bob dylan

What I learned from reading Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way by Ryan White and A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett.

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Listen to Invest Like The Best #343 David Senra: In The Service of Founders 

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(8:00) Q: What are you going to do with your life? A: Live a pretty interesting one.

(10:00) A lesson that his grandfather taught him: The only thing standing between Jimmy and the world would be a lack of imagination an an over abundance of caution. All he had to do was leap and the world would be his.

(13:00) There is a lot of Mark Twain in Jimmy Buffett. Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. (Founders #312) 

(13:30) There was nothing normal about me. My drive was not normal. My vision of where I wanted to go in life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryptonite to me. — Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141)

(15:00) Jimmy Buffett and Warren Buffett: Their lives are illustrations of the power of compounding.

(16:30) A hit song was nice. But owning the publishing on a hit song was even better.

(17:30) Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)

(19:30) You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something. — Steve Jobs

(24:00) If you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Futureby Peter Thiel (Founders #278)

(28:00) It is ironic that I was never categorizable and now I’m a category. — Jimmy Buffett

(28:00) Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody. What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire. It was more formidable than the rest of the players. There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing. — Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. (Founders #259)

(29:00) No one is ever eager to fix a cash machine that isn't broken.

(29:00) You can’t sell a bagless vacuum cleaner to people that make $500 million a year selling vacuum bags. — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson(Founders #300)

(31:00) Something that grows exponentially can become so valuable that it's worth making an extraordinary effort to get it started. — Paul Graham How to Do Great Work (Founders #314)

(36:00) My description of Jimmy Buffett:

-Blue collar work ethic

-Learning machine

-Loves it

-Won’t quit

(37:00) The Business of Phish

(42:00) What Jimmy Buffett and Kanye West have in common

Some say he arrogant. Can y'all blame him?

It was straight embarrassing how y'all played him

Last year shoppin' my demo, I was tryna shine

Every motherfucker told me that I couldn't rhyme

Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem

Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams

(46:00) Jimmy kept the main thing the main thing:  “I don't give a shit what happens 22 and a half hours of the day. The only thing that matters is the 90 minutes that we're on stage.”

(1:04:00) That's what's wrong with the world these days. Nobody wants to put in the time it takes to be legendary. Mythology is not fast food.

(1:05:00) Margaritaville Holdings intuitively adopted the asset-light model, where it licenses its intellectual property to owners and operators via franchise agreements

(1:09:00) There is nobody who understands who Jimmy Buffett is and what Jimmy Buffett does better than Jimmy Buffett. 

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading Starting At Zero: His Own Story by Jimi Hendrix. 

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[0:01] He was also a compulsive writer, using hotel stationery, scraps of paper, cigarette cartons, napkins—anything that came to hand.

[0:01] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)

[1:00] He always claimed that for him life and music were inseparable.

[5:00] I liked to be different.

[5:00] The Autobiography of Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. (Founders #259)

[6:00] Bob Dylan: 

Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene.

I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody.

What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire.

It was more formidable than the rest of the players. 

There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing.

[7:00] Anthony Bourdain on Jimi Hendrix: I often compare the experience of going to Japan for the first time, going to Tokyo for the first time, to what Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend must have gone through, the reigning guitar gods of England, what they must have gone through the week that Jimi Hendrix came to town. 

You hear about it, you go see it.A whole window opens up into a whole new thing.And you think what does this mean? What do I have left to say? What do I do now?

[12:00] The first guitarist I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I heard one of his records when I was a little boy, and it scared me to death.  Wow! What was all that about?

[15:00] I loved my music, man. You see, I wasn't ever interested in any other things, just the music. I was trying to play like Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. Trying to learn everything and anything.

[16:00] My first gig was at an armory, a National Guard place, and we earned thirty-five cents apiece and three hamburgers.

[16:00] It was so hard for me at first. I knew about three songs, and when it was time for us to play onstage I was all shaky, so I had to play behind the curtains. I just couldn't get up in front.

And then you get so very discouraged. You hear different bands playing around you, and the guitar player always seems like he's so much better than you are.

Most people give up at this point, but it's best not to. Just keep on; just keep on. Sometimes you are going to be so frustrated you'll hate the guitar, but all of this is just a part of learning. If you stick with it you're going to be rewarded. If you're very stubborn you can make it.

[18:00] I had very strange feelings that I was here for something and I was going to get a chance to be heard. I got the guitar together because that was all I had. Oh Daddy, one of these days I'm gonna be big and famous. I'm gonna make it, man!

[20:00] It was pretty tough at first. I lived in very miserable circumstances. I slept where I could and when I needed to eat, I had to steal it.

[24:00] I lived in very miserable circumstances. Sleeping among the garbage cans between them tall tenements was hell.

Rats runnin' all across your chest, cockroaches stealin' your last candy bar from your very pockets.

I even tried to eat orange peel and tomato paste.

People would say, "If you don't get a job you'll just starve to death."

But I didn't want to take a job outside music.

[27:00] I don't wanna play backup on somebody else's team. I have my own ideas that I have to bring to life, and I'm willing to sacrifice my comfort to do so.

[31:00] Obsess over customers.

[33:00] I don't give a damn so long as I have enough to eat and to play what I want to play. That's enough for me. I consider ourselves to be some of the luckiest cats alive, because we're playing just what we want to play and people seem to like that.

[37:00] A lesson from Charlie Munger: Look at the behavior of people you dislike, or you don't respect, and do the opposite.

[39:00] Once you've made a name for yourself you are all the more determined to keep it up.

[44:00] James Dyson’s 2nd autobiography: Invention: A Life by James Dyson. (Founders #205)

[49:00] We call our music Electric Church Music because it's like a religion to us.

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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[0:51] No one could block his way and he didn't have any time to waste.

[2:38] Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. —Bob Dylan

[3:01] The best talk on YouTube for entrepreneurs: Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley

[3:21] Estée: A Success Story by Estée Lauder (Founders #217)

[7:52] Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody.

[8:12] We may be in the same genre but we don't put out the same product.

[16:34] What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire. It was more formidable than the rest of the players. There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing.

[18:00] Bob spends a lot of time thinking about and studying history.

[20:34] I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.

[21:27] I walked over to the window and looked outside. The air was bitter cold but the fire in my mind was never out. It was like a wind vane that was constantly spinning.

[21:45] It is incredible how much reading this guy is going to do. He takes ideas from everything that he reads and applies it to his work.

[22:30] Towering figures that the world would never see the likes of again, men who relied on their own resolve, for better or worse, every one of them prepared to act alone, indifferent to approval—indifferent to wealth or love, all presiding over the destiny of mankind and reducing the world to rubble. Coming from a long line of Alexanders and Julius Caesars, Genghis Khans, Charlemagnes and Napoleons, they carved up the world. They would not be denied and were impossible to reckon with—rude barbarians stampeding across the earth and hammering out their own ideas of geography.

[26:29] Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. (Founders #232)

[29:37] I don't think there's been another human invention that can evoke deeper emotions than a great book —than great writing.

[31:17] “What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." —Carl Sagan

[32:35] On War by Carl von Clausewitz

[37:55] I knew what I was doing and wasn't going to take a step back or retreat for anybody.

[46:40] This idea of being completely separate from the outside world is a main theme in the book.

[48:00] Being true to yourself. That was the thing.

[51:11] After a while you learn that privacy is something you can sell but you can't buy it back.

[57:44] Too many distractions had turned my musical path into a jungle of vines.

[58:29] There was a missing person inside of myself and I needed to find him.

[59:53] You have to find ways to get out of your own head.

[1:01:47] At first it was hard going like drilling through a brick wall. All I did was taste the dust.

[1:05:14] Sometimes you could be looking for heaven in the wrong places. Sometimes it could be under your feet or in your bed.

[1:07:25] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)

[1:07:42] Somebody different was bound to come along sooner or later who would know that world, been born and raised with it. . . be all of it and more. He'd be able to balance himself on one leg on a tightrope that stretched across the universe and you'd know him when he came-there'd be only one like him.

[1:08:23] A new performer was bound to appear. He'd be doing it with hard words and he'd be working 18 hours a day.

[1:09:15] Advice from his Dad:

“Remember, Robert, in life anything can happen. Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want."

[1:11:54] I was beginning to feel like a character from within these songs, even beginning to think like one.

[1:12:28] Y’all can't match my hustle

You can't catch my hustle

You can't fathom my love dude

Lock yourself in a room doin' five beats a day for three summers

I deserve to do these numbers

[1:12:51] I played morning, noon and night. That's all I did, usually fell asleep with the guitar in my hands. I went through the entire summer this way.

[1:13:31] The place I was living was no more than an empty storage room with a sink and a window looking into an alley, no closet, a toilet down the hall. I put a mattress on the floor.

[1:15:22] Bound for Glory: The Hard-Driving, Truth-Telling, Autobiography of America's Great Poet-Folk Singer by Woody Guthrie

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ”

— Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast