My Influences
There’s a lot of bullshit out there. A lot of bullshit artists selling bullshit through bullshit content.
This is my attempt to be intentional about the voices I want to influence my life. Not a full list (impossible) – just the people whose way of being has hit me hardest. The people I return to on purpose.
A few intentions for this page:
🥇 To not put anyone on a pedestal: Everyone is shitty, sometimes. I admire qualities, not perfect people.
🚥 To notice: The traits I notice and admire in others are hints at my deepest values and what I actually want in my life.
⏳ To filter. There are endless “takes” online. I need to be deliberate about who I let shape my thinking.
📍 To return. These influences are people whose work I can and should revisit.
⛰️ My Mt. Rushmore of Humans
Jon Batiste → Yes, I enjoy his music. But Jon Batiste inspires me mostly simply through the way he exists in the world. Zero pandering, just completely himself.
The message I get from his music is to completely embrace being who I am, because that person is uniquely interesting and incredible. I get this feeling from interviews (on Unspoken, The Tim Ferriss Show, Armchair Expert, and Design Matters) and through his music (Be Who You Are, Tell the Truth, Don’t Stop, Freedom).
Tim Ferriss → Tim has probably been the single biggest inspiration in my adult life:
Without The 4 Hour Workweek, I don’t think that I would have the outlook on work that I do. I’d probably be an employee somewhere rather than freelancing.
If it weren’t for his podcast, I wouldn’t have been introduced to 4/5 of the other names on this list. It’s also been extremely helpful in learning how many paths there are to success – there is no single way, and that’s extremely freeing.
The thing I have to recognize when listening to Tim though, is that I am not wired to be the record-everything, test-everything, optimize-everything type of guy that he seems to be. So, while I’ve learned a lot from Tim, I need to take some of what he says with a grain of salt.
Liz Gilbert → Her view of creativity has been extremely inspirational to me – viewing ideas as living things. In my interpretation, she thinks of us as simply being the vessels through which these ideas can move, when we allow them to. It means that we’re in collaboration with the ideas, not in control of them.
Liz also discusses how ideas can take lots of time to germinate. I like to think of them as “seeds” we plant that can lie dormant for years. You don’t force them to become reality by watering them. You simply allow life to rain on them until they’re ready to sprout one day.
She also lives, as far as I can tell, by a kind of radical intuition – making big life moves because they feel true rather than because they look sensible on paper. Inspiring, yet again.
David Whyte → His “conversational nature of reality” reshaped how I see the world: you want one thing, life wants another, and the magic is in the negotiation.
He’s also the type of writer, who by reading his work, helps you develop a wider and more refined perspective of the world.
Ari Shaffir → I love comedy. But I also dislike cynicism a lot. And there’s sadly a bunch of mainstream comedy that caters to a fanbase of cynics.
We only have one life, and I think that’s lame. But I also some sort of value in making fun of things – making fun of everything – a type of value that I can’t explain or don’t think it’s worth it.
That’s why I love Ari. He can make fun of life while fully living it. And appreciating it. And finding it curious.
I also believe he’s an example of someone who’s completely free. He’s broken through the shackles of society to the point where his true self can come out, at least that’s the way it feels through listening.
I heard this idea somewhere – I don’t know where – about how the self is contagious. When someone is completely who they are in that moment, not putting on airs… completely vulnerable, I think that’s something that is contagious.
A sort of allowance for other people to be themselves, too.