#313 Christopher Nolan

**David Senra** (0:00)
I'm out in California right now, meeting a bunch of founders that listen to the podcast, and I had lunch with two of them a few days ago. Both of these founders have houses, they have multiple houses, and in every single house they have, they have an eight-sleep mattress. One of the guys has four eight-sleep mattresses. Do you know how good a product has to be for you to buy four of them? And they both made the same point that once you start sleeping on an eight-sleep mattress, it's hard to sleep anywhere else. I'm staying in a house, there's no eight-sleep mattress in my house. It's unbelievably hot compared to my bed back at home. Before I had an eight-sleep mattress, I never had the ability to change the temperature of my bed before, and I had no idea before I used it how much that actually affects the quality of sleep. So now I keep my eight-sleep ice cold, and I make sure that it's cold before I get into bed. I find it helps me fall asleep faster and wake up less during the night. In my opinion, that feature alone is worth 10 times the price. There are very few no-brainer investments in life, and eight-sleep is one of them. Eight-sleep is offering founders, listeners $150 off. You can get yours by going to eightsleep.com forward slash founders.
And just two more things I want to tell you about before we jump into the intense mind of Christopher Nolan. I've made something that is exclusively for the enthusiasts of founders, for people that completely understand this kind of strange and intense studying of great people and the great work that came before us and how valuable that is to apply to whatever it is that you're working on. If that is you, I recommend that you sign up for the private founders AMA feed. I've been making these short episodes every week based on questions that I get from members. If you become a member, you'll be able to ask me questions directly. There's actually a private email address that you get access to in the welcome and the confirmation email. I read every single one of these emails myself. I don't have an assistant go through them. I read every single one. The questions I get from these emails, I then turn into these short AMA episodes. So that allows members to learn from the questions of other members. You can also add your name and a link to your website with your question so that other members can check out what you're working on. That feature alone is worth the investment. So far, I've made 30 of these episodes. I plan on making several episodes every week. If you consider yourself an enthusiast of Founders Podcast, I highly recommend that you become a member and you can join by using the link that's in the show notes in your podcast player. And I also have the link at founderspodcast.com.
And finally, for the last two or three weeks, I have not shut up about how good I thought this podcast was. My friend Jeremy went on Invest Like the Best. It is Invest Like the Best number 336, special situations in private markets. I'll leave the link down below, but it's just easier if you search whatever podcast player you're listening to this on. Just look for Invest Like the Best. Make sure you follow the show.
I'm telling you, listen to episode 336 It is 90 minutes straight of just insight, unique insight after unique insight. You will not be disappointed. It's one of the best podcasts I've heard this year.
Christopher Nolan's second film, Memento, had a long, anxious year spent trying to secure distribution.
Nolan had been turned down by every distributor in town with some variation of this is great, we love it, we really wanna work with you, and this is not for us.
The film was personal to him. Memento was born into the world on the back of obsession.
Failure to find expression would have been almost inconceivable to him.
Nolan made it because he had to.
What happens when you make a film is you burrow into it, you dig in, so you kinda can't see it anymore. You're immersed in it.
The only thing you can do is trust your initial instincts. You just have to say, this is what I'm making, this is what I'm doing. It's going to work, just trust it.
Two years to the day after that disastrous screening for distributors, Memento earned two Oscar nominations.
Nolan's ascent since has been near vertical. In the space of two decades, he has gone from eking out micro-budget, three-minute short films to making billion-dollar blockbusters. His films have earned over five billion dollars.