The Control Room

How to Get Paid to Learn "I want to get paid to learn. But the way to get paid to learn is to share knowledge and create something useful with that." - James Clear James Clear gets paid to learn. His writing on the hidden forces that shape our habits using them to maximize performance is read by over 1 million people per month at jamesclear.com. In this interview, James shares insight into applying this knowledge to our daily lives, including: How the hidden forces in our lives impact what we do every day, and how to use that to your advantage; How to architect your own system to take advantage of your habits; and How to use your desire to learn to create materials that people want to read. James’s work intersects nicely with my recent interview with First Amendment expert Ted Boutrous, where we discussed the parallels between lawyers and journalists. In essence, we are all communicators by trade; our jobs are often to distill complicated ideas into persuasive, interesting or informative materials that are most effective when people want to read them. And like James’s work, one of the best parts of the legal profession – at least to me – is that we get paid to learn too. Find more from James Clear online at jamesclear.com and on Twitter at @james_clear.

"The Truth Will Out." “I will represent pro bono anyone #Trump sues for exercising their free speech rights. Many other lawyers have offered to join me.” - @BoutrousTed Weeks before the 2016 Presidential election, Gibson Dunn’s co-head of litigation (and fellow USD Law grad) Ted Boutrous took this unusually public Twitter stance against a major party nominee. We knew then that this was no ordinary nominee, and we saw unusually public stances coming from many places. Even so, a well-respected Big Law leader making this declaration drew attention from lawyers and non-lawyers alike all over the country. I reached out to Ted in November to find time to talk. I wanted the story behind this tweet and I wanted to learn what happened behind the scenes in the weeks that followed. But since November, more has happened than most of us could have imagined. We’ve seen rapid changes in what free speech means and how it’s treated – from the government’s outright hostility toward journalism, to upending established norms in how the government and the press co-exist, to the administration’s communication with the public, to putting into question the basic assumption that what the President says is true. Ted is deeply involved with each of these issues. In this interview, he explains how he got where he is and what he’s thinking about now. We talk about Twitter and the First Amendment. And we explore what you can do now if you care about journalism. Find more from Ted on Twitter at @BoutrousTed.

“Traditional marketing is BS.” Ok, I wanted to hear what this guy had to say. And when I met Todd Caccamo, I was surprised to learn how his experience in the Marines aligns with the scrappiness you expect more from startups. In this interview, you’ll find one recurring theme: start with something unconventional – whether it’s attacking the competition from a crazy starting point to doing something “in the way that is wrong”, Todd explains why conventional marketing wisdom doesn’t work anymore. And as he reminds me, the enemy always gets a vote.

From finance to advertising to law to tech, Jared Cohen's career path is anything but ordinary. He shows us how his desire to learn above all has helped him build an extraordinary career -- and spells out specific things you can do today to improve the path you're on.

We go inside changes in the home healthcare industry and why it matters to anyone with aging family members. With Andrew Chomer, Chief Marketing Officer at Hometeam.