Bookworm Transcripts

00:00:00

So you're going to buy a new iMac?

00:00:01

Ooh, I'm tempted.

00:00:02

I really like that orange one, but no, I don't think I'm going to.

00:00:06

It's a big iPad on a stand.

00:00:08

That's a good way to think about it.

00:00:12

I haven't thought about it that way.

00:00:13

I I I have been keeping my eyes on the iMac territory.

00:00:19

And it's primarily because of the computer that I use for our church

00:00:25

to do like all the slides and stuff.

00:00:27

It does.

00:00:28

It's a pretty hefty workload that that machine has to handle.

00:00:32

And I've been watching the iMacs waiting for them to put the M1 in it.

00:00:36

And I saw that, you know, of course they put the M1 in these.

00:00:40

They got the new style and stuff, which I like and not everyone likes it.

00:00:44

I get that.

00:00:45

The problem.

00:00:47

There's one major problem I've run across with the M1 Max.

00:00:50

I think that the power and what they're able to do is awesome.

00:00:55

Like I don't think there's anything.

00:00:58

Like if I had the machine and I never had to plug anything into it, I think it's a solid machine, all of them.

00:01:05

I think anything that's got the M1 and it seems to be a pretty solid machine.

00:01:09

However, the M1 chip does not allow you to plug in an external GPU.

00:01:16

Mm.

00:01:17

Right.

00:01:17

And I do that regularly with two or three different machines at my work.

00:01:25

For a variety of reasons, that machine being the one that has to have at least one external GPU, because the onboard isn't enough to do everything we need it to do.

00:01:36

But because the M1 doesn't allow me to plug in an external GPU, I can't use it.

00:01:41

So until they figure out something along those lines, and if they don't ever enable it, I'm going to be forced to go into the PC world with it because.

00:01:51

Oh, boy.

00:01:52

I don't get enough outputs off of an M1 Mac.

00:01:56

So it's just the way it works.

00:01:58

Well, I'm not sure what you need out of outputs, because I am using an M1 Mac mini, which if I were to say, you're going to buy an M1 Mac, which one should you look at?

00:02:11

Look at the Mac mini because it's going to be the cheapest.

00:02:13

The refurbished ones are like sub 600 bucks now.

00:02:16

Sure.

00:02:17

And it's the exact same computer.

00:02:18

It's the exact same M1.

00:02:20

So if you really want an iMac and you want it because the iMac is beefier than the Mac mini, this is not the computer for you.

00:02:27

Wait till the next bigger iMac with the M2 or whatever comes next.

00:02:32

That's going to be obviously a more powerful chip.

00:02:35

But the M1 itself is not bad.

00:02:39

I mean, the computer itself has limited inputs.

00:02:41

You are correct.

00:02:42

It's got two USB four slash Thunderbolt four ports, a couple of USB a ports, HDMI, ethernet.

00:02:50

I forget what else.

00:02:51

But I have a Thunderbolt dock, Thunderbolt four dock from OWC that I bought because it was in stock and I needed to expand this.

00:03:02

And I knew that with Thunderbolt four, you can actually plug a single Thunderbolt four cable from one of those ports and you can basically reproduce a Thunderbolt four ports.

00:03:10

Okay.

00:03:11

So that OWC Thunderbolt dock that I have in front of me gives me from one Thunderbolt port three separate Thunderbolt ports plus three additional USB a ports.

00:03:24

And it is crazy how much stuff I have plugged into this Mac mini.

00:03:27

Sure.

00:03:29

So I mentioned before I have a workaround for using two monitors.

00:03:34

I've got two USB C monitors.

00:03:38

And so one of those is running through a converter into HDMI.

00:03:42

One of them is plugged right into the Mac mini itself.

00:03:44

Then I've got the Thunderbolt dock and from there I've got with all that stuff, I've got a stream deck.

00:03:51

I've got my mix pre three.

00:03:54

I've got my other audio interface, the audio and ID four.

00:03:57

I've got my Canon EOS 70 D that I am broadcasting video through right now.

00:04:04

I've got two separate dedicated cables for an iPhone and an iPad.

00:04:09

I have two external drives, one which is archive projects and one which is a time machine backup.

00:04:15

And it handles this no problem.

00:04:19

I say no problem because it's still the M1 and every once in a while at Colonel Panics.

00:04:23

Yes.

00:04:24

Yes.

00:04:25

But that happens regardless of how many things I have plugged into it.

00:04:29

Yeah, I hear you.

00:04:30

I do.

00:04:31

So it's pretty impressive hardware wise.

00:04:34

But you're right.

00:04:35

The external GPU, I do not think you can plug that into a right on M1 Mac.

00:04:41

Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to get one, two, three.

00:04:46

I'm trying to get seven video outputs out of it.

00:04:50

Probably not.

00:04:52

So I know the onboard can't do it, which is why the external and I'm using a Thunderbolt three GPU on it currently, which with the four video feeds.

00:05:04

I'm sending through that.

00:05:05

It's actually slightly above the recommended bandwidth going through that Thunderbolt three cable, which is why like I've got an extra short, like a nine inch, maybe it's 12 inch Thunderbolt three cable because I have to try to keep that as short as I possibly can.

00:05:19

So it's like right behind it.

00:05:21

So yes, I think, you know, they may re-enable that in the M2 realm.

00:05:29

But for now, I'm being forced to avoid it.

00:05:34

Yeah.

00:05:34

And I can't even move like my personal laptop to that at the moment, because my personal laptop is where I do all the testing on those whenever we change those video feeds.

00:05:44

So I have to plug it into eGPUs fairly regularly to it's at least weekly that I'm doing that to mess with some things and try to fix different issues.

00:05:53

So I can't move my personal one over to it yet either.

00:05:56

So here we go.

00:05:58

Round and round and round we go.

00:05:59

You mentioned something which I think is very important for anybody who is connecting any sort of Thunderbolt device.

00:06:04

I'm not sure if this is the case with Thunderbolt four, but I know it is definitely the case with Thunderbolt three.

00:06:09

There is a limit on how long the cord can be and still be Thunderbolt three.

00:06:16

Right.

00:06:16

And this is the problem is that Thunderbolt and USB C and now USB four, I believe, they all look the same.

00:06:24

If your cable is longer than a meter, it is not a Thunderbolt cable.

00:06:29

It is a USB cable and you are going to get USB speeds, which are going to be significantly lower.

00:06:36

I know people who I probably made that mistake back in the day.

00:06:40

Like you have this USB C cable and you're plugging it into a Thunderbolt, something or other.

00:06:45

And you're like, well, why isn't it working?

00:06:47

It's because your cable is too long, which is kind of hard to believe, but it is true.

00:06:51

Yep.

00:06:52

It's true.

00:06:52

This is why they tell you if you buy a new Mac and you're going to do the transfer of all your data.

00:06:58

It's why they tell you that you can't use a Thunderbolt three cable that is your power cord.

00:07:03

It's because it's so long, it can't be a Thunderbolt three cable.

00:07:08

So that's why, but you can take like the ones that come with Thunderbolt three docs.

00:07:13

They're made for that, right?

00:07:14

So yeah, usually they're one foot long.

00:07:16

Those will work for that.

00:07:18

Yep.

00:07:18

Tech problems.

00:07:19

Who knew that distance of a cable mattered?

00:07:23

Totally does.

00:07:24

Great fun.

00:07:25

Well, Apple, of course, always has new stuff and we're, of course, always

00:07:29

infatuated by it and curious about it.

00:07:31

And I was just curious if you're going to move, but I forget that you have the Mac mini.

00:07:36

So you probably don't have a need to.

00:07:38

Yep.

00:07:39

To go to the full iMac.

00:07:40

No.

00:07:41

And I was expecting to buy a new iPad, but to be honest, I don't want the 13 inch plus it's way too expensive.

00:07:49

Yeah.

00:07:50

Maxed out 13 inch iPad is like 2,400 bucks.

00:07:53

Right.

00:07:54

So it's more than a MacBook Pro and it can't do what a MacBook Pro can do.

00:07:58

Yep.

00:07:59

I know it's not that simple, but essentially for like how I use it, you know, if I'm going to pay that much money for a computer, I want it to do computery things, not good notes.

00:08:08

Yes.

00:08:09

I hear you.

00:08:10

So I'm hanging on to my 2018 iPad Pro, which is completely fine.

00:08:15

And probably I'm only going to buy the new Apple TV remote.

00:08:20

Because I can't stand the current one.

00:08:23

Yes.

00:08:24

It's one of the first things I noticed.

00:08:26

It's like, oh, you can figure out how to get it the right way up.

00:08:29

Like that all that'll be amazing.

00:08:32

Now made for human hands.

00:08:33

Yes.

00:08:34

Yes.

00:08:35

Oh, great.

00:08:37

Fun.

00:08:37

Well, we don't have any follow up on our outline for today.

00:08:42

Not really.

00:08:42

Mike has a couple, I think, but not pertinent to today because he's been on sabbatical and not able to do

00:08:49

things, it sounds like.

00:08:50

So well, not not able to do things, but intentionally choosing not to do things.

00:08:57

Yeah.

00:08:58

Right.

00:08:59

I have basically played with obsidian and that's about it.

00:09:02

Sounds sounds like a very productive week, right?

00:09:07

So productive.

00:09:08

You have no idea.

00:09:09

I've got so many combos going on.

00:09:11

Everybody's obsessed.

00:09:14

I blame Cal Newport.

00:09:15

Yep.

00:09:17

That's what I'm saying.

00:09:18

Oh, long term follow up, I guess.

00:09:20

I didn't tell you this, but I do have a VA starting on Monday.

00:09:24

Ooh, how far back does this go?

00:09:27

I feel like you've had this in the works for a while.

00:09:29

I've had this multiple times, I think.

00:09:31

I know not too long ago I made a list of things that were delegatable.

00:09:37

Maybe it was the episode where we covered a world without email by Cal Newport.

00:09:41

But yeah, I have a VA that is going to be working with me starting Monday for

00:09:48

about eight to 10 hours a week.

00:09:51

OK.

00:09:51

And starting off a little bit lower than that.

00:09:54

And until until I get some systems set up, using Trello to delegate stuff, I still have

00:10:01

to create all like that.

00:10:02

This is how I want my calendar to work, all that kind of stuff.

00:10:05

But sure.

00:10:06

Already got some things for the VA to help out with.

00:10:10

And yeah, this I feel has been a long time coming.

00:10:16

And I finally decided to do it.

00:10:19

So yeah, Dr. Rachel about it.

00:10:21

She's going to she's going to use it to.

00:10:23

And it just seems like we've been at the point where we can handle stuff, but it's

00:10:32

kind of it's not it's not burdensome where like it's ruining things,

00:10:40

ruining our time when we're at home or anything like that.

00:10:43

But we're starting to feel some of the pressure of like the things that we need to do.

00:10:47

Sure.

00:10:48

So as we were thinking and talking over sabbatical, but like, well, what, what could we do to make

00:10:54

things a little bit simpler?

00:10:55

You know, I floated the idea of the VH like, well, what would the VA do?

00:10:59

And I had my list already and she's like, wow, that's actually a lot.

00:11:02

You think I could.

00:11:03

Yeah.

00:11:03

Have I do this, that and the other thing too?

00:11:05

And yeah, I think you could.

00:11:06

So we're going to go for it.

00:11:09

Nice.

00:11:11

I'm curious, do you have a few other things you're planning to use or have the VA do for you

00:11:18

that you'd be well in a share?

00:11:19

Just curious.

00:11:20

Yes.

00:11:21

Let me pull up Trello because that's where all the stuff is going to be.

00:11:25

Cal Newport would be proud.

00:11:27

Good job.

00:11:28

We want to get a new Rachel wants to get a new stove in the kitchen.

00:11:35

OK, ours has been there since we moved in, which now has been quite a while.

00:11:41

And she wants to get a gas stove.

00:11:43

OK.

00:11:43

So we want to get a quote for a kitchen gas line.

00:11:46

We've got this cheap plastic tubing that's like a curb around the landscaping outside,

00:11:53

which I absolutely hate and has been chewed up by lawnmowers and things.

00:11:57

So I want to get like the concrete curbing.

00:12:00

OK.

00:12:01

Yep.

00:12:01

Like, I know I want to do it, but it's one of those things that I never really take action on, right?

00:12:05

I never make a calls.

00:12:06

I never get the quotes.

00:12:07

So that's on there.

00:12:10

Rachel needs an oil change for the car.

00:12:12

So she has scheduled oil change on here.

00:12:13

And we're still figuring out like all of the.

00:12:16

Additional ancillary information, the VA needs in order to do the things.

00:12:23

I know there's going to be a learning curve with this.

00:12:24

Yeah, which has always been enough to stop me in the past.

00:12:27

It's like, I don't want to think through all that stuff right now.

00:12:29

You know, so Rachel being like, yeah, let's do it.

00:12:32

You know, that was the push I needed.

00:12:35

And now that we've committed to it, I feel like it's going to stick.

00:12:39

It's not a big deal to figure out that stuff, but it's the kind of thing that I would

00:12:43

never really do until there was a need.

00:12:45

So now there's a need.

00:12:46

Sure.

00:12:46

Yeah, no, it makes sense.

00:12:47

I get it.

00:12:49

Those are things I don't like doing, but I feel like I need to do them.

00:12:51

So I agree.

00:12:53

I agree.

00:12:54

Well, now that you're talking about systems already, I feel like that's a good point to jump

00:12:59

into today's book, which is Work the System by Sam Carpenter.

00:13:05

We had a little bit of a discussion about this on the last recording in that it's

00:13:11

possible to get this book for free.

00:13:13

I feel like we need to say this late.

00:13:16

You can get the PDF of this book for free.

00:13:19

And I think there was a link to that in the show notes for the last episode.

00:13:23

I assume it'll be in this one too, Mike, right?

00:13:25

So it's possible to get this book from the link in the show notes.

00:13:29

It's not an affiliate link.

00:13:30

It's not.

00:13:30

We're not associated with them at all.

00:13:32

Because you will pay for the PDF.

00:13:36

I think is the way to say that.

00:13:38

If you're not paying for something, you're the product, right?

00:13:41

So I think that, you know, it's, it's, it's okay what they do, because obviously

00:13:49

this book is about systems, right?

00:13:52

And they obviously have a lot of systems because they want to increase their own

00:13:59

business, right?

00:14:00

This is very meta, but they have their own business that they're trying to run, which

00:14:05

means that they are regularly working on bringing more people into that flow

00:14:12

and into that system, which means that they love to give the PDF away for free

00:14:18

because it's a way to get more people initiated in that flow in that system.

00:14:23

Yep.

00:14:24

Right.

00:14:24

So as they're saying in the chat, oh, you pay.

00:14:28

That's definitely a system.

00:14:29

Like it's so true.

00:14:30

It is a thing, right?

00:14:32

So there's nothing wrong with that.

00:14:33

It's just something I want to point out that if you decide to go with the book for

00:14:37

free, you're being put into their funnel.

00:14:40

You will get a bunch of emails.

00:14:42

Yeah, absolutely, which I don't really think is a, a not a fair trade.

00:14:48

It's no, I think, you know, for, for people who don't want to spend the 20 bucks

00:14:54

or whatever on the, the book on Amazon, which I also included that link in the

00:14:57

show notes because I actually have a copy of, of the physical book.

00:15:02

I actually have two copies, I think, because there was a second edition and a

00:15:05

third edition.

00:15:05

So I obviously prefer to have the, the physical books, but for what you get, it

00:15:11

is the, the full book in PDF format.

00:15:14

So I don't think it's like a bait and switch or anything.

00:15:18

Just if you're going to do that, you, you know what you're getting into.

00:15:23

That's all.

00:15:23

Yeah.

00:15:24

It's a standard ebook for.

00:15:26

Exchanging for your email address.

00:15:30

That's, that's what it is.

00:15:31

It's, it's your standard.

00:15:33

Blake says there's a fourth edition.

00:15:35

I didn't read the fourth edition.

00:15:36

I read my third edition.

00:15:37

That's what I have.

00:15:39

The fourth one.

00:15:39

I have the fourth edition.

00:15:41

Dang it.

00:15:41

Yep.

00:15:41

All right.

00:15:42

Which is interesting because it's, yeah.

00:15:46

So like Martin saying in the chat, the fourth edition is post COVID being in the

00:15:53

world and there are a lot of references to COVID in this fourth edition, which is

00:16:00

one thing I wanted to ask you about because this is a reread for you, right?

00:16:04

Yep.

00:16:04

And which editions have you read now?

00:16:07

Have you read it?

00:16:08

This is your third time, second time.

00:16:09

Where are you at on this?

00:16:10

Oh, I don't even know how many times I've read the actual book, but I'm interested.

00:16:15

Then let's talk about the book from a general perspective here.

00:16:19

What all is changed?

00:16:22

And you talked about like there's references to COVID and things like that

00:16:26

throughout, but is it very evident that like this whole thing was we written for

00:16:32

the fourth edition or is it more like what was that book we read, bowling alone, you

00:16:37

know, where there's the addendum at the back?

00:16:39

This one's it's kind of it's two things.

00:16:42

It's kind of spread out through the book.

00:16:44

So there is no separate piece to it, but there's also a new preface to the fourth

00:16:49

edition.

00:16:50

So there's there's the forward and then there's a preface to the fourth edition

00:16:54

and then a preface to the first edition and then an introduction.

00:16:57

Like how many things do we have to have before?

00:16:59

Yeah, so that sounds like the same format as mine except it was a preface to the

00:17:03

third edition, not a preface to the fourth.

00:17:05

Okay.

00:17:05

Well, I don't have the preface to the third preface to the fourth basically tells us

00:17:09

the story of how the book has been evolving over time.

00:17:14

Okay.

00:17:15

And the process that they went through to make it better now, he thought it was

00:17:19

really good to begin with and then got it in his hands and thought it was a failure.

00:17:22

And then did it again on the second round and on the next round and they actually

00:17:26

had like a handful of revisions between editions as well.

00:17:29

Okay.

00:17:30

Up to this point.

00:17:31

And I don't remember if he said that this fourth edition has been like if it's

00:17:37

complete, I don't think it is, but I think he's just telling us this sentimental

00:17:44

story of how the book came to be in that.

00:17:47

So do you think I'm missing anything, not having read the fourth one?

00:17:51

I don't think so because I only recall a handful of places where he mentions

00:17:56

COVID and the pandemic.

00:17:58

Okay.

00:17:58

That's kind of what I expected.

00:18:00

It's fairly minor.

00:18:01

It's not.

00:18:02

It's not a big thing at all.

00:18:05

I think there's a lot of like little changes.

00:18:07

There's nothing substantial.

00:18:09

Okay.

00:18:10

Is it still broken into three parts?

00:18:12

Yes.

00:18:13

Always three parts.

00:18:14

They've always been three parts.

00:18:16

Every book is always three parts unless there's a renegade author out there that

00:18:20

has decided to change it.

00:18:21

So all that to say, the book has been around for a while.

00:18:27

It's had a handful of iterations.

00:18:29

That's what the introductions and preface's are getting at.

00:18:33

But the book itself is about a systems mindset, which is where part one picks up.

00:18:41

So the three parts, the systems mindset.

00:18:44

Oh, hey, real quickly.

00:18:45

That systems mindset, by the way, he has another book called the systems mindset.

00:18:50

I didn't know that.

00:18:50

Which is the personal application of work, the system, not the business application of it.

00:18:57

Okay.

00:18:57

I have that one too.

00:18:58

That sounds.

00:19:00

That sounds interesting.

00:19:01

I may grab that one at some point now that I'm an apartment dweller and have more time on my hand.

00:19:08

Maybe something I'll pick up.

00:19:11

All right.

00:19:12

So anyway, the thing here is that there's three parts, right?

00:19:16

The systems mindset is part one.

00:19:19

Make it so as part two, part three is so say we all.

00:19:22

And I didn't write down in the outline all the chapters.

00:19:28

And I think that's probably good because I feel like we try to cover all the chapters.

00:19:34

This is going to get to be pretty substantial and too much.

00:19:38

So I picked out some points here that I think would be helpful.

00:19:40

I probably have too many here.

00:19:42

But that's okay.

00:19:44

I think in this particular case, that's cool.

00:19:46

There's, I don't know about the fourth edition.

00:19:48

The third edition has 21 chapters and some of them are only a couple of pages long.

00:19:53

So they're really kind of divided sort of funky.

00:19:57

Some of them are super long.

00:19:59

Some of them are super short.

00:20:01

It kind of really doesn't make sense the way that he breaks apart.

00:20:04

The chapter is in my opinion.

00:20:06

But I agree that the way to tackle this is not to try to cover each chapter.

00:20:11

You definitely don't need to.

00:20:13

I don't know this this book is.

00:20:16

I'll talk about this more.

00:20:19

I'm sure as we get into it, but I went into it thinking like, well, I have a vague

00:20:25

recollection of what was in this book and I could list five or six things.

00:20:28

And like those were the important things that still stand out to me.

00:20:31

I'm sure there's a lot more.

00:20:32

Nope.

00:20:33

It's those five or six things just told lots of different ways.

00:20:36

All right.

00:20:38

That's good for me to know at this particular junction in time.

00:20:42

I will say that.

00:20:43

Let's let's start with part one here.

00:20:47

I also have 21 chap.

00:20:49

This is this is the first time we've potentially had two different editions that

00:20:51

you and I have read that we've read the different versions.

00:20:55

I think so.

00:20:56

Yeah.

00:20:56

So mine mine does have the 21 in it as well.

00:21:00

I suspect they're all the same titles and such here and then it's not actually a big

00:21:07

difference, but the the beginning of this is the system's mindset.

00:21:12

And there are seven chapters in this.

00:21:16

And at this particular point in time, like I could probably read you these titles and

00:21:22

I feel like you could probably get the bulk of what's in these on this particular

00:21:27

part anyway.

00:21:28

So let me let me let me read these.

00:21:30

Chapter one, control is a good thing.

00:21:32

Two events did not unfold as anticipated.

00:21:36

Three, the attack of the moles, four, gun to the head enlightenment, five, building

00:21:41

the machine, six systems revealed systems managed, seven, getting it a room full of

00:21:46

boxes.

00:21:47

And I would sum this up with two points that I put in the outline.

00:21:51

One is this is the story of Centra tell.

00:21:54

Yep.

00:21:54

The company that he built, the telephone answering service, the company that is

00:21:59

behind a lot of this.

00:22:01

And that's that's part one is the story there.

00:22:05

And two, in a quasi sort of way, he's explaining what systems are and how to identify them.

00:22:12

But I don't know that he explicitly points that out.

00:22:15

As they're saying in the chat, this is this reads like a stream of consciousness

00:22:21

novel, but you probably wouldn't get that mic with the fiction world.

00:22:25

Don't you start to Martin?

00:22:28

I'm glad I got a team starting to rally around around you to get you on this one.

00:22:35

So yes, let's let's start with the story of Centra tell.

00:22:40

Because this is, I think is the bulk of what this first part is about.

00:22:46

Now he does kind of deviate from it a little bit to talk about some things.

00:22:49

But for the most part, it's the story of Centra tell, which.

00:22:55

And I guess it's kind of his story too, right?

00:22:58

So he backs up and goes to the days of him participating in Woodstock, right?

00:23:04

Which I thought was hilarious.

00:23:06

Like, why are we doing like, okay.

00:23:07

This is where he sets up something that I think is fascinating through the whole

00:23:13

book in that he begins his journey in a realm that is defined by no rules and

00:23:23

freedom of expression in like any way you could imagine and being able to go with

00:23:29

the flow and not be locked into structure, right?

00:23:34

That's a lot of what he talks about in and from his Woodstock days.

00:23:39

And then by the time we're done with all of this, we're like heavy into

00:23:43

documentation and systems and structure.

00:23:46

So it's like these two completely different worlds that he's setting himself up here

00:23:52

to discuss, but it starts with him in Woodstock, realizing that he needed to

00:24:00

create stability in his life and without going through all of the details, he ends

00:24:05

up in what's the state, Ohio?

00:24:09

Oregon, Oregon, there you go.

00:24:12

It was an O ends up in Oregon and buys a telephone answering service

00:24:17

and runs it for I think it's 12, 15 years, 15 years.

00:24:22

I forget exactly.

00:24:23

And it does not do well.

00:24:25

He ends up in a spot where he's running the midnight to 8 a.m.

00:24:30

shift answering phones single handedly and then runs the 8 a.m.

00:24:34

to 5 p.m. shift doing management.

00:24:37

And then somehow sleeps in there, I think, but is what it is.

00:24:44

So it is a single parent at the same time.

00:24:46

Correct.

00:24:47

Correct, which is just crazy to me.

00:24:49

So that's what he was doing.

00:24:51

And it was not going well, he gets to a point where he's not going to make payroll

00:24:56

in three days.

00:24:57

And it's at that point that he realizes he can he's going to lose the business, right?

00:25:03

So he's willing to make a bunch of changes at that point and decides and has

00:25:08

this revelation moment, which I didn't really understand.

00:25:12

Did you understand exactly what happened?

00:25:13

It just seemed like he was awake at night and something hit him and it was very

00:25:17

froufrou, I don't know, it didn't really follow what happened.

00:25:21

Yeah.

00:25:22

So basically he gets this revelation that everything is a system and the

00:25:31

bad results he is getting are the result of broken systems.

00:25:35

And all he has to do is fix the systems.

00:25:38

That's the TLDR.

00:25:41

So he awakes with this revelation, excited to fix the business and start moving away

00:25:47

from working 80 hour weeks, goes to the bank, convinces them to give him another

00:25:51

loan, convinces his employees to hang around, even though he can't pay them on

00:25:58

payday and turns things around.

00:26:01

That's when I went back and reread it, you know, the way you told it, that's

00:26:06

exactly how I remembered it too.

00:26:07

And I remember thinking like, well, you fix these systems, you're not going to fix

00:26:12

things so fast that things have ironed out in two days before you've got to hit

00:26:17

payroll.

00:26:18

So when I went back and reread it, there was an important detail there about

00:26:21

like him having to go back and convince the bank manager to extend one more

00:26:26

loan for him.

00:26:27

Right.

00:26:27

But that is kind of the tipping point in his hero's journey is that he realizes

00:26:33

that, you know, there's a better way to do things.

00:26:36

And all he's got to do is start fixing the system, starting with the most

00:26:40

dysfunctional ones first.

00:26:41

And at that point, you know, the score is going to take care of itself.

00:26:45

Yes.

00:26:46

And I don't know, like he's, he's laying awake at night, right?

00:26:50

And this systems thing goes off in his brain.

00:26:54

He gets a higher limit on his credit card.

00:26:58

Was one of the things he did too.

00:27:00

Yep.

00:27:01

And all these things that I'm, these are terrible ideas, like from a financial

00:27:07

stability stance, like sell it and run away.

00:27:10

Like that's what most everybody will tell you, but he chooses not to do that.

00:27:16

And he starts this systems process, which will get into what exactly he did.

00:27:23

And he gets into more of it in the second part here, but he starts this

00:27:28

system's mindset rollout, I guess.

00:27:32

And it ends up making his business one of the most successful telephone

00:27:38

answering services out there.

00:27:39

And that is where he sits.

00:27:43

I believe still today he's still running that, right?

00:27:46

Or still owns it at least.

00:27:47

He doesn't seem to do a whole lot with it, but he works one hour a week, he says.

00:27:51

Yeah.

00:27:52

So he's not super involved with it anymore, but he does make decisions and

00:27:56

checks in on it for an hour a week, it sounds like, but that is the background.

00:28:01

Under which this book is written, which I got to tell you, I got, I got issues with

00:28:08

do you?

00:28:08

I mean, when he's talking about he's only working one hour a week.

00:28:14

On the one hand, I get what he's trying to do.

00:28:16

He's trying to paint this picture.

00:28:18

And this is why all the woodstock stuff is in there is he's basically saying, if I, if

00:28:22

even a hippie like me can get this systems mindset revelation and start applying it

00:28:28

and go from 80 hour weeks to one hour weeks, like you can do it too.

00:28:31

And that's obviously a huge shift.

00:28:34

But then later on, he talks about how he wakes up in the morning and he's like

00:28:39

rearing and ready to go and he gets out and he's working with these contractors

00:28:43

on stuff.

00:28:43

And I don't know if he's just like in the middle of a home remodeling project or

00:28:46

something, but I'm like, okay, so that's your one hour a week.

00:28:50

What are you going to do tomorrow?

00:28:51

Right.

00:28:52

You know, he paints this picture of like, isn't this great?

00:28:56

I don't have to be in my business, but on the same hand in my version anyways,

00:28:59

he's painting the picture of this is great because I'm excited and motivated to do

00:29:03

my work.

00:29:04

And I don't think you can save both of those and reconcile them.

00:29:11

Even the people that I know who are retired and they're passionate about

00:29:15

something, they're putting a decent amount of work into it.

00:29:18

Yeah, you don't have the pressure of like, I got to work these certain hours and

00:29:22

I have flexibility in my schedule and I can be home and have dinner with my

00:29:26

kids and stuff like that.

00:29:27

But the way that he described it here just seemed totally ridiculous when I read

00:29:33

it this time.

00:29:34

Yeah.

00:29:34

I could see how you get there pretty quick.

00:29:36

It seems like, and I don't know if this is in the,

00:29:41

last edition or not, but towards the end of the book, he's talking about

00:29:45

communication and different applications of systems, mindsets.

00:29:50

And one of those is an explanation of the differences between brand new

00:29:56

subcontractors and subcontractors who have been in the business for a while.

00:30:00

And the way he refers to that, it's as if it seems like they buy and sell houses

00:30:07

a lot.

00:30:08

Sure.

00:30:09

Or build houses a lot.

00:30:10

I think he's pretty heavy in the real estate market.

00:30:14

Well, let's hear about work, the system from that perspective, the not

00:30:17

central because yeah.

00:30:19

Also, when I read the thing about the contractors, I was thinking to myself,

00:30:23

he has never been to Dorkone.

00:30:25

Are they all contractors have been around for a while?

00:30:29

Oh, have they?

00:30:30

They say it's just like that.

00:30:31

You know, exactly.

00:30:33

They, that's just the way life is up there.

00:30:36

Sure.

00:30:37

They will come when they feel like it, when they're not out fishing or golfing

00:30:41

or whatever, because the weather is nice.

00:30:43

Yeah.

00:30:44

And you're just going to like it because there are no other options.

00:30:47

But you know, if somebody came into the area and responded immediately,

00:30:52

showed up on time and did things to budget, which they're a handful of those

00:30:56

in our area that are like that.

00:30:58

If someone went to Dorkone and operated that way, they'd be busier than they could

00:31:02

handle.

00:31:02

Like that's just the way it is.

00:31:05

You know that.

00:31:06

Well, you'd have to get established there.

00:31:09

That's the thing is like everybody knows everybody and there's all these

00:31:11

networks.

00:31:12

And so if you want to work with a contractor, they have to get the lumber

00:31:16

and the lumber people are only going to work with the people that they work with.

00:31:19

Yeah.

00:31:19

You're not going to return your phone calls if you're somebody from Green Bay, let's say.

00:31:24

Sure.

00:31:24

Yeah.

00:31:25

So you'd have to move to the area probably and get established.

00:31:28

Yep.

00:31:28

We've, we've tried that.

00:31:29

Oh, we got to love it.

00:31:35

Anyway, in the midst of all of this centratail story, there are little, I would

00:31:42

say like little paper trails that he leaves through the story about what systems

00:31:47

are.

00:31:48

He doesn't just come out and define systems at any point in time.

00:31:52

He has a few analogies, like the machinery that's under your house, that's

00:31:57

making everything above ground work.

00:31:59

And you don't really think about all that stuff.

00:32:00

It's underground, but it's there and it's what helps you sleep and it's what helps

00:32:04

you get breakfast and it's, he leaves some of those trails, right?

00:32:07

But he never, he never sits down and says, here's what I mean by a system.

00:32:12

He doesn't ever point that out.

00:32:14

Yeah.

00:32:14

And when I got to the end of the book, I was thinking that's kind of frustrating

00:32:20

that he never explained that.

00:32:22

And then I realized it's because he can't.

00:32:25

There's, there's too much nuance.

00:32:28

Like it's not, this is similar to what I think David

00:32:33

Allen gets at with GTD in that people generally are operating with the GTD mindset,

00:32:42

whether they realize it or not, they just have flawed steps from one piece to the

00:32:45

next.

00:32:46

And the more time you spend with GTD, the more places you see it working.

00:32:51

Like it, that's what he says.

00:32:53

Now leave the qualms with whether or not the system actually does exist in places

00:32:59

and you're using it, whether you realize it or not.

00:33:01

Leave that aside, the concept of seeing it in places where you didn't

00:33:05

previously think it existed, that concept, I think is what he's getting at with

00:33:09

sit quote unquote systems mindset in that if you start paying attention, you can

00:33:14

see the systems that lead to something.

00:33:17

And one of the examples he gives is his sleep system.

00:33:21

Yeah.

00:33:21

Which is dependent on mindfulness and eliminating stress and all these different

00:33:27

factors that we know go into affecting how well you sleep, he's calling that a

00:33:33

system.

00:33:34

It doesn't have to be this flows from this point to that point.

00:33:38

And the data flows, it could be a lot of different things that are seemingly

00:33:43

disconnected, but are actually connected.

00:33:45

Yeah.

00:33:46

I did not catch that he did not define a system.

00:33:49

And I guess that's because I have defined it myself every time that I've

00:33:55

talked about this.

00:33:56

Sure.

00:33:57

Just real quickly, here's the, the internet dictionary definition.

00:34:02

It's a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting

00:34:06

network.

00:34:07

But you're right.

00:34:08

He doesn't actually define that.

00:34:09

He does talk about how they are independent and interdependent.

00:34:13

They are, I think he mentions that they're open and closed.

00:34:18

So like maybe it's worth talking about these real quickly.

00:34:24

An open system means there's an input and then there's an output, a closed system.

00:34:28

There's nothing acting on the system.

00:34:30

The books that are on the bookshelf behind me are closed systems unless I go

00:34:35

in there and I highlight things.

00:34:36

They were printed, they were bound, they were shipped, and now they sit there

00:34:41

and not doing anything until I would pick one off the shelf, open and read it.

00:34:45

At that point, it's an open system.

00:34:47

An open system is pretty much everything else.

00:34:50

So I think the easiest open system analogy is like a car.

00:34:54

You put gas in the car, you push down on the accelerator and you move.

00:34:59

All of those are inputs that affect the system.

00:35:03

But what's interesting, the big revelation I got from this, the first time that I read it

00:35:08

is that everything in your life, yes, is a system.

00:35:12

But like I said, it's independent and interdependent.

00:35:14

So all these systems function themselves, but they also affect all of the other

00:35:18

systems.

00:35:20

And that is a really cool way to think about things.

00:35:23

It is very much in line with a lot of like the growth mindset stuff and the

00:35:29

personal responsibility, self-determination type stuff that you and I tend to believe in.

00:35:33

Like you can set your own course.

00:35:35

You don't just sit there and accept the inputs from your system.

00:35:39

You have the ability to make an input into the systems and fiddle with the

00:35:43

mechanics of the system and get better results.

00:35:48

So that is kind of like the underpinning of everything that he's going to say in the

00:35:52

the rest of the book.

00:35:53

But also that is kind of summarized in this first section.

00:35:56

And then he goes on and talked about it for another what, 14 chapters after this?

00:36:03

Yep.

00:36:04

Takes his time.

00:36:04

So he's excited.

00:36:06

That's that's probably the only way I can explain it.

00:36:09

He's excited.

00:36:09

He is passionate about his systems.

00:36:11

That is for sure.

00:36:12

For a hippie.

00:36:13

Very structured.

00:36:14

So sleep as a system though.

00:36:16

I like that.

00:36:17

I jotted that down in my my node file too, because I am very careful, I guess, about the

00:36:25

systems that affect my sleep.

00:36:28

And I have been constantly adjusting these systems for many years because I was diagnosed

00:36:36

with epilepsy when I was 18 years old.

00:36:39

And so I have to get good sleep and I have to get enough sleep.

00:36:42

So I'm going to do everything that I can to set myself up for success.

00:36:46

And I learned quickly that there are things I can do, which make it a lot easier for me

00:36:50

to get quality sleep and get enough sleep.

00:36:52

So we've got like blackout curtains in our our bedroom.

00:36:55

We've got a weighted blanket.

00:36:57

I've got blue light filtering glasses now.

00:37:00

So even if I happen to be like editing the pot on the podcast on my iPad before I go to bed

00:37:05

and it's not going to keep me awake.

00:37:08

And I think it's interesting that he's talking about this.

00:37:11

He says, I'm not sure I believe him, that he had medical testing and he's one of those

00:37:15

people that does not need eight hours of sleep.

00:37:18

And that's like 1% of the population we learned in the sleep revolution, I believe, was the

00:37:24

book that we read on that.

00:37:25

So don't follow his example, but follow his approach.

00:37:30

Where you're trying to figure out what are the things that are causing you to not be

00:37:34

able to sleep.

00:37:36

And I don't think you need to be in my situation.

00:37:40

Anybody could take a look at some of their systems, which are contributing to their mind

00:37:44

racing and feelings of stress and overwhelming night, not being able to sleep, make some

00:37:48

adjustments.

00:37:49

And now you've taken a huge step towards making tomorrow a better day.

00:37:53

So this is all the background going into part two.

00:37:57

Okay.

00:37:58

Part two is make it so.

00:38:01

This is this is the part where we start to explore what the process of a mindset towards

00:38:11

systems looks like.

00:38:13

So when we dive into the actual process, okay, and he starts with a chapter called

00:38:21

swallowing the horse pill where he discusses documentation.

00:38:26

Yep.

00:38:26

Writing things down.

00:38:27

And he does talk about this in the first section, but this is the main thing that he is

00:38:33

preaching throughout this entire book is these three documents.

00:38:37

Yep.

00:38:37

Yep.

00:38:37

So creating three different documents.

00:38:42

And I have to admit that whenever I got to this point, he started to lose me.

00:38:46

Sitting down and documenting these things, like I get it.

00:38:50

I get what he's trying to say.

00:38:52

I have been in too many places that have done this and then the documents just sit and no one ever.

00:38:57

Looks at them.

00:38:59

Like I get what he's saying, like the places that have these documents and they pull them out

00:39:03

regularly and they review them regularly and they actually follow them.

00:39:07

I get that it's a big deal and it's helpful.

00:39:09

Never been around that.

00:39:12

First hand, so I've seen a lot of different places that have these and most of them ignore them,

00:39:18

which is why, like, why would I do this?

00:39:22

Because it's never used and it's never helpful.

00:39:25

Sure.

00:39:25

Please tell me you have experience with this and this is actually helpful.

00:39:28

I do and it is absolutely helpful.

00:39:30

The problem is you need buy in from the entire team to constantly keep these things updated.

00:39:36

If you see something is out of date, he makes this point.

00:39:41

Your number one job at that moment is to update the procedure so that it is accurate.

00:39:46

And I have seen too many people who they have to do something.

00:39:51

They're trying to get something done.

00:39:52

They look at the procedure, they notice it's out of date and all they're focusing on is

00:39:57

completing their task for the procedure that they looked up.

00:40:01

And so they have to figure things out.

00:40:04

The standard operating procedure no longer has any value.

00:40:09

And they just move right past it.

00:40:12

And that is the beginning of the end for the system's mindset.

00:40:16

So it does take a culture shift where the process is more important than any singular thing

00:40:24

that you happen to be doing.

00:40:26

I think getting an entire organization to think about things that way is very rare.

00:40:32

But I do think it totally can work.

00:40:37

And he does a pretty good job, I think, of outlining the case for this.

00:40:42

The moment that one of those procedures is out of date, there is now a bottleneck

00:40:49

for who can complete that thing.

00:40:52

The person who accessed the procedure after things have changed and they figured out the new way to do things.

00:40:58

They have now created a dependency for every person who is going to do that in the future to come to them

00:41:04

and ask them how to do it.

00:41:06

Which if you think about that rationally, you're like, there is no way I want to sign up for that job.

00:41:12

Yeah, but you just move right past it in the moment.

00:41:15

You don't even never think about it.

00:41:17

And I've seen that over and over and over again.

00:41:20

So I am a firm believer in Sam Carpenter's methods here.

00:41:26

He also says, I've seen this too.

00:41:29

I wanted to see if you had any experience with this on page 88.

00:41:33

He says, does a dictator require documented guidance, guidance, structural documentation?

00:41:40

Not so much.

00:41:41

It tends to get in the way of the tyrant's self-serving free form manipulations.

00:41:44

I've also seen that at work.

00:41:48

How about you?

00:41:50

Yep, that's pretty standard par for the course.

00:41:53

Yes.

00:41:55

That's probably the norm would be my guess.

00:41:58

Let's not document who we are because then I can make us whoever I want us to be.

00:42:03

Exactly.

00:42:04

Anytime and they can change any time I want.

00:42:06

Yeah.

00:42:06

Now here's the crazy part though.

00:42:08

Those people who are functioning like a dictator, they probably don't want to be a dictator.

00:42:14

They probably want everybody to get on board with their vision and they want to

00:42:18

delegate things and they want everybody to moving in the same direction and they

00:42:23

have pure motives.

00:42:24

But they completely negate all of that when they fail to cast a vision.

00:42:32

And that's what these documents do, the strategic objective.

00:42:35

He says this is kind of like the declaration of independence and the general operating

00:42:40

principles.

00:42:41

This is like your constitution, just like basic decision making principles.

00:42:45

And then you're working procedures.

00:42:46

Those are the laws.

00:42:47

Those are all the standard operating procedure documents that you got to constantly be

00:42:52

updating and make sure that they are current.

00:42:55

But I also noticed that like if you have this mindset of making sure that things are

00:42:59

always current and everybody's in on that stuff doesn't change as fast as you think it

00:43:06

does.

00:43:06

It's when you are in a hurry and you just move past it and you don't update it and

00:43:12

then you do it again and you do it again, the stuff compounds and then you go back

00:43:16

and you look and you're like, Oh my gosh, all this stuff is out of date.

00:43:19

But when you consistently are managing it and when you're consistently keeping it

00:43:25

current, it's not as bad.

00:43:28

Whenever I say that like the documentation thing doesn't work, when I say that, I want

00:43:34

to point out that it's the first two of those three pieces.

00:43:36

Okay, so the strategic objectives, I found the thing where he's talking about that

00:43:44

particular piece and he says that it's a blueprint in which we acknowledge the day

00:43:48

to day existence of the business in a mechanized objective way.

00:43:52

So he's basically saying that your strategic objective needs to be something

00:43:56

where you're willing to think about it from a systems stance, right?

00:44:01

So you're writing something down, you're making a statement in that way, right?

00:44:05

And then the general operating principles are guidelines for decision making.

00:44:13

In my head, those are both kind of the same thing.

00:44:17

I had a really hard time getting the difference between those.

00:44:20

Maybe I just didn't follow his path there, but it struck me as similar to like

00:44:28

Ray Dalio's principles.

00:44:29

Like maybe it's that type of thing that he's referring to in that particular

00:44:35

case.

00:44:35

Could do you get the difference between these two?

00:44:37

Maybe I'm just off base here.

00:44:40

Sure.

00:44:41

Well, the strategic objective, I think there are different versions of this that

00:44:46

I have seen in the past and I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong one.

00:44:51

So as part of like the scaling up framework by Vern Harnish, I believe, they

00:44:58

incorporate like the Jim Collins big, hairy, audacious goals and you identify

00:45:02

like, what is the one sentence thing?

00:45:04

Like, why are you here?

00:45:05

Who are you serving?

00:45:06

Like they have a process for working through all of that.

00:45:08

That's kind of how I view the strategic objective.

00:45:11

Like, why do we exist?

00:45:14

What are we trying to do here?

00:45:16

And then the general operating principles, one of the things that I feel fits this

00:45:22

really well, this is not specific stuff, but it's just a bunch of guidelines that

00:45:27

the employees can use to make their own decisions.

00:45:29

So Martin in the chat had mentioned that Sam Carpenter with his working one

00:45:34

hour a week is trying to outdo Tim Ferriss, but Tim Ferriss has one of those

00:45:37

guiding principles that we talked about where if you can solve the customer's

00:45:41

problem for under $100, just do it.

00:45:43

Right.

00:45:44

So that is a general operating principle, but the working procedure would be, this

00:45:50

is how you issue the refund in the credit card payment processor or whatever.

00:45:55

This is how you create an Amazon affiliate link when you paste it into the show

00:46:01

notes, all those kinds of things.

00:46:02

Yeah.

00:46:03

No, that makes sense because like the working procedures, I'm 100% on board with

00:46:08

that.

00:46:08

Um, to me, and this is one of the points I put down, it's like those working

00:46:13

procedures are an eerie throwback to checklist manifesto.

00:46:19

Yeah, sure.

00:46:20

From what I've just like, as I was reading it, that was instantly what came to my

00:46:24

mind is like, Oh, well, this is a step by step for how to do that.

00:46:26

Oh, that's a checklist.

00:46:27

Like that's immediately where my brain went.

00:46:29

I don't think that's wrong per se based on what I'm reading here.

00:46:34

Maybe if I followed Sam Carpenter and what's the other guy's name?

00:46:39

Josh.

00:46:40

Something.

00:46:41

Josh Fonger.

00:46:42

There you go.

00:46:43

If I followed those two, maybe I would have a different view of that, but in my

00:46:47

head, working procedures are just checklists.

00:46:49

Yeah.

00:46:49

They're itemized point by point, how you do things.

00:46:52

It wouldn't necessarily be actions per se, as like they could have things that

00:46:57

say, like, make sure this exists.

00:46:59

It's not an actual thing you're doing.

00:47:02

It's just a thing to ensure.

00:47:03

Like maybe that's some of what's going on, but the first two though, like I get

00:47:08

what you're saying with the general operating principles.

00:47:10

Like if it's this, always choose these.

00:47:13

Like if you can set up those principles, I could see that would be helpful.

00:47:17

Yeah.

00:47:18

The working procedures real quickly, the difference here between a simple

00:47:23

checklist is that most people create a checklist with assumed knowledge.

00:47:29

So if you or I had a checklist for publishing a bookworm episode, it's

00:47:36

probably just a list of things and there's no process for like, here is how you

00:47:42

upload the file to Libsyn and how you name the file and all that sort of thing.

00:47:47

The working procedures that he's talking about here though, remember, the goal is

00:47:52

to eliminate every potential bottleneck.

00:47:55

What you basically want with a working procedure is all of the information for

00:48:00

someone to come in off of the street and to be able to completely do the job.

00:48:06

And most checklists are not written that way to that level of detail.

00:48:10

Yeah, I hear you.

00:48:11

That's how we do the ones at church.

00:48:13

We use base camp to manage like templated to do lists amongst a bunch of other

00:48:20

things, but that's one of the things we use.

00:48:21

And I have like a template for a minute by minute of a Sunday morning and

00:48:27

everything that needs to done at those minutes so that either myself or my assistant

00:48:34

or if somebody else steps in, they can look through all of that.

00:48:37

But each of those to do is like if it's something that's more than just a single

00:48:41

turn on this TV, if it's more than that, if it's set the volumes in a certain

00:48:47

room, there is a link inside that to do comment that takes you to another document

00:48:52

that shows you what that should look like and how it should operate.

00:48:55

Exactly.

00:48:56

Yeah.

00:48:56

That is the level because I want it to be possible for somebody brand new to our

00:49:01

IT team to be able to just walk that list and be able to run an entire Sunday

00:49:07

morning without needing to call or text anybody to figure it out.

00:49:11

So yep, that I do.

00:49:13

I don't necessarily do that for the stuff that's just me, like all of my online

00:49:18

stuff.

00:49:18

Like I have templated projects that I create in Omni Focus pretty regularly,

00:49:24

like even the one for today's recording.

00:49:27

And I had to update it today since we're on YouTube now instead of Twitch.

00:49:30

So I had to update that checklist before today's knowing that it was going to

00:49:36

change.

00:49:36

But whenever I created that project, it's got all of the, restart my back, open this

00:49:40

program, position this window, position that window.

00:49:43

Like I've got all of those things so that I can get them all exactly where they

00:49:47

need to go.

00:49:48

But again, that's a checklist to me.

00:49:50

Sure.

00:49:50

But am I following you in that a working procedure is similar to what I'm doing at

00:49:55

the church, not necessarily what I'm doing for me?

00:49:58

Yeah, because remember this is the business, the business version of this, this book.

00:50:04

So your checklist is for you.

00:50:06

No one else is setting up your live stream for you the minute you have to

00:50:10

delegate that to somebody.

00:50:11

Yes.

00:50:12

There's a whole bunch more information that's required, which is interesting for me

00:50:16

as I go through this because I'm working with the VA now.

00:50:19

So I'm going to have to create a whole bunch of this stuff.

00:50:21

Yep.

00:50:22

I hear you.

00:50:22

I do.

00:50:23

Okay.

00:50:24

So I can, I can get behind documenting like working procedures.

00:50:28

I could get behind the concept of documenting the general operating principles.

00:50:35

I don't know what those would be.

00:50:39

For me, like I have no idea.

00:50:42

I wouldn't even know where to start on that.

00:50:44

So that was one thing that I struggled with was like, okay, he's pointing out what

00:50:49

you should do and what this is.

00:50:52

I didn't feel like you had very many or very good examples of what this could look

00:50:57

like.

00:50:57

And maybe that's why I was a bit lost in that.

00:51:01

Yeah, you're 100% right.

00:51:03

Doesn't have great examples for this.

00:51:04

When I was thinking of general operating principles, I was thinking of our family

00:51:09

core values.

00:51:10

Okay.

00:51:10

I feel like that's a version of those.

00:51:13

These are the values that we filter all the decisions that we make through.

00:51:20

And a lot of companies will probably have core values as well.

00:51:24

The way he describes this, though, it's bigger than just the core values.

00:51:29

There are those just like general rules for how things get done.

00:51:33

Like I mentioned, the Tim Ferriss example, spend the hundred bucks.

00:51:37

Don't even ask me, you know, that kind of stuff.

00:51:39

That's not a core value, but it's still kind of a general operating principle.

00:51:43

Right.

00:51:44

But I think core values are the place that you start when you're talking about this

00:51:47

kind of stuff.

00:51:48

Then the strategic objective, your declaration of independence, you know,

00:51:52

that's kind of like your mission statement.

00:51:54

And I have seen way too many poorly written business mission statements.

00:51:58

But that that's what this is.

00:52:02

Yeah.

00:52:02

You know, why are you even here?

00:52:03

Why do you do what you do?

00:52:05

I guess I would call this a life theme in my faith-based productivity course.

00:52:09

So my strategic objective, if you wanted to define it, that is to help people

00:52:14

answer the question, why am I here by inspiring, encouraging and teaching them

00:52:17

to connect to their calling, discover their destiny, live a life they were

00:52:20

created for?

00:52:20

That's my strategic objective.

00:52:23

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

00:52:25

But I do think that it's something that you really do need to think about,

00:52:30

not just for a business, but for yourself as well.

00:52:32

And I think the time estimates that he gives here are pretty good, where the

00:52:36

strategic objective, he says, you can figure that out in a couple of hours.

00:52:40

Your general operating principles are probably a couple of days.

00:52:43

And then the working procedures, you're going to be working on these the rest of

00:52:45

your life, which is not, is not wrong.

00:52:49

He makes an important point about those, by the way, in this section about how

00:52:53

you don't find time, which is, I think the mistake a lot of people make when

00:52:58

it comes to keeping working procedures up to date is you think, like, I'll

00:53:02

go back and fix that when I have time and you don't have time.

00:53:05

So you have to make this the most important thing so that it always gets

00:53:09

updated in real time.

00:53:11

And when you do that, that's really the only way I think this works.

00:53:14

Sure.

00:53:15

Do you think the strategic objective, I'm thinking about, like, life

00:53:18

purpose, mission statements and such, he specifically calls out that this needs

00:53:23

to involve, like, like you're saying, the declaration of independence in a

00:53:28

mechanized way.

00:53:30

Like he specifically points that out when he mentions a strategic objective,

00:53:34

but most of like what you and I would talk about with purpose and mission and

00:53:37

such core values, we wouldn't call out a systems mindset at all, but he's

00:53:44

saying that that's important.

00:53:46

What do you mean?

00:53:46

I made a little backup where it was.

00:53:49

I would give you a page number, but our pages are different.

00:53:51

While you're trying to get that, I'll just mention, like, the purpose of all

00:53:56

of these documents is so that you can delegate stuff effectively.

00:54:01

Right.

00:54:02

So if you are going to delegate things to people, then you need to cast some

00:54:06

vision as to what doing this successfully looks like.

00:54:11

And that's where I feel the vision and why we're here, why we do what we do

00:54:16

is important.

00:54:18

And I think a lot of companies in particular kind of overlook that and they

00:54:23

just focus on the tasks that they are trying to get done and they don't ever

00:54:28

stop to ask why.

00:54:30

What difference is this, this making?

00:54:32

Sure.

00:54:33

If you're a leader, though, you really need to figure this stuff out.

00:54:36

If you want to stop playing whack-a-mole, which is a very effective analogy,

00:54:40

he shares in that first section of how most, that's a generalization, but I

00:54:45

think it's probably accurate how most people who lead companies lead is they

00:54:51

just are responding to things.

00:54:53

And if you stop to think about why this thing is surfacing, you know, you can

00:54:57

trace it back to a broken system somewhere, probably a broken communication

00:55:02

system where that vision was not cast effectively.

00:55:04

Sure.

00:55:05

Well, this is here.

00:55:06

Let me, let me read this a talicized piece in my book about what a strategic

00:55:15

objective is.

00:55:16

Okay.

00:55:16

The strategic objective is not a nebulous feel-good mission statement based

00:55:22

on self-aggrandized hope.

00:55:24

It is not something designed to make the board of directors feel good about

00:55:28

themselves or intended to impress stockholders and staff.

00:55:31

Instead, it's a blueprint in which we acknowledge the day-to-day existence

00:55:35

of the business in a mechanized objective way.

00:55:38

Okay.

00:55:39

So that's why I say he points out the mechanized piece there.

00:55:44

What was the next, without therapy excess, it includes a brief narration of

00:55:49

what the company does, where it's headed and how management and staff will get

00:55:53

there, keep it to one page only.

00:55:55

Right.

00:55:56

So most mission statements are we exist to make the world a better place.

00:56:05

Right.

00:56:05

No specifics on how your particular company and your particular industry is

00:56:13

going to impact that at all.

00:56:15

Right.

00:56:16

Right.

00:56:16

So that is where I draw.

00:56:20

That's how I interpret that.

00:56:21

Maybe I'm wrong with this, but I'm thinking more like we create this product

00:56:28

to help people do this thing so that they can achieve this result.

00:56:34

Now you understand how what you are making is going to be used so you can

00:56:39

take that information and you can use that to influence the decisions that you

00:56:44

would make in the production of said product.

00:56:47

And this is a product, not a service, but hopefully you kind of get my drift

00:56:51

with this.

00:56:52

Yeah.

00:56:52

Like once you understand where you're going from a high level, then it brings

00:56:59

like passion and purpose to the the menial tasks that you're doing, you know,

00:57:04

putting in the screws that's actually contributing to helping that person

00:57:08

achieve their dream.

00:57:10

Right.

00:57:10

And that's something that a factory line worker can get excited about.

00:57:13

Doesn't happen automatically.

00:57:15

And that's why I say like the this is really important from a leadership

00:57:19

perspective is like you have to make sure that this stuff filters down.

00:57:22

It's very easy to just say, well, here's the working procedures.

00:57:25

Right.

00:57:26

So just work off of this stuff.

00:57:28

And then people are burned out and frustrated and they don't want to do it

00:57:33

anymore.

00:57:34

Right.

00:57:34

I think the piece about this, you know, having reread that particular part,

00:57:40

it's interesting how my brain kind of clouded some of that in reading the rest

00:57:45

of the book, because that's about halfway through where he's calling that out.

00:57:49

And it's interesting to me that it's a one page document and that it's designed

00:57:56

to show where we're currently at and where you're wanting the company or the

00:58:02

person to go, right?

00:58:03

And how you're going to get there.

00:58:04

And I think that's potentially significantly more than what am I trying to say?

00:58:11

It's significantly more than like a mission statement and such.

00:58:14

Like it's not just a quick two, three liner.

00:58:17

Yes.

00:58:17

This is a full thought out narrative, right?

00:58:22

Exactly.

00:58:24

It's not just where we want to end up, but it's how we're going to get there.

00:58:28

Right.

00:58:30

So maybe, I mean, to me, it feels like one of those documents that this is an

00:58:37

important document to create.

00:58:38

It's not necessarily one that you're looking at a lot.

00:58:41

Correct.

00:58:41

Like if you're sitting down with people and you're creating it together,

00:58:44

it's one of those that you pull out and rewrite every year so that you can

00:58:49

figure out what your, like how your plans have changed.

00:58:52

Yeah.

00:58:53

Over time, I can see that.

00:58:54

Yeah.

00:58:55

You review it every quarter when you're making your plans.

00:58:57

Sure.

00:58:58

Those things that we're going to be selecting the projects we're going to

00:59:01

engage with.

00:59:01

Are they in alignment with this vision of where we want to go?

00:59:05

Yep.

00:59:06

Yeah.

00:59:07

I could totally see that.

00:59:08

I really don't want to do it though.

00:59:09

See, that's the, this is the exciting stuff for me.

00:59:15

I love not only figuring this stuff out for myself, but helping other people

00:59:21

kind of figure this out for themselves because I think when you do this,

00:59:26

yeah, there can be a lot of hesitation to engaging with the process.

00:59:30

And there is no shortcut to this, but when you, when you land on the thing,

00:59:36

it does bring excitement and motivation to everything then that you do.

00:59:42

Sure.

00:59:43

And when you're talking about motivating people, and again, this is a work

00:59:49

context for this particular book, but I think this applies to

00:59:56

any organization as well.

00:59:58

I think in a church context, this could be really effective because you are

01:00:03

working with largely a volunteer workforce, right?

01:00:08

No one's getting paid.

01:00:09

They don't have a boss that's saying, you must do this or you're getting

01:00:12

kicked out.

01:00:12

So you got to motivate people or they're not going to do it.

01:00:15

Yep.

01:00:16

Yeah.

01:00:17

You're forced.

01:00:18

Yeah.

01:00:19

And how are you going to motivate them?

01:00:20

Right?

01:00:20

Yeah.

01:00:20

You're going to show them how what they're doing is making a difference.

01:00:24

And you're going to sell yourself.

01:00:27

That's what leadership is, right?

01:00:28

You're going to sell the belief that you can help people get where they want to go.

01:00:33

And with you.

01:00:34

All right.

01:00:36

Let's go on to part three here.

01:00:37

Sorry.

01:00:38

One more, one more quick thing.

01:00:40

Okay.

01:00:40

Yeah.

01:00:40

We have to cover this.

01:00:41

So chapter nine under we are project engineers at the end of every one of these

01:00:45

chapters, he's got these little stories.

01:00:47

Some of them are good.

01:00:49

Some of them are ridiculous.

01:00:51

This one is ridiculous.

01:00:53

Okay.

01:00:53

So according to Sam Carpenter, there is only one correct systems way to load the

01:00:59

toilet paper.

01:01:00

Yep.

01:01:01

Do you remember this?

01:01:03

Somewhat.

01:01:04

Yes.

01:01:04

In the fourth edition.

01:01:05

Okay.

01:01:06

Let me double check.

01:01:07

Which chapter are you talking about?

01:01:09

Nine.

01:01:09

Chapter nine.

01:01:10

Yep.

01:01:10

This highlights my biggest issue, I think, with the book, which is he uses very

01:01:20

grandiose language, which is very much of a stretch sometimes.

01:01:24

Remember, he is talking about whether toilet paper hangs over the top or hangs

01:01:30

out to the bottom.

01:01:31

And he basically makes a very passionate argument that the only correct way from

01:01:36

a systems perspective is hanging over the top.

01:01:39

And when you read this and you're just like, okay, cool out, Sam.

01:01:44

Yes.

01:01:48

It is still on toilet paper.

01:01:49

I remember reading something about toilet paper and it's, it's a three pager in,

01:01:55

at least in mine, it's a three pager on that.

01:01:57

I just couldn't remember if it was on that specific chapter.

01:02:00

Yeah.

01:02:00

And that, I don't know, I get what he's trying to do there.

01:02:04

And he says at the beginning, this is a ridiculous example.

01:02:07

But this is a written medium and he's using the same types of words that he's

01:02:14

using other places.

01:02:14

So he's doing himself a disservice and he's making the other places that he

01:02:20

uses language like this, he makes it less impactful because you're recalling, oh,

01:02:24

you said the same thing about the toilet paper.

01:02:26

Yes, because toilet paper and business decisions, real estate decisions,

01:02:32

definitely on the same scale.

01:02:33

They're definitely on the same.

01:02:35

Do you know why he was working 80 hours a week, right?

01:02:38

It's because he had the toilet paper on the roll wrong.

01:02:40

Exactly.

01:02:41

That's, you got it.

01:02:42

We have out.

01:02:43

The minute he turned it around, it went from 80 hour weeks to one hour weeks.

01:02:47

That was his revelation.

01:02:48

How to get the toilet paper on their correct way.

01:02:51

And now my whole career is going to be changed for the better.

01:02:55

Yeah.

01:02:56

All right, let's go to part three.

01:02:59

So say we all there are a lot of, I guess, follow up tidbits that he wanted to say here.

01:03:08

And that's, that's a lot of what this part is about.

01:03:12

One of the chapters here is called point of sale thinking.

01:03:15

And this one stood out to me because I feel like it goes against some of what you and I

01:03:23

tend to ascribe to.

01:03:25

And it's one that actually sparked my choice for our next book, which I'll talk about later.

01:03:31

Oh, boy.

01:03:32

And it.

01:03:34

Well, let me read the first sentence of this chapter.

01:03:38

OK, chapter five point of sale thinking.

01:03:41

The first sentence is do it now and let's get on with whatever is next.

01:03:45

And the concept he's talking about here is don't put things off.

01:03:51

Don't give yourself the opportunity to have to decide to do something.

01:03:55

Do it now.

01:03:57

And I read that and thought, I don't know that that's possible.

01:04:02

Like with what I do, I don't think that's actually possible.

01:04:06

But at the same time, I realized that a lot of what I do is that way

01:04:11

already, if someone brings me a computer with a problem, I'm fixing it right now.

01:04:16

Like I'm not saying, well, let me put you on my schedule for some time in the next three days.

01:04:20

No, I have an issue right now.

01:04:22

I'm going to fix it right now.

01:04:23

That's how those work.

01:04:25

But if I have like an install, I've got a new rack that I'm putting video gear into.

01:04:31

I can't just do that now.

01:04:33

In most cases, like I have to pick carefully what day I'm going to do that.

01:04:39

Because if I were to do that, like, for example, I just put in a video rack.

01:04:44

That's why I use that example.

01:04:46

If I were to put that in on say Thursday morning, that's a bad deal.

01:04:52

Like I'm going to have a lot of problems because they're going to use that stuff

01:04:56

Thursday night for rehearsal.

01:04:58

And there's a very good chance I'm not going to have enough time to get it all done in one day.

01:05:02

So I need multiple days to work on that and fix any issues with it.

01:05:05

So if I started on Thursday, the day it comes in, I have bigger issues and I created a lot of problems

01:05:12

when I should have just waited till Monday when I've got four days in a row to work on it and can fix things.

01:05:17

So doing it right away and having this point of sale thinking where things, you know, things come to you, you do it immediately.

01:05:23

I feel like that doesn't necessarily apply and it really depends on.

01:05:27

The job and the business and what sector you work in.

01:05:31

Am I just completely off base with this?

01:05:34

Well, I can tell you when I heard of point of sale thinking, I thought to myself

01:05:39

that Sam Carpenter and David Allen are two P's in a pod.

01:05:43

Yes.

01:05:43

Yes.

01:05:44

So true.

01:05:45

And I have issues with that.

01:05:47

Not everything that that says, hey, do this now is is worth doing.

01:05:55

But I don't know.

01:05:58

I think I think the larger point here with the point of sale thinking is to reject procrastination as much as you can.

01:06:10

In fact, he says, reject it completely.

01:06:12

When it comes to these are the things that must be done for the work of the business.

01:06:20

I think he's viewing all of these things that he could be doing as already passing through that filter.

01:06:28

And I don't think I want to work this way.

01:06:32

He also says in this chapter to be relentless in eliminating lifespan.

01:06:40

And I get it that there are jobs where you're not going to be able to do that.

01:06:46

But I am the wrong person to comment on this because I don't want to touch this with a 10 foot pole.

01:06:52

Sure.

01:06:53

Makes sense.

01:06:54

I suppose there's just so many times that I see things that come to me.

01:07:00

Like what you're saying, like he's very he resonates well with David Allen, same carpenter does.

01:07:06

And because he has this whole, what was it?

01:07:10

Automate Delegate Discard, I think was the three term phrase that he used.

01:07:16

And I think that's probably true.

01:07:20

But there are a lot of cases where there's some subjective nuance that you have to decide

01:07:27

on things like it's not an immediate.

01:07:29

Here's your answer in a lot of cases.

01:07:31

And that's what he made it sound like.

01:07:33

But it was very obvious when you have things come to you that as to what needed done with it.

01:07:39

And like, we get a lot of email, right?

01:07:42

So at least I do hundreds daily.

01:07:45

So when I get those hundreds, trying to do an inbox zero, the way that Merlin

01:07:51

man did not intend it is difficult, if possible at all.

01:07:55

And trying to make those decisions about each individual item without.

01:08:04

Reading it and making a decision anyway, but you can't do that.

01:08:09

I have to at least get involved in it somewhat before I can make that decision.

01:08:13

But the way he proposed it, it's like you don't have to do that and you do.

01:08:16

At least in my work, you know, whenever you have a phone call comes in, your only

01:08:21

option is to answer it or ignore it.

01:08:24

And in his case, his people darn well better answer it, right?

01:08:28

So that's that's their only option.

01:08:31

So when things come to them, they have one decision and one answer that they can give.

01:08:36

I feel like I can't do that.

01:08:38

Maybe I'm just distorting this.

01:08:41

That's what I was going to say is remember the context of the business that he is

01:08:45

working in.

01:08:45

Right.

01:08:46

They are paid to handle these calls that come in.

01:08:49

So when a call comes in, there is no option of whether you are going to take this

01:08:54

right now, you have to take it right now.

01:08:56

Yes.

01:08:57

And yes, he's building all these systems so they can handle all these calls as

01:09:01

efficiently as as possible without with making as few mistakes as possible.

01:09:06

I mean, there probably is not a better match for the work, the system mindset

01:09:13

than that particular example.

01:09:16

But also there's a little bit of a disconnect here because he's talking about

01:09:20

you don't want to be the heroic fire killer.

01:09:24

But essentially the reason for building the systems is so that his employees who

01:09:29

are manning the phones can be heroic fire killer.

01:09:31

Correct.

01:09:32

Yeah.

01:09:33

And that feels a little bit disingenuous is it's like you're just passing that

01:09:39

responsibility on to somebody else.

01:09:41

And now it's their problem and they have to deal with that stress.

01:09:44

And he kind of couches it as like, well, actually, Centratel is way better than

01:09:48

all the other places.

01:09:50

That is probably very true.

01:09:53

You probably pay better and it's probably a calmer work environment than most other,

01:09:58

most other call centers.

01:10:01

Doesn't mean I want to work in a call center, no matter where it is.

01:10:05

Right.

01:10:06

Right.

01:10:06

Yeah, I hear you.

01:10:08

I just feel like there's there's so much and I this is why I wanted to talk about

01:10:12

this one.

01:10:13

It's like, it just seems like there's something I'm missing with this that the

01:10:18

concept of doing things immediately or having very clear answers as to what to do

01:10:23

with something.

01:10:24

Maybe it's just the industry I work in, the types of things I do, but it's not that

01:10:29

clean.

01:10:30

And maybe that's because I just haven't defined it and made it clean.

01:10:33

That's that's part of what I'm wondering is if I set up these general operating

01:10:38

principles, maybe it is that clean.

01:10:39

And maybe this is just me not having done that yet.

01:10:43

That's that's some of my questioning.

01:10:45

Well, I think when you force yourself to think through things from a systems

01:10:50

mindset, and you have clear paths for people to follow on what is the correct

01:10:54

procedure.

01:10:56

It makes things a lot simpler in essence, those documents, what they are doing is

01:11:02

they are communicating from you to the rest of your staff.

01:11:07

And there's a whole chapter in here about hyper communication and how intense

01:11:12

management of communication systems delivers freedom.

01:11:15

I think that's true.

01:11:16

And I think the if you were to be really nitpicky about your documentation, that's

01:11:21

a form of hyper communication.

01:11:24

And especially for an employee like me, that would be very much appreciated.

01:11:27

I want a very clear, very detailed explanation of what I'm supposed to do in

01:11:32

a particular situation.

01:11:35

Sure.

01:11:36

But there are other ways that that communication can happen too.

01:11:38

It doesn't always have to be be written.

01:11:40

I think that's one of the things that I realize differences between working

01:11:49

situations, different people communicate different ways.

01:11:56

Some people just like to talk through things.

01:11:59

And that's fine.

01:12:02

But what Sam Carpenter would say is that if you are talking through something

01:12:06

and you're not documenting the resolution of what you've talked through, then

01:12:09

what was the point?

01:12:10

I think there's some truth to that too.

01:12:12

Sure.

01:12:13

One other chapter in this part that I might be quick might not be.

01:12:19

I don't know.

01:12:19

We'll see.

01:12:20

It's called prime time.

01:12:21

And there are two types of prime time that he discusses in this chapter.

01:12:28

One of those is biological prime time.

01:12:31

That's exactly what you would think it is, right?

01:12:34

So this is the time period in the day where you're able to do your best work.

01:12:38

This is Cal Newport's deep work times.

01:12:41

This is the I'm best in the morning.

01:12:44

I'm best at night.

01:12:45

Like that's what that is.

01:12:46

Right.

01:12:46

So this is my biological prime time.

01:12:49

The other type of prime time is the mechanical prime time.

01:12:53

And probably the way that I would explain that one is that it's the time of day

01:12:58

when it's best for a thing to happen.

01:13:01

Is that fair?

01:13:03

Like this is this isn't necessarily.

01:13:05

It's it's it's more around what I guess the best time for a thing to happen in a day.

01:13:13

I'm just going to say it that way.

01:13:14

And the way I read that was that, you know, if it's best for a video to be edited

01:13:21

and published mid morning, well, maybe you're doing the editing the day before,

01:13:26

but you're doing the work of publishing it in the morning.

01:13:27

That's the best time for it to be published.

01:13:30

It's probably a bad example because you can always schedule it, right?

01:13:33

So that's a bad example.

01:13:35

But if something isn't able to be scheduled for a time in the future,

01:13:38

what is the best time of day for things to happen?

01:13:42

Maybe a better example is mailing letters, sending physical checks via mail and such.

01:13:48

It's best to do that before a male person comes and picks it up.

01:13:53

Like that's going to be the best time for that.

01:13:56

What to happen?

01:13:57

That's the way I understood it.

01:13:59

Now, did I misunderstand it per your view of it?

01:14:03

To be honest, I don't know.

01:14:04

He doesn't do a really good job of explaining mechanical prime time.

01:14:07

Sure.

01:14:08

This is what he does say is he says that biological prime time is your most

01:14:13

effective time of day for doing work.

01:14:16

It's when you're the most focused and the mechanical prime time.

01:14:21

He defines it.

01:14:23

This makes no sense.

01:14:24

What you do with your time.

01:14:26

But he also says that mechanical prime time tasks allow you to break free

01:14:34

from working in your business.

01:14:35

So really, the argument that he is making here, I think, but clumsily is that you

01:14:43

should make your documents, your strategic objective, your general operating

01:14:52

principles, your working procedures during your biological prime time.

01:14:57

I think that is the complete idea he is trying to communicate there.

01:15:01

Sure.

01:15:02

It's a fun idea.

01:15:04

I don't know how it's different, but I get it because what he's saying is like

01:15:09

these documents working on the systems, that's the most important thing you can do.

01:15:13

Right.

01:15:13

That's going to help you buy back time.

01:15:15

So the most important work you should do when you are sharpest.

01:15:21

And that is your biological prime time.

01:15:23

Sure.

01:15:23

The rest of the stuff is secondary.

01:15:25

But the moment that you switch and you start working in the business instead of

01:15:30

on the business, you start just doing the tasks and you can feel good about, oh,

01:15:39

I was really in flow.

01:15:40

I really was able to edit the heck out of that video.

01:15:42

Right.

01:15:43

Yeah.

01:15:43

But he would say, if you're working with other people, that was actually a waste

01:15:47

of your biological prime time, because what you should have been doing as the

01:15:50

leader of the organization is working on keeping the documents in order.

01:15:55

Because remember, we want to keep these up to date.

01:15:58

Right.

01:15:58

If we don't keep them up to date, the whole thing falls on its face.

01:16:01

So I think this is actually pretty good advice.

01:16:03

Sure.

01:16:04

If you were going to constantly be looking at your documents, this would be the time

01:16:07

to do it.

01:16:07

Hmm.

01:16:08

Is he my best time to write documents that I feel won't be read really feels

01:16:13

weird to me.

01:16:15

Exactly.

01:16:16

See, that's the thing.

01:16:17

He's advocating for an entire culture shift of the whole organization, which for

01:16:24

someone in a position like you or me, you probably don't have the authority to

01:16:30

say, okay, guys, we're going to go this way now.

01:16:32

Right.

01:16:33

So you read this and you're kind of left thinking like, well, this is cool, but

01:16:37

I'll champion for this, but I really can't do anything.

01:16:42

Yeah.

01:16:43

I mean, I could, I could do something with my teams.

01:16:47

You know, there's, there's a bank of folks that I could probably do this with,

01:16:52

but they're volunteers.

01:16:53

So I have to keep that in mind, right?

01:16:56

So there's, there's a difference of how you come out that, but I don't know, you

01:17:03

know, like Martin saying in the chat documents are more tactical and people at

01:17:06

the top should think more strategically.

01:17:08

Maybe I think the working procedures can definitely be tactical, but the other

01:17:14

documents, I would argue are strategic.

01:17:17

Yeah.

01:17:18

I think so.

01:17:19

And if you write your working documents well, they, they very clearly connect

01:17:25

to the purpose for the, the company.

01:17:28

Like, why are we doing this?

01:17:30

We, we talked about this with, with scrum.

01:17:32

Uh, and this is actually, I think scrum, like that's all of the, the, the

01:17:37

Kanban and the, the agile work that's being done.

01:17:41

But on the other side of that coin are working procedures and mission statements

01:17:47

and a lot of the stuff that Sam McCarperter is talking about right here.

01:17:50

Right.

01:17:51

So in scrum, you've got as the business, we want to fill in the blank so that

01:17:59

fill in the blank.

01:18:00

If you don't know what your core values are, if you don't know what your, uh,

01:18:05

what does he call these?

01:18:06

I keep messing up these terms.

01:18:07

Strategic objective and general operating principles are if you don't have that sort

01:18:12

of North star as to like where we're supposed to be going, it can be difficult.

01:18:18

To fill those things out.

01:18:19

But the moment that you understand what is the purpose of the organization

01:18:24

and what are we really trying to do here?

01:18:26

These stories kind of write themselves.

01:18:28

Sure.

01:18:29

I suppose.

01:18:30

I mean, I could see how you get there, right?

01:18:32

It just seems like, like using the prime time thing.

01:18:37

There's so many different ways that he tries to get this across.

01:18:41

And I didn't fully connect all of it, but I do get what you're seeing.

01:18:46

Like the documents at a strategic level coming back to that.

01:18:50

I mean, it's called strategic objective.

01:18:53

I mean, it's a document helped.

01:18:55

Designed to help you set strategy, but it's documenting the strategy that is

01:19:02

then to be reviewed at a regular period.

01:19:05

So I get it, I think he doesn't explicitly say that, you know, maybe in

01:19:09

the appendix, he gets into that sort of stuff.

01:19:12

And I think that's maybe where some of the disconnect can happen.

01:19:14

Sure.

01:19:15

That's how I've seen it implemented, though.

01:19:17

And so I can't fathom doing it any other way.

01:19:20

Sure.

01:19:21

Yeah.

01:19:22

The last chapter here is systems improvement as a way of life.

01:19:28

And really, this is a, it's a borderline manifesto of here's a

01:19:36

challenge to you to just consider that everything is a system in your life

01:19:43

and that you can improve that system.

01:19:45

And I don't think he's wrong in that as long as you have a pretty loose

01:19:51

definition of what a system is and it can be somewhat abstract, like the

01:19:56

sleep thing, right?

01:19:57

That is a system or getting out the door in the morning for work.

01:20:03

That's a whole system, but it's a set of routines and habits that are making up

01:20:08

a, that system, right?

01:20:09

Yep.

01:20:11

The, the process of publishing a bookworm episode or doing these live streams

01:20:15

and stuff, the checklist I have that I pull up anytime I'm doing a live stream

01:20:20

is 50 plus items long of all the things that I have to tick off and make sure

01:20:25

set to make sure that live streams work somewhat decent.

01:20:29

So I've just built that up over time, but all of these are systems, right?

01:20:34

Yep.

01:20:35

And he's just encouraging us to think of that as a way of life.

01:20:38

I completely agree with that idea.

01:20:41

That's all I'll say before we get into celebrating.

01:20:46

OK, fair enough.

01:20:47

But before we do that, do you have any action items though, Mike?

01:20:50

Because I have, I suppose my book, I got to go first rate.

01:20:53

Yep.

01:20:54

I have, I guess this would be three because I'm adding one right now.

01:21:00

OK.

01:21:00

I am going to work on

01:21:05

building out a few more working procedures for

01:21:10

the beginnings of say like content pieces and stuff that I do online,

01:21:15

basically the online stuff that I do, trying to build out some more of these

01:21:19

checklists in the creation of things, not necessarily like when I do a live stream,

01:21:25

like I mentioned the 50 plus items, that's a checklist for once I'm ready to start

01:21:30

the live stream that has nothing to do with prepping the live stream content

01:21:34

itself.

01:21:35

I haven't touched that side of it.

01:21:38

That's just all in Joe's brain.

01:21:39

That never goes anywhere.

01:21:41

I feel like I could get significantly quicker at creating things if I were to

01:21:46

try to document how that should work.

01:21:49

So I want to start on that end.

01:21:51

And then I want to start on like what are some of these operating

01:21:56

procedures, operating principles, I should say.

01:21:59

Um, I don't know that I'll come up with anything for that.

01:22:03

I don't know what I'm looking for in that, but I'm going to reread some of those

01:22:06

pieces and give it a shot.

01:22:08

And then the one I'm kind of looking at side-eyed is a strategic objective.

01:22:13

Um, I'm not going to commit to that one as an action item quite yet.

01:22:16

I just need to consider that one now that you and I have talked about it.

01:22:19

Cause what I originally had in my head of like, Nope, not doing that.

01:22:23

Now that we've discussed this, like maybe I need to, I need to walk the dog

01:22:28

a time or two more.

01:22:29

So there we go.

01:22:31

That's what I'm going to do.

01:22:33

Or at least attempt to do you.

01:22:35

I had one action item, which was to take the quiz, although I just looked at it

01:22:42

and I am not going to take the quiz.

01:22:44

That's fair.

01:22:45

But I will say, um, before we get into to style and rating, just to give you some

01:22:52

feedback on your action items, I think that if you're going to do these, don't

01:22:57

be legalistic about them and try to follow Sam Carpenter's exact method.

01:23:02

I think you're kind of missing the point.

01:23:05

If you try to follow this a hundred percent, just to give you a bit of an

01:23:09

example, my wife and I must have been four years ago.

01:23:14

We went away overnight and created these sort of documents for our family.

01:23:22

And because I am a systems nerd, we actually called it Schmidt's family

01:23:27

operating procedures.

01:23:29

And the very first part of it was the strategic objective.

01:23:35

Like, what do we want our family to look like?

01:23:37

We said we wanted to have a strong marriage and a strong relationship with

01:23:43

our kids.

01:23:43

Specifically, we wanted them by the time they were teenagers to be comfortable

01:23:48

talking to us about anything.

01:23:49

And so we recognize that we were things we had to do systems.

01:23:52

We had to build that we're going to produce that result.

01:23:54

Well, we revisited it this week because my oldest is now a teenager.

01:23:59

Yeah.

01:24:00

And we had listed a whole bunch of things which we turned into routines.

01:24:05

Things like weekly date night and one on ones with the kids and coffee with a

01:24:12

friend and all of these different things.

01:24:14

And we went back, we realized that over the past several years, like some of these

01:24:18

things have changed and they've evolved.

01:24:20

But for the most part, we did pretty well on what we had set out to do.

01:24:24

And for each one of these things, we had listed like what it is, why we want to do it,

01:24:27

what's our budget for it, how often we want to do it.

01:24:29

Those are kind of like our working procedures for implementing these things, right?

01:24:33

Sure.

01:24:33

And we were it was cool because with our oldest being 13, we were able to to look at

01:24:40

like where we are right now.

01:24:42

And it's totally where we had wanted to be at this point.

01:24:45

And so it was cool to see how like the systems and these documents that we

01:24:49

created for our family, which is really just three or four pages on a Google Doc.

01:24:53

You know, that had led us to this point.

01:24:55

Basically, we we had worked the system and gotten the result that we were we're

01:25:00

hoping for.

01:25:01

Sure.

01:25:01

Did we create a strategic objective, general operating principles and working

01:25:05

procedures?

01:25:06

No, we didn't.

01:25:06

But we basically took those ideas and condensed it down into three or four pages

01:25:10

for our family.

01:25:11

Okay.

01:25:11

Sure.

01:25:12

I get what you're saying.

01:25:13

Yeah, I was going to ask you what the caution was there, but I get what you're

01:25:16

saying, like you started with a single document.

01:25:18

It didn't really fit these cleanly, but it kind of morphed into something that

01:25:23

encompassed all of them in one, one piece.

01:25:26

Yeah.

01:25:27

What you want to, what you want to understand from this book, and it's so,

01:25:32

but it's so long and he's spreading out this idea so much that it's easy to miss

01:25:37

is you want to recognize like where you want to end up and then you want to

01:25:41

create systems that are going to get you there and along the way you want to

01:25:44

constantly be looking at your systems and making tweaks to them.

01:25:47

If you don't like the results that you are getting, modifying them so that you

01:25:50

get better results.

01:25:51

Sure.

01:25:52

That is work, the system in a nutshell.

01:25:53

There you go.

01:25:54

Perfect.

01:25:55

Good job, Mike.

01:25:56

I'll do some work on it.

01:25:59

We'll see.

01:26:00

See what I come up with.

01:26:01

Not going to commit to anything specific.

01:26:04

I don't think I'm just going to spend some time with it.

01:26:06

If you wanted to give me an informal action item, I did mention I'm working

01:26:09

with a VA, so I'm, I'm going to have to create some of this stuff.

01:26:12

Sure.

01:26:13

So maybe my action item is just to create some working procedure documents

01:26:18

and have some things that I've delegated by the time we record again.

01:26:21

Hold you to that one.

01:26:22

Sam Carpenter's style is weird.

01:26:27

He likes to ramble in the words that he puts on a page.

01:26:32

And I think that is a factor of the revisions in him wanting to get points

01:26:37

across where he really shouldn't.

01:26:38

I think this is a case of like somebody in the chat said stream of consciousness

01:26:43

novel.

01:26:43

Like it kind of does feel that way.

01:26:45

The chapters don't really seem to like they don't feel broken up correctly.

01:26:50

It just seems kind of strange in the layout and the way that he goes from one

01:26:55

thing to the next and they just don't seem to work in the way he intends.

01:27:01

Like you can kind of see his vision and what he's wanting it to be.

01:27:04

Like the, the chapter titles and the quotes he puts with him.

01:27:07

I get that, but then the way he actually fills it in strange.

01:27:12

And he's telling, for example, centretal, he's telling the story of that,

01:27:19

but it's broken up over a series of chapters.

01:27:21

When I really just wanted him to tell the story, like I could have just been

01:27:26

one chapter of centretal and, and don't break it up across seven chapters,

01:27:32

whatever it was he did it in.

01:27:34

And that was frustrating to me.

01:27:37

You know, his, his stories are interesting, but he didn't give me stories and

01:27:42

examples where I felt I needed them.

01:27:44

So I was frustrated by it quite a bit.

01:27:48

I thought this would be, you know, being a fourth edition, you would expect it

01:27:52

to be pretty well polished and have a pretty solid foundation for taking you

01:27:59

through a process because it seems like there's a set process and procedure

01:28:04

that he wants you to go through.

01:28:06

And it, it didn't follow that very well.

01:28:13

So I struggled with it.

01:28:16

Right.

01:28:17

And I feel that he needed some direction, potentially rewrite it to, to be more clean.

01:28:26

So I don't care for the actual layout and the way it's put together.

01:28:32

The actual content of like what he's getting across.

01:28:36

I enjoy like the concept of these are systems and you can work them.

01:28:41

And here's a way to work them.

01:28:43

I get that.

01:28:45

Like I'm with you on that.

01:28:47

I've been a checklist person for a while now.

01:28:49

I get that it clicks with my brain.

01:28:52

It gives me freedom to have that structure.

01:28:54

I agree with him on that.

01:28:57

So I'm with him on those pieces, which means that whenever I come to

01:29:02

rating this, this is a case where I don't like the book and the way it's laid out

01:29:06

and written really much at all.

01:29:09

There's pieces of it that I feel like I could extract and works really well.

01:29:13

The content's pretty good. The way I got it was not so good.

01:29:17

So how do you rate those?

01:29:20

How do we always struggle with these?

01:29:22

Right?

01:29:22

Where you like one half of the setup and not the others?

01:29:26

Yep.

01:29:27

I think that's that's going to bring me to, I think, a 3.5

01:29:30

here in that I feel like this could be so much better.

01:29:34

Yeah.

01:29:35

I feel like if somebody took a step back and rewrote this from the ground up,

01:29:40

given today's work from home standard that we have and the way businesses operate

01:29:48

from a diverse, remote, worldwide market, I think if you were to reevaluate it

01:29:56

from that stance as opposed to just a call center, which he does point out,

01:30:02

at least in the fourth edition, that all of his phone operators have gone home

01:30:07

and they are working remote in the COVID era when a lot of his competitors

01:30:11

have closed their doors almost immediately.

01:30:13

He's been thriving.

01:30:15

So so he must not be monitoring their internet activity anymore.

01:30:18

I guess not.

01:30:19

Maybe. I don't know.

01:30:21

So all I have to say, like I I'm going to put it at 3.5.

01:30:26

I feel like it could be so much better, though.

01:30:28

It feels like it could be a really, really good book.

01:30:31

They just didn't hit that mark with the whole process.

01:30:36

There you go. That is fair.

01:30:38

That is completely fair.

01:30:40

I think there's a lot of really powerful stuff in here, but you kind of have to

01:30:44

mine it out.

01:30:45

There's one thing which we didn't even really talk about because we got sucked

01:30:51

into all the other stuff.

01:30:53

But there's this idea of like not working in the business, but working on the

01:30:59

business, right?

01:30:59

So he has this analogy.

01:31:01

You've got to get above and slightly outside your situation before you can

01:31:05

really see what's going on.

01:31:06

I feel like that change of perspective that's really powerful.

01:31:10

So I think this is a 5.0 idea told in a 3.0 package.

01:31:16

Yes.

01:31:17

Yes, I'm with you.

01:31:19

That's.

01:31:19

And so what I'm going to do for a rating is I'm just going to split the

01:31:24

difference.

01:31:24

I'm going to give it a 4.0.

01:31:26

I do think this has the potential to really open your eyes to the way things

01:31:34

are.

01:31:34

It certainly had that effect the first time that I read it.

01:31:37

I've read enough books at this point to realize that I don't really like the

01:31:44

way this one is written.

01:31:44

I hesitate to say that it's poorly written, but I do think it is kind of

01:31:48

poorly written.

01:31:49

Sure.

01:31:49

I don't think it's just a matter of stylistic preferences.

01:31:54

I feel like Sam Carpenter really likes to hear himself talk.

01:31:58

Yeah.

01:31:58

And like Martin said in the chat, it definitely could have benefited from an

01:32:03

editor.

01:32:03

Maybe he's gotten editor and this is completely off base.

01:32:06

I don't know.

01:32:06

It doesn't feel like that, though, when you are reading this book.

01:32:09

I know initially it was self published.

01:32:12

He did it himself.

01:32:12

And I feel like he just continues to to work on it himself.

01:32:16

But that being said, you know, there are some really powerful ideas in here.

01:32:22

I do think you have kind of have to make them your own.

01:32:25

Like I was telling you with the different documents, but if you were to

01:32:28

start applying this mindset, I have no doubt that you could start making

01:32:33

positive change in your life, especially if this is the first time that you've

01:32:35

come across this idea.

01:32:38

I feel like recognizing that your life is comprised of a bunch of

01:32:42

independent yet interdependent systems is a huge revelation that people can get

01:32:47

from reading this book.

01:32:48

But it was interesting for me going back and reading it again, having lived in

01:32:54

that perspective now for quite a while, firmly entrenched in the growth mindset

01:32:59

end of the spectrum.

01:33:01

I realize that it wasn't as quality as I thought it was the first time.

01:33:09

Like the idea really impacted me, but then I go back and I read it and I kind

01:33:13

of see it for what it really is.

01:33:14

And like, oh, this is kind of very loosely put together and kind of all over

01:33:21

the place and certain things, like even though you're saying things over and

01:33:24

over again in different ways, you still sometimes don't get to the heart of what

01:33:28

you're really trying to say.

01:33:29

You know, it feels to me, I don't know Sam Carpenter at all, but I do know a lot

01:33:32

of people who feel that the more they talk, the more clearly their idea comes

01:33:38

across.

01:33:39

And that's kind of the impression I got from some sections of this book.

01:33:44

It's like he is continuing to use words because he feels this is making it clear,

01:33:49

but it's really not.

01:33:50

Right.

01:33:51

And I will, I will say like maybe that's completely my fault and my perspective.

01:33:55

And he's writing this for somebody else because I'm not a CEO of a company

01:34:00

and trying to implement this with all of my employees.

01:34:04

So take it for what it is.

01:34:07

But I do think it's a really powerful idea.

01:34:10

Just definitely could be polished to a bit more or a lot more.

01:34:14

Yes.

01:34:14

All right.

01:34:15

I'm with you 3.5.

01:34:18

Maybe the maybe the fifth edition.

01:34:19

Yeah.

01:34:20

Yeah.

01:34:21

Seems like a fourth edition you should.

01:34:23

I've said enough.

01:34:25

Anyway, what's next, Mike?

01:34:27

I'm ready to shelf this one.

01:34:28

All right.

01:34:29

Next is a new Greg McKian book, which is not even out yet as we record this,

01:34:35

but it should be Tuesday, hopefully.

01:34:37

And that is effortless.

01:34:40

This, I'm not sure if you follow Greg McKian online at all, but he's kind of

01:34:45

been doing some run up promotion to this and kind of told some of the story

01:34:49

behind this book.

01:34:50

It's kind of interesting because he's saying that he wrote essentialism.

01:34:55

And then when he had a health scare with one of his daughters and at that

01:35:01

moment, you know, everything that he had to get done, you know, still had to get

01:35:05

done and he realized that he had to figure out a way to make things more effortless.

01:35:12

So basically he had some margin to roll with, roll with the punches, which I think

01:35:16

is potentially a very cool bookend idea to.

01:35:20

Essentialism.

01:35:21

Yeah.

01:35:22

I really like his style, at least in essentialism.

01:35:25

So I'm really excited to go through this one.

01:35:28

Sure.

01:35:28

Yeah, I think that'll be a good one to go through, especially after having read this

01:35:34

one and then into the one following that that I picked, which I picked ahead of time

01:35:41

this time.

01:35:42

It's been a while since I've done that.

01:35:43

I feel like I'm usually picking them on the show, but I picked the now habit by Neil

01:35:48

Fior, I think it's how you say his last name.

01:35:50

And this was two things.

01:35:54

It came from reading the point of sale thinking piece, like do things now that

01:36:00

sparked some of this, but also it showed up in the list of Amazon recommendations

01:36:05

next to Carol Dweck's mindset and James Clear's atomic habits.

01:36:11

It was mixed in with those interesting.

01:36:14

And I thought, huh, that's some pretty big names to have this sitting in and a month.

01:36:21

So yeah, just reading some of the stuff about it just made me curious.

01:36:26

It's like, OK, it's taking one concept that I'm questioning and the idea of habits,

01:36:31

which I'm all on board with.

01:36:32

So I'm curious now.

01:36:36

So I'm approaching that one with skepticism at the very beginning.

01:36:40

And I don't even have the book in hand yet.

01:36:41

So we'll see.

01:36:43

Joe is approaching his own book with skepticism.

01:36:46

Yep.

01:36:46

So to be good.

01:36:47

Yep, we'll see.

01:36:48

We'll see how this goes.

01:36:49

So it'll, it'll be entertaining.

01:36:50

I don't have any gap books.

01:36:52

We close in our house in a week.

01:36:53

So I've got tons to do between here and there.

01:36:55

So not going to happen this time around.

01:36:57

But you I have one of those little Michael

01:37:01

Hyatt books called your world class assistant that I am going to be rereading over the weekend.

01:37:06

OK, that's prepping you for next Monday then, right?

01:37:10

Yep.

01:37:10

Exactly.

01:37:11

Cool.

01:37:12

I want to do it right.

01:37:13

Well, good luck.

01:37:13

Thank you.

01:37:14

I hope it goes well.

01:37:14

I do.

01:37:15

I do.

01:37:15

All right.

01:37:17

That all said, we're super thankful to all those of you who have joined us live now that we've moved over to

01:37:23

YouTube versus Twitch.

01:37:25

Just want to call that out.

01:37:26

If you haven't already, youtube.com/bookwormfm.

01:37:30

How do how do the kids do this?

01:37:33

Smash that subscribe button.

01:37:35

That's I feel like that's what I'm supposed to say.

01:37:37

But there you are.

01:37:40

If you give us a follow on YouTube, you'll see the reminders and the notifications for when we're recording these live.

01:37:46

If you're interested in watching those recordings, that's what the YouTube channels for.

01:37:50

So check that out.

01:37:52

If you're interested in that also, if you aren't already, go to bookwormfm/membership.

01:37:58

And that will take you to a place where you can sign up to be a member of the bookworm club.

01:38:06

What is it?

01:38:07

Five bucks a month.

01:38:08

And once you do that, you get access to a bank of things.

01:38:11

You get access to a special wallpaper that Mike put together.

01:38:15

You get access to all of Mike's my node files.

01:38:18

We've talked about this.

01:38:19

I don't know how many times, but there's a lot of special things you get for joining that.

01:38:23

So we'd love to see you there.

01:38:24

It helps us keep the lights on here at bookworm and helps buy some books occasionally.

01:38:31

So super grateful to those of you who are a part of that club.

01:38:34

All right.

01:38:36

So if you are reading along with us, pick up Effortless by Greg McKeown.

01:38:42

And we will talk to you all in a couple of weeks.