Bookworm Transcripts

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All right, so I got a keyboard update for you. Joe B. Lig. I'm excited. I sent you a picture on

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Friday night. I think it was

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Because what I do for fun on Friday nights is take apart keyboards

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So I did keyboard surgery Friday night and my key cron K8 now no longer has Gatoron Browns now has

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The drop version of the holy panda switches

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which are

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Very nice people love those things

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like the mechanical world is all about them and love love love love them and

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I've never had my sticky fingers on them yet, so I

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am anxious

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They're pretty cool in fact after I'd switched them out Toby walked in and he heard me typing on it

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He's like what'd you do that sounds way better

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Like well feels way better too, but sure sure it just sounds more more chunky their tactile, right?

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Yep, they're tactile so the Browns were tactile - they don't have that actual click

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But you still have the feeling of kind of a clicky switch right without all the noise

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I've got keycaps coming

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Actually two sets of keycaps coming what like

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like well keycaps are

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They are keycap keycaps are a whole nother world. Yeah, they are and they I don't understand this world at all

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I've been trying to do research because if you want to buy keycaps you have to get in on these group eyes and then

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like

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40 days later the group by goes through and then like a year later you get your switches is generally how it goes or you buy

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cheap stuff off of Amazon

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which I

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Am a little bit nervous about I'm sure you can find decent stuff there, but what I wanted are

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thick

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PBT style switches or I'm sorry keycaps the ones that come with the keychron are ABS and so they feel just

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They just don't quite feel right and since I got nice switches underneath them now

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I really want some nice PBT keycaps. Yeah

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keychron actually makes a PBT set for the K2, but it is out of stock and

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I so I've been looking high and low for for a good set of keycaps for less than

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$150 that are available now

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Yes, yes, because that's how this goes. Yeah world of custom keycaps like you're just gonna spend money on them

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Yeah, so I was watching Mike Hurley stream his

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keyboard

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Breakdown all of his different stuff that he's got sure and he's got these keycaps with these

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I think they're Japanese legends on them which are from a company called Melgeek

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Okay, and I came across that set of keycaps in my my research. I'm like hey these look familiar

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And then asked Mike that he's the ones you got he said yeah

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They have another set called the big bone I believe which look like they're not quite so pointed at the top

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They're kind of like flat, but they're also are sculpted

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So it's not like banging on a piece of glass sure and they were really reasonable. They're coming from China

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I think but they were like 60 bucks. They are now in the US. So hopefully they will be

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to me shortly

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All right, you should try hunting down custom keycaps through a Devorak layout

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Oh, yeah, I know because the water like the group eyes will have some of them will have Devorak layouts

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Oh most of them will not most of them also will not have Mac

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Legends so the command keys for example

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So this Melgeek set actually has a Mac kit, but that part was sold out

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So I don't have that I just have the those keycaps coming true

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Then I saw another one which looked really intriguing the it's an it's an essay profile

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So like really high and really sculpted

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Looks like little recliners for your fingers. You look at it from the side

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And there's a set called the essay

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Granite from the Kono store, which is one of the the places I found like that's one of the places that you get good keycaps from

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Sure, and that one was on sale

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It was a group by that I guess they had some production issues and so a bunch of people that canceled their orders or something

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I don't know, but they had some available and there's moving on the project

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Now finally so I have a set of those coming as well. Oh

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Mike like yeah in the world of Devorak like trying to locate these things is

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Almost impossible. I shouldn't say that but like you can get these rehoming keys

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sometimes and it depends on like the the keyboard I use as a DOS keyboard and

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The height of each of the keys front to back for each row is different

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So you can't just move the keys around to get the different layout you have to get it custom printed for that layout

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Exactly to make it work unless you got like a DSA set or something right where it's all flat

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Yeah, yeah, unless you get some where they're all the same

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Which isn't that many

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Because usually they have a profile on them to some degree so

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most of the time that doesn't work but

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Sometimes they'll send you like you can get these add-on kits that will have

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The keys that need to move only exactly they'll get those sometimes but

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You're always gonna spend a little bit more the last time I located a set of key caps that I would actually use

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On a keyboard it was gonna cost me like a hundred and forty dollars just to get the key caps

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That I needed so I have not been down that road

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I'm also the other problem is I love full-size keyboards like people love these

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65% or the ten keyless keyboards like I use that number pad all the time

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So it's just weird to me that people don't want that it's gonna be a deal breaker for sure

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That's hard like it gets very difficult to locate things for that but

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the other thing too is like I have debated from time to time just doing the

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Quarty keyboards and then

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Putting stickers on top of them, which is what I do for my MacBook Pro

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Because it like can't swap those keys around without destroying them so I

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Do that so I've debated doing that on a mechanical keyboard, but

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That's strange to put stickers on a keyboard with nice key caps that is

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It's a bridge too far. Maybe thanks

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It is it seems strange

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So yes, if I were to try to get like if I were to try to get an aluminum

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keyboard

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With like holy pandas with the Dvorak layout. I cannot get it done for less than about four hundred and fifty dollars

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Jeez, I can't get it done. So not that I've been able to locate

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It's a mess

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Problem with going to vorac

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Yeah, I posted the the links to the the two sets in the chat for people who want to take a look at these

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But I guess I'm all in on this rabbit hole now

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I'm trying to limit it to just this keyboard and I think I can do that

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Yeah, right because this is how it starts Mike. Yeah, well, I'm gonna buy one fountain pin for this one

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You know, yeah, maybe you have no, but I do like to have the same tools available to me

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Everywhere, and I view my keyboard as a tool. It's like it feels like home

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It's kind of like an a lesser level like using a different Mac would drive me crazy because everything's not exactly

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Where I want it right?

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That's kind of how I am with this keyboard at the moment

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And I like the fact that I can use the same keyboard and it feels exactly the same

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Whether I'm writing in Ulysses on my Mac or writing in Ulysses on my iPad sure and I got this iPad stand that like that's kind of my

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Upstairs when I want to get out of my office working setup now

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And the Mac just pretty much stays plugged in in the office all the time. Yeah, since I don't really go anywhere

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I will say like I type on the MacBook Pro itself a decent amount

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Away from my mechanical

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So I'm grateful that they changed the changed off of the butterfly nightmare. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I'm grateful that they did that

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But it's one of those things that once you go

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Like I feel like once people go to a mechanical

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It seems rare that they come back. Yep, I agree. So there's something to that. I

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Know that some people love the clicky

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versions

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Like the if you know them like the blue and the green

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MX brown or MX Cheery MX switches

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So some people love those to me. They're just obnoxious

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But the liniers are strange because there is no bump and you bought them out on them all the time

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So it's just strange. So yeah, I tend to go for the tactiles, which I think you tend to as well

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That's pretty common for people. So if you want to get started in mechanical keyboards I

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Suggest going with brown versions of just about anything because those are the tactiles. Yep, but enough about keyboards

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Similar to fountain pens we can just go and go and go and go. It's true

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I have one other announcement that I have to make and that is that as this episode airs

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There will be a new course that I have helped create for this sweet setup called calm inbox

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It is a pretty ambitious course basically what we did is we took the

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The perspective and the approach like the productivity type stuff

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That's modules one two and three like all the mindset stuff on how to handle just about any email message

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I could land in your inbox and then we have a section called the vault where we created screencast videos

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So there is altogether

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52 different videos in this course, I believe and

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It's it's a lot

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so like in the actual modules will explain stuff like setting up email rules which if

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You have been around email for a while. Maybe that part seems pretty basic

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But if you're coming new to it like that's kind of revolutionary

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We talked through like our approach to

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mobile email and triaging custom swipe gestures and stuff and then the vault we walked through how to

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Set up custom swipe gestures and like all the different popular email clients

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so it's

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They support each other, but they're they're separate

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So like one side is all like the technical here's how you do the things and then the other part is like talking head type videos

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where we walk through all the the process and the system and

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The big takeaway from a lot of this stuff

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That's kind of revolutionary for some people is the belief that every email that lands in your inbox

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you don't have an obligation to do something with it and

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So we try to teach in the course like the mindsets that go behind that, you know

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I've said

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Over and over again that emails are to do listed other people can write on and so

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Once you make that switch and that's where a lot like the talking head videos come in is like kind of explaining

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How you can get to that point because if you work in a corporation for example

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Maybe you have an email culture where you feels like you can't push back against that kind of stuff

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But ultimately that's the thing you have to do in order to start creating some common here inboxes

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You got to change the rules

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If you just go with the defaults you're gonna be stressed out and overwhelmed all the time because you're just gonna keep getting more email

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Did you talk about the hay service in this we do yep, okay?

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Because I'm I'm conflicted about hay

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In that like I love what they're doing from like you have these different areas and we're gonna help you process it into those

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I think that makes a lot of sense. I

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Don't work that way

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So like I personally struggle with it

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I know that it works for some but I think it works well for people who don't think this way

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So I think there is some of that so I'm very curious to see how this I need to go through this mic

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Because I'm curious how you guys cover some of this yeah feedback has been pretty great so far from like the

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Beta testers that have gone through some of the stuff

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I'm excited as we're recording this it's launching tomorrow

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So I'm always a little bit nervous prior to the launch

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but it's gonna be fun and

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Like all the courses at the suite set up the first week when it's launched there's a 20% discount

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I did actually set up an additional coupon with for focused which we can use for for this podcast too

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So if you go to the suite setup comm slash focused

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Then that will get you an additional 10% off of whatever the price happens to be when you go there

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So if you get this in the first week 20% discount so normally $9.99 now $79 that 10% will be taken off of the $79 price

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If you go later, you can still get a discount even after the the launch window

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So cool cool put a link to that in the show notes for people who want to check it out sweet

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It's been a labor of love I've been working on this for several months

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kind of along with this was a

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Review I post I posted of the the best iOS email app on the suite setup

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Which I mean you want to get people angry pick one email app to recommend

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Yes, yes, absolutely 100%

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so

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Did that we also created like this email quiz which has a lot of technical wizardry behind it

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Big shout out to Isaac Smith for helping me get all of that setup

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But it's good

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It's pretty cool

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You basically go through and I have this whole big like flow chart I created in keynote of like the different breaking points for how I would advise people

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Like this you should use check out this app and so it's this complicated chart that goes all over the place

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And then in the end you answer five or six questions and it gives you a recommended result in a couple reasons

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Why and then if you want a sample video from the course you fill out the form and you get one via email?

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that was a lot of fun to make and it's been really cool to see the response to to that and

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I was worried about that too when I launched it. I'm like we put so much work into that thing

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I if no one likes it like it's a complete waste of time

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Which ultimately at the end it recommends a email app and that's kind of the big takeaway like you don't have to fill out the form to get the video

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We're not hiding anything behind there. It's like if you want the video

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You can you can get it but you can get really the value of the result of the quiz without having to give us anything

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Which I thought was sure was kind of cool. Those quizzes are always interesting too

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It's it's very difficult to get all the steps and the results

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Well exactly. It's not just a quiz. It's not like you answer the question you get points based on what answer you pick

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It's literally a giant logic tree. Yeah, it's a bowl of spaghetti that leads you to the right email client finally and every time you add a question

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It doubles the logic results. Yes. Yes. So one of the one of the answers is like spark plus same box

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Yeah, there's a separate separate answer for just spark

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There's another answer for spark plus teams and then there's also like air mail and hay and apple mail all the type of stuff

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But just taking like spark plus same box. There's ten different ways in the logic tree to get to that response

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And there's ten different responses. So you can kind of get an idea for how big this thing is

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Enormous. Yeah, it is enormous

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Yep

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So link in the show notes the quiz is actually in the iOS email app article if you want to check that out

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But that's all related to common box as a long way of saying that this has kind of been my work life for the last several months

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And I'm really excited to share it with everybody cool. Fun times. You got another point of follow-up here though

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I do finally getting to

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follow-up for action items and this one I failed at

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My action item from the last episode was to find someone radically different and befriend them

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I made the distinction that I wanted it to be somebody new I

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really haven't

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Gone anywhere to find somebody new to befriend and I've been so

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Heads down on this

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Product is you know launches are always crazy

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This one is has actually gone really well in terms of the production and everything but still

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Tiding up everything at the end is always always stuff to do

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So when we recorded last I estimated that I would have a little bit more margin than I I did the last couple weeks

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So this is this is an epic fail. I made an effort to reach out to somebody

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But they reached out to me first. So that doesn't even count. I don't think no does not

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I'm not gonna give you that one. No, I'm not asking for it. I'm admitting I didn't I didn't do this

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so I

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Do think there's a value in this and I do want to continue to do this but I was more I think about this too

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It's not an action item where it's like I'm okay. I'm done with that and now

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like I'm good. This is something that I'd like to

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influence my

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perspective going forward

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So hopefully I find many more people who are radically different and befriend them cool cool

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I hope it goes well for you. Thank you. I feel like I have a lot of friends that I do not agree with so

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I'm not gonna continue to seek out more of those

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I love you all but fair enough no

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All right, then we should probably jump into today's book which is how to be everything by Emily Wopnick

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This is a book about

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being a

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multi-potential light which we will unpack here in a moment. I first heard about this book from Jay Miller and

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It was not quite what I expected in both a good way and a bad way

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The first part of the book I

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Really got more out of it than I thought I was going to the last part of the book

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I was kind of disappointed by and we'll jump into those different sections as we go here

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But the format of the book is that there are three sections as you do what?

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Really when did that happen? Yeah, so part one is everything with the question mark

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part two is the four

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potential at work models

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Part three is the common multi-potential light stumbling blocks and then just kind of like a final word for the

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conclusion which I added to the outline because I do think there's a really strong ending to this book so

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Ten different chapters. I believe we're not going to go through each chapter

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I kind of pulled out some of the main ideas from these different sections

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And I think we'll tackle these part by part. Okay, so the first part number one

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everything

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The first thing we need to do here is define what is a

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multi-potential light

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You want to take a crack at describing it in your own words before I share the formal definition? Sure because

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The way to think about it is a potential light

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would be someone who sees an endeavor

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And you can see the potential of that endeavor to become something bigger so

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You know if you if you want to explore that from a

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practical stance a multi potential light would be someone who sees the potential for a blog to be something that they love to do

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You could also see how woodworking would be something that you would love to do

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You could also see how being a plumber would be something you love to do

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You get my point like there's a lot of these different interest areas that you think could be

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something that you do longer term and

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Thus the potential part of that the multi being you have a bunch of these and

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The the light at the end of it the it mean you are that person so a multi potential light

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Someone who has a lot of interest and you can see the potential for each of those interests to be something bigger

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Nice, how'd I do? I like it? I like your definition better than hers

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I think because a multi potential light is someone with many interests and creative pursuits

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and I think one of the things that you mentioned that I liked is the ability to see like what that thing could become and

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I think there's an inherent

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Bias in that which is okay

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Towards a work perspective

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Where the ability to become something that could provide for you and your family financially as an example

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Yeah, because there are a couple different

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Elements of a multi potential light life. Maybe this is the the time to talk about these real quick

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So this is later on in the third chapter

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But the three common elements in a multi potential light design life are money meaning and variety

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And these are pretty straightforward money we need money, but the amount will vary

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It's but it's just one ingredient to a happy life meaning. Why do you do?

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What you what you do and then variety?

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I think really is the thing that kind of stands out with multi potential lights because if you

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Don't have variety then you get bored if you have too much variety you can be overwhelmed and

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So the basic idea for every multi potential light is to recognize that there is more than one facet to the question

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what do you do and

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How do you combine those in a way that scratch all the itches?

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Yes

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So I guess a question there is do you feel like you fit this mic?

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I do we're gonna talk about that a little bit when we talk about the different different kinds

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But yes, I do and one of the things that kind of cemented this for me is

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the discussion in chapter two about the ten thousand hours from

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That's outliers right Malcolm Gladwell. Yes the belief that takes ten thousand hours to become an expert

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And she kind of makes the argument which I thought was kind of brilliant the way that she defined this well

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if ten thousand hours makes you an expert in something is

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that better or is that worse than spending twenty five hundred hours in four different areas and

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In terms of becoming an expert so Malcolm Gladwell would probably say the ten thousand hours is better

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because you're going to

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Develop a higher level of proficiency in that one thing that high level proficiency is going to be the thing that's gonna be valuable for you in

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The marketplace that's kind of Cal Newport's thing with with deep work

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but Emily says that that view assumes that only

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skill or

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Skills the only thing really that matters and I think there's some truth to that where if you

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Develop a skill in something, but you don't like doing it

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Then you're just not going to do it

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I kind of remember a point when I was growing up playing violin because I was classically trained on the violin and I was playing with symphonies when I was

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in high school

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But I also reached a point where I was like I just don't want to do this anymore

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This is boring. I made a little sign and put it in my violin case like for sale

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Nice

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and so and it took a while for me to get back into it once I went to college because I

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was trained to read

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read classical music realized that wasn't really what I wanted to do with it and

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As I had to start from scratch and developing different skills with the the instrument

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It became more fun and now it's something that I continue to do as I play on the worship team at my my church

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So I can totally see how you know if I hadn't sunk all of my

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10,000 hours into violin and I had split it up twenty five hundred hours for violin twenty five hundred hours into

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Guitar which is another thing that I've picked up not and then the not so distant past

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But if you spread it out over these different skills, you can develop enough proficiency in these skills that

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creativity and

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ingenuity and passionate the other things that she says are important that those can kind of mash together from these different domains and

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Create something that is more fulfilling for you as a person which no one on the outside will be able to

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Understand why you like doing this thing at a lower level than this other thing which you maybe already have like a

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High high high proficiency in they won't understand why you want to make that that switch sometimes

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Yeah, I want to point out one thing here in that because and I say this because I'm guessing

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Based on me knowing you and you knowing me that we're probably both in this category, but very different

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in the way that it fits in that

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And again, there are four different ways that people do this, but you can have an interest that is holding your attention for

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multiple years and then you feel like you've

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reached a point and you're ready to move on from it and go on to a new interest that can fall into this category as well

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You could also be somebody who has 12 of these all at one time

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And you want to keep all 12 of them in the air at one time

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So that could also be someone in that and you can fall in the middle too

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and there's a few different like variations of those, but I just want to call that out because I

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Think you and I are on opposite ends of that

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when we get into the actual technicals here, but all right the main thing is that I think that

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It's it's interesting to consider that

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You need to have these different domains in different areas in order to keep yourself

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engaged in any of them and

00:26:37

As I was I was reading this beginning part. I was like yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes 100% this is me

00:26:44

Because how many times and how many of my followers have followed me on all of these different adventures that I go on

00:26:50

You know these these are things that I have a tendency to do and

00:26:54

It's it's easy for me to see like I love doing woodworking. I love running sound. I

00:26:59

Have learned that I love putting on online events. I have learned that I love keyboards

00:27:05

I love fountain pens. I love pen and paper. I like membership sites. I like development work like

00:27:11

This is a huge mix of things. Yes, they have some similarities and things

00:27:16

But me doing woodworking has nothing to do with streaming at all

00:27:19

So that's a thing that I have learned like I've just got a bunch of these interests

00:27:24

That's the type of thing that she's talking about. Yeah when you have a lot of these different interests and you want to continue

00:27:30

multiples of them and

00:27:33

She talks about how to figure out how many you need etc etc. So

00:27:38

I'm very fascinated to go through these specific approaches because I think we're different Mike. I think we probably are

00:27:43

One thing I want to call out here though is you mentioned woodworking and I forget the other example

00:27:49

It was a technical example what you that you just said and how they know it just off top my head

00:27:54

Who knows I don't even mentioned membership sites membership sites blogging podcasting audio. Yeah, yeah, so many sites

00:28:01

Yeah, it's maybe

00:28:03

difficult to find a connection between

00:28:07

Woodworking and that stuff but I believe after reading this book

00:28:11

It's kind of cement that even even more firmly in my head that there is a connection there and that's kind of what makes you you and so

00:28:19

Don't be ashamed that you have these things which don't seem to be connected in any way because the fact that you have these

00:28:26

Experiences and these different domains that's going to ultimately make you more creative

00:28:31

I think back to steal like an artist by Austin Kleon, which I probably referenced way too much

00:28:37

But that's really the thing that and we've never done it here on the show

00:28:41

Well, we'll have to at some point because that book was kind of the thing that gave me the the permission I needed to be creative

00:28:49

He talks about when you create something you're just connecting dots in different ways

00:28:54

And so when you've got woodworking dots and you've got membership site dots and you've got podcasting dots

00:29:00

Like you are able to connect those dots sometimes you don't see the connections right away

00:29:04

But that's okay like ultimately that's just your palette that you have to to work with and that's the part that

00:29:10

Non-multi potentialites will never understand because they'll say okay

00:29:14

You want to be a woodworker because that's the only silo that they can see inside

00:29:20

You know that they don't have the ability to see the other silos or how they connect and they say well

00:29:25

You're pretty good at woodworking if you would just devote yourself you could really be an expert woodworker

00:29:31

Like I don't want to be like that guy over there

00:29:34

I just want to do it a little bit have some fun with it

00:29:38

And then I do think if you are able to make those connections though

00:29:41

You're able to see how one domain influences another that can create some motivation to keep going with some of these

00:29:47

These habits if you have

00:29:48

Multiple of these things that are going at this on at the same time now

00:29:52

There is a spectrum that she talks about in this first section where you have a bunch of things going on at the same time

00:29:57

on one end

00:29:58

And on the other end you only do one thing but you do it

00:30:01

Well, you're all in for a little while and then you completely drop it and you go to something else

00:30:05

It sounds like that's her approach and she has an image of like her career path and how it's connected all these different different things right and

00:30:14

The people in her life who don't understand the whole idea of like the multi potential at lifestyle

00:30:20

They're like well

00:30:21

You just are restarting all the time and she doesn't view it that way like on an XY access like she's she's continuing to move up

00:30:28

But she just goes up for a little bit and then switches lanes and goes up again

00:30:32

Right and I think that that is a pretty powerful idea even if you don't understand how those lanes connect

00:30:39

Yeah, because you know to go back to some of your examples here, you know, I

00:30:44

I love sound equipment like this is this is not a secret

00:30:49

But I also really like doing video work as well. I like doing networking

00:30:57

I like doing web development work. So guess what whenever you do something like streaming

00:31:01

Like right now this this always confuses people. Well, no, this is this is not as good an example

00:31:07

So we did a big worship in the parking lot event. Thanks to COVID, you know worship in the parking lot in

00:31:12

order to do that in

00:31:15

live stream it at the same time and

00:31:18

To have a full video crew had to have a sound crew had to have a technical producer of sorts

00:31:23

Which ended up being me and another person we had to have a video board. I had to have a stage

00:31:28

I had to have all the sound equipment. I had to have you know somebody helping people determine when to go up on stage

00:31:34

etc, etc

00:31:35

And I'm sitting with a headset on monitoring all of that all the way down to is the compressor correct on the pastor's voice

00:31:43

Like that's the level of detail that I'm monitoring all at one time and I know a lot of those

00:31:48

areas pretty well

00:31:52

But between my ADD and this multi potential light way of having interest like all of those converged into a single event and

00:31:59

People were telling me afterwards like I'd be stressed out. It's like I was ready to go for another couple hours

00:32:05

Like I was fine. It's totally cool, but that's because

00:32:09

I've done some work in a lot of those different arenas and they just happen to come together

00:32:14

But you're correct like in things like woodworking. I

00:32:16

Don't want woodworking to be something I do professionally

00:32:21

You know, I'll make cabinets. I made a nice china cabinet hutch out of cherry wood for my mother-in-law

00:32:26

But the skills I've learned in how to prepare and put pieces together in

00:32:31

Woodworking

00:32:33

Developed your puzzle brain and how to put individual components together. I use that in development work all the time

00:32:39

Yeah, it's the same skill just in very different

00:32:43

Manifested very differently. Yeah as you're describing what you were doing for the audio in the video

00:32:50

I think there maybe is no more multi potential light job than like an AV guy

00:32:56

So true so true

00:32:59

Because you got to understand I know a little bit about this stuff

00:33:02

Just but I know just enough for to make what I record sound a little bit better

00:33:06

Sure, so you got understand compression you got to understand I mean just even in the audio stuff

00:33:11

There's all these different things that you can go really deep on

00:33:14

Yes, and then it all comes together in a live listening to my voice and I'm hearing all the time

00:33:20

Things that are wrong is like well, I know what needs done, but I can't fix it with like the system

00:33:25

I have I can't fix that so I just have to let it go

00:33:28

It's you know forever practice in patience and just letting it go

00:33:32

Yeah, and that's actually very much like the the group hug approach, which is the first one here

00:33:39

Before we get to that though just real briefly. I want to call out. She has multi potentialite superpowers

00:33:45

I think these are great we talked a little bit about this how

00:33:48

Having these different domains to draw from can make you more creative

00:33:51

But I think these things

00:33:53

We need to we need to document these so number one idea synthesis number two rapid learning number three adaptability

00:34:01

number four big picture thinking and number five relating and

00:34:05

translating I

00:34:07

think the one that jumps out to me the most about this is idea synthesis and

00:34:11

That is because I feel like that's what we have done with the books that we read for bookworm

00:34:18

We read for the most part productivity

00:34:20

self-development personal growth type books that every once in a while will get something that's very specific or very niche and

00:34:27

Just like totally in a different domain and it's always fascinating to me how

00:34:32

Those things connect to like the getting things done type books. Yes, you know the systems books that are so prevalent in this the space and

00:34:43

I

00:34:45

Don't know. It's it's kind of cool to see if you if you had a visual representation of this stuff

00:34:52

Which is one of the things that I think is kind of cool about

00:34:55

Roman obsidian is that it does give you the ability to see how those room. Yep. There we go. See how those dots connect and

00:35:02

The first time that you see that it's kind of like wow. I had no idea that stuff was there. It's like a

00:35:11

manifestation of the stuff that's inside your brain on the screen in front of you and

00:35:16

Being able to like click around and move between those things and see like oh, that's how that's

00:35:22

connected because

00:35:23

mentioned it in that book and then that led to this thing and that connected to the other thing and it all comes back to growth mindset and flow

00:35:29

You know, yes, like we kind of stumble on that stuff as we talk about these books sometimes but being able to actually see it I

00:35:38

feel is

00:35:41

Another evidence and support for the multi-potential at lifestyle

00:35:45

I feel like we should just skip right over some of that because I disagree with some of it

00:35:51

Because like the thing the concept of like having an idea system that lets me see all of those connections

00:35:58

From an ADD stance. That's a nightmare

00:36:01

Okay

00:36:03

No, you do not want that at all. Maybe that's some of my complaints

00:36:08

Results you don't want to know how the sausage is made because if I go down that road the sauces won't get made

00:36:14

Fair enough fair enough

00:36:18

Yeah, no, that's that's fine

00:36:19

But I did have that although I didn't have that kind of a moment the first time

00:36:23

I saw that that graph and really the thing that clicked for me is when I was looking at a specific book and

00:36:29

I saw the things that were connected to that book not like the giant one like when you dump everything in there

00:36:34

And you see all of the overwhelming number of dots, right?

00:36:37

But when you've got a handful of things that connect to something that you're actually studying and interested in right now

00:36:42

You know, I think that's kind of cool and there's probably other ways to do that

00:36:46

Maybe you can figure out a way to do that with the bullet journal. I don't know. I don't like this is

00:36:50

you know people try to externalize these connections a lot and

00:36:54

I find that you know

00:36:57

And there are a lot of folks and I get what the point is but when people talk about creating is more

00:37:04

important than consuming and I don't think I would disagree with the sentiment there

00:37:09

But I know that I need to continue consuming at a pretty high level in order to create got it. Yep

00:37:16

That's that's me. I don't

00:37:19

The things that I personally create from like a connection in a dot generation

00:37:25

Idea synthesis concept

00:37:28

They don't help me make big broad jumps

00:37:32

It it ends up being a waste of my time because my brain moves so fast

00:37:36

That I'm better off reading a book that I disagree with in some cases like

00:37:42

What was the recent one crossroads?

00:37:45

So like that one gave me all kinds of ideas for other things

00:37:50

I didn't like the book, but it gave me tons and tons of connections to other things sure

00:37:55

But I don't need to externalize that

00:37:58

I'm better off taking advantage of what I learned right now and then build off of that and consuming some other things

00:38:04

That's how I operate

00:38:05

This is this is maybe why I have such an angst against some of these note-takers and that you love them

00:38:11

Because we have very different views on how we come up with those ideas

00:38:16

Yeah, and how we go about synthesizing those we're just not completely opposite into the spectrum on how we do that. Yeah, that's

00:38:24

A very valid point. I think and you also mentioned the crossroads that should have must tonight after reading this book

00:38:29

I feel like depending on your view of

00:38:34

multi-potential light ism

00:38:37

You could get very different

00:38:39

reactions to that book

00:38:42

Yes, and maybe that's where this comes from because right maybe we should get into these different types

00:38:47

Yeah, let's jump into the types

00:38:49

I think your type would resonate with shouldn't must more so than my type. Okay, that might be it

00:38:55

Yeah, let's let's get into the types here and

00:38:57

let's go through all of them and

00:39:00

if you want to

00:39:04

If you want to talk about like where you fit in here as we go, that's that's cool

00:39:09

And I'll try to do the same although. I'm not a hundred percent sure which one I fit into

00:39:14

Haven't I have a feeling there's one that I'm that's dominant, but

00:39:18

So we'll just jump into the first one here the group I could tell you

00:39:23

Yeah, let me let me hear what you you think I am okay

00:39:28

I'll do it after we go through this because I think it's gonna be helpful for people to see what they are

00:39:31

So the first room you doing it I can do it

00:39:34

The four types four types are the group hug approach which is having one multifaceted job or business that allows you to wear many hats

00:39:41

There's the slash approach which is having two or more part-time jobs or businesses that you that you flip between on a regular basis

00:39:48

There's the Einstein approach which is having one full-time job or business that fully supports you while leaving you with enough time and energy to pursue your other passions on the side

00:39:56

And the Phoenix approach which is working in a single industry for several months or years and then shifting gears and starting a new career in a new industry

00:40:05

And there's helpful visuals for all of these in the book. I thought they were helpful anyways

00:40:10

And I feel like from the story at the beginning you can tell that Emily Wopnick is the

00:40:14

Phoenix approach

00:40:16

But there's some cool ideas associated with each one of these so let's break them down one by one starting with the group hug approach

00:40:23

So the visual for this is literally like a big circle with money meaning and variety in the middle and then

00:40:29

Kind of a one multifaceted job or business along the outside and like arrows going around it

00:40:35

So this is kind of like where you are able to just stay here for the rest of your life

00:40:39

And you're totally happy because you're able to do all of these things which maybe aren't even in your job description

00:40:44

But they give you the ability to develop stuff that is that you're interested in that you're passionate about

00:40:50

And allow you to feel like you're you're growing and you feel fulfilled without having to change your job

00:40:56

Is that fair description? Yes, and you're doing good. All right

00:41:01

Do you have anything you want to share about the group hug approach?

00:41:04

I feel like the group hug approach is one that is difficult to locate

00:41:09

Agreed like if you're someone who needs a lot of things happening

00:41:12

It's like the the parking lot thing i'm talking about from a v stance

00:41:15

I would say that most

00:41:18

I'm not gonna say all but most sound engineers that i've worked with fit into this

00:41:23

This particular category because you have to keep in mind

00:41:29

not just

00:41:30

The science of how you're getting sound out into the room, but you have to keep in mind the creative side of how are you actually putting together?

00:41:38

The feel of the room because you can like I can control

00:41:42

This is this is gonna sound weird based on the way I run a sound board

00:41:47

I can control how much a group is singing along with who's on stage

00:41:50

Yeah, totally I get it based on the way you run it. So yes, I have to have people on stage

00:41:58

Producing that sound but the way I alter it I can adjust that so like

00:42:03

That's a group hug approach and you know when you've got a bunch of these different aspects that you're maintaining all at one time

00:42:10

But I don't think these are easy to find you know no she she mentioned I think the architecture

00:42:15

tends to fit into this

00:42:18

To some because you've got the science the math side of it

00:42:21

But there's also an art form and a design aspect to it as well

00:42:25

So that's that's kind of what they're getting at or she's getting at with that particular approach

00:42:29

Yeah, and the the thing that makes this work is something she calls smooshing

00:42:35

Which is blending together

00:42:37

disparate entities right and she talks about how the group hug approach

00:42:42

Can either be found or created by smooshing but finding the

00:42:47

That that needle in the haystack. I think she would agree that that's that's pretty rare

00:42:53

Some strategies she she shares for smooshing

00:42:56

I can't say that word without laughing

00:43:00

Smooshing smooshing

00:43:02

Is working in a naturally interdisciplinary field which is what you were describing with the architects

00:43:08

Uh figuring out where the multi potential lights in a particular area hang out

00:43:13

Working for an open-minded organization where

00:43:16

This isn't your job, but they need a new website and you say hey, I know a web development

00:43:20

Let me take a crack at it and they're like oh, yeah sure. Why not? It'd be better than hiring somebody

00:43:24

You know those places do exist, but most places will go hire the expert

00:43:28

Right. I would go hire the expert honestly. I don't I do things on my own. Well on your own

00:43:35

It's okay because if you break it

00:43:37

You can fix it. So true, but it's true. I'm not gonna go in and tinker with joe's wordpress site

00:43:42

Like that makes me nervous

00:43:44

I totally would though like I would

00:43:46

All right

00:43:49

Number four and the strategies for smooshing making an existing job more plural and number five starting a business

00:43:55

I feel like starting a business is one of the ones I could apply to

00:43:59

all of these different approaches

00:44:01

And maybe is the thing

00:44:04

That people would look at as well

00:44:06

This is obvious that you should try to create your own thing that fits your specific like the way you're wired

00:44:12

But I don't think that's necessarily the best approach for

00:44:16

everybody

00:44:18

So I want to make that point right here because I feel like as you go through this book

00:44:25

You could get excited about yeah, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur

00:44:28

And then just totally fail at it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Yeah

00:44:33

So that's the group hug approach one thing I want to call out here is that like to make this work

00:44:41

Because one of the things she talks about earlier and I don't remember the exact way of coming out the at this

00:44:46

But you have to figure out how many different interests you need to maintain and roughly what those are yes

00:44:52

So there's like a whole trying out section at the end where she walks you through step by step like

00:44:57

See if this is for you the first step pretty much everything is creating your master list of interests

00:45:02

yes, and

00:45:04

the reason I want to say that is because

00:45:06

Like this example I've been using of AV

00:45:09

There's like two to three

00:45:12

maybe three possibly four different areas that you need to maintain it at one time

00:45:17

and

00:45:19

If that's the number of things that you need, you know, if architecture is your thing math science and design like if three things is your

00:45:26

Interest requirement in that

00:45:29

This could work really well

00:45:31

If you're similar to me

00:45:33

Like because I did some of those exercises for me. It's close to six or seven

00:45:38

That's the problem. So something like a group hug approach won't work

00:45:43

Generally because it's very very difficult to find a single

00:45:47

Thing to do that's gonna have that many

00:45:50

In one spot. Yep. I did not go through all of these

00:45:55

Because I kind of didn't see the point in doing it. It's like worksheets at the end of

00:46:01

Yeah, these chapters are these sections and it's like I

00:46:04

I skimmed a lot of it to be honest

00:46:07

Yeah, I like the fact that she includes them and if you find somebody in the right stage of their life

00:46:12

I feel like going through those is going to be very valuable. It's going to open your eyes to some things

00:46:17

Right, but when I was looking at him and I was looking at the questions and I was like, okay

00:46:21

So if I identify this other thing like

00:46:25

What does that mean? Like how does that change things?

00:46:29

I am very happy where I'm at doing what I'm doing like I don't want to rock the boat yet

00:46:34

But if you are looking to rock the boat or your boat's been rocked for you

00:46:37

That's kind of the perfect time to go through that sort of stuff. Right, right?

00:46:41

All right, one other thing I should mention here before we get into the next one is that she

00:46:45

Talks about in the summary of the four models that it is okay to mix and match between these

00:46:49

Not quite sure what that looks like, but I think that might be me

00:46:53

So the next approach is the slash approach

00:46:58

And this is the one where you have

00:47:01

Many different part-time jobs or businesses that you go back and forth between

00:47:06

and kind of the formula is

00:47:08

Part-time job or business plus part-time job or business plus part-time job or business plus or minus a part-time job or business equals

00:47:15

the slash approach

00:47:17

This is the one that I heard about when I was talking to j so I think he probably identifies himself as a

00:47:22

slash

00:47:24

But slasher. Yeah, I don't want to say that but yeah, I guess

00:47:30

Don't don't read into that one listen into that. Yeah

00:47:34

Uh, she does use that term though, so it's completely fair. It's true. Uh, I cringed when I read it

00:47:42

but

00:47:44

If you read the footnote

00:47:45

Yeah, I did she's like this doesn't actually apply like there's so many things wrong with this

00:47:50

But I'm gonna use it anyway. Yeah, the footnotes are pretty funny in this book by the way

00:47:56

They're not just the standard. Here's the study M site right?

00:47:59

Right. It's like get over it. Like this is this is exactly what I'm gonna say. I don't care what you think

00:48:04

This is this is what I need exactly so that was that was kind of cool

00:48:08

Uh, but the big idea from this slash approach is that each slash fulfills a different

00:48:15

aspect of the totality of of you

00:48:18

and I think that's kind of cool. That's a cool idea and uh

00:48:23

I think this is she mentions her street paths that leave do a slash career

00:48:26

So

00:48:27

I think we need to cover this before I say what I really want to say and that is

00:48:31

You want out of your full-time job

00:48:34

You are being presented with a part-time opportunity or you just dive in and you refine as you go

00:48:40

So the thing that jumps up to me here is like wanting out of your full-time job

00:48:44

I feel like i've talked to a lot of people who

00:48:47

would describe their situation that way

00:48:51

And I would argue that that's maybe not

00:48:54

the

00:48:55

The best approach to take is like well, I just don't feel like this is the thing for me and I want out of this situation

00:49:00

Well, what are you going to do?

00:49:03

Instead, you know, I know a lot of people who will jump between jobs

00:49:08

Thinking that the grass is going to be greener over there and then they get there and it's like

00:49:13

Actually, I had a pretty good back where I was. Yes. Yes. So I don't think

00:49:21

that you need and this kind of gets into the next one. So

00:49:23

I don't want to talk about too much yet, but uh

00:49:26

Don't it just the fact that you're feeling a little bit unfulfilled in certain areas of your life

00:49:31

doesn't necessarily mean that you have to abandon ship

00:49:36

And uh, the slash approach would really to summarize it is like what little thing can I do on the side

00:49:43

Which is going to allow me to fulfill

00:49:46

that

00:49:48

Passion or that desire that longing right that aspect of who I am

00:49:52

Yeah, and I will say like the slash approach is one that I tried

00:49:57

Whenever

00:49:59

Uh, I was doing development work as a freelancer

00:50:02

Because I would do like web hosting. I would do actual development work. I did consulting

00:50:09

We did bookworm was still going at that time too. So like

00:50:13

I had four to five of these different income streams

00:50:18

Uh, and then there was bookworm

00:50:20

At the time so like there's these different approaches that I've had like operating at the same time. So it

00:50:29

It's a place I've been and I can tell you like that's not where I need to be

00:50:34

Sure

00:50:35

Any other advice for people who find themselves in the the slash approach because I feel like I'm not even qualified enough to

00:50:41

To speak to this. I feel like I've kind of accidentally tried this for a while

00:50:46

And it just stressed me out

00:50:47

every time I get involved with a

00:50:49

Slash that I view as like a part-time thing

00:50:53

The my brain always goes to how can I make this the full-time thing?

00:50:57

Correct. Yeah, and I get frustrated when it doesn't grow

00:51:01

Yeah, that's the hard part because

00:51:03

You know, if you're going to

00:51:06

If you're gonna go down that path number one, I would recommend that you start with one of these other approaches first

00:51:12

And let those grow to a point where the collective of them will work

00:51:17

Yeah, but it's

00:51:20

It's a math game

00:51:23

Financially frankly

00:51:25

Uh, which she does call out that you know, you have to figure out what your bare minimum

00:51:28

Dollars are and how you're gonna get that and how are you're gonna maintain that and that's important

00:51:34

So she doesn't discount that

00:51:37

But what you have to do here is I think you have to take

00:51:41

At least the next approach we're gonna talk about the Einstein approach

00:51:45

And then let side things grow so I guess let me just jump into that one quick. So the Einstein approach is

00:51:53

And it gets its name because of the way Einstein did his work

00:51:58

She's not 100 certain if Einstein was a multi-potentialator not but he did have

00:52:05

a

00:52:07

full-time job in a patent office

00:52:10

And then worked on his things after hours

00:52:13

That's the Einstein approach where you have one thing that is good enough to use her words

00:52:19

It's good enough to get the bills paid

00:52:22

and then you have these other things that you do

00:52:25

to

00:52:28

fulfill yourself and to

00:52:30

Basically give yourself the space to explore those interests

00:52:33

And they don't have to drive an income. You're not requiring that

00:52:38

But it does help if it does but it gives you different avenues to

00:52:42

to explore

00:52:44

If you want to do the slash approach if the concept of having one core thing that you're doing that your work

00:52:50

comes from

00:52:52

or that your income comes from

00:52:54

then

00:52:56

You can start with that I would recommend you start with that Einstein approach and then start

00:53:00

Things on the side and then continue to let those grow until the collective of those

00:53:07

becomes large enough to let you forego

00:53:10

the main but

00:53:13

Be very leery of what you're saying mike in that

00:53:17

If you do that the temptation is to take one and go big with it. This is what I did

00:53:23

So I had a slash approach that was working

00:53:27

And I had web development. I had all these other different avenues and it was working

00:53:32

but everyone always told me that

00:53:36

You got to find your thing and

00:53:38

Go for it. Like that's the thing that people tell you. So I slowly kicked off

00:53:43

About three of my side deals that were driving an income so where I could focus on the one that was the most lucrative

00:53:50

And I burn out on it

00:53:52

And it didn't didn't stick so then Joe's been on a spiral ever since

00:53:56

I couldn't have termed it this way until reading this book

00:54:01

But that's essentially what I did

00:54:03

So I

00:54:04

If you're interested in the slash approach my encouragement to you is do the Einstein approach first where you do have the one

00:54:10

That is good enough and then it fulfills one of those interests

00:54:14

And then put the things on the side and let those slashes slowly

00:54:18

Grow so what I got I think there's two ways you can

00:54:22

Work the slash approach

00:54:25

You can just be fine with all of the things that you're doing

00:54:29

never really

00:54:31

reaching their full potential

00:54:33

Which is not appealing to me at all

00:54:36

Sure

00:54:38

Or

00:54:40

You can pick one of your slashes and say this one is more important than the others

00:54:46

Right, which essentially is the Einstein approach

00:54:50

But I think there's maybe some middle ground there

00:54:53

Because the Einstein approach

00:54:56

Really is talking about like the good enough

00:55:01

Job and this is the thing that makes me bristle with the Einstein approach

00:55:05

If this term was not there, I would be 100% on board the Einstein train

00:55:11

Sure

00:55:13

But I don't envision what I do at this sweet setup as the good enough

00:55:18

Job like I really do enjoy being there and what I get to do

00:55:22

And I feel like that helps me to grow and develop skills that

00:55:25

Ultimately, that's the thing for me is everything that I'm doing I want it to

00:55:30

Help me to grow as a person

00:55:32

So you could look at it and say well, you're doing an Einstein approach and you've got the sweet setup

00:55:37

You've got focus

00:55:39

You've got bookworm all these little things on the side and I think that if you just look at the

00:55:43

The chart in the book that's accurate until you label the thing in the middle the good enough job

00:55:49

And then I'm like, no, I don't like this anymore

00:55:53

No, that's because you're not an Einstein multi potential eight. Okay. What do you think I am?

00:55:59

We got one more the Phoenix

00:56:01

All right, I talk about the Phoenix before we get there

00:56:03

We can talk about the Phoenix

00:56:05

Yeah

00:56:05

Before we get there real quickly what makes a good enough job because I do think that this applies to some people

00:56:10

And there's nothing wrong with taking the Einstein approach where you are working in the patent office and

00:56:16

Your brilliance is wasted there, but you have enough in the tank for the other stuff when you get done

00:56:20

So what makes a good a good enough job?

00:56:24

Good enough has to be enjoyable

00:56:26

Preferably even challenging and fun and in an area in which you have genuine interest

00:56:30

If they have a high enough salary to allow you to meet your financial goals

00:56:33

And it has to leave you with enough free time and energy to pursue your other interests outside of work

00:56:38

And again, I don't like the term good enough job, but that all makes sense to me

00:56:44

One of the things I've discovered is that I can work really hard on something for a while in one domain

00:56:52

And then go do something else in a different domain and it's almost like

00:56:56

My energy levels have been reset

00:56:58

It sounds kind of weird

00:57:01

but it's almost like

00:57:04

You have different tanks for the different

00:57:07

abilities or different modes that you operate in

00:57:10

I can be creating something writing creating of course, whatever just feel totally drained

00:57:15

Stop pick up my guitar start plunking around on the guitar again

00:57:19

I'm still creating but it's a different part of the brain that it's activating

00:57:23

It's like so just 10 minutes plunking around on the on the guitar and now I'm re-energizing ready to get back to work

00:57:29

I have no idea how that works. I just know that it does work. Yeah

00:57:32

Two things I want to point out here one the chat had a good question of you know the difference between a multi potential light and a polymath

00:57:40

And I think that's an important distinction because she does call that out

00:57:44

And that she's not referring to a polymath

00:57:48

So polymath being someone who is like an expert in a whole bunch of different arenas

00:57:53

And I think that's

00:57:55

Uh, you know, that's that's one spectrum, but I think that's like beyond

00:58:00

A multi potential light like multi potential light to the extreme

00:58:04

It's it's a version of a multi potential light but multi potential light doesn't mean that like she has alternate names at the beginning

00:58:10

And polymath is one of the ones she lists there along with renaissance person jack of all trades generalists scanner puddie like

00:58:16

But polymath is in my opinion

00:58:19

You've achieved like the 10,000 hour level of expertise in these different areas times 12

00:58:25

Yeah

00:58:27

So like that is something that is like the the the top 1%

00:58:33

But that's not something like if you could call it that but I think trying to become that is uh

00:58:39

Is not a great idea. No, the other thing I want to bring up is that

00:58:46

She does call out that you can like mix and match these and it does tend to overlap

00:58:51

Uh in different ways and you can be all like a bunch of these in different

00:58:56

Times and you can grow from one to the other. This is why I don't think you're actually one of these mic

00:59:02

I think

00:59:05

In the reason I think you're having a hard time kneeling down is because i'm not one of these as well

00:59:09

Okay

00:59:10

I need close to six or seven different things going on at one time to feel like I have all of my interests and my energy

00:59:18

appropriately

00:59:20

Spread out. This is why it's so difficult for me to to work out how to make this work

00:59:25

Right now what I have is a mix of the group hug approach and

00:59:31

the

00:59:32

Einstein approach and the slash approach so I have a mix of those three currently so my main core day job

00:59:40

Has the av world plus networking plus web development all thrown into one so it covers a lot of different areas

00:59:46

Uh, but I also have things nights weekends and left over time when we do things like bookworm or i've got analog joe

00:59:54

Or i've got my own code projects that I work on

00:59:57

Which kind of become slash approach is because of the way i'm doing the Einstein approach

01:00:02

Sure, does that make sense? So like you've got these different ways that you're coming at it

01:00:07

I think that for you

01:00:09

The sweet setup is a really nice and the reason you don't like the good enough phrase is because you don't have an einsan approach

01:00:16

You have a group hug approach with einstein thrown on top

01:00:18

Okay

01:00:20

Yeah, I think that's why so like the group hug she never talks about a good enough

01:00:23

She talks about how it fulfills you in a lot of different ways because there's so many different things that you're doing

01:00:28

Yeah, because you never know like you could be recording you could be writing scripts you could be

01:00:31

You know writing blog posts like they're recording screencasts

01:00:36

Like there's so many different things that you can do at the sweet setup that

01:00:39

It is a multi potentialite type of role a group hug type role having built and made a lot of that type of content

01:00:46

It takes a lot of different skills to do that. So I would imagine that you've got currently you have that group hug approach

01:00:53

Uh in your editor position at the sweet setup, but you do have bookworm you've got your interest in fountain pins

01:00:59

You've got your interest in mechanical keyboards

01:01:02

To me those fit in with your einstein after hours thing sure but that the the aspect of good enough from einstein doesn't apply

01:01:11

Got it. That's that's my perspective. How how accurate am I?

01:01:15

I think that makes sense. The one aspect though

01:01:18

Is the from the slash approach? I think is

01:01:22

That anytime you monetize something essentially it is a part-time job sure. Yeah, so I could very well

01:01:30

be doing

01:01:32

Podcasts as an example

01:01:34

For no money just for the experience that I get out of them

01:01:38

And at that point it's kind of like a little blip in the einstein approach

01:01:43

But the moment that they do contribute to your

01:01:47

income

01:01:49

I think they kind of

01:01:51

They kind of transitioned into slash territory sure so it's really hard for me to define these but basically I view it as like there's

01:01:58

There's all these different dots you the group hug approach is like the one giant dot

01:02:02

Yep, the good enough job is like a pretty big dot not quite as big

01:02:07

And then you've got the part-time dots which are a little bit smaller

01:02:12

And then you've got like the the tiny little ones which are just like oh, I'm that's something I'm interested in

01:02:16

But I'm not going to turn that into into a job. Yeah sure. That's just gonna stay

01:02:21

And then like you throw on top of this

01:02:25

Because I think you do this as well as I do like in in special interest things off on the side like

01:02:30

Uh, I picked up motion graphic

01:02:33

Design a little bit so that I could do some

01:02:36

Animations and stuff on screen because I wanted to be able to do that so I just I figured out how to do it

01:02:42

Uh, you know that type of thing fits into the phoenix approach

01:02:45

so

01:02:47

Like sure I'll have these things where it's like, okay, I'm gonna go learn how to do this

01:02:52

I'm gonna learn how to do it well enough and then all like once I figured it out and it becomes easy

01:02:56

I don't want it anymore like I need to move on like that's the thing people always like oh

01:03:01

I gotta get through the learning curve so that it gets easy like sure that's great

01:03:04

But as soon as it gets easy, I'm gone like

01:03:06

That's yeah, that's when I need to move on and do other things because I know that for me

01:03:11

The challenge and that beginner's curve is what keeps me interested and that's what keeps me coming into the new thing

01:03:18

So that's I have the phoenix approach in that sense. Yeah, you do

01:03:21

I'm gonna go learn that and once I have it mastered. I'm done. I need to go on to something else

01:03:25

Yeah, so the phoenix approach you probably don't need to spend a lot of time talking about because I think it's pretty straightforward

01:03:31

Basically you do something you build a career you get bored like chow you kill it

01:03:35

And then you rise from the ashes to do something else

01:03:38

Uh, she does have the loathing scale which she talks about in this section of how to tell when you should

01:03:48

Cut things loose

01:03:49

On a scale of one to ten one is I love my job ten

01:03:52

I feel sick thinking about going to work

01:03:54

She mentions at the best time to switch is somewhere between five and eight

01:03:58

If you wait until nine or ten, you probably won't make a very graceful exit and then she's got some tips for a smooth transition

01:04:04

Which I could see where these are maybe helpful, but this whole approach

01:04:11

Just is not for me. This scares the heck out of me. I don't want to do this

01:04:18

Yes, so I'll let you the the part-time phoenix explain

01:04:22

what to do

01:04:26

in these situations I

01:04:28

Have been back and forth with jobs and stuff because I don't feel like I understood this

01:04:32

And I have been following what people tell me and that you need to find your one thing

01:04:38

And I don't think that's true

01:04:41

I think that I you know

01:04:43

the problem I have is the need for so many different interests

01:04:46

and

01:04:48

If I want to like say that that's a thing that I actually need and then it's not just me being dumb and I need to

01:04:53

Man up and pick one like I I don't want to do that

01:04:58

So if I don't want to do that, I have to figure out how to make something else work

01:05:04

I think that as you

01:05:06

Go through the learning process with this

01:05:10

It's very easy for someone who is single and able to take on a lot of risk to do something like the slash approach

01:05:16

It's also easy for someone in that same situation to do something like the phoenix approach

01:05:20

So one being you've got a handful of different things contracts part-times whatever to make up your income

01:05:26

The phoenix being I'm going to do this for three years and then I'm gonna go do something else for three years

01:05:31

Then I'm gonna go do something else for two like you can do that when you don't need stability and a lack of risk

01:05:38

if you have kids and a family to provide for

01:05:42

That level of risk is a little less tolerable

01:05:48

so

01:05:50

Although I would have a tendency to want to go after that slash approach. I feel like that's something that my tendency would be

01:05:57

Instead of doing that I'm pursuing a combination of others

01:06:03

in order to maintain that at a better level in order to have that stability so

01:06:08

Could I go down the phoenix route? I probably could

01:06:12

but

01:06:14

I don't like the risk involved with

01:06:16

Trying to exit gracefully probably before I really need to

01:06:21

and trying to get into something else

01:06:23

The concept of leaving and starting things I don't care for am I good at the beginner's curve?

01:06:31

Yeah, I'm really good at that. I can pick up new things very quickly and a lot of people can in this

01:06:36

Mindset like when you have this multi potentialites concept in your brain

01:06:41

so if you have that I feel like it's easy to

01:06:44

to make those moves like to learn new things but

01:06:48

I don't care for the phoenix approach though people do obviously Emily is one that does that

01:06:55

she has a tendency to do it in that way but I

01:06:59

Have a hard time recommending that one

01:07:01

Yeah, I feel like a discussion of risk aversion is missing from this whole book

01:07:07

Yeah, that's fair

01:07:08

Just assumes that there's this internal trigger that's just going to go off every so often

01:07:14

And you just got to got to go with it, but right it's not actually true

01:07:19

Uh, I also think that these different approaches are maybe more powerful

01:07:27

Maybe not more powerful

01:07:29

I understand why she breaks it into these four different buckets. This is a very

01:07:33

straightforward

01:07:35

Model that people can wrap their head around

01:07:37

But I feel like I could connect with this more

01:07:41

If she had said these are the components

01:07:45

Like I mentioned the different size dots

01:07:48

Now place them on your canvas how you see fit

01:07:51

I feel like if you take that approach you end up with something feeling a lot more custom

01:07:57

And also a lot more like I'm not this oddball

01:08:00

Who's managed to make this weird thing work?

01:08:03

Right, right. I understand how the pieces fit together

01:08:07

I'm still kind of even ever after going through this kind of questioning like how this works for me

01:08:12

Like I said

01:08:14

Uh, the two that I thought applied to me

01:08:17

Were the Einstein approach and the slash approach? I do think you're right that the group hug approach

01:08:23

There's an aspect of that too into what I do

01:08:25

So now we're in this spot again

01:08:27

Just like I was with the four tendencies where like I'm part this part that part the other thing

01:08:31

Yeah

01:08:34

Uh, the difference here being that Emily has given me permission to combine them

01:08:38

Correct. Yeah, and that's so true. And I think that's why

01:08:41

like in this case

01:08:44

I can see a little bit of all of these in me

01:08:46

You know, it's I don't normally do that when we have these particular scenarios

01:08:52

I think that if if I have to focus on one

01:08:54

the Einstein approach is probably

01:08:57

the core of what I have a tendency to lean towards currently but

01:09:02

Whenever she's referring to the different aspects that go into

01:09:07

A multipotentialite comp like brain method

01:09:11

If you will like you've got the ability to adapt to things quickly you can

01:09:16

Translate things you can see into the future easily like these are all things. I'm really good at

01:09:22

and have capitalized on in a lot of different arenas and

01:09:26

and actively using that in a lot of different conversations I'm having right now

01:09:32

So like these are things that I'm

01:09:34

taking advantage of

01:09:37

regularly

01:09:39

And I I think that you know having having that collection of things put together

01:09:44

And and being able to articulate those

01:09:50

Makes it easier for me to comprehend what it is that my brain is trying to

01:09:53

To do because because I have so many interests and if I see something new and shiny like I want to jump in and go use it

01:10:01

but

01:10:03

Having ways to explain why I'm doing that I feel like is valuable

01:10:08

Does she need to put together these approaches and these work models in order to explain them to you

01:10:14

And the different ways that it can come out. Yeah, probably I don't know how else you would

01:10:20

Do that. I mean she could explain each individual

01:10:22

components and tell you yeah, you can mix and match all these individual pieces

01:10:26

But I feel like that's much harder to resonate with

01:10:29

Yeah, like putting names to these and putting

01:10:32

predefined collections together for you

01:10:35

Makes it easier for you to

01:10:38

Understand how these things can work together, which is why I think she she backs off a little bit from that at the end of this

01:10:44

And says yeah, you can mix and match this

01:10:48

I think that's why because she's trying to show you that you can pull these things apart. Yeah, no, that's that's fair

01:10:55

I do wish she had taken a little bit of extra time

01:10:59

to give some examples of how you could

01:11:02

Combine these different approaches rather than try to give us all productivity advice

01:11:10

Chapterate yes

01:11:13

Yeah, I was doing good till part three came around

01:11:17

So part three is common multi potentialite stumbling blocks and chapter eight is your personal productivity system

01:11:23

And you and I are probably oddballs in that

01:11:27

We've been in this space and studied this stuff for a long time

01:11:30

So we have a totally different approach to this than the average person probably who's just discovered multi potentialitism

01:11:37

And is all on board with how do I make this work? So I get that being a multi potentialite. Maybe there's

01:11:44

an inherent need for this

01:11:47

And maybe it's the missing component for a lot of people

01:11:50

But I also think that she does not do a real great job

01:11:54

of explaining what you need to know. So first of all, it's kind of

01:11:58

Presented as

01:12:01

This is everything you need to know she doesn't say that but that's kind of like I'm gonna hit all the that the different things

01:12:08

She doesn't hit all the things right

01:12:10

She mentions at the beginning that productivity is taking action that moves us towards our goals

01:12:15

As I was reading this whole book. I was like goals are

01:12:18

Are worthless. So I was kind of shocked when she's like, yeah, you need to set goals

01:12:23

Basically and the productivity is the thing that helps you get to them

01:12:26

I think the multi potentialite lifestyle is the biggest argument for just developing the habits

01:12:33

I'm interested in this thing

01:12:36

So i'm going to do this thing and i'm going to do it every day for either a little bit or a lot

01:12:39

And i'm going to see where it goes and i'm not going to worry about the outcome goals are totally against that

01:12:44

Goals are i'm going to develop this skill this level of proficiency and i'm going to do whatever it takes to achieve it

01:12:49

I'm going to put in the 10 000 hours

01:12:51

But she's basically the rest of the book saying no feel free to pull the plug anytime you want

01:12:55

Great, great. So those two things are not compatible in my opinion

01:12:59

Yeah, I wanted her to quit

01:13:02

when she started in on this I

01:13:04

It seems like books like this people just love to offer productivity advice

01:13:09

And it makes me wonder if it's because they're like us coming from the productivity world

01:13:14

And like oh, I discovered this whole thing and I want to talk about it

01:13:18

But I really love talking about productivity

01:13:20

So I need to put like a whole section about it so that I can share my views on that in there because it's something I love

01:13:25

So

01:13:26

I don't know if that's true totally made that up just now. Yeah, that's that's my perspective on it

01:13:31

It's a little tiring

01:13:34

To do that. I mean there are productivity system books like generally

01:13:37

You know, even with analog joe, I've learned that there are a lot of people that just have their systems and they really don't want your advice on it

01:13:44

Yeah, and when you pick up a book like this

01:13:47

the intent is to learn

01:13:50

how to manage multiple interests

01:13:54

From a mindset stance

01:13:58

Not a practical day-to-day stance. Yep. So I feel like it's stepping into the wrong

01:14:04

Sector whenever she does that but everything a bolt about the multi potential light lifestyle is totally custom in my opinion

01:14:13

and so if I were to pick a

01:14:15

complementary

01:14:17

productivity book for this

01:14:19

Like this is the one you should read if you are a multi potential light and you're trying to figure out which aspects of productivity to apply

01:14:26

I would recommend make time by jake nap and john zeratski

01:14:30

I know you downgraded it when we did episode 100 and I get that

01:14:35

But I do think like the way they do it where they break it into like the 86 different components

01:14:40

You'll find some in there that you're like, yeah, totally this fits my mishmash of a career

01:14:45

And I can totally do this and others you'll be like, no, no

01:14:47

I'm not gonna that's not gonna work for me

01:14:49

Right or as if you take any of the other systems based books

01:14:52

You're going to run into some point in that system or not

01:14:55

That's not gonna work for me

01:14:56

Right, so having you know the the elements that you can combine and the way they present it very visual

01:15:02

I feel like that's a great place to start if you do need some help with this

01:15:05

If I were to summarize

01:15:08

Everything here it's focus on the thing you want to focus on when you want to focus on it

01:15:13

Yes, which I mean she gets into again very brief section, but she talks about flow

01:15:20

She talks about the three C's by leo babouta creating connecting consuming

01:15:26

You can tell she studied this stuff

01:15:28

But to try to condense it into kind of a system for multi potential lights

01:15:33

Which is how it comes across even if that's not what she she says she talks about pomodoro method

01:15:38

Getting yourself into a positive emotional state

01:15:40

When how to choose what you're working on when with priority projects setting limits on your tinkering time? I mean

01:15:49

A lot of this stuff is like nuggets of truth in there, but no matter how you would

01:15:55

Try to explain this it's never going to fit for everybody

01:15:58

And really like the thing you want to get good on your superpower if you're a multi potential light is developing your ability to focus

01:16:07

And when you are doing something you're doing it and you're not distracted by all the other stuff

01:16:11

And then when you're done with that thing you go to the next thing even if it's a totally different thing totally different domain

01:16:16

Yes, I agree with you, but I don't know that

01:16:20

Again you and I are oddballs. So I don't know how much of

01:16:27

our angst against

01:16:30

The productivity tips and tricks are valid part of me wonders

01:16:37

Who's the publisher?

01:16:38

Harper one part of me wonders if like the publishers and the editors push for this

01:16:43

Yeah, because I wonder if like the productivity tips and tricks thing sells books. It probably does is that true? I don't know

01:16:51

I mean, you know you and I are again. We're oddballs. We review these things. It's our job to

01:16:58

read these and try to distill them and and compare them to

01:17:05

over a hundred other books now and

01:17:08

show how

01:17:10

It's different than those or how it can help you having read all of those others like that's a lot of what we're doing

01:17:16

but

01:17:19

Not everyone comes from that perspective. Yeah, so I wonder I also think there's an element of

01:17:27

I'm writing a book. Oh my gosh. I need to get everything out

01:17:33

Yeah, whereas if you read like I'm I'm big into the leadership space

01:17:38

I like studying that stuff and so john Maxwell's kind of the name when it comes to leadership books

01:17:43

he's got

01:17:45

dozens of them

01:17:47

and

01:17:48

You read a john Maxwell book and he's sharing on a specific aspect of leadership

01:17:53

And he doesn't feel the need to bring up all the other stuff in like the ancillary

01:17:58

Sort of connected domains

01:18:01

Because he knows there's other books either they exist or he's going to write them that are going to speak to those things

01:18:07

Right

01:18:08

So

01:18:08

I get it where and i'm not saying this is exactly what happened

01:18:12

but maybe

01:18:13

Emily's writing this book about her story because she's a multi-potentialite. She's figuring this stuff

01:18:18

So she's sharing what she's learned

01:18:20

And then

01:18:22

She's like a big part of what allows me to do this is the stuff i've learned about productivity

01:18:26

People got to know this and so she tries to cram it in here

01:18:30

Right, but in my opinion the book would be better without that stuff in it

01:18:33

If you really want to talk about that then write a productivity book

01:18:37

And maybe she can't get a book deal for that book, you know, so which is why she included it in this one sure totally

01:18:42

Speculating at this point. I think she's actually a really good author really entertaining

01:18:45

We'll talk about right and talk about that when we get to style and rating

01:18:48

Yeah, but tacking it on here just feels a little bit disjointed

01:18:51

Yeah, and you know chat has a good point too. It could just be filler material like productivity stuff in general

01:18:58

Could be a good

01:19:00

Way to extend the length of the book in order to make it easier for the editors and publishers to say yes and and kick it out

01:19:07

Into the world. I don't know it. Uh, I don't know what to think about that part. You know, we see it a lot

01:19:13

It seems like there's a lot of them that have that on the topic of filler material

01:19:19

The next chapter which she combined you know fear of confidence and dealing with people who don't understand

01:19:26

There's three more chapters for your book go deep on those things sure. Yeah. Yeah, because these are really well written the

01:19:32

ailments of the internal critics and she talks about the guilt and the shame the discomfort of being a beginner again and again the fear of

01:19:39

Not being the best imposter syndrome

01:19:41

Again this part I feel like she's got a lot to say and as she's describing these different things. I'm like, yeah, I've been there

01:19:47

So i've kind of gone from loving the book to hating the book to loving it again

01:19:52

Right, right because it would be very easy for her to say okay. Let me deep dive

01:19:56

Two or three of these exactly but then throw one more

01:20:00

Right after those four approaches that shows how people mix and match them and there's your book

01:20:05

It actually might be longer than this because this actually isn't super long. Yeah, it's only 200 pages

01:20:10

Uh, i'm not sure how many words are in it, but most of the books are read tend to be like 250 plus

01:20:16

Round there and there's also a lot of visuals in this one

01:20:20

So I feel like this could have been a a longer book and incorporated those different aspects of it

01:20:27

I wish she would have gone deeper into the the internal and external critics

01:20:32

And then the last part of this chapter nine two is all about dealing with the question

01:20:37

Which she alluded to at the beginning. This is kind of part of her story someone asked her what do you do?

01:20:42

And she's like, I don't know what to say

01:20:43

Yeah, so I love that she includes a chapter at the end here about what do you do when someone asks you

01:20:50

What is it that you do? I do seven different things. That's what I do

01:20:53

Yeah, this maybe is worth unpacking a little bit because there's two different approaches one is a one liner that's easily

01:20:59

Understandable

01:21:01

I've talked to david sparks about this

01:21:03

And he doesn't try to explain to people that he's a podcaster and he makes screencasts

01:21:09

He's like I work in computers

01:21:11

Yes, and again like it's it depends on the room, you know, who's asking but that one

01:21:18

Eliminates a lot of that. Well, what is a podcast sort of a thing?

01:21:21

Yes

01:21:22

So I get that

01:21:23

The other one is the less conventional but more accurate answer that will likely lead to a conversation

01:21:28

So again

01:21:30

Read the room figure out is this someone you want to spend the next 10 minutes talking to to explain what it is that you actually do

01:21:37

If so use that approach

01:21:39

If not then just give them the the canned answer. Yep

01:21:42

Which I don't know why but every time someone asks me that and I'm looking for that canned answer

01:21:47

I feel like I can't find it

01:21:49

Sure

01:21:50

I feel like it catches me off guard every single time. I don't know why

01:21:53

I think I have a few that I rotate

01:21:56

Just

01:21:58

For fun like I don't have one like oh, I'm a sound engineer

01:22:01

I work in it. I'm a web developer like I I tend to just rotate them. I have a friend who is a police detective

01:22:09

Who tells people he's a garbage collector

01:22:14

Because he doesn't want to go through the whole oh, what do you do with he's like I don't want to like if I don't want to talk to him

01:22:20

I just tell him a garbage collector. Nobody wants to talk about that. Yep

01:22:23

Especially over dinner

01:22:25

Yeah, see I feel like every time I go through something like this I land on well, I'm a writer

01:22:30

Sure, but then in the moment I never think to use that. I don't know why I had like my brain just stops functioning

01:22:38

It's like oh, I do a lot of things

01:22:43

I don't know. I feel like I would say I was an online editor in your case. Yeah, yeah

01:22:47

That's probably more accurate. Maybe that's the thing is I just haven't nailed down the the one that really I feel good using

01:22:55

Another thing she mentions in here though, which I thought was really helpful is to use an umbrella title

01:23:02

And there's a formula for this. She uses I help blank do blank

01:23:06

And I think that's

01:23:09

Pretty genius that could save a lot of follow-up questions if you took the time to to think through that

01:23:14

But it only works in some scenarios

01:23:17

True true if you're doing woodworking and you're a sound engineer

01:23:20

You can't put those two together in that sentence

01:23:23

Yeah

01:23:25

You see my point i'm tempted to say well, there's got to be a way to do it

01:23:28

But I don't know where I would start with that one. Yeah throw web development on top of it and I wish you all the best

01:23:33

And we're only on three if you got six or seven good luck

01:23:39

Yeah, yeah, I make stop make people happy by creating things. There you go. I make sound waves. I make

01:23:44

wood stuff. I make

01:23:47

Websites like I make stuff. I'm a content creator

01:23:50

Oh

01:23:54

Too fun. All right, so that's chapter nine and then the last part of this the conclusion which I jotted on here

01:24:00

It's only a couple pages long

01:24:02

But I wanted to mention this

01:24:06

Because this is where she encourages you to lead with your multi-potentiality

01:24:11

Don't minimize your differences and feature the things that make you unique

01:24:17

And as I read through this I just mentioned you know the last section on what do you do having trouble answering

01:24:22

That question to realize that I tend to shy away from those things

01:24:27

Even though I 100%

01:24:30

Understand that that's what makes me me

01:24:34

And what brings value to the stuff that I do?

01:24:36

I still have trouble

01:24:40

being okay with that in public

01:24:42

And so there's probably a few people like me who need the the kick in the pants or the encouragement to

01:24:49

To not be afraid of that stuff

01:24:51

And for people who are considering this she asked the question

01:24:54

What would your life be like if you gave yourself permission to be everything that you want it to be?

01:24:58

Because I think that's another thing that if you're not a multi-potentiality that can be kind of scary like well

01:25:04

I have a desire to do this thing over here

01:25:05

But I just can't do it right now

01:25:07

And so you kick it down the kick the can down the road and maybe I'll get to that at some other point

01:25:11

You never do

01:25:13

And multi-potential the multi-potentiality lifestyle basically gives you permission to do those things now

01:25:20

Which I think ends up making you happier and more fulfilled

01:25:25

I would agree with that. This is kind of the transition I'm in so yes

01:25:30

Can't do all the things obviously you do have to to pick them

01:25:33

But I think if you take the multi-potentiality approach and you are intentional about the things that you choose

01:25:37

So if you follow these action items and you pair them down as she's going through different approaches

01:25:41

You will eventually get to that point where you are happy with the things that you are doing

01:25:45

Yeah, if you saw the tweets I put out to

01:25:48

Do the advertisements for when we were streaming today

01:25:51

You saw that it's like hey, I finally figured out how to do everything

01:25:56

Well, it's kind of of course a misnomer in that like yes, you can do a lot of different things

01:26:01

but you have to be very specific in how you do them and

01:26:04

like

01:26:06

Be aware of what the potential downsides of that are

01:26:08

So we that's the sort of thing we've talked about a lot on other books is like the downsides of heading down one path versus another

01:26:15

So I am grateful. She at least called it out. I'm a little bit curious

01:26:20

How this

01:26:22

Sits with me over time because just that title

01:26:25

How to be everything

01:26:28

brings to mind the quote by David Allen that

01:26:30

You can do anything, but you can't do everything

01:26:32

Correct. Yes, and there are limits to the number of things that you can do. So maybe it's just that

01:26:38

This book should have been titled how to be a multi-potentialite in the term how to be everything is a little bit more catchy

01:26:44

Which is why they used it but really is inaccurate in describing what she's talking about

01:26:49

But it's also quite possible that she's telling people yeah, just squeeze in one more thing

01:26:53

Squeeze in one more thing which that again, I think is kind of bad advice

01:26:56

so

01:26:58

but it's also

01:27:00

How to be everything not how to do everything exactly so there's there's a lot of nuance here

01:27:05

I think which you can miss if you just look at the title

01:27:08

Yeah, and you know, even like what I was putting out on twitter again is a distortion of that like I figured how to do everything

01:27:16

No, I know how to get everything off my task list. No, that's not what we're talking about here

01:27:21

this is like

01:27:24

Again to use these same examples like I love to be a sound engineer. I love to be a woodworker

01:27:30

I love to build websites. I love to be a web developer. I love to be someone who runs events online like these are things I like to be

01:27:37

But that does not mean I get to do

01:27:40

Absolutely everything that does not mean I'm the one building

01:27:46

A video system where I can send you quick videos in your email like I'm not building that I'm gonna use something else

01:27:51

so like

01:27:52

That is very different

01:27:54

In in the scheme of this and that's the thing i'm struggling with you know

01:27:59

There's this concept the curse of knowledge where if you've been around something long enough you know enough about something

01:28:05

You kind of forget what it's like to be a beginner

01:28:08

And so I think you and I both fall into that where we know we can't do all the things

01:28:14

And that's a point everybody reaches on their own personal productivity journey

01:28:18

Is picking the things that you're going to do being intentional about them cutting everything else. That's really not important

01:28:25

But is that what most people

01:28:28

most

01:28:29

Multi-potentialites who are picking up this book for the first time this is their entry into the productivity space

01:28:35

Are they going to understand that?

01:28:37

And are they going to understand that reading this book?

01:28:40

I'm not so sure sure that's not really

01:28:44

Emily's fault

01:28:46

but I think it's a

01:28:49

A trap it's a pitfall that you have to watch out for yeah, I think there's

01:28:53

There is potential

01:28:56

To use the same word

01:28:59

with

01:29:01

Showing these different approaches to having multiple interests

01:29:05

I think if you're brand new to like

01:29:10

Take a step back if you don't read books

01:29:14

And this is the first book you've picked up in years

01:29:16

This is going to hit you very differently than it will you and I exactly danger danger, so

01:29:22

But is it that's what I don't know because if this is the first book you've picked up because someone

01:29:28

On a listen to a bookworm podcast and said hey, this is something you should read if you have a ton of interests

01:29:35

And this would help you figure out how to make those work and they handed you this book and you read it

01:29:43

then

01:29:44

Would that be helpful or not? I feel like depending on where you're at in understanding yourself

01:29:50

It's going to hit you very differently like if you're someone who is very self-aware you're you're learning

01:29:57

Do you work well when you do a remote work?

01:29:59

Do you need to have side things in order to stay focused on your main job or do you feel like you leave jobs all the time?

01:30:05

And you're always in this mess of hiring and you can't figure out why you can't hold a job

01:30:08

Where are you in that?

01:30:11

Journey if you have gotten to where you understand some of yourself

01:30:16

And why some of that happens. I feel like this could be helpful. Yep. I agree, but if

01:30:22

You have no concept as to why they keep firing you after a year and a half

01:30:28

This is probably going to make it worse

01:30:31

Yeah, she doesn't make the disclaimer

01:30:34

But I feel like it should be there and you articulated it perfectly that this will help you be anything that you want

01:30:40

But it will not help you do all the things and do everything that you want

01:30:46

There's a difference there that

01:30:48

I'm not sure

01:30:51

The average person picking this up

01:30:53

Will make that distinction

01:30:55

Maybe i'm just being over sensitive because of them by that myself in the past, but

01:30:59

I see that as a potential pitfall and i'd be a little bit hesitant

01:31:05

recommending this

01:31:06

I'd have to know the person i'm recommending this to

01:31:08

Basically, yeah, yeah, because I wouldn't want them to fall into that

01:31:12

The easy way is I will recommend this to every single person if

01:31:17

You go listen to every single bookworm episode first

01:31:20

There you go

01:31:22

There's there's your cop out. You don't have to go read all bunch of books first school listen to bookworm. That's right

01:31:27

All right action items

01:31:30

Sure, you have one. I don't

01:31:32

I do she mentions

01:31:34

In this book the perfect day exercise, which is something that i've done

01:31:39

In the past and I think it's time I do it again

01:31:42

And I feel like this is going to be kind of interesting to go through this with a multi potential potential light lens

01:31:50

So basic idea here being to map out my

01:31:54

Perfect day and i'm even taking it even further like my perfect week

01:31:57

and

01:31:59

Identify like these are the things that are

01:32:02

in my perfect day and in my perfect week and how do they relate to the different dots

01:32:06

and uh

01:32:09

I was hoping by the end of this you would convince me I was one of these models and how

01:32:13

How that model is supported by the way i spend my time, but I don't think that that part is going to make it into this action item, so

01:32:22

That's okay

01:32:25

You do not have any action items correct

01:32:28

Don't because like this is the one the one that you wrote down this perfect day exercise is the one that i'm the most inclined to do

01:32:34

I have done this a handful of times because of michael hyatt

01:32:38

He has his ideal week thing that he promotes

01:32:40

Regularly and i've done that a handful of times in the past

01:32:43

And what I have learned is that my ideal week is different every week

01:32:47

Sure, that's my problem

01:32:50

And I can i've done like ideal days before perfect days like i get up and i do this and then i do that and then this and that

01:32:57

and

01:32:59

I have to have my days different day over day

01:33:01

So

01:33:03

The the trouble comes when like in order to do that. Well, I feel like I have to have a different day layout

01:33:10

After breakfast before breakfast is always this thing always the same but after breakfast that has to be different

01:33:16

In about 21 different ways like i have 21 days that are different before i'm ready to go back to

01:33:23

We got it. This is my problem and but I know this like I know this is a low tuesday variation 3.5

01:33:29

Correct. Yeah 3.5.673 like that's just the way this works rendition 42

01:33:36

This is this is my life

01:33:38

But I know this about myself. So yes, a lot of these exercises are interesting

01:33:43

Some of them i have gone through in order to figure out how many interests i have to have so maybe you could put that as an action item

01:33:48

And i've already got it done

01:33:50

But these are the yes, I don't have any other action items

01:33:54

I I think it's interesting that you started doing some of the action items that she gives you in the book and I

01:34:00

Was not interested in doing those at all sure. Yeah

01:34:04

That's a little bit alarming to me

01:34:07

from

01:34:08

The approach that this book is trying to take like I generally like this approach where you give people information and then you help them apply it

01:34:15

But I got a lot out of the information didn't want to go through any of the actually i'm she suggested though

01:34:21

Yeah, yeah

01:34:23

Which now we're getting into style and rating. So let's do this

01:34:26

I really enjoy her writing style

01:34:30

I feel like it's very approachable. It's

01:34:34

Quite humorous. It's pretty relaxed

01:34:38

In casual, but still you can she does it with an authoritative tone where you understand that she knows what she's

01:34:45

Talking about the place that kind of fell down was the productivity section not because she doesn't understand the stuff

01:34:50

But just because she's trying to condense

01:34:52

so much into a small area in my opinion if she had

01:34:56

Expanded that material over the breadth of an entire book

01:35:00

I think she would have had enough words again me totally projecting here

01:35:05

But i'm guessing based on her study that she has enough to say about those things that she could fill a book

01:35:09

And I feel like you kind of get ripped off when you try to

01:35:13

Pack it into to this one. So that's not even a knock on her style. Just the

01:35:17

Trying to do too much. I think with the book itself

01:35:20

But the whole description of the multi-potential lifestyle her stories

01:35:25

Describing like the anxiety that you go through and someone asks you what do you do?

01:35:29

I could totally relate to all of this stuff. I feel like she has real great visuals for the different models

01:35:35

Uh, do wish you would have kind of talked about how you could combine them together and give some examples

01:35:40

Maybe but in the models themselves she uses great stories people that she knows people that she talked to who are doing different things

01:35:48

So you walk away with that at least understanding the four different approaches

01:35:51

I feel like the last part of the book is maybe the best part in from my perspective on like the

01:35:58

the internal critic and

01:36:02

dealing with

01:36:04

People who don't understand what a multi-potential light is that that's chapter chapter nine

01:36:10

Uh, again, you know we talked about this, but I wish that section would have been bigger

01:36:13

I definitely want to hear what she has to say about that

01:36:16

Altogether, I'm glad that we read this book and I actually got more out of it than I thought I was going to

01:36:23

Every time my wife saw me reading this book. She's like, oh, there's that millennial book again

01:36:28

Yes, yes

01:36:31

But if you can get past that stigma, I feel like there's a lot of good stuff

01:36:37

In here, especially for people like us who don't feel satisfied just doing one thing

01:36:43

I feel like she does a good job of helping you understand

01:36:46

For people like like you and I how we're we're wired and what little things that we can do to

01:36:52

To make it more effective and more meaningful

01:36:54

I do think you got to be careful who you recommend this to

01:36:57

I don't think it's for everybody there are people who

01:37:03

Like they're just absolutely not going to resonate with anything in this book

01:37:07

But for the right person, this is a really good book. I'm going to write it at 4.0

01:37:12

and

01:37:15

Yeah, really the only

01:37:16

Negative thing I can say about it is that that personal productivity section. That's the only part that I really didn't want to read

01:37:22

Everything else was very engaging read through it fairly quickly

01:37:27

The action items I think even though I didn't want to do any of them were great because if you find yourself

01:37:33

In the right stage of life like that's totally the thing that can shine the light bulb on

01:37:36

Oh, yeah, that's what I should do right now

01:37:38

I feel like I've gone through those moments in my life where I'm like getting let go from my previous job

01:37:44

Uh, that would have been a great point for me to read this book and go through those action items

01:37:49

But I didn't have it then and now I'm kind of in a different situation where I'm happy with the different components that are here

01:37:54

So I'm not going to deconstruct things

01:37:56

But if you are unhappy with certain things then yeah, I think it's it's worth the effort and I think the action items themselves are

01:38:03

Are good like the ways to try out the different styles. So I'm not going to knock her for that

01:38:06

Sure. Don't think it's one of the most transformational impactful books I've ever read but what's pleasantly surprised by it. So 4.0. Yeah

01:38:14

I will concur that she is very good at putting stories and putting a book together

01:38:20

And at some point I start to wonder how much of that is editors and publishers than it is the authors

01:38:25

But you know there is that that side of it

01:38:28

But I think that the part about this that truly

01:38:32

impacted me, you know, we we get to a point where we say if we get one thing out of a book then it was worth reading

01:38:38

and in this particular case, I feel like putting terminology around

01:38:43

Having different interests and

01:38:46

Articulating that it's okay to operate that way

01:38:50

has been quite a

01:38:53

revelation to me

01:38:56

That's because I have had

01:38:58

a lot of failures in attempting to set up one thing that I'm going to be

01:39:02

Focusing on and it burns me

01:39:05

whenever I do that and

01:39:08

Although I need to find one thing as a core to use kind of the Einstein approach

01:39:15

I also know that it's important for me to maintain things in a diverse

01:39:20

aspect outside of that

01:39:23

so

01:39:24

just making that

01:39:27

Distinction in making that clear has been super helpful to me

01:39:30

So I'm very glad I've read it

01:39:33

I think it's a different story when it comes to me recommending it to other people

01:39:38

I think you you know, you said it very well and that like I'm going to be paying attention to who I recommend this to

01:39:44

I don't think this is just a blanket. You know, we have a lot of books that we just blanket say yes

01:39:48

You need to read this

01:39:50

And I don't think this is one of those

01:39:52

You know, I think that you've rated it

01:39:55

Right on with the 4.0. I'll join you there in that I I think that there's

01:40:01

There's a lot in it that you can glean

01:40:04

I I wanted her to stop

01:40:07

When she got to all the productivity stuff

01:40:10

Uh, how many times do we say that?

01:40:13

Like it seems like if you put that section in your book, you will not get a five-star book

01:40:18

Like it seems like that is just the way it goes

01:40:20

That's the way we operate. Yep. So I I think it has to be at 4.0

01:40:26

I think if you have a lot of productivity book background

01:40:29

This is potentially a good book for you

01:40:33

So I could see that being uh, something of

01:40:37

uh

01:40:39

A helpful thing to do

01:40:41

But

01:40:43

I'm not going to just blanket recommend it to people and just not right that's what I got me too

01:40:49

All right, so what's next uh next up is

01:40:55

the minimalist home

01:40:57

By joshua Becker

01:40:59

This is the second of josh's that we've read the more of less was the other one that we did

01:41:05

and uh

01:41:08

I'm very interested in this the tagline on it is a room by room guide to a decluttered refocused life. Yeah

01:41:14

I

01:41:15

received this in the mail mike and

01:41:18

I received it at the same time as I received how to be everything

01:41:23

and it was sitting on the table and I

01:41:26

took

01:41:27

I don't know. I think I took my backpack down to my office and I came back book was gone

01:41:32

Wait, what and I look over my wife had it on

01:41:36

the couch. She wasn't feeling super well

01:41:39

and she

01:41:41

Just asked me is like is it okay if I just have this for the day

01:41:44

Sure, why not? So I'm going about this is a saturday

01:41:49

so I'm going about things around the house and such and it got to be

01:41:53

lunchtime

01:41:56

And I asked her how the book was going she goes. It's okay. Like it's it's all right. Like there's some things I like about it

01:42:01

There's things I don't like about it. She was halfway through the book at that point

01:42:05

and then

01:42:07

the girls do like a nap slash rest time in the afternoon

01:42:10

and then

01:42:12

By the time they were done with rest time at like 2 30 or so

01:42:17

I went to check on Becky to make sure she didn't need anything and she was done with it. So

01:42:22

Okay, so my wife has read it and it's very curious for me to read it because she wants to talk about it

01:42:27

Right. She thinks that josh has some very terrible ideas and that there are some really cool ideas

01:42:32

So

01:42:33

I don't know what those are. She hasn't told me anything about it. So I don't know that'll be our next one

01:42:38

That's what we'll go through next time

01:42:40

All right sounds good

01:42:43

Now you mentioned michael hiat earlier

01:42:46

Yes, I actually got to interview him for focused sure so in an upcoming episode

01:42:52

We talked to michael hiat david and i do but one of the books that came out of that conversation

01:42:58

I mean you want to be around someone who reads a lot look at michael hiat

01:43:02

He's got a whole service called leader books where

01:43:05

Just giving you recommendations and study guides and implementation guides and stuff like that

01:43:10

But one of the books that he mentioned

01:43:13

Because he was talking about how his company has

01:43:16

Shifted doing things during the pandemic

01:43:19

They used to have a co-working space in nashville

01:43:22

And I had looked at like open job positions at michael hiat company

01:43:26

He had to be in nashville in order to join the team. Well, they're all remote now too

01:43:31

and uh talking to about the adjustments that he made and

01:43:34

He said that they kind of did an experiment working 30 hours a week versus working 40 hours a week as a company

01:43:40

And what they found is that 30 hours a week sometimes they're even more productive than they are when they're working 40 right right

01:43:47

So he mentioned this book shorter by alex suyong kim pang

01:43:51

Which I have one on my bookshelf that I read is a gap book called rest

01:43:56

Which I enjoyed uh this one is basically about how you don't need to work as long in order to get the things done

01:44:06

And uh, I feel like well number one i'm excited about it because michael hiat recommended it to me

01:44:11

I like this author already anyways, but I feel like this is a great follow-up to

01:44:15

The one that we just read on how to be everything. Yeah

01:44:19

So if you're going to try to become a multi-potential light feel like this is another one of those books that at least

01:44:26

Could be

01:44:29

Like a key piece to figuring out that whole puzzle sure

01:44:33

Yeah at one point I had a conversation with

01:44:36

uh

01:44:38

my

01:44:39

Specialist who's helped me with lime and mold and all of that and was just talking about my add with her

01:44:45

She recommended cutting my work day down by 25

01:44:49

To to force it because it's like, okay. I have so many things I want to get done

01:44:54

If I were to cut the amount of time that I give myself to get them done

01:44:59

I don't have time for distractions and it won't be an issue

01:45:01

I was like interesting, but I have never been able to get my employer to agree to that exactly

01:45:07

So so i'm hoping that this book is going to have a bunch of studies and numbers that

01:45:14

Potentially people could share and use as ammunition maybe toe

01:45:19

To fight for a shorter workday workweek, whatever there you go

01:45:24

There you go. Got any gap books. I do not at the moment

01:45:28

I feel like i'm getting back into a swing with reading though

01:45:32

So

01:45:33

If I do get one started, I will bring it up on the next episode cool

01:45:37

Awesome, you got any get books? I don't life

01:45:42

I think once I get through a season, but it's probably going to be through the end of the year before that season is completed

01:45:48

So sure, that's what I know at the moment

01:45:52

All right

01:45:53

Well, in that case we can wrap it up here. I want to thank everybody who is a

01:45:59

A paying member of the the bookworm club the premium members who are willing to contribute a couple bucks a month to help us

01:46:04

Keep the lights on really means a lot if you want to become a member you can do so at bookworm.fm/membership

01:46:13

And that will get you in addition to our undying gratitude

01:46:17

Access to the my map files that I take for the as I take notes on the the books that we we cover here

01:46:26

And a bookworm wallpaper and some gap book episodes that joe's recorded

01:46:31

Anything i'm missing. I don't think so

01:46:33

There's a lot of cool stuff for five bucks a month. So I know bookworm.fm/membership cool cool

01:46:40

Well, if you're reading along with us and

01:46:43

You would like to join us in learning how to cut your house down

01:46:47

You can pick up the minimalist home by joshua becker and we'll go through it with you in a couple weeks