When I was nine, I was hiking around in the Sierra Nevada mountain range with my dad and his friend Mike. I always idolized Mike as a young boy because he didn’t seem to have a real job and, as far as I could tell, didn’t actually own a tie. He also had a cool house in Santa Cruz with an art studio in the back; he had time to surf and learn things like playing the harmonica and juggling. These were pretty impressive accomplishments to a nine year old. I made a note to never have a real job.

Later I would realize that not having a real job can actually be more work, because you have to hustle on your own to make money instead of just showing up at the same building all the time.

So we’d been hiking for a couple of hours when we stopped at a…