Designing a Life You Don't Need to Escape with Kevin Dahlstrom
TKS Podcast #34
Reminder: I’m Michael Karnjanaprakorn, founder of Skillshare, now exploring what's next. My podcast, The Karnjanaprakorn Show (TKS), follows my journey as I chat with people who take unique approaches to business and life. This newsletter features an episode with key takeaways and relevant links.
Kevin Dahlstrom might be the most balanced person I’ve ever met. He’s a 4x Founder, 3x CMO, and investor in over 55 companies. He also pursues rock climbing at an elite level — all while prioritizing his family.
He says it’s only possible because of his “ideal end state” exercise. It aligns his actions with his true desires, allowing him to design a life he never needs to escape. As a result, he’s reduced work to just 10% of his identity.
As I navigated my 40s, I wanted his advice on making the most out of this decade. I chatted with Kevin to get his perspective on work, identity, health, lifestyle design, etc.
Topics
How to use the "ideal end state" exercise to design your perfect life
Why minimalism is about maximizing joy, not sacrifice
The power of finding a hobby you can pursue mastery in
Why he considers rock climbing his "church"
The importance of curating your inner circle as you age
His approach to hormone optimization and longevity
Why he believes retirement is an outdated concept
Takeaways
Identity — Work should become a smaller part of your identity as you age:
"When you're young, work may constitute 80% of your identity, as you need to pay the bills and get ahead. But that should gradually change over time. For me, work is now only 10% of my identity. The biggest part of my identity is being a rock climber.”Hobbies — Find a passion outside of work for true fulfillment:
"You can't have a happy, fulfilling life if you don't have that outlet, if you don't have your version of climbing - something that you do purely for the love of it.”End State Lifestyle — Design a life that doesn’t need to be escaped from by writing a detailed list of what your perfect life looks like:
"Most people find that many items on their lists do not require much money, which is eye-opening as it highlights how societal expectations can lead us astray.”Minimalism — Remove things that don't bring joy to make room for what does: “Minimalism is about removing things from your life that don't bring you true joy to make room so that you can gorge on the things that do.”
Health — As you get older, you have two choices: be okay with a slow decline in performance, or do something about it:
“Nobody cares about it as much as you do. And there's this whole world of things you can do to improve your health.”
This is a must-watch for anyone looking to reboot their life. I walked away with many of my big open questions about identity, health, and lifestyle design answered. If you take away even one lesson or perspective shift from this deep-dive interview, I'd consider that a huge success.
-Michael
“he’s reduced work to just 10% of his identity” this is a great way to think about it, and something I want to do as well
This was probably my favorite episode yet.
I really enjoyed the discussion on % identity and curating your tribe. I hope you explore these topics further. For example:
1. How might a % identity evolve over time, across all identities (not just work)? What goes up and down? e.g. it may be like having a "diversified portfolio of identities" that you might have specific % identity allocation targets that change over time (just we do for stocks/bonds), and continue to rebalance bi-annually.
2. How can one cultivate a tribe not centered on work, when it's currently enmeshed in work? How does your tribe subtly impact your choices? How can you curate people in-and-out?
Thanks Michael! Keep it up.