Full transcription:
Chris: Hey, everyone, welcome back. We're at the fifth episode of results may vary. If you haven't listened to the last episode number four, check it out. We had the privilege of talking to Data Scientist Aaron Scott about living in line with his values racing towards financial freedom by doing none other than moving into his van and calling it home. Today we're speaking to a man who turned his side project into a wildly successful career as a writer, Andy Weir. He's the number-one New York Times bestselling author of The Martian, a story about an astronaut’s attempt to survive after being left by his crew on Mars. A movie based on the book starring a few up and comers like Matt Damon Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels. It hits theaters this fall, October 2. So how did this computer programmer by day, hobby writer by night, craft one of the most successful self-published novels of all time? That's what we were curious about. And Andy was kind enough to fill us in.
Tracy: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I'm really honored. I'm sure you're busy with your new number one New York Times bestselling position.
Andy: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Tracy: And your Neil deGrasse Tyson shout-out, that doesn't hurt. So I'm wondering if you could just tell people kind of who you are in general, and what is the trajectory that you got to from being a Software Programmer to now being a full-time author?
Andy: Okay, who am I? Well, I'm Andy Weir. I've been interested in writing since I was a kid. Since I grew up reading my dad's gigantic science fiction collection. He had a bookshelf with an inexhaustible number of old paperbacks from the 50s and 60s. So I pretty much grew up reading baby boomer sci-fi. So I wanted to be a writer. But I also wanted to eat regular meals, and not live under an overpass. So I wasn't willing to take the financial risks to be a writer. So when the time came for me to choose a career, you know, as I'm heading off to college, I went with computer programming, which I enjoyed, and I was a computer programmer for 25 years before I finally left to go full-time writing. Back in 1999, I got laid off from AOL with about 800 of my closest friends. And I had enough money from my severance package to last quite a while because ultimately, I was forced to sell my AOL stocks, at what turned out to be very close to AOL's peak. So I ended up with enough money to go a few years without a job. And so I said, I'm gonna take my shot, I'm going to become a writer. And so I spent three years, I wrote a book and it was the standard story. Couldn't get an agent, couldn't get any publishers interested. And the main thing was, it just wasn't that good a book. It was not the Martian. This was a different book called Theft of Pride. So then, after three years of like, not being able to break into the industry, I figured, well, I tried, you know, back to the software industry. So back I went, and this wasn't like a huge defeat. For me, I like programming computers. I like the profession I like doing. So I went back into the software industry. And then as the kind of Internet started to rise and become more and more popular, this is around 2000 now, and you know, people start having their own websites and stuff. So I made my own website, and I put creative work there. I'm like, okay, here's an avenue, by which I can write stuff and people can see it and that's kind of all I really needed. I wasn't after a profession or salary from it, I was just like, well, I want to be creative. And I want to know that people are reading it. I'm not just wasting my time. I made webcomics, I made short stories, and I made serials, you know, just posting an update every, you know, a couple of months, I had accumulated about 3000 readers, regular readers based on the size of my mailing list and that seems like an impressive number but bear in mind that took 10 years to get to that so it's not like I had some like sudden you know, massive following it was just like bit by bit slowly accumulating, you know, a reader here a reader there over 10 years.
Tracy: Were you doing anything actively to attract readers?
Andy: Word of mouth, very slowly. Around 2009, I wrote a short story called The Egg, which was very popular. And so that brought a lot of readers. And just from that, I was working on three serials at the time. One was about a mermaid, another one was The Martian and another one was Jack. Jack is like a story about aliens.
Tracy: That's your new book coming out?
Andy: Yeah, right. Exactly. The Martian was the one that I was kind of most motivated on. So it's the one that I finished. And people would, you know, give me feedback as I posted chapter after chapter and stuff like that. And it was really cool. And then, when I was done, I figured, Okay, I'm done onto I'm gonna concentrate on Jack now or whatever.
Tracy: I'm sorry. Because just knowing how complex the Martian is, the fact that you're like, cool, okay, I'm done. I'm just gonna move on. Like, it must have taken so much work.
Andy: Oh, it took three years to write. So it's like a huge undertaking for me. But it was like my hobby. I didn't look at it as a potential career or anything. It was just like, this is something I'm doing for fun in my spare time.
Tracy: You said people were giving you feedback, were you then going back and reworking the serial? Or were you just kind of like, cool, that's great, move on?
Andy: No, no, I would definitely go back and rework it. And I told people that I said, like, Okay, this is a serial, but you shouldn't consider everything posted to be set in stone and canon, I reserve the right to go back and change things, especially if there are errors or whatever. And I did because my readers are science geeks like me. And so they would see when I made scientific errors, and they pointed out and so I'd be oops, okay, yeah, and I go fix things. And also, sometimes I'd write I'd be working on like chapter nine. And I'd realize oh, I want him to have a such and such and thing. And I go back to chapter three and make changes that he has the thing I need him to have in chapter nine. It's just I basically said like, you're not reading a cereal. You're watching me write a book. You know, that's a little proviso, none other readers minded.
Tracy: That's actually a really lovely way to think about it. The idea that you're incorporating your readers and your potential fans into the future into the writing process, I think is a lovely thing. That hasn't really happened, except in the past, maybe a decade or so.
Andy: Yeah, there was really no way to do it earlier. But and I think it worked great. I called him beta readers. But I, you know, I can't do that now. Because now I've got like for the book I'm working on now, Jack, my follow up. I'm doing I have a contract with Random House and I like a good old fashioned normal print writer. Yeah, of course, they don't want me to post it on my website for free as I'm writing it, they want to sell it. Yeah. And I like that plan, too. Because that's, that's now my sole source of income.
Tracy: Oh, it's fascinating, because you by doing the serial part, it happens organically. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that, like you, you put it out there, it was free. And then even though Random House would like you to have like money from the get-go. It doesn't seem to have deterred your money-making abilities to do it this way.
Andy: Oh, no, this one's been really good money. Because I mean, it's number one on the New York Times bestseller list, right? It's, fine. And I liked the beta reading process. Also, one thing that helped a lot was one of my biggest challenges. And I think a lot of writers run into this. It's just motivating yourself, right? Just Okay, yeah, I have the story in my head. Now I need to put it down on paper, and actually sitting down and doing the work, right? That was a big motivator for me to have the people like sending, you know, hey, I liked this last chapter, it was great, or Ooh, I'm really looking forward to the next chapter and stuff like that. Seeing that really helped motivate me to continue writing,
Tracy: Right. You can't let your fans down.
Andy: Right? Well, also just I mean, you know, external validation, positive feedback feels good.
Tracy: So okay, so you put it out there, and people were clamoring to have it in different mediums. And so you went from having it on your website to?
Andy: What happened was, it was a serial, and I'd finished, and people emailed and said, Oh, hey, I love the Martian, but I hate reading it in a website, can you make an E-reader version? So I figured out how to do that I made an ePub and a movie version, which are the two most popular standards, every e-reader in the world can do at least one of those. And so I posted them on my website and said, okay, you can read it for free on the site, or you can download it for free over here. And so people did that. But other people emailed and said, Hey, I love that it's available as an E-reader, but I'm not very technically savvy. And I don't know how to download a thing from the internet and put it on my Kindle. Can you just put it up in Kindle so that I can get it that way? And so I figured out how to do that. And they have like Kindle Direct Publishing. And it's a really simple system. And I recommend it to anybody who wants to, you know, take their shot at it. It doesn't cost you any initial money. You just post your book up there, and you set the price to whatever you want, and they get a percentage. You're not allowed to set the price to less than 99 cents because they're not a charity. They want to make money, right? And so I set the price of 99 cents I tried to figure out okay, how do I give this away, because that's all I want to do, right? Yeah. But I'm like, Okay, well, I have to set the price to 99 cents. So I set it to 99 cents. And I said, Alright guys, you can read it for free on my website, or you can download it for free as an E-reader, or you can pay Amazon a buck to put it on your Kindle for you. And more people bought it from Amazon than downloaded it for free for my site because it's just that's the reach that Amazon has into the readers. And also people are willing to pay a buck to avoid hassles. If you're already set up. If you've already done all your registration, everything, you just have a Kindle. And you can be like, well, I can go through a bunch of hassle to download it from his website. Or I can push this button and pay $1. Right, it'll just be on my Kindle forever. You know, people are just willing to do that. So it got really good reviews on Amazon and then got around by word of mouth. And it started selling well. And then it got into the top sellers. And that's what got the interest of Random House for a printed dish in the interest of Fox.
Tracy: Yeah, so maybe talk a little bit about that, because we talked about the book, but now you have a movie coming out. It's with one of the best directors in the world starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain, folks that are kind of cool. Kristen Wiig, right?
Andy: Yeah, a huge cast, just an amazing cast. And people were really excited about the project. I heard from the producers that a lot of these like big-name actors and actresses. I mean, they did not have the budget to afford all these people, right? So they were like, Hey, we're really happy that you're interested in doing this, but we can't afford all of you. So we're paying less than you are worth. And we understand if that means you don't want to take the gig, but most of them did.
Tracy: That's amazing.
Andy: Oh, they really believe in the project. I know that what people usually ask me as well, what? To what extent are you involved in filmmaking? Right? They always asked me that. I'll tell you, my main job was to cash the check.
Tracy: That's a pretty good job to have. Nice work.
Andy: They don't have to include me in anything. Like once they, once they secure the movie rights, they can go off, they can do whatever they want. But they chose to include me in a bunch of things. They keep me updated on movie production stuff. And also Drew Goddard who wrote the screenplay. He went back and forth with me a bunch on the screenplay. And he talked to me a lot. And he sent me revisions and got my feedback and stuff. And so that was, that was cool. I got to be a part of the process, even though they didn't have to include me. They just because they're cool.
Tracy: Yeah. Well, they also know I mean, because it has such a, like a grassroots following. There are all these people, and especially in sci-fi, like, in that genre, you can't really go off script too much without getting a lot of pushback. So it's in their best interest to make sure that that you're happy.
Andy: Well, they also use me, I mean, as a technical advisor, in a lot of ways, they would ask me science questions, because I'm like, Well, yeah, I'd be happy to help out any way I can.
Tracy: Yeah, you already did all the research well, so that I mean, maybe we can transition a little bit about to the, to the Mars part, to the actual content of the book, what I found so fascinating, is that you I mean, this was your hobby. You're not necessarily a scientist by trade, but when I was reading it, and then yesterday, I was actually listening to it again as an audiobook, which I thought was even better as an audiobook.
Chris: Oh, yeah. The narrator, Bob Bray. Well, R.C. Bray is like his professional name, right? He did just such a great job. I mean, he won an award for it. And he won an Audie.
Tracy: Yeah, I mean, he just handled all the different characters so well. In listening to that, I was struck by just the idea that when you're an author, you have a main character, and they have a dream. And I had a teacher told me once, like your role as the author is to put everything in their path to keep them from that dream. And think about the Martian epitomizes that, like this poor guy, Mark Watney who's, you know, an astronaut, he goes to Mars, and he gets left behind by his crew, and he has to figure out a way to survive, and then it just is unrelenting.
Andy: His dream is not to die or not to die right now.
Tracy: Right. And so when you're creating this world, I mean, everything about what he the decisions he's making, are very intentionally designed because he does not want to die. And because he only has a limited supply of things to keep him alive. And so I wondered, what was your creative process of both coming up with the problems he was going to face as well as helping him solve those problems?
Chris: Well, those are two very different things for coming up with the problems. I would, I would say, Okay, what is the most likely problem that he would have now and because tried to make the book just one big cascade failure. Basically, there's the initial problem, and then everything stems from that, like, Okay, he's stranded on Mars. And nobody knows he's like, whatever the initial setup, and then it's like, Okay, well, problem number one is he's not gonna have enough food. So he needs to work on that. And then while he's working on that, his attempt to solve that, you know, he's like, okay, now Problem number two is I need to generate water. And he's like, okay, now, in order to make food, okay, in order to generate water, I need to do this chemical thing. And then he did it wrong. So that screws up stuff, and, and so on. And so I tried to make each problem be caused by the solution to the previous problem, right? He's just this desperate juggling act as he's just fumbling forward. So coming up with the problems was easy. In fact, oftentimes, I had to find reasons why other problems wouldn't happen, things that would absolutely kill him, right. So coming up with the problems was just kind of like, okay, what's the most likely thing and try not to have them just get unlucky over and over? I wanted each thing to stem from the previous thing.
Tracy: Yeah. And he is a really intelligent guy. So so not like, a bumbling idiot.
Andy: Doesn't, he makes mistakes. So then the next thing was the solutions. And I see I had the advantage of being able to spend as much time as I wanted thinking of solutions that mark would think up immediately, yeah, marks really smart and clever. And I'm not as smart or clever as he is. I would say, Okay, here's the problem. Now, let me see if I can come up with a solution. And I come up with a solution. And I'd have as much time to work on it as I wanted. And if it was not possible to solve, then I would add whatever he needed to be able to solve the problem, you know. So it's like, oh, if he had this little piece of tech, he could solve this problem in a weird and interesting way. And so I'm like, Okay, so I'm going to go back for chapters and give a reason why that tech is on the mission and why he has it and say that he has it. And from the reader’s point of view, it's all just nice and smooth. And oh, well, of course, he has that thing. Yeah, he had God on his side, right. I mean, the writers, the writers reading for you,
Tracy: When you were coming up with these solutions. I mean, a lot of times when people I mean, if you were actually having to solve these problems, there'd be a lot of prototyping and testing and iteration, like physical building in and what was your process and coming up with those?
Andy: Well, I would do a bunch of research. And then I'd say like, okay, here's the solution, then I do all the math. And I'd be like, okay, does that work out? And I'm like, What unexpected crap might happen. Like, I'm really paranoid. And I'm like, Okay, if my life depended on this, what would I be nervous about? All these disaster scenarios in my head? And I'm like, well, which ones of those are narratively interesting, but it's not. I didn't make any actual physical things, if that's what you're talking about, like to test? Although I did do the, I wrote software to calculate the orbital trajectories of the ship the Hermes, going from Earth to Mars and back.
Tracy: And that was just a little hobby you did on this side.
Andy: I do like orbital dynamics, like, that's one of my interests. So I'm that kind of nerd and so it was fun for me. And I'm a computer programmer, right? And I could not figure out with straight-up math how to calculate Hermes is orbital trajectories because it's a constantly accelerating craft. And I assume there's math to do that, but it's well beyond my ability. And so I mean, I tried, I sat there and go like, okay, and well, once I had like, you know, quadruple intervals. I was like, okay, no, I'm done here. We're gonna do this with simulation. Because what you know, I'm a programmer. So when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail, right? Yeah. So I'm like, well write software to do it. So I wrote software to help me calculate it. Basically, it was like an interface for like twiddling and messing around with orbital trajectories until I found the ones that will work. And the reason I did that was just for accuracy. I wanted the transit time to be accurate. And all the orbital maneuvers and stuff I wanted, I wanted the transmission times like when they're communicating back and forth on Mars earth have the correct latency.
Tracy: Considering the depth of science that you include in the book, I'm surprised that it only took you three years. Also, considering reading that you're not an astronaut, or botanist, or any of those things, it's like, there were a lot of different avenues that you had to delve deep into.
Andy: Yep, that was fun, though. I mean, I like doing research and I like finding stuff out. So that part was was fun for me. And also, I spent a lifetime as a space dork, right? So I bet a big fan of the space program, everybody's space program, not just ours, okay, and astronauts. And so I watched documentaries and stuff all the time on this. So I started off with a more than layman's knowledge of this, but not an expert, but an enthusiast.
Tracy: That's kind of how I describe myself. I'm a science enthusiast, which gives me the ability to not know the answers to a lot of things. But be excited about them. What are some things like if you were going to give advice to folks who are thinking about starting their own careers, as an author or as, I don't know, a Mars astronauts? What are some things that you would tell them that they could do?
Andy: Astronaut, I don't know. First off, you have to Win a genetic lottery to be in like, basically peak physical condition with no vision problems, no hearing problems, no, you have to be under a certain height you have to be, etc. So first off, you have to be born with the right physical body to be an astronaut in the first place. Second off, you have to be really smart. In fact, if you want to be an astronaut, it's a good idea to get a Ph.D. in something, that's one of the things that makes you that makes them more likely to pick you because they don't just want someone who can, you know, think quickly and handled zero G and all that stuff like that. They send scientists up into space to do science experiments, they want you to be a scientist. And then from there, well, you, you better be comfortable with acceleration. As for being a writer, I have three pieces of advice that I usually give people. Number one is you have to write, in order to be a writer, you have to actually write, it's easy to sit down and Daydream all day about this awesome story you're going to write someday. But it always seems perfect in your mind, the problems only show up when you actually start writing. And until you actually write out a story. It's just a daydream. Number two is, and this is very difficult. Resist the urge to tell your family and friends your story. It's very difficult because if it's a good story, they'll be interested, they will actually probe you for information. The thing is, when you tell people your story when you just tell it to them verbally and explain the plot and run through the outline. It satisfies your need for an audience. And then it saps your will to actually write it. Because a large part of the reason you write is because you know that people are going to read it. But if you've already gotten that feedback from an audience, if people have already experienced your story because you told it to them verbally, you feel you feel satisfied on that front, and you don't end up writing it or you're not as motivated.
Tracy: That's I mean, I've never heard anybody say that before. But makes total sense.
Andy: For me, you know, people ask me, what's my next story about? I just answer really vaguely, you know, and I try not to get too into detail. Because I'm like, you set yourself a rule that the only way anyone will ever find out about the story is by reading it. Then it makes you much more motivated to write it. And then the final bit of advice is, this is the best time in history to self publish, there has never been a better time, the publishing industry was largely unchanged from you know, the Gutenberg press intel 10 years ago. And then now, everything's different. There's no longer an old boy network between you and your readers. self-publishing is a pure meritocracy. It doesn't matter if you're like, a big name, super author, or a complete unknown if your book is good. People recommended to each other rating systems like Amazon's or Barnes and Nobles. It'll work its way up. And you can do it. And it requires no financial risk. You don't it's not like the old days, were vanity pressing, and you end up paying a bunch of money that No, it's just like, it costs you literally nothing. So the only thing you risk is the time you've spent writing the book, which presumably is what you wanted to do anyway, right? Yeah, it's hard to break into traditional print publishing, that's, that has not changed. But it's easy to self publish and use nothing. And if it does, well, traditional publishers will come to you. Because they love that idea. traditional publishers always that's one of the biggest problems is they have to find new authors, but it costs them a lot of money to make a book and they turn losses all the time, they make books that don't even sell enough to recoup their costs. But now they can just look at self-published books and say like, okay, that one there that's selling, we don't even need to speculate. So if we make a print edition, it'll probably sell well, too.
Tracy: So now that you've kind of had all of this success, and you lived what you were just talking about going from being somebody who's a hobbyist and unknown to tell publishing, getting picked up and having all of this wild success. What are the ways that you're intentionally designing your own life?
Andy: Well, the biggest change for me was, of course, leaving my day job and like being full time in writing. And the hardest thing for me is the same thing. It's always been, it's motivating. I went from a very structured objective environment, with bosses, and like, you know, deadlines and a very, very clear objectives to make a story that doesn't suck when you have a chance. And it's like, it was a big change for me. And I'm still, honestly, I'm still like adjusting, actually sitting down and saying, like, even if I don't feel like writing, I have to write because it always used to be a hobby for me. So I was like, I don't feel like writing. I'm not gonna, you know, it's like, what took three years right? The Martian, whatever, well, I can't do that. Now. I can't, I can't just sit around for three years, right?
Tracy: There's specific rules that you put in place for yourself to make yourself be motivated.
Andy: Yeah, there's like prohibitions. There's a bunch of things left to my own devices I could screw around all day. So one of my rules is no video entertainment during work hours, basically, or until I finished my words, as I call it, I've got a target. I try to write 1000 words a day, and until I finished my words, no YouTube videos, no TV. No, no, there's a bunch of other stuff I can do. I can go Take a walk, I can go get a coffee I can. I don't have to sit there and toil and work. But if I let myself watch videos, I'll just do that all day. I'm a born couch potato. I'm the great endorsement.
Tracy: And then how do you handle because now you're obviously you have all this publicity and probably press and things that you're doing in talking to people like me. Thank you. How do you incorporate that into your work schedule?
Andy: It is taking up a lot of my time, but I consider that just part of my job, right? This is I'm talking to you right now. Well, this is my job. What I've learned is when to say no. And so I started to get better at controlling my schedule, and it makes things a lot easier.
Tracy: Well, thank you so much. This has been an absolute dream of mine. It was over New Year's this year, my friend was like, Hey, have you read this book, I was talking about the fact that I hadn't found any novels that were really grabbing my attention lately. I've been reading a lot of nonfiction. And she's like, you have to read the Martian. Yeah, this guy lands on Mars and he's trying to figure out how to stay alive. So it's a lot of like, figuring out how many potatoes you should eat. And I'm just like, that doesn't sound interesting. At all. Trust me, it is so fascinating. I've noticed too, like a lot of people comment. They read your book so fast. It's just such a gripping tale and beer, because it's so deeply embedded in science, just like have cracked some formula that's made it exciting and interesting to a wide audience.
Andy: I have no idea what I did. Right. I hope I do it again in my next book, but I don't know. Yeah, my next book doesn't have the first person smartass narrator so I'm worried, you know, a little bit, one of the things I do is, whenever I'm writing a scene, I asked myself, if I were reading this book, is this the scene where I would put it down for the night? And if that's when you would put it down? I should ask myself, do I need this scene? By the way? You mentioned just at the party, you're a nonfiction reader. Well, if you like nonfiction, and if I've caused you to Lake Mars, then you should consider Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.
Tracy: No, I haven't read that one. But I've read a bunch of her other books. And they're amazing.
Andy: Yes, she's an excellent nonfiction writer. And Packing for Mars is all about just the complexities of the nuts and bolts of how space travel works. And not the science specifically, but the kind of psychological makeup of astronauts and how the training works and should travel around it. It's really good.
Tracy: Awesome, I will definitely read that. Because now I want to go to Mars. Sounds like such a hospitable place.
Tracy: So I think that was probably the most giggly. I have been on an episode yet.
Chris: Thank God for editing Tracy. No, it was great. It was really fun to hear you interview someone that you admire so much. And I have to say I was just listening. And he really won me over and I'm in less than 40 minutes. I'm a big fan as well. And I think one of the main reasons is just how humble he is just talking to him. You'd have no idea he was in New York Times bestseller, and that there's a huge movie, right in the wings.
Tracy: Yeah. Well, I mean, humble, even the fact that he agreed to do the show, since I didn't know him at all, and just reached out because I was a fan and he said, yes, immediately.
Chris: That doesn't surprise me at all. Because Results May Vary as a global phenomenon that's really caught on lately, probably one of the smartest things that he's done. Diving right in what were some of your reactions to his process?
Tracy: Yeah, well, I was really surprised at how he went about researching the book. I mean, just googling things and putting it out in the world, so that people could respond and then go back and change it. The fact that he was serializing it was an interesting thing I hadn't thought about in the past.
Chris: That I loved the process of publishing and putting in formats where people were basically just kind of being lazy. So he would just do it for him is yeah, here's how you get it now on your Kindle for a minimum cost being 99 cents.
Tracy: I find that fascinating. I mean, it's such, you know, he was even saying it was such a little step that he was asking people to take, that they would rather pay for something than get it for free.
Chris: One thing that I struggled to fully agree with, but I can see why it works really well for him was his advice around not letting friends and family into the concept too early. Yeah. And I can see how that worked for him. I don't know that that would work for everyone. And I think getting some feedback early on can be really reassuring that there's the, there there. You know, I'd love to hear what you thought.
Tracy: That really resonated with me because I am in that place right now where I am starting to write a book, and I'm more talking about writing a book then I am actually doing the writing, right. it resonated because I thought oh, you know, you do get pleasure out of sharing the idea with people and it does fulfill a need.
Chris: The three-year cycle? I just thought, wow, on one hand, that's so fast given what's in the book in terms of the amount of research and thought and education and just the steps that he went through is just, you would think that was a 10-year journey plus with a lot of experts involved. Yeah. On the other hand, going it kind of alone and putting yourself in a space where I'm just going to write something three years sounds really long. I just loved hearing him talk about having to set up his own rules because ultimately, he would just be watching TV and watching videos online all day. I think everyone kind of laughs and can relate to that. But it's not the first thing you think of for someone that wrote a book on the New York Times list. So in a way, it makes them so relatable, where it's like, yeah, okay, well, you procrastinate on your big ideas, too.
Tracy: Yeah. It actually be interested to hear back from some of our listeners about the things that they've put in place for themselves to kind of stay on track.
Chris: Yeah, made me think of another thing, which is for super-achievers, people that we talk to people, people that we know, and even categories of things that I think we've done is wasn't enough just to be smart. You had to be ambitious, and create your own self guidelines to get to a success point.
Tracy: It's interesting because he talks about what it takes to be an astronaut, right? And right, being born with good genetics in that's the first step. And I'd say Yes, that's true for being an astronaut. And there's a couple other things where you have to start off with good jeans, but the rest of it, it's not true that you're destined, it takes doing the work.
Chris: Yeah. And I could hear people clinging on to and this has been a thread across a couple of our interviews that there was some enabling moment, his enabling moment was that financial enabler was selling stock, and then that supported some time to go and do the thing. And I think we could debate this. But would it have happened had that not happened? And for someone that really found their calling the way that he did, it's hard to imagine that the book wouldn't have happened that seemed to give it a big tailwind. But I don't think the lesson for our listeners is the goal here is to start a company, get some get a bunch of equity, and then wait for it to sell. And then I'll finally do the thing that I want to do.
Tracy: Right now. He had that time he had that money. And he wrote a really crappy book. The fact that he persevered after that, and continued writing, I think is the more telling part, it wasn't the money. He used that money to do something that wasn't successful. And that could have turned half of the people away, that would have been in a similar situation. But he iterated on that, and he pushed through it. And so eventually, he got to the goal, which probably wasn't even his intention.
Chris: That's interesting point, isn't it? I certainly don't get the sense. There's any part of him that was chasing stardom or the outcome.
Tracy: He was writing it for his own enjoyment. And that comes through in the book. It's such a fun wild book to read. So I would encourage anybody out there who hasn't yet read it, and who likes to read it. And if you don't like to read, wait until October when the movie comes out. All right, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for listening. Our dream is to build a community of people who can create and take advantage of any opportunity that interests them. To do this really well, your participation is key. If you want to try out and share back to your own life design experiments for if you've already got a great story of how you've designed your life, we'd love to hear from you on our Facebook page, Twitter, or at results may vary podcast.com. Our website is also where you'll find show notes and links to all of the things we mentioned in the episode. And if you would be so kind, subscribe to the show and rate us and write a review on iTunes or Stitcher that'll let even more people start designing their lives. The Big thanks to Andy Weir sharing his results with us today. And as always Special thanks to composer and filmmaker HP Mendoza for the results may vary theme music graphic designer and Anessa Braymer for our logo. And David Glazier for audio mixing and of course, thank you so much for listening to Results May Vary.