One of the benefits of our world’s current technological boom is that our news media has been transformed. From a monolithic, centralized, top-down broadcast of approved general themes, to a fragmented world of instant, niched, and unique voices. The media landscape we enjoy in 2023 is something unimaginable to our parents and grandparents. Think about it. Today, we can learn as much as we want about virtually anything we want in the area of news, current events, and specialized topics.
What a great time to be curious, to be a learner, and to be an entrepreneur with a unique story to tell!
One such specialized broadcaster is Peter McCormack and his What Bitcoin Did podcast. While most episodes focus on — you guessed it — the digital, monetary revolution of Bitcoin, McCormack recently released an episode that took a much broader look at the future.
McCormack welcomed one of the preeminent voices in the Bitcoin community, Michael Saylor, and asked him for the top ten rules for life he would impart to McCormack’s college-aged son.
Saylor, the author of the prescient book, The Mobile Wave, did not disappoint in offering ten overarching, theoretical suggestions.
“One, focus your energy,” Saylor began, offering his first tip. “You think you can do everything. You can’t. Everybody overestimates all the things they can do. The things I regret in my life are all the good ideas I pursued, to the detriment of my great idea.”
“Every time I do an interview with Michael, it ends with him telling me this again as well,” McCormack said.
“Second, guard your time,” Saylor continued. “You know, when I was growing up, we had like three channels and we had every night programming that was original from 8 to 11. There was no porn. There was one Playboy magazine I saw in the woods once in my entire childhood.”
“Why’s it always in the woods?” McCormack asked. “It’s always in the woods.”
Saylor went on, noting that today’s media explosion provides even more opportunity to misallocate our precious time.
“Today, you’ve got Twitch and you’ve got YouTube and you’ve got infinite porn and you’ve got infinite games. You’ve got infinite everything, and if you look at the scourge of modernity it’s every possible thing people ever thought they might want. We figured out how to manufacture it in bulk pharmaceutical grade and drive the variable cost to zero,” Saylor said. “Infinite music. It used to be music cost money. Infinite books. Used to be books…I went to the library. I checked out books. I had to take them back. There was a limit on the books.”
Not to mention infinite news options, from YouTube, Twitch, Rumble, Twitter, Locals, cable television, traditional broadcast outlets, etc.
“No limits today, and you really have to ask yourself the question – how are you going to spend your time,” Saylor said.
Saylor is the founder of MicroStrategy, a business intelligence and software company, and also the first publicly-traded company to embrace a Bitcoin strategy to combat the debasement of the U.S. dollar within his company. It is believed that Saylor may own more Bitcoin, perhaps, than anyone on the planet, with the exception of the technology’s inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Saylor continued, saying that training your mind is his third rule for success.
“Especially logic and language and basic thinking skills,” Saylor added. “How you do that, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go to university, right? I launched the Saylor Academy and we’ve given education to one and a half million students. We don’t charge them a nickel. It’s absolutely free. In my opinion, you can probably train your mind better, faster, not in school today.”
The fourth rule for success, according to Michael Saylor, is to train your body. He adds that you don’t have to go nuts with risky, extreme physical regimens. Simply moving and incorporating healthy patterns are important.
“It won’t be that important right now, in your 20s or your 30s. You can get away with really, really bad behavior. There will be a greater price to pay in your 40s. It will get exponentially worse in your 50s,” the 58-year-old Saylor noted. “If you engage in really bad behavior and you don’t train your body, about the time you get to your 60s, sometimes the journey’s over. And you get to your 70’s, you’d like to be able to walk around. And being able to walk around into your 80s or the like is a function of the way you treat your health.”
Then Saylor landed on one of the most crucial rules, especially in terms of news media, public conditioning, and manipulation. Think for yourself.
“Everybody’s going to tell you what to think. Every media organization is in the business of telling you what to think. And, generally, they all have an agenda. At some point in your life, you’ll read a story and you’ll ask the question – what was the agenda of the journalist that wrote the story?” Saylor said. “And what was the agenda of the media organization that published the journalist? And what was the agenda in the nation where the journalist lives?”
Michael Saylor offered his next two tips – curate your friends, curate your environment. In his opinion, choosing the right people to support your growth is crucial, as is building an environment in which you feel comfortable to live and learn.
“Eight, keep your promises, whatever they are,” he said. “The one thing people remember about you for the rest of your life if you promised them something, 27 years later they’ll still remember if you lied to them. Or if you promised them something and you didn’t do it. And the problem with that is that credibility over time compounds. And if you don’t have credibility, people aren’t going to want to help you.”
Rule number ten for Saylor is “Stay cheerful, stay constructive.” In other words, a positive, optimistic mindset is attractive and contagious. It helps you overcome challenges and attract other like-minded people to your mission, something Saylor has become adroit at in the three years he has advocated for Bitcoin.
“Things that go viral on Twitter, more often they are constructive, cheerful things,” Saylor explained to McCormack.
Rounding out Saylor’s list of ten rules for life – upgrade the world.
“There’s a lot of ways to do it. Figure out how you’re going to upgrade the world. Have a way,” he offered. “That’s my theoretical way for someone entering adulthood.”
As colleges and universities parade their distinguished speakers during this month’s commencement ceremonies, they may well be wise to heed Saylor’s advice. Especially if they want to make the most of the abundance of opportunity in our current technological and media age.
Rick Schultz is a former Sports Director for WFUV Radio at Fordham University. He has coached and mentored hundreds of Sports Broadcasting students at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Marist College and privately. His media career experiences include working for the Hudson Valley Renegades, Army Sports at West Point, The Norwich Navigators, 1340/1390 ESPN Radio in Poughkeepsie, NY, Time Warner Cable TV, Scorephone NY, Metro Networks, NBC Sports, ABC Sports, Cumulus Media, Pamal Broadcasting and WATR. He has also authored a number of books including “A Renegade Championship Summer” and “Untold Tales From The Bush Leagues”. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @RickSchultzNY.
