20 Minute Playbook: Tactics, Routines, and Habits of World-Class Performers Outlier Academy

“There’s a stereotype of creatives, which is that they’re just flying by the seat of their pants. I’m here to tell you that it’s absolutely not true. We need to separate that from what creativity is. We need to decouple this ridiculous stereotype so that more people can blossom creatively.” — Joey Cofone
Joey Cofone shares the lessons he’s learned as an award-winning designer, the Founder & CEO of Baronfig, and the author of The Laws of Creativity, including why he’s fascinated with the juxtaposition between skill and renown, how he worked with James Clear to design the Clear Habit Journal, why experimentation is Baronfig’s most important value, how rock bottom taught him how to take risks, and so much more.

Explore the episode notes.
Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/123.

Chapters
In this episode, we deconstruct Steve Vassallo’s peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. In it we cover:
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:03:52) Translating non-human languages
(00:06:35) Having insatiable curiosity and a deep love of building hard things
(00:08:27) Investment philosophy can be distilled down to conviction
(00:10:21) You can always find a way to build something you’ve already sold, but you can’t always sell something you’ve already built
(00:12:08) Enlightened procrastination
(00:14:44) Thinking, Fast and Slow
(00:17:10) Invest in people you want to work with
(00:21:01) Take stock of what you’re granting your attention to

About Steve Vassallo, General Partner at Foundation Capital.
Steve Vassallo has been a general partner at Foundation Capital for the last 15 years. At Foundation, he's led the firm's investments in Stripe, Cerebra, Sunrun, Loft Orbital, Solana, and many other incredible firms. Steve is also the author of The Way to Design, which is a guide to how companies of all sizes should approach design. The book is a compendium of interviews with more than 50 designers, design scholars and tech founders who have gotten design right from day one.
Steve began his career at IDEO where he worked closely with IDEO's founder, David Kelly, to research design and deliver innovative products and services across industries. Because of Steve's early experiences at IDEO he's drawn to product-centric founders and has a wonderful knack for bringing design and engineering together to create incredible products.
In this episode, we cover why Steve has been fascinated with the wicked problems that exist in Crypto and why he thinks we're still in the earliest innings there. He talks about his work with the earth species project, whose goal is to decode non-human language in mammals of all sizes from whales to monkeys. Talks about how he combines insatiable curiosity and a deep love of building hard things in his investing work. He shares his advice for founders and investors, and he shares his favorite books, including why he loves Thinking Fast and Slow and Poor Charlie's Almanack.

Watch and listen.
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“There’s a stereotype of creatives, which is that they’re just flying by the seat of their pants. I’m here to tell you that it’s absolutely not true. We need to separate that from what creativity is. We need to decouple this ridiculous stereotype so that more people can blossom creatively.” — Joey Cofone
Joey Cofone shares the lessons he’s learned as an award-winning designer, the Founder & CEO of Baronfig, and the author of The Laws of Creativity, including why he’s fascinated with the juxtaposition between skill and renown, how he worked with James Clear to design the Clear Habit Journal, why experimentation is Baronfig’s most important value, how rock bottom taught him how to take risks, and so much more.

Explore the episode notes.
Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/123.

Chapters
In this episode, we deconstruct Steve Vassallo’s peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. In it we cover:
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:03:52) Translating non-human languages
(00:06:35) Having insatiable curiosity and a deep love of building hard things
(00:08:27) Investment philosophy can be distilled down to conviction
(00:10:21) You can always find a way to build something you’ve already sold, but you can’t always sell something you’ve already built
(00:12:08) Enlightened procrastination
(00:14:44) Thinking, Fast and Slow
(00:17:10) Invest in people you want to work with
(00:21:01) Take stock of what you’re granting your attention to

About Steve Vassallo, General Partner at Foundation Capital.
Steve Vassallo has been a general partner at Foundation Capital for the last 15 years. At Foundation, he's led the firm's investments in Stripe, Cerebra, Sunrun, Loft Orbital, Solana, and many other incredible firms. Steve is also the author of The Way to Design, which is a guide to how companies of all sizes should approach design. The book is a compendium of interviews with more than 50 designers, design scholars and tech founders who have gotten design right from day one.
Steve began his career at IDEO where he worked closely with IDEO's founder, David Kelly, to research design and deliver innovative products and services across industries. Because of Steve's early experiences at IDEO he's drawn to product-centric founders and has a wonderful knack for bringing design and engineering together to create incredible products.
In this episode, we cover why Steve has been fascinated with the wicked problems that exist in Crypto and why he thinks we're still in the earliest innings there. He talks about his work with the earth species project, whose goal is to decode non-human language in mammals of all sizes from whales to monkeys. Talks about how he combines insatiable curiosity and a deep love of building hard things in his investing work. He shares his advice for founders and investors, and he shares his favorite books, including why he loves Thinking Fast and Slow and Poor Charlie's Almanack.

Watch and listen.
Watch this episode on YouTube
Find this episode in your favorite podcast app
Get new episodes delivered via email

Brought to you by HVMN. With Ketone-IQ, fuel your best anytime with a boost of awesome-feeling energy and clarity. Unlock the power of nature's superfuel—no fasting or keto diet required.
Advertise with Outliers and reach our global community
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“There’s a stereotype of creatives, which is that they’re just flying by the seat of their pants. I’m here to tell you that it’s absolutely not true. We need to separate that from what creativity is. We need to decouple this ridiculous stereotype so that more people can blossom creatively.” — Joey Cofone
Joey Cofone shares the lessons he’s learned as an award-winning designer, the Founder & CEO of Baronfig, and the author of The Laws of Creativity, including why he’s fascinated with the juxtaposition between skill and renown, how he worked with James Clear to design the Clear Habit Journal, why experimentation is Baronfig’s most important value, how rock bottom taught him how to take risks, and so much more.

Explore the episode notes.
Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/141.

Chapters
(00:00:00) - Introduction
(00:01:08) - Wrestling with Skill vs Renown
(00:02:57) - Why People Would Be Surprised at Joey Cofone’s Daily Discipline
(00:04:04) - Why Joey Cofone Has Been Tracking His Habits for 13 Years
(00:05:21) - Joey Cofone’s Favorite Baronfig Products
(00:07:23) - How Joey Cofone and James Clear Designed the Clear Habit Journal
(00:10:46) - The Laws of Creativity by Joey Cofone in 90 Seconds
(00:12:51) - How Rock Bottom Taught Joey Cofone How to Take Risks
(00:16:07) - Why the Most Important Value at Baronfig is Experimentation
(00:22:08) - Joey Shares His Favorite Books Including Radical Candor and The Phantom Tollbooth
(00:23:47) - Joey Cofone’s Favorite Advice From His Barber and Malcom Gladwell
(00:26:11) - How Joey Cofone Learns From Failure at Baronfig

About Joey Cofone, Founder & CEO of Baronfig.
Joey Cofone is the Founder & CEO of Baronfig and an award-winning designer and entrepreneur. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, Bon Appétit, Quartz, Mashable, Gizmodo, and Print, among others. Joey was named a New Visual Artist and, separately, Wunderkind designer by Print magazine.
He strives to make work that appeals to curious minds—work that’s beautiful, smart, and communicative. He believes that design is the least of a designer’s worries, that story is at the heart of all tasks, and jumping off cliffs is the only way to grow.

Watch and listen.
Watch this episode on YouTube
Find this episode in your favorite podcast app
Get new episodes delivered via email

Brought to you by HVMN. With Ketone-IQ, fuel your best anytime with a boost of awesome-feeling energy and clarity. Unlock the power of nature's superfuel—no fasting or keto diet required.
Advertise with Outliers and reach our global community
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“There’s a stereotype of creatives, which is that they’re just flying by the seat of their pants. I’m here to tell you that it’s absolutely not true. We need to separate that from what creativity is. We need to decouple this ridiculous stereotype so that more people can blossom creatively.” — Joey Cofone
Joey Cofone shares the lessons he’s learned as an award-winning designer, the Founder & CEO of Baronfig, and the author of The Laws of Creativity, including why he’s fascinated with the juxtaposition between skill and renown, how he worked with James Clear to design the Clear Habit Journal, why experimentation is Baronfig’s most important value, how rock bottom taught him how to take risks, and so much more.

Explore the episode notes.
Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/141.

Chapters
(00:00:00) - Introduction
(00:01:08) - Wrestling with Skill vs Renown
(00:02:57) - Why People Would Be Surprised at Joey Cofone’s Daily Discipline
(00:04:04) - Why Joey Cofone Has Been Tracking His Habits for 13 Years
(00:05:21) - Joey Cofone’s Favorite Baronfig Products
(00:07:23) - How Joey Cofone and James Clear Designed the Clear Habit Journal
(00:10:46) - The Laws of Creativity by Joey Cofone in 90 Seconds
(00:12:51) - How Rock Bottom Taught Joey Cofone How to Take Risks
(00:16:07) - Why the Most Important Value at Baronfig is Experimentation
(00:22:08) - Joey Shares His Favorite Books Including Radical Candor and The Phantom Tollbooth
(00:23:47) - Joey Cofone’s Favorite Advice From His Barber and Malcom Gladwell
(00:26:11) - How Joey Cofone Learns From Failure at Baronfig

About Joey Cofone, Founder & CEO of Baronfig.
Joey Cofone is the Founder & CEO of Baronfig and an award-winning designer and entrepreneur. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, Bon Appétit, Quartz, Mashable, Gizmodo, and Print, among others. Joey was named a New Visual Artist and, separately, Wunderkind designer by Print magazine.
He strives to make work that appeals to curious minds—work that’s beautiful, smart, and communicative. He believes that design is the least of a designer’s worries, that story is at the heart of all tasks, and jumping off cliffs is the only way to grow.

Watch and listen.
Watch this episode on YouTube
Find this episode in your favorite podcast app
Get new episodes delivered via email

Brought to you by HVMN. With Ketone-IQ, fuel your best anytime with a boost of awesome-feeling energy and clarity. Unlock the power of nature's superfuel—no fasting or keto diet required.
Advertise with Outliers and reach our global community
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Care deeply about the problem, not about your idea.” – Adrian Aoun
In Episode #121, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun's peak performance playbook. From his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. Adrian Aoun is the CEO and Founder of Forward. We cover why medical wearables don’t work, focusing on impact, and creating companies that can change the world.

Explore the episode notes.
Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/121.

Chapters
In this episode, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun’s peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. In it we cover:
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:21 – Creating companies that change the world
00:06:07 – On being stubborn and persistent
00:09:51 – Why medical wearables aren’t working
00:14:03 – It’s just as easy to work on something big as something that’s small
00:16:19 – Everything should relate to the problem
00:17:39 – On fiction and factfulness
00:19:20 – Cycling as meditation
00:20:23 – The only thing that matters is impact

About Adrian Aoun, Founder and CEO of Forward
Adrian Aoun is the founder and CEO of Forward, which is building an insurance-free healthcare system focused on preventative healthcare from the ground up. Forward was founded in 2017 to invert the typical model of healthcare. Where most healthcare follows the service model, where one patient sees a single doctor only when they need care, Forward is building healthcare focused on health and preventative care. It's productized so you can use it anytime, anywhere. It's scalable so it's affordable for everyone and always on with help available through Forward's app, as well as a network of doctors' offices around the United States, which might sound like, well, how healthcare should have been all along, which is the goal.
In this episode, Adrian shares why he's so fanatical about being problem-focused rather than solution-focused and how he runs problem-centric brainstorms at Forward, where the goal is to beat up on other people's ideas in the name of getting to the best ideas. What he learned working with Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google, as well as the other advisors on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, why modern fitness wearables are broken, and why Adrian thinks we need to build tools to tell people what to do with that data, not just share the data with them.

Watch and listen.
Watch this episode on YouTube
Find this episode in your favorite podcast app
Get new episodes delivered via email

Brought to you by HVMN. With Ketone-IQ, fuel your best anytime with a boost of awesome-feeling energy and clarity. Unlock the power of nature's superfuel—no fasting or keto diet required.
Advertise with Outliers and reach our global community
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Care deeply about the problem, not about your idea.” – Adrian Aoun
In Episode #121, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun's peak performance playbook. From his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. Adrian Aoun is the CEO and Founder of Forward. We cover why medical wearables don’t work, focusing on impact, and creating companies that can change the world.

Explore the episode notes.
Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/121.

Chapters
In this episode, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun’s peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. In it we cover:
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:21 – Creating companies that change the world
00:06:07 – On being stubborn and persistent
00:09:51 – Why medical wearables aren’t working
00:14:03 – It’s just as easy to work on something big as something that’s small
00:16:19 – Everything should relate to the problem
00:17:39 – On fiction and factfulness
00:19:20 – Cycling as meditation
00:20:23 – The only thing that matters is impact

About Adrian Aoun, Founder and CEO of Forward
Adrian Aoun is the founder and CEO of Forward, which is building an insurance-free healthcare system focused on preventative healthcare from the ground up. Forward was founded in 2017 to invert the typical model of healthcare. Where most healthcare follows the service model, where one patient sees a single doctor only when they need care, Forward is building healthcare focused on health and preventative care. It's productized so you can use it anytime, anywhere. It's scalable so it's affordable for everyone and always on with help available through Forward's app, as well as a network of doctors' offices around the United States, which might sound like, well, how healthcare should have been all along, which is the goal.
In this episode, Adrian shares why he's so fanatical about being problem-focused rather than solution-focused and how he runs problem-centric brainstorms at Forward, where the goal is to beat up on other people's ideas in the name of getting to the best ideas. What he learned working with Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google, as well as the other advisors on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, why modern fitness wearables are broken, and why Adrian thinks we need to build tools to tell people what to do with that data, not just share the data with them.

Watch and listen.
Watch this episode on YouTube
Find this episode in your favorite podcast app
Get new episodes delivered via email

Brought to you by HVMN. With Ketone-IQ, fuel your best anytime with a boost of awesome-feeling energy and clarity. Unlock the power of nature's superfuel—no fasting or keto diet required.
Advertise with Outliers and reach our global community
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices