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Haruki Murakami

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2024-07-21
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2024-07-21
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  1. “Summer, I'll be out in another triathlon somewhere, giving it my best shot. Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by. I'll age one more year and probably finish another novel. One by one, I'll face the tasks before me, and I'll complete them the best I can, focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long range view, scanning the scenery as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a runner. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Highly recommend reading the book. I devoured it. Like I said, you know, day, day and a half. You could probably read it in a weekend. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player, also available at funderspodcast.com, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 357 books down, 1,000 ago. And I'll talk to you again soon.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Repetition, and I try hard to reduce the perceptible world to the narrowest parameters. All I can see is the ground three yards ahead, nothing beyond. My whole world consists of that ground three yards ahead. No need, think beyond that. And the effect of going too far, burning himself out was detrimental. He says the most significant falloff from running the ultramarathon wasn't physical but mental. What I ended up with was a sense of lethargy. And before I knew it, if I felt covered by a thin film, something I've dubbed Runner's Blues. After this ultra marathon, I lost the enthusiasm I'd always had for the act of running itself. I no longer had the simple positive stance I used to have of wanting to run no matter what. So this is something that's very fascinating and I don't think it's obvious to many people, but I really do believe that great entrepreneurs”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Think about anything else. After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is hands down endurance. If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you're not going to be able to write a long work. Focus and endurance can be acquired and sharpened through training. You'll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “No matter what, I keep up my running, running every day is a kind of lifeline for me. So I'm not going to lay off running or quit just because I'm busy. If I use being busy is an excuse not to run, I'd never run again. I only have a few reasons to keep on running and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished. No matter what, just keep doing it. He's been talking about running. See how it goes back and forth? He's like, we're going to talk about running for a little bit, but then we're going to draw a life lesson from there and we're going to apply it to our craft. And so he goes, if I'm asked, what's the next most important quality is for a novelist? That's easy. Focus. The ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever's critical at the moment. Without focus, you cannot accomplish anything of value. I concentrate on my work every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I'm writing. I don't see anything else.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “His reaction to this was perfect. You go back to the basics and you recommit yourself to your training schedule. He says, as I ran this race, I felt I never, ever wanted to go through that again. Right then and there, I decided that before my next marathon, I was going to go back to the basics, start from scratch, and do the very best I could. Train meticulously and rediscover what I was physically capable of, tighten up all the loose screws one by one. Do all of that and see what happens. And part of what happened is, you know, he said, as you get older, you get busier, he becomes, you know, more well-known. He's got all kinds of different opportunities to go his way. A lot of those are just, you know, the external world is largely an external distraction. And what he realizes there's always going to be more reasons not to run, not to spend the time doing this than there are to do that. You have to hold on to the few precious valuable reasons. And he says, even if there were two of me, I still couldn't do all that has to be done.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Training, not enough training, and not enough training. Without knowing it, I had developed an arrogant attitude convinced that just a fair to middling amount of training was enough for me to do a good job. It's pretty thin, the walls separating healthy confidence and unhealthy pride.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “An interest in long distance running, just leave them be and they'll start running on their own. If they're not interested in it, no amount of persuasion will make any difference. Nobody ever recommended or even desired that I'd be a novelist. In fact, some people tried to stop me. I had the idea to be one, and that is what I did. I love that. I'm obsessed with this idea. I do a lot of talks at companies and conferences and stuff, and there's a lot of Q&A too. And I've been assessed this question in various forms a bunch over the years. And it's like, you know, how can we encourage more people to be entrepreneurs? I'm like, it's an inner thing. I'd be shocked if this wasn't the exact same experience you had, but the exact same experience that Mirakami saying, I had the idea to be one, and that's what I did. The greatest way, the funniest way, or most memorable way that I think about this idea is this, I don't even know if this is true, but there's a story.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “At it, and if you get really good at it, at something, money is a result of that process, right? So he says, when I tell people, I run every day, some are quite impressed. You must really have a strong will, they sometimes tell me. To tell you the truth, I don't even think that's much a correlation between my running every day and whether or not I have a strong will. I think I've been able to run for more than 20 years. And so now, you know, 35 years or 40 years, whatever has been present day. But I think I've been able to run for decades for a simple reason. It suits me. Go back to what Paul Graham said. I think it's in the same essay on how to do great work. He says when you follow what you were intensely interested in, this strange convergence happens where you're working all the time and it feels like you're never working. We just saw this on episode, was it episode 355 with Bernard Arnold? That's on a rare Bernard Arno interview. He's 75 years old when the interview was given and he talks about the fact that like this guy's up pushing himself, you know, 12 hours a day, seven days a week on Saturday mornings. He's like super excited.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Something that I'm really trying to orient my own career and obsession around. It's that consistency over decades after decades. And so what Paul Graham says is the reason that we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day, you write a book a year. That is the key, consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done rather than nothing. And of course, done over a long period of time. And so then it goes back to this power of routine. What is Mirakami say? So like three meals a day along with sleeping, housework, and work running was incorporated into my daily routine. And then immediately after this, he goes back to this idea that you and I keep discussing. It's like, if it suits you, you're going to do it for a long time. If you do it for a long time, you're going to get really good.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Says, when I first started running, I couldn't run long distances. I could only run for about 20 minutes or 30 minutes, and that left me panting, my heart pounding, my legs shaking. It was expected though, since I hadn't really exercised for a long time. At first, I was also a little embarrassed to have people in my neighborhood see me running. It was the exact same feeling I had upon first seeing the title novelist after my name. But as I continued to run and obviously continued to write, my body started to accept the fact that I was running. and I could gradually increase the distance. I was starting to acquire a runner's form. My breathing became more regular. He's saying I'm acquiring more skills, right? My breathing became more regular and my pulse settled down. The main thing was not the speed or the distance so much as running every day without taking a break. And so this line in Paul Graham's essay, How to Do Great Work, which I think is episode 314, if I remember correctly.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And try to go bed early. This is the pattern I've mostly followed up until today. Thanks to this, I've been able to work efficiently these past 24 years. And now he's into 40 years. He's been doing this. I also found this interview. When I got to this part, I was also reading and listening to interviews that he's done. And I found this interview about his daily schedule very interesting. It was from this 2004 interview. And so he describes his daily schedule, but I think the last few sentences is really what's important. So he talks about, you know, I get up at 4 a.m., I've already told you this. He writes for five to six hours. Then he'll go run 10 kilometers and swim 1500 meters. Then read a bit, listen to some music and go to bed early. Now this is the important part. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the most important thing. It is a form of mesmerism.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And so by switching into a profession that was more suited to his authentic self, he's able to redesign his entire lifestyle, listen to how different his lifestyle was as a novelist than when he was running a bar. The happiest thing about becoming a writer was that I could go to bed early and get up early. When I was running the bar, I often didn't get to sleep until near dawn. After I closed the bar and began my life as a novelist, the first thing that we, and he talks about him and his wife decided to completely revamp their lifestyle. The first thing that we did is we decided to go to bed soon after it got dark and wake up with the sun. So my new, simple and regular life began. I got up before 5 a.m., went to bed before 10 p.m. People are at their best at different times of the day, but I'm definitely a morning person. That's when I can focus and finish up important work I have to do. Afterwards, I work out or do other errands that don't take much concentration at the end of the day. I relax and don't do any more work. I read, listen to music, take it easy.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Then he talks about the difference of kind of like struggling through a profession or an activity you don't like like team sports he hated that loves running so he can do it all the time you can give everything he got didn't you know he's an introvert he talks about over and over again he's like I just want to control who has access to me well if you're running a bar you have to it's a service business anybody can come to the door you have to serve them didn't like that and so he talks about this aspect of his personality again just this fundamental he did this this really important work of understanding who he actually is inside I could never stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Writing, the more they're going to crowd out things that don't serve them. And so he just said, Hey, I was smoking 60 cigarettes a day. I think he's 75, 76 years old today. Would he be alive if he didn't kick the habit? Maybe not, but why did he kick the habit? Because he couldn't run and smoke. Not long after, I also gave up smoking. Giving up smoking was kind of a natural result of running every day. It wasn't easy to quit, but I couldn't very well keep on smoking and continue running. This natural desire to run became a powerful motivator for me to not go back to smoking. And a great help in overcoming the withdrawal symptoms. This line is so great, this scent is so great. Quitting smoking was like a symbolic gesture of farewell to the life that I used to lead.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Once I started sitting at my desk all day writing, my energy level gradually declined and I started putting on pounce. I was also smoking too much I decided that if I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to keep fit and maintain a healthy weight. And so this is where he's looking at, okay, there's all kinds of sports I can choose. Like, why am I going to choose running? Because that's who he is. His description of running is the same for writing and reading. He says running has a lot of advantages. First of all, you don't need anybody else to do it and no need for special equipment. You don't have to go to any special place to do it. As long as you have running shoes and a good road, you can run to your heart's content. And so he, in the mornings, he writes in the afternoon he reads. Reading, writing, running, no special equipment. You need a pen and paper or a typewriter. You need some shoes. You need a $9 book. But you don't need anybody else to do these things. And an added benefit is all those things are positive, healthy habits, and they crowd out the more obsessed you become with running, with reading, with.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “End user of your product because he said the entrenched professional is always going to resist far longer than the private consumer. Thank God that gatekeeper, that publisher didn't get in the way. Oh, we don't like this. We're looking for something more mainstream. That is the entrenched professional, right? But the private consumer is like, we love this. Give us more. Now we've been talking about this journey from bar owner, jazz club owner to novelist. But how does this tie with the book, with his diary, this inner monologue about running? He's not a runner yet. Now he's a novelist. He solved that problem, but he hasn't found that second obsession, that second obsession that's going to serve his first obsession. How does he do that? Well, he tells us a problem arose. With my decision to become a professional writer, the question was how to keep physically fit. Running the bar required hard physical labor every day, and I could keep my weight down.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And even though he was excited, he's like, I found my style. This book is better than the previous ones I have written when he tries to get it published. The editors did not like it. They said they were looking for something more mainstream and didn't like the book. It's called A Wild Sheep Chase. They didn't like the book at all. And I recall how unenthusiastic their reception was. This part is so important, and there's so many parallels to the history of entrepreneurship. It seems back then, my notion of the novel was pretty unorthodox. Readers, though, this is so important, right? Editors like, oh, we want some more mainstream. Okay, well, why? Because you want more readers. Well, what happens when he puts out this unorthodox, this differentiated product into the market? Readers, though, seem to love this new book. And that is what makes me happiest. There's a great quote about this from James Dyson. If you can, try to go direct to the end.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And this is one of my favorite parts of the story. I'm going to read my note to you before I read the paragraph that prompted the note. And I wrote, he knows. He found his path, the sense of relief that occurs when this happens in your life is worth all of the struggle to get there. And this is what he writes. When I finished the novel, I had a good feeling that it created my own writing style. My whole body thrilled at the thought of how wonderful and how difficult it is to be able to sit at my desk not worrying about time and concentrate on writing. There were untouched veins still dormant within me. I felt and I now could actually picture myself making a living as a novelist.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “This is the part where he bets on himself despite the objections of everybody else. I sold the business, and though a bit embarrassed about it, I hung out my sign as a novelist and set out to make a living writing. I'd just like to be free for two years to write, I explained to my wife. If it doesn't work out, we can always open up another little bar somewhere. I'm still young and we can always start over. All right, she said. This was in 1981, and we still had a considerable amount of debt, but I figured I'd just do my best and see what happened. I figured it was do or die, so I put everything I had into it.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Probably didn't think I'd make it as a professional writer, but I couldn't follow their advice. I'm the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do. I had to give it everything I had. If I failed, I could accept that. But I knew that if I did things half-heartedly and they didn't work out, I'd always have regrets”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Riskiest decision that he ever makes. He decides I'm going to go all in on being a writer, even though most of his income is coming from the jazz club and not writing. I felt I had been given a wonderful opportunity to be a novelist, a chance you don't get every day, and a natural desire sprang up to take it as far as I possibly could and write the kind of novel I'd feel satisfied with. After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to close the business for a while and concentrate solely on writing. At this point, my income from the jazz club was more than my income as a novelist, a reality that I had to resign myself to. Most people I knew were flat out against my decision. Your business is doing fine, they said. Why not just let someone else run it for a while and then you go off and write your novels? From the world's viewpoint, this makes perfect sense.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Younger man in his 20s when he's an older man in his 70s, his discipline and work ethic are conscious throughout his entire life. What do I mean by this? Listen to what he's doing. Every day for three years I ran my jazz club, keeping accounts, checking inventory, scheduling my staff, standing behind the counter, mixing up cocktails myself, cooking and closing up in the wee hours of the morning. And only then, writing at home at the kitchen table until I got sleepy. I felt like I was living enough for two people's lives. Physically, every day was tough. With these first two novels, I was only able to write in spurts, snatching bits of time here and there a half hour here, an hour here, and because I was always tired and felt like I was competing against a clock as I wrote, I was never able to fully concentrate. And so then it is this point in his life story that he makes the most important decision.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Done for the sake of itself. It just so happens that it's going to be his first ever published novel. And this part of the story just made me laugh out loud because it says by the next spring, when I got a phone call from the publication telling me my novel had made the short list, I had completely forgotten that I had entered the contest. My novel won the prize and was published that summer. The book was fairly well received. I was thirty, and without really knowing what was going on, I suddenly found myself labeled a new up-and-coming writer. I was pretty surprised, but people who knew me were even more surprised. And at this point in his life, the fact that he was a workhorse wind up benefiting him immensely. After this, while still running my business, I wrote a second novel. And so he is thirty, but when he was a young man,”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I wanted to write about just the conviction that if I wrote it now, I could come up with something that I'd find convincing. This was in the spring of 1978 and by the fall I had finished a 200 page work handwritten he writes it on pen and paper handwritten on Japanese manuscript paper. And it's about to get crazier. Listen to what he does here. And after I finished it, I felt great. I had no idea what to do with the novel once I finished it, but I just sort of let momentum carry me and I sent it in to be considered for a literary magazine's new writer's prize. This is the crazy part. I shipped it off without making a copy of it. This is 1978. It doesn't have a digital backup. I shipped it off without making a copy of it, so it seems I didn't much care if it wasn't selected and vanished.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Breath and I slowly gazed around. Turning 30 was just around the corner, and pretty much out of the blue I got the idea to write a novel. And this is the crazy part. He says I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first thought I could write a novel. He's a huge baseball fan. So it says it was around 1.30 in the afternoon on April 1st, 1978. I was at Jing Yu Stadium that day alone in the outfield drinking a beer and watching the game. And all of a sudden a thought struck me. You know what? I could try writing a novel and listen to how he describes this experience. Something flew down the thought, that idea, right? That little voice inside of him. Something flew down from the sky at that instant. And whatever it was, I accepted it. I had never had any ambitions to be a novelist. I just had this strong desire to write a novel. No concrete image of what”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “His life when he's running the jazz club, when he's running the bar, it's going to get real crazy because he's going to be for a short period of time. There's going to be overlap between the two professions. We're not there yet, though. He says the work itself was hard. I worked from morning to late at night until I was exhausted. I had all kinds of painful experiences, things I had to rack my brains about and plenty of disappointments. But I worked like crazy and I finally began to make enough profit to hire other people to help out. As I neared the end of my 20s, I was able to finally take a breather. To start the bar, I had borrowed as much as I could from every place that would lend me money and had almost repaid it all. Things were settling down. Up until then, it had been a question of sheer survival, of keeping my head above water and I didn't have room to think of anything else. Now at this point of his life, he can take inventories like what I'm about to turn 30. Am I going to be running this jazz club forever? Is this what I want my life to be? I took a deep.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “That since failure was not an option, I'd have to give it everything I had. My only strength has always been the fact that I work hard and can take a lot physically. I'm more of a workhorse than a race horse. And if you think about it, there's already been hints the fact that he's more of a workhorse than a racehorse. Just look at how he set up his schedule. It's like, you know what? I'm going to work. I'm going to have the same schedule every day. I'm going to put my faith in consistency and routine. I'm going to wake up at 4 a.m. I'm going to write for five to six hours every day. I'm going to run a 10K. I'm going to swim. I'm going to nap. I'm going to run errands because he talks about later on and I'll get to this, the fact that he just thinks he's a morning person. His brain works better in the morning. So he takes like low level stuff for the afternoon. He can swim. He can run errands. You know, go listen to music. And then I'm going to go to bed early and I'm going to do it again and again and again. That is a workhorse. And his schedule at this time.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So before he was a writer or a runner, he actually was an entrepreneur and his first business was a jazz club. And I think there's a little value into covering the section for a little bit because it also gives you an idea of really the kind of his fierce work ethic that he was able to apply even at a business that wasn't suited for himself. But again, this business, I think, lasts seven years where his second business as a novelist lasted 45. So I think that's actually instructive. It's like, well, If you want to be in the game for a long time, you want to get to the upper profession, you really should try to find something that suits you and that's authentic to you. And so he talks about this. Most of the people I knew had predicted that the bar wouldn't do well. They figured that an establishment run is kind of a hobby, wouldn't work out. It's somebody like me who was pretty naive and most likely didn't have the slightest aptitude for running a business wouldn't be able to make a go of it. Well, their predictions were totally off. To tell you the truth, I didn't think I had much aptitude for business either. I just figured.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Of Teddy Roosevelt that I read. His wife and his mother die. On the same day, if I remember correctly. And so he goes and he says when he's going through emotional turmoil, he does this early in his life. He does this throughout his entire life, that he needed physical tests of endurance to chase away the depression that was bearing down on him. And this is what Teddy Roosevelt said about that. Black care rarely sits behind a writer whose expanses and pace is fast enough. And it's one way to turn a negative experience and emotion into a positive result. And Mirakami talks about this in the book. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger if I'm angry. I direct that anger towards myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “What I've written So the fact that I'm me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. That's got to be one of the best lines in the book. So the fact that I'm me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent. So we've established it's unavoidable, it's very constant through human nature and history. So what do you do? So he uses exercise, vigorous physical exercise as a way to relieve this emotional stress that he goes through that everybody goes through. When I'm criticized unjustly from my viewpoint or when someone I'm sure will understand me doesn't, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer, it's like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. He's essentially processing the struggle, the painful emotions through physical activity. There's a great line in this.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Maybe he writes a novel and he thinks it's great and it doesn't sell as well, and people, critics kind of pound it and make him feel bad. And so he says something. He says, it's not much fun to be misunderstood or criticized, but rather a painful experience that hurts people deeply, as I've gotten older, though, I've gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is necessary part of life and I would say unavoidable. In fact, Jeff Bezos has a great line about this where he says, if you absolutely cannot tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting. Back to Mirakami. If you think about it, precisely because people are different from others, that they're able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It's precisely my ability to detect some aspects of a scene that other people can't, to feel differently than others and choose words that differ from theirs that's allowed me to write stories that are mine alone. And because of this, we have an extraordinary situation in which quite a few people read”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “To be well informed, or your ideal will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, like books and podcasts and conversations, right? Then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, and that's Olgaby's words, obviously in Mirakami's words he's running, or taking a hot bath or drinking half a pint of liquor, I guess. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big ideal wells up within you. And there's also another mental or psychological benefit from, in his case, Mirakami's case, running physical exercises has come up a bunch of time in the books as well. He's in an industry, like a lot of people are, every entrepreneur. You're just going to be...”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Ways you can do this, he just chooses to get to this destination through running. But he says, I run in order to acquire a void. Running gives him a calm and empty mind. Obviously, he says, like an occasional thought is going to slip into this void because people's minds can't be completely blank for long periods of time. But running gives his ability to give his brain a rest. It gives him the ability to acquire a void. And I think it's during these voids, whether it's in a shower and a long walk. running, swimming, whatever it is that you're doing, where you get this like download, this very valuable download from your unconscious. In fact, this is something that's popped up several times in the books. I think David Olgovy is really the person that communicated this idea best to me. So I'm going to read an actual quote from his book Ogilvy on Advertising. And he says, big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising, but your unconscious has...”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Looking around and mimicking what other people are doing. He's going to talk about if you think about what this paragraph I'm about to read to you right now, this is why he's been able to write 15 books over 40 years and countless numbers of short and publishless numbers of short stories. He says, I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself, to put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours a day alone at my desk to be neither difficult nor boring. I've had this tendency ever since I was young when given a choice I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating over being with somebody else I could always think of things to do by myself. And then he goes into some of the psychological benefits of running or just spending time letting your mind wander. And so he has a great phrase on this. You know, there's a bunch of”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. This hits so hard. What he's saying is the judge within reigns supreme. This is my interpretation of what he's saying. What's crucial is whether you're writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something that you can easily explain away. Then he continues to seem and goes right back to running. For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, working day after day, right? Running day after day, piling up the races bit by bit, I raise the bar. And by clearing each level, I elevate myself. That's why I've put in the effort day after day to raise my own level. And then a few pages later goes back to the importance of picking a craft, a profession that suits you, that is authentic to you, that you're not just”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Anything. And he says, long distance running suits my personality, and of all the habits I've acquired over my lifetime, I have to say that this one has been the most helpful and the most meaningful. Running without a break for more than two decades has also made me stronger both physically and emotionally. I am not much for team sports. That's just the way I am. I think that very simple sentence is one of the most important sentences in the entire book. That's just the way I am. It is clear from reading this book that Mirakami knows who he is. I was just rereading highlights from one of my favorite talks. I know I've talked about this a million times. It's running down a dream, how to survive and thrive in a career you love. And when I got to this part because I was also reading the transcript and when I went back on this section, I added the note after. I was like, you must find a business that's authentic to you.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Each obsession serves the other. And so he begins and he starts talking about like, why did he pick a career as a novelist? Why did he pick running as the most important physical activities in his life? He talks about the importance of picking things that are authentic to your true self, something that suits you, and something that you can do for a long period of time. So he says, I started running in the fall of 1982. So it was actually a few years after. He publishes his first novel in 1979. So he picks up running a few years later. He says, I started running in the fall of 1982 and had been running since then for nearly 23 years, even longer now, because this book is like 15, 16 years old. And there's going to be many times in the book where you see why he picked a career as a novelist and why he chose to run. One of it is he's a loner. He likes to do things without relying on other people. And things are as simple as possible. He's like, well, if you want to be a writer, all you need is a pen and a piece of paper. If you want to be a runner, all you need is shoes. You don't need teammates. You don't need any kind of equipment. You don't need any...”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Being is to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day, even though he's physically capable of running more than a 10K every day, he purposely pulls back. He wants that exhilaration I feel at the end of each run to carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack that I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that and the next day's work goes surprisingly smooth. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. In fact, it's really funny. Again, I didn't even know this book existed, you know, say two weeks ago, and yet in my right hand right now is Ernest Hemingway's book, Ernest Hemingway on Writing. I had read the book, completely marked it up, took notes on it. I didn't think it was enough. I've read, I don't know if I've told you this. I might have mentioned it last week, but in the last month alone, I've been hitting like this dry streak over and over.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “On my phone. This really is a memoir about his two obsessions. His first obsession is writing, his second obsession is running, and so in the book he says, unless it's totally unavoidable, he runs every single day. Not only does he run every single day. This is his schedule when he's writing a novel. He wakes up at 4 a.m. He writes for five or six hours completely uninterrupted. Then he'll go and run a 10K. He will also swim after that. Then he'll read, listen to music, run errands, and then he falls asleep by 9 p.m. Usually there's a nap in the quick 30-minute nap in the afternoon as well. And he does this seven days a week. And so even though it's obvious that he's got a very intense and disciplined personality, he clearly believes in consistency over intensity. And so that's why he spreads everything out over a seven day week to keep the momentum going day to day. And so he talks about this. He says, listen, the point.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Keep repeating a mantra of some sort to yourself, you'll never survive. One runner told his mantra. Here it is. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Say you're running and you start to think, man, this hurts. I can't take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality. But whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself. So I suppose it's all right to read this as a kind of memoir centered on the act of running. This book does contain a certain amount of what might be dubbed life lessons. They are personal lessons I've learned through actually putting my own body in motion and thereby discovering that suffering is optional.”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “A little hesitant about writing this book. This is a book about running, not a treatise on how to be healthy. I'm not trying to give advice here like, okay, everybody, let's run every day to stay healthy. Instead, this is a book in which I've gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person, just a book in which I ponder various things and think out loud. No matter how mundane some action might appear, if you keep at it long enough, it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act. Once I was lying around a hotel room in Paris, reading the International Herald Tribune, when I came across a special article on the marathon, there were interviews with several famous marathon runners, and they were asked what special mantra goes through their head to keep themselves pumped up during a race. I was impressed by all the different things that these runners think about as they run 26.2 miles. If you don't...”

    2024-07-21 · Founders · #357 Haruki Murakami · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source