2036: The "Hell Yeah" Rule for Work, Money and Doing Less

Farnoosh Torabi (0:00)

Hey friends, if you've been sitting on a book idea and wondering could this actually become something, this is your moment. Join me in New York City on October 9th for Book to Brand. This is my intimate full-day immersive designed to help you turn your idea into a clear, compelling, pitch-ready book concept. You will meet the insiders, agents, publishers, and recent authors who can help bring your book to life. Spots are limited and early-bird tickets are on sale now. Head to booktobrand.co to reserve your spot. So Money episode 2036, the hell yeah rule for work, money, and doing less.

SPEAKER_2 (0:42)

Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself.

Mike Allen (1:04)

I'm going to change your life. Two words, hell yeah. So if somebody asks you if you want to do something, if you want to go somewhere, if you want to meet up, if you want to do a project, if you're like, yeah, okay, or like, yeah, I guess I should, say no.

If you say hell yeah, then it's a good idea, then it's worth doing. And it just uses our, we know it uses our own filter. We instinctively know if something's a good idea or if it matters, or if it makes good use of our time.

Farnoosh Torabi (1:37)

Welcome back to So Money, everybody. What if the secret to getting more done isn't doing more, but getting ruthless about what you stop doing? My guest today, Mike Allen, has a pretty simple test for figuring out what stays and what goes. In fact, you just heard it. Hell yeah. If someone asks you to take on the project, go to the thing, have the meeting, buy the whatever, join the group trip, and your reaction is anything less than hell yeah. Mike says that might be your answer right there. And listen, as someone who has spent a lot of her career saying yes, building, adding, producing, optimizing, I know this can be difficult, but I needed this conversation more than anyone. Mike Allen is the co-founder of Axios and previously co-founded Politico. He's also the longtime journalist behind the daily Axios AM and Axios PM newsletters. His new book, Simplify, Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less, co-author with Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz, is essentially an argument against what they call toxic complexity.

Because here's the irony, AI was supposed to make our lives easier. Instead, we have more content, more choices, decks upon decks, more emails, and more things we could be doing. And Mike's argument is that unless we get intentional about what deserves our attention, the technology is just going to help us create more noise faster. Their framework is three steps. Confront what you're doing. Delete what doesn't matter. Amplify what does. And I end up applying Mike's advice to my own business in real time, including the changes I'm making to So Money in 2027

Here's Mike Allen.

Mike Allen, welcome to So Money. It's great to meet you.

Mike Allen (3:24)

Thank you so much for having me. Love to chat with a fellow builder, fellow entrepreneur.

Farnoosh Torabi (3:29)

Thank you so much. And your new book, Simplify, Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less. You are speaking my love language. And I want to get into this framework that you and your co-authors have created. But let's start with a little personal story.

What was happening in your life, Mike, whether it was at Axios or outside Axios that made you realize that doing too much, A, it's not going so well, and the complexity is pricey.

Mike Allen (4:02)

No, you make a great point. And the idea of Simplify is that in both our life and our work, the obligations build up, the schedule builds up, the bureaucracy builds up, and it holds us back from what we're good at or what we want to do.

And to your point, we have lived this. So here at Axios, we're relatively young. We're going to be 10 years in January. Relatively small company. We have 400 people, even a relatively small, relatively young company. These barnacles built up. And we found that we didn't want people to do more work. We wanted people to do the right work. And it's the same thing in our personal lives, that people ask you to do this or that. And we either think we should say yes or we don't think about it. And all of a sudden, our schedule is bogged down. And we don't have the chance to do what we want to do. So Simplify, which is just one word, lives up to its name, is a set of power tools and operating system, a mindset, to help you clear away the bloat and the particles.