, and Dan's videos, yeah.

34:47Michelle Rachitsky:That's what your thing was or that's what TikTok is? That's what TikTok is, right?

34:50Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah. So yeah, I was really proud of that. Yeah.

34:53Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah. It sounds like it was ahead of its time. And we paid people. And LocalMind was ahead of its time.

34:57Lenny Rachitsky: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.

35:07Michelle Rachitsky:I still need it. I still need it.

35:09Lenny Rachitsky:Like 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 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?

35:25Michelle Rachitsky:We just use that, basically.

35:26Lenny Rachitsky: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. It was amazing. Nobody needs it, really.

35:36Michelle Rachitsky:If there's still things you want to ask people.

35:38Lenny Rachitsky:You need it like once in a while. You need like once a quarter and it's holy shit, 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.

36:22Lenny Rachitsky:To learn more, visit DX's website at getdx.com slash Lenny. That's getdx.com slash Lenny.

36:30Michelle Rachitsky:Okay, so you were 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.

36:41Lenny Rachitsky:On a platform called How About We.

36:44Michelle Rachitsky:And I remember that, I mean, you had other dates. Where's this going? Anyway, no. But I remember you were like, I think you had a thing for designers. Yeah. And I wonder if you regret that preference. Like designer artist sort of like. No, not at all. Stereotype. No, no. Like I'm not like, like you're pretty neat.

37:08Lenny Rachitsky: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.

37:18Michelle Rachitsky:Like you're unstressed, unbothered. I'm bothered. Yeah. I'm stressed. There's things everywhere. Yeah.

37:25Lenny Rachitsky:We got cleaners. They help things out. Yeah. Yeah. It's true.

37:28Michelle Rachitsky:You know. It's worth it. Okay. So you're okay with designers still. Good. And then as a wife, I highly recommend. Okay. Yeah. Great. So yeah, I was going to ask, like, do you have any tips for, cause it's like, it's, you know, there's, there's something you said recently, which is like, you don't have any coworkers. I was like, I'm a coworker. We work at home. But yeah. Do you feel, do you ever feel like lonely? Not because you were always really social. And then this goes into two, like even before you were niche famous or whatever if we want to call it. Yeah, that's how I describe it. People are always coming up to you on the street like, hey!

38:04Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, from Airbnb. From Airbnb because you're organizing things. And do you feel like you miss office culture?

38:12Lenny Rachitsky: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...

38:25Michelle Rachitsky:Our dog likes to be right next to you.

38:27Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah. Yeah. He's 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.

38:42Michelle Rachitsky:Well, you like to go to coffee shops.

38:43Lenny Rachitsky: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, is that the good metaphor? And you have your headphones. 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 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?

39:13Lenny Rachitsky: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.

39:38Michelle Rachitsky: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.

39:50Lenny Rachitsky:Absolutely.

39:50Michelle Rachitsky:So 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.

39:59Lenny Rachitsky:Like, I know if I know that, like, yeah, yeah, this is a big problem for me. 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?

40:15Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, sometimes I feel like the Devil Wears Prada assistant where I'm like, that's Emily. You worked with her on Airbnb.

40:23Lenny Rachitsky:Wait, you don't do that. You need to do that.

40:25Michelle Rachitsky:I do it sometimes.

40:26Lenny Rachitsky:You do that sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, so bad at that. Okay, so if you come up to me and you say hello and I don't recognize you, please, sorry. I'm really bad at it. And yeah, it's gotten worse because now I know more people through the podcast and newsletter.

40:38Michelle Rachitsky:And you just know a lot of people.

40:40Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, it's like a lot of faces.

40:43Michelle Rachitsky:You're very kind to people like you. I try. Yeah. I try. 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.

40:59Lenny Rachitsky:Okay. So on the business side, 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, mobbing, lovable, replet, gamma. I stopped doing this because there's too many now. 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 Replit and VZero. I think that's five. And so that was way too good an offer. People came for it. Bad people.

41:38Lenny Rachitsky: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 was 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, Este, who's so incredible. And he like 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 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 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 shit you get a year free of cursor and lovable and replin and bolt and v0 and uh so So it was very stressful.

42:47Lenny Rachitsky: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.

43:05Michelle Rachitsky:And normally I feel like I would tell the story, but... You weren't awake. But this is also like when Harry met Sally, but it's like how the pregnant person almost died. You know, but OK, but it's from your perspective because I didn't get to experience it. Right. So.

43:21Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah. So what happened is we had to do a cesarean. They gave you an. 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.

43:41Michelle Rachitsky:With your scrubs. They gave me a whole bunny suit.

43:44Lenny Rachitsky: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 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 were 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

44:16Michelle Rachitsky:what was going on that didn't sound good nobody told you anything nobody's telling me anything

44:19Lenny Rachitsky: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 here 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 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. You know, we're in a hospital.

44:50Lenny Rachitsky: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 so 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 like 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 was going on.

45:17Michelle Rachitsky:And you got to hold the baby for like 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. you know because you're now for now you know you're a sweet sweet guy but yeah it's uh yeah that was really scary stressful yeah because it's like it's gonna be okay yeah that was that was

45:43Lenny Rachitsky:the thing to help 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 that anesthesiologist said it was a one in 50 000 chance and it's like the worst scenario that is very rare and very dangerous. And so it was extremely scary. And luckily he did a great job and everyone's like, he killed it. He knew exactly what to do. He handled it really well.

46:10Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah.

46:10Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah.

46:11Michelle Rachitsky:And I don't have any memory. You don't remember this? It numbed my lungs and I was like, I can't breathe. And then I numbed my spinal, what is it? Brain stem. And then I passed out.

46:24Lenny Rachitsky:How about that?

46:25Michelle Rachitsky:How about that? I didn't have to get to have any. yeah how does it looking back are you we don't have to talk about it okay like you know yeah it's uh 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 is more 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.

47:03Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, she's like a nurse back then.

47:05Michelle Rachitsky:Anyway, stressful moment. Yeah, so you used your tools.

47:10Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, I used my tools. Otherwise, you know, that's a good point because it could have been like spiral. Like, oh my God. We had a doula, but she had left. The doula was going to be there, yeah. But for Caesarian, she's like, it can't be her. Yeah. No. Okay, I want to ask you a question, but unless you have something we want to follow up with. 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 that are like, oh my God, that's so genius. And watching you come up with it is so wild because you just like, it pops out of nowhere.

47:39Lenny Rachitsky: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.

47:50Michelle Rachitsky:Coffee is like, it's like not too much. 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.

47:57Lenny Rachitsky: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 Ballmer related. But yeah, so the Bomber Peak of coffee.

48:14Michelle Rachitsky:I have one like that about coffee, but it's not. It's made out of a little coffee straw and it's like.

48:17Lenny Rachitsky:we're going to show this on YouTube if you're watching this so you can see the chart.

48:20Michelle Rachitsky: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 spider webs. And it's like this is a spider web that ingested some LSD and stuff. Yeah, and then this is a 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.

48:56Michelle Rachitsky:And I have some really good seeds of ideas in those moments. Then I have to go like scream into a pillow or something.

49:04Lenny Rachitsky:Was that when you have too much coffee? That's when I have too much coffee.

49:07Michelle Rachitsky:But if there's a point like right before that. So single shot latte. Single shot is what I get. Single shot latte. At least an hour. sometimes it's good to have like somewhere I have to be to a time limit and then I'm kind of like I feel like a machine and 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

49:57Lenny Rachitsky: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

50:10Michelle Rachitsky:yeah you're born in podesa 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 we didn't just arrive right from venezuela or ukraine so it's like not yeah the same. So we have to like almost make them feel okay. Like it's okay. I mean, my family still lives in Venezuela, but.

50:44Lenny Rachitsky:Okay. So I asked you a question. Okay. Oh. That's back to you. Okay.

50:48Michelle Rachitsky:Great.

50:49Lenny Rachitsky: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 like neuro stimulation. I don't know. Single shot. Just enough. I like this deadline piece. That was really interesting.

51:01Michelle Rachitsky:It's like not too much time. Not like not 30 minutes. Although that But that can be why I'm late often is I'm 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.

51:24Lenny Rachitsky:Interesting. OK, so those are two elements. And then was there another for optimal creativity?

51:30Michelle Rachitsky:Oh, 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 know, you have no ideas. You just have the like frantic piece of the caffeine, the like mental energy.

51:44Lenny Rachitsky:Anything else? This is really interesting. I think just the idea of what is what creates creativity.

51:49Michelle Rachitsky:Just like experiences. Experiences and thinking and almost like thinking too much about them.

51:54Lenny Rachitsky:I like that. Maybe overthinking.

51:56Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah. Right.

51:58Lenny Rachitsky:Back to you, Michelle Rial.

51:59Michelle Rachitsky:Oh, back to me, to you? Yeah. 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. I 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. Church for Babies. To read to. And also like. Coming out in April. And also maybe you could, you could do more than one because that, you know, they like,

52:29Lenny Rachitsky:maybe there's one when he was a baby like i feel like a chart is and you never take my ideas because

52:35Michelle Rachitsky:i feel like you don't want to i don't want it to be your ideas yeah but i feel like there's a

52:40Lenny Rachitsky: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 great. Are they sweet? They're like actually not sweet. You're right. There's like death in all of them. Yeah. They all end in death.

53:04Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah. Like Jude's new thing is like, he ate the bunny.

53:07Lenny Rachitsky:Is it the bear? The bear book? Yeah. Like he stole my hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like we start the book and he's like, he ate the bunny. Where's the bunny? Like in his belly.

53:17Michelle Rachitsky: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?

53:26Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, like Dr. Seuss, I think we similarly feel. It's like way too long as one because it's like 50 pages, 60 pages. A lot of words to say. Yeah, it's a lot of words. And there's just like all these made up animals. And he's like, what's a zong?

53:42Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah.

53:42Lenny Rachitsky:Like, there, that's a zong.

53:43Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah, you're like trying to teach them real things in the world. And then he's like, what was that, Tale of Zongs? Like, what?

53:48Lenny Rachitsky:Vipper from VIP? Yeah. No.

53:50Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah.

53:51Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah. I don't know. I don't like that. But we like reading them. Yeah, there's like a rhythm.

53:55Michelle Rachitsky: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?

54:13Lenny Rachitsky:You know, like product management is all about influence. And that's basically parenting.

54:20Michelle Rachitsky:That's why he likes you better.

54:22Lenny Rachitsky:Why? Because I get influence. But you also have to make him do stuff, you know? Yeah. Yeah. They're like, you do have authority, you know, all the responsibility without the authority, but you do have authority. So it's easier. They have the authority. That's true. That's true. Just like, no, you sit there.

54:39Michelle Rachitsky: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 make you make him like the like, here's how if bedtime gets too long, you're like, here's how bedtime is going to go. We're going to 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 happened. You're like, no, I read a book on it. I read three books on it. And this is how we're going to do it. And and that's and it's going to work.

55:07Michelle Rachitsky:Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Right. Yeah.

55:10Lenny Rachitsky:I'm not like 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. Right.

55:19Michelle Rachitsky:Shorten bedtime, sleep through the night. Right. Yeah.

55:22Lenny Rachitsky: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.

55:29Michelle Rachitsky:Small eye roll. And OK, 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, however many years, like 10, still, I don't think I know what product management is. Can you tell me in five words?

55:48Lenny Rachitsky:That's hilarious. OK, I will. My words are impact. collaboration judgment alignment and this is a really good question and it's almost like the order is like 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

56:15Michelle Rachitsky:I think that's five

56:16Lenny Rachitsky:organizing planning outcomes problems i am just tuned out there's somebody here's 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

56:36Michelle Rachitsky:i'll give you my definition of product management yeah but you can't say mini ceo no no mini ceo

56:41Lenny Rachitsky:that's that's not cool okay although i actually do think is pm is a mini ceo like i think people

56:46Michelle Rachitsky:keep saying you're not but i think you are yeah you can't say like not a project project manager

56:51Lenny Rachitsky: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. That's many words.

57:06Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah.

57:08Lenny Rachitsky:You're like, this is why I never know what it is. It's so boring. What are you even talking about?

57:13Michelle Rachitsky:Cool.

57:13Lenny Rachitsky:like this comes back to the mini co 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 the 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

57:39Michelle Rachitsky:as uh the i guess you are i'm everything you know like in my current world right editor-in-chief

57:45Lenny Rachitsky:too editor-in-chief yeah yeah yeah but i have a copy editor of an editor so yeah i've helped 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 It's just like how to succinctly communicate points so that people grasp them.

58:11Michelle Rachitsky:That's like...

58:12Lenny Rachitsky:Whoa, look at this. We're the same. Introducing.

58:18Michelle Rachitsky:The key is just communicating something simply.

58:22Lenny Rachitsky:Wow. Well, let me ask you one more question. So maybe 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?

58:35Michelle Rachitsky: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 uh 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 finished it but it's you know it still takes about a year to to come out after that but yeah it's it was this like uh 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.

59:49Michelle Rachitsky:And it came really quickly, the first draft. And yeah, and it also, 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, you know, because at the time it was kind of like girls weren't encouraged necessarily to be good at math. So 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 then he gets a little older and then that helped me work on the 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

1:00:56Lenny Rachitsky: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 because you had a children's book like you 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

1:01:15Michelle Rachitsky: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 a lot of books and it um it

1:01:28Lenny Rachitsky: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 like real life doing the thing. Like at this point, most of my posts are guest posts where somebody's 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.

1:02:02Lenny Rachitsky: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

1:02:09Michelle Rachitsky:thinking you know what you're doing and communicating it simply simply and just like

1:02:15Lenny Rachitsky:refining you don't even get into just all the work that goes into refining and then yeah we always

1:02:18Michelle Rachitsky:you always talk about like yeah and another thing i do is like i often make 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

1:02:52Lenny Rachitsky: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

1:03:07Michelle Rachitsky:like 60 i was gonna say 100 okay that's probably the real answer but i can't even physically do

1:03:14Lenny Rachitsky:that it's like i 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 there's like something that's the beginnings and then read through it and add to it read through it out to it read through it, add to it, 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 helped me.

1:03:36Michelle Rachitsky:You don't do that with your emails though. I, no, I should. I do do that with my emails, which it should be, I shouldn't be doing that. Like I read them over and over and over. You do? Okay.

1:03:46Lenny Rachitsky:I used to, I used to.

1:03:48Michelle Rachitsky:But no, I do. I, yeah.

1:03:49Lenny Rachitsky:Anyway.

1:03:50Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah.

1:03:50Lenny Rachitsky:Anything else?

1:03:51Michelle Rachitsky:Oh, I mean, yeah. Let me, you plug, do you want to plug?

1:03:55Lenny Rachitsky:Absolutely. Uh, when is it coming out?

1:03:56Michelle Rachitsky:April 7th. April 7th.

1:03:58Lenny Rachitsky:So it's like a few weeks, I think, from when this comes out. Assuming this comes out. Yeah.

1:04:02Michelle Rachitsky:We'll see how it turns out. We're going to check it out.

1:04:04Lenny Rachitsky: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.

1:04:12Michelle Rachitsky:April 7th.

1:04:12Lenny Rachitsky:April 7th. Yeah. All your favorite retailers.

1:04:15Michelle Rachitsky:Yep. Local bookstores. Local bookstores. Wherever you buy your book.

1:04:19Lenny Rachitsky:What's the age range of kids?

1:04:20Michelle Rachitsky: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, 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 baby. Not really anymore. The baby. Like the baby. Oh, for sure. Yeah. But he's like almost three. And so, yeah, it could be like I would say zero to four. And yeah, you know what? Should I grab it?

1:04:49Lenny Rachitsky:Yeah, let's grab it. Let's just break the frame.

1:04:52Michelle Rachitsky:People on the recording hit. But the first like the end paper is what this is called. It shows all the things you can learn. Sizes, shapes, lines, numbers, directions, feelings, colors, amounts, sharing, concepts, relationships, opposites. Anyway, I'm not good at self-promotion, clearly. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's a lot of learning.

1:05:11Lenny Rachitsky:It's beautiful. It's hilarious. It's clever.

1:05:15Michelle Rachitsky:It's early learning concepts. Funny. It's simply illustrated. Check it out. It rhyming. We'll lead to it. Yeah.

1:05:21Lenny Rachitsky:Congrats on releasing this book. Thank you. It was a lot of work.

1:05:23Michelle Rachitsky:Thanks. It was a lot of work. I did have a lot of iterations.

1:05:27Lenny Rachitsky:The secret to success.

1:05:28Michelle Rachitsky:Yeah.

1:05:30Lenny Rachitsky:Iteration, editing.

1:05:31Michelle Rachitsky:Editing. Okay. Spending more time is what your old boss used to say. Spend more time on it. Spend more time. Vlad. Yeah.

1:05:37Lenny Rachitsky:Anyway.

1:05:37Michelle Rachitsky:Okay. All good? We done?

1:05:40Lenny Rachitsky:Michelle, thank you so much for being here.

1:05:42Michelle Rachitsky:Thank you for having me.

1:05:43Lenny Rachitsky: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?

1:05:49Michelle Rachitsky: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. Yeah. I don't know when this will be out. You can either pre-order it or order it. Great. Yeah.

1:06:07Lenny Rachitsky:Parentheses pre, but order. Yeah. Michelle, thanks for being here.

1:06:10Michelle Rachitsky:And I hope you like it. And thank you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I know you have a high bar.

1:06:17Lenny Rachitsky:Absolutely. You hit it.

1:06:18Michelle Rachitsky:Okay, Great. And yeah, I hope you were okay with the interview.

1:06:23Lenny Rachitsky: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.