Hey there, my name is Matt the Avela and you're listening to the Ground Up Show, the podcast where I talk with creatives about how to make shit happen.

This week I sit down with YouTuber, podcaster and blogger Thomas Frank, our conversation ranges from overcoming social anxiety,

why rejection doesn't matter, and the one productivity tip that works best for him.

It's about tricking your brain into thinking the work that you're about to do isn't very hard.

This podcast is made at free thanks to Patreon supporters. Go to patreon.com slash mat devalat to support the show and get access to a dozen exclusive videos with new content coming every month.

Again, that's patreon.com slash mat devalat. Join the show.

Thomas, thank you for coming on the show. Do you go by Tom or Thomas?

Thomas professionally.

Every good friend of mine calls me Tom. Cool, weirdly.

We're good friends now. That's how you become a little bit.

That was the short cut.

I'm going to get a bunch of tweets.

Climbing Tom.

No, I've tried so hard.

So cool, give me a bit of an intro, some of the work that you do and how you spend your days.

Yeah, I make YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, a single book, I guess I can't say books, but a single book.

Ostensibly on how to be a more capable person. That's how I like to describe it these days.

And that generally focuses around academic performance and success and productivity, but also ventures into personal finance and health and sleep and all kinds of stuff like that.

Basically, if I'm interested in it and it helps people live their lives better, I make content on it.

And it looks like you guys started out in college, around college related content like studying and performing well in school.

Is that when all this started for you?

Yeah, this was 2010.

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