Crypto Hipster Manifesto E9: Diamond Hands

[00:00:04] Hello everybody and welcome to another solo episode of the Crypto Hipster. If you notice today I don't have my normal Crypto Hipster background, I have people are people. Signals from the human side of systems, which is my latest book that's available on Amazon. IngramSpark, Drafted Digital anywhere you get your favorite digital books or your favorite hard copy paperback.

[00:00:36] My book is available now. So I'm Jamil Hasan and today I want to talk about something that we've talked about in crypto for a long time. And this applies to everywhere. So I want to talk about diamond hands. Not the meme. Not the emoji. Not the laser eyes. You follow Bitcoin for a while you know the laser eyes are a thing.

[00:01:04] Right. Not the social media version. Not the version you see on X or TikTok. I want to talk about what diamond hands actually taught me. Because after nine years in crypto. I think I finally understand. What that phrase really actually means.

[00:01:30] And strangely enough. Has nothing. Nothing. Nothing. To do with crypto. Stay tuned. That's that. Okay. I entered crypto in 2017. Like a lot of people I arrived because I was curious. I saw technology. I saw innovation. I saw real possibilities.

[00:02:00] And I saw people attempting to build. And I saw people attempting to build entirely new systems. Some of those systems worked. They worked well. Some of them didn't work so well. Some never should have existed at all. Over the years I've experienced just about every emotion available. Excitement. Fear. Greed.

[00:02:31] Hope. Disappointment. Confusion. Conviction. Conviction. Loss. Definitely loss. Recovery. And if you've been around crypto long enough. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

[00:02:52] You buy something. You buy something. It goes up. You feel smart. You're ecstatic and have euphoria. It goes down. You feel stupid. It goes up again. You're a genius. And if it goes down again. Then you are an idiot for getting burned twice. Three times sometimes. Sometimes more than that.

[00:03:22] The market has a way of turning your emotional state into a roller coaster. Now, one of the first lessons that crypto teaches you is that if your conviction changes every time the price changes, you don't actually have conviction.

[00:03:46] Conviction. You have reaction. You have reaction. That's the difference between conviction and reaction. So, a reaction depends upon circumstances. The market circumstances is constant fluidity. Conviction survives circumstances. Conviction. That's a lesson that took me a little bit, maybe longer to learn than it takes a lot of other people.

[00:04:16] And not months. It took me. It didn't take me months. It took me years. Years. Because conviction, conviction gets tested. Right? Anybody can believe something when things are working. Anybody can believe something during a bull market. Everybody is a genius at a bull market. Was I? No. No. I wasn't a genius. I was just kind of smart. But not a genius.

[00:04:46] But everybody else is a genius. And anybody can believe that when something... They can believe something when everyone agrees. It's easy to believe something. Right? It's easy to buy in the consensus. Right? The test comes when things stop working. The test comes when everyone disagrees.

[00:05:12] The test comes when the crowd moves in opposite directions. Not just one direction. But many opposite directions. Right? So over the years... Over the last nine years... Over the last nine years... I've seen projects rise and fall. Billion dollar valuations evaporate. Evaporate. I've seen people become wealthy beyond... Beyond... You know... Anything I thought was capable, possible. Like...

[00:05:40] I've seen people lose everything, too. I've seen heroes become villains. Sam Bankman-Fried was a hero for a long time... Until he became a villain. So was Alex Mashinsky with Celsius. And I've seen villains become heroes. I've seen certainty transform into confusion.

[00:06:09] I've seen confidence transform into regret. And through all of it... I learned something very important. The strongest asset is not Bitcoin. The strongest asset is not Ethereum. It's not Solana. It's not a protocol. It's not a token. It's not a company. The strongest asset... Is patience.

[00:06:42] Patience is very difficult. Patience asks you to sit still. And do nothing. It asks you not... To react. It asks you to tolerate... Uncertainty. And sometimes even dance... With uncertainty. It asks you to wait... For evidence.

[00:07:10] Patience asks you to resist... Impulse. I deleted my ex account. I couldn't stop being impulsive. It's gone. Patience asks you to... You... A lot. Most people don't want patience. They don't want patience. They don't want uncertainty. They want certainty. The problem is that... Certainty...

[00:07:41] Is a rarity. It rarely exists. Especially in emerging systems. Right? So... Now here's where things get really interesting. Okay? I recently realized... I started applying this lesson somewhere else. Much as crypto. Authorship. Publishing. Marketing. Book.

[00:08:12] Promotion. People are people. People. The business side... Of writing. Suddenly... I found myself... Using the exact same muscles. The exact same discipline. The exact same patience. Same standards. The exact same... Diamond hands.

[00:08:40] Since publishing... Since publishing... People are people... I've received... A lot of emails... And a lot of phone calls. Marketing firms. Promotion services. Review services. Visibility services. Acknowledgement services. Acknowledgement services. Branding services. Advertising services. Author services.

[00:09:11] I can go on... This list ad infinitum. Every week... There's... Somebody... Actually... Not just every week... Every day... A half a dozen at least... People... Who are willing... And desirable... To help me succeed. Help me become successful. For a fee... Of course.

[00:09:40] Sometimes it's a large fee. Sometimes the fee... Is the most important thing. They lead with the fee. There's nothing inherently wrong... With leading with the fee. You know... People have businesses. It's a business. Right? People... Provide services. People need to earn a living. That's not the issue. The issue is something else. I started noticing a pattern.

[00:10:10] Many of these people... Most of them... Knew... My metadata. They knew... My book title. People are people. Other titles. Builders Under Fire. The lost message. Bitcoin is revealed. Signals through the noise. The pattern. I have a few more... In the works. I'm working on right now. The names are not hard to remember. Not hard to... They're... They're... Not hard to remember.

[00:10:40] Yeah. So... They knew my title. They knew my subtitle too. They knew my Amazon description. My categories. My rankings. My keywords. My page count. The author bio. But they didn't know my work. They don't know my work.

[00:11:08] They did not sit down with any of the books. And read it. And understand where I'm coming from. And understand the people. The situations. The experience. The wisdom. That are in my books. Experience of reading. My books. They are two very different things. Knowing the metadata. And experiencing the book. Are two very different things.

[00:11:40] So... Imagine walking into somebody's house. Right? You look at the address. You look at the square footage. You know the number of bedrooms that are there. You look at the property value. Then you claim to know. The family that lives there. You don't. You never met them in your life. Right? But you know the house. And you know who they are. Because the house. Boy, she never met the family.

[00:12:12] So... You know information about the house. But you don't know the people. And I started realizing the same thing was happening with my books. Because... People knew about the book. They knew about the books. They sometimes... I get emails about my oldest books. That are no longer applicable. They're no longer current. They're archived. They're wonderful archived. But... They don't know the book. They never read it.

[00:12:42] Right? So... I began asking all of them a simple question. Really simple. What stayed with you? Not... What category am I in? Or... What demographic am I reaching? Or... You know... Any of that. Like... After reading my book... What stayed with you? What did you remember the most? What made you think?

[00:13:11] What challenged your thinking? What bothered you? What resonated with you? What did you take away from reading the book? And it's amazing. Amazing. How quickly... That question... What stayed with you... Separates readers from marketers. Because... A reader can answer it.

[00:13:39] A reader can answer it within a few minutes. Someone engaged with the work can answer it. Someone who is only engaged with the metadata... Can never answer it. And that's where the crypto lesson came back. Because I realized that... I have developed diamond hands. Not just with... Crypto... Assets...

[00:14:10] But with my standards. Now... One thing I've realized recently is that I'm not trying to win a book. I'd love to win people... Our people. I'd love to win that book. It's my first hinge book. It's a 63,000 word... Non-fiction narrative memoir... Combination... Systems... Combination... Philosophy... Sociology book.

[00:14:39] I would love to win that book. But I'm not looking to win one book. I'm looking... To win the catalog. That's a completely different objective. I went to James Taylor last night. James Taylor concert. My wife and I go every year. It's our fourth year in a row going. And... He has so many songs. So many songs. Not just like... Not just one good song.

[00:15:09] Not just one great song. He has a life... Work. And I'd say... So far... I've written at least one book every month since October 2022. Publish one book at least... One... At least one. And... I view my books as my life work. So... Winning the catalog to me... It's a different objective than winning one book. Right? Most marketing...

[00:15:37] And publishing is focused on the launch. On the book as the object. And not the author. Right? How do we sell a book? How do we create visibility for this title? How do we improve rankings for this product? They're fair questions. Okay? And if you're... Only planning on writing... You know... One or two books or whatever. That's your determination if you want to. It's fine.

[00:16:06] They're fair questions. They're not my primary questions. Okay? They're not my primary questions. So when I hear somebody tell me they know me... They don't know me. I'm not building one book. I'm building a body of work. And bodies of work... You know... They behave differently than products. So... A marketer who understands one book... Understands a product. Pretty... Pretty clear. Right?

[00:16:35] A marketer who understands the catalog... Understands the author. That is a big difference there. Right? So... If someone wants to work with me... I don't necessarily need them to know... Every title I've written. There are 404 of them. They don't need to know every title. They don't need to know everything... Every book. Okay?

[00:17:03] But I do need them to understand themes. Okay? I need to understand... I need them to understand why I keep returning to certain ideas. Why stewardship keeps showing up. Why trust... Why systems keep showing up. Why identity... Is very important. Why resilience keeps showing up. And why people... Instead of the exact platform protocol... Keep showing up.

[00:17:34] So... Because... My books are not isolated projects. They're not... 400... Right? And counting... Isolated products. They are conversations with one another. People are people speaks to my next book. Which is called Inheriting Saturn. Inheriting Saturn speaks to Builders Under Fire. Which is a book before people are people. Builders Under Fire speaks to Bitcoin is revealed.

[00:18:05] Builders Under Fire. The podcast I have... Crypto Hipster Podcast... Speaks to all of them. The archive I built... Speaks to all of them. The lessons I've learned in my life... Speak to all of them. They're all connected. So... If somebody wants to understand those connections... They can help me to build something meaningful. If they don't understand those connections... They're simply promoting an object.

[00:18:34] And I am not looking for someone to promote an object. I'm looking for someone who understands the work. Now... That's why I ask simple questions. What stayed with you? What did you remember? What challenged you? What resonated? I'm not testing people. I'm trying to find alignment.

[00:19:02] And no one has been aligned yet. The marketer who ultimately succeeds with me... Won't be the person who makes the biggest promises. It won't be the person with the biggest, prettiest package. It won't be the person with the most aggressive sales pitch. It will be the person who took time to understand what they're representing. So...

[00:19:30] If I'm going to spend the next 10 or 20 years building a catalog... And I plan on it... I need people around me who are thinking in decades and not campaigns. That's the way. It is the way. It's always been the way. After 9 years in crypto, I've learned that the people who think long-term... Usually outlast the people who think transactionally.

[00:19:58] And the same appears to be true in publishing. So... If somebody wants me to invest in them... I want them to invest first. Not financially. Intellectually. Emotionally. Professionally. Read the book.

[00:20:26] Engage with the ideas contained within the book. Challenge my arguments. Disagree with my conclusions. Tell me where it succeeds. Tell me where it fails. But know the work. If you know where my book succeeds, if you know where my book fails... We can work through failure... And help other people discover... Something unique.

[00:20:55] When they read the book. If you don't know the work... My wallet here. If you don't know the work... You get nowhere near it. I am... I'm not going to give you money to promote my book. If you don't know the work. You can send the prettiest... Fluffiest email in the world. You can get in it. It's not an unreasonable question, right? So...

[00:21:25] In fact... It's a necessary question. Because marketing without understanding becomes distribution. Distribution. And distribution without understanding becomes noise. There's already enough noise. You don't need more noise out there, right? What I want is signal. One of the most valuable lessons I've learned from hosting hundreds of interviews... Is that people reveal themselves over time.

[00:21:53] You don't see it immediately. Well, you eventually see it. The founder who genuinely cares about what they're building... Sounds different. And somebody's here to make a quick buck. The founder who only cares about raising money... Sounds very different. Than people who are here to steward... A future.

[00:22:22] The creator who loves the work... Sounds different. The creator who only loves attention... Sounds very different. The reader who read the book... Sounds different... Than the marketer who read only the metadata. Time... Exposes the difference.

[00:22:52] Patience... Exposes the difference. And so does conversation. And that's another form of diamond hands. Not necessarily holding Bitcoin... To the end of time. Not rushing. Not reacting. Not forcing. Not chasing. There's no reason to chase. Just waiting long enough...

[00:23:21] For reality to reveal itself... And reality... Always eventually does. Always does. For years I thought diamond hands... Meant holding through volatility. It's much bigger than that. Diamond hands means... Refusing to abandon your principles... Every time circumstances change. It means... Maintaining standards.

[00:23:51] Maintaining discipline. Maintaining conviction. Maintaining patience. Maintaining perspective. Even when... It will be much easier not to. So... Here's the funny part. Right? The older I get... The less interested I am... In convincing people. I don't need everyone... To like my books. I don't need everyone... To agree with my ideas.

[00:24:22] I don't even need... Every marketer... To understand my approach. Oh... I don't need... Every podcast guest. Or every opportunity. What I need is alignment. Alignment. Alignment. That's different. Right? Alignment means... The right people... Understand what you're trying to do. It means quality...

[00:24:52] Over quantity. It means depth... Over volume. And it means finding... The people who engage... With the work... Itself. And not... Just the packaging... Around it. Nine years ago... I thought crypto was teaching me... About money. In some ways... It has. But the deeper lesson... Was never about money. The deeper lesson...

[00:25:21] Was about conviction. Patience. Standards. The deeper lesson... Was about learning... How to sit... With uncertainty. Without abandoning... What matters. So... Today... I still see people... Talking about diamond hands. Or usually talking about... The price of Bitcoin. Talking about markets. Talking about their investments. That's fine. That's fine. But I think the lesson... Applies much more broadly.

[00:25:52] Writers... Need diamond hands. Founders... Need diamond hands. Entrepreneurs... Creators... Need diamond hands. Anyone... Anyone attempting... To build something... Meaningful... Meaningful... Needs diamond hands. Because meaningful work... Takes time. Time. Because... Recognition... Takes time.

[00:26:22] Time. Not... Pitch. Trust... Takes time. Understanding... Absorbing... Synthesizing... Take time. And... Everything worthwhile... Takes time. And if there's one thing... Crypto taught me... After nine years... Is this... Patience is not passive. Patience is active. Patience is... Patience is... A decision.

[00:26:52] It is a discipline. It is conviction... Expressed through time. And whether we're talking about... Bitcoin... Books... Businesses... Or life... Itself... The strongest hands... Are not... Holding... Hardest. The strongest hands... Are the ones that know... The ones that know exactly... Why... They're holding in the first place...

[00:27:23] Thank you for listening. I'm Jamil Hasan... The Crypto Hipster... This is People Are People... I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you.