Aislinn Malszecki

Charles Broskoski believes everything should be personal: your work, your tools, your taste, and perhaps most provocatively, the business you build. I talked to @broskoski about knowing yourself, noticing patterns, casual research, and building a personal business in @AREdotNA. Charles is an artist turned software engineer and co-founder/CEO of Arena: a platform for collecting, connecting, and self-directed learning. Arena is coming up on its 15th anniversary, and Charles hopes it can last another 15 and far beyond. I discovered him through his essay and talk, "Here for the Wrong Reasons", and was struck by his philosophy that who we are is made up of the things we pay attention to, and specifically what we see in them. We discuss that and more: - Why creativity is decision-making and problem-solving - Charles's case for "casual" research - Why skateboarding is a model for being a beginner - How information that inflects you becomes part of who you are - Personal versus performative taste (and why it shouldn't be thought of as a competitive skill) - Creating a typeface to replace Arial that looks (almost) exactly like Arial - Why more creative people should start businesses - Drawing inspiration from a 1,300 year old Japanese hot spring hotel - "The reward is the work. That you get to hang out with your friends and make something cool." - Why Arena wants to fade into the background Timestamps: 0:00 - Opening Highlights 1:21 - Intro: Charles Broskoski 4:00 - Thanks to Notion 5:26 - Start: Creativity as Self-Knowledge and Problem-Solving 13:37 - Self-directed Learning and Casual Research 21:33 - Skateboarding, Being a Beginner, In Defense of Posers 33:26 - Contextual Patterns and Channels 45:54 - Nodal Points, Your Radar, and Careful Attention 1:04:57 - Subjectivity, Self-Knowledge, and Taste 1:15:09 - Performance: Here for Fame and Not Love 1:22:53 - Aspirational Attention 1:29:02 - Designing Generous Tools 1:42:44 - Space in a Product and Fading into the Background 1:50:01 - Why Creatives Should Be Entrepreneurial & Building an Independent Business Online 1:54:11 - Patience, Durability, and Antifragility 1:59:48 - Personal Businesses 2:10:27 - Grab Bag: Authenticity, Bohm Dialogue, Skateboarding, and Keeping Things Personal 2:28:28 - Thanks Again to Notion @DialecticPod Ep. 40: Charles Broskoski - Everything is Personal - is out now, below and on all platforms.