Bookworm Transcripts

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You can blame Joe for being a bad communicator.

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No, we just need an SOP, I think.

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Why?

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I'm just kidding.

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We have had for quite a while until we switched and finally got away from Skype, but we haven't,

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I don't think we've formally decided that Skype is no longer worth it.

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We didn't formally decide that Skype was garbage, but we've known it for a long time.

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Skype is one of the most talked about topics, I think, in the podcasting world, just because

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everyone uses it and everyone hates it and it's just the way it has to be right now.

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It's a necessary evil, just like a yes.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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I just had some conversations about email and it amazes me.

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I keep running across clients who they have email tied to their domain, so in my case

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it's at jobeelig.com because I own jobeelig.com.

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Well, I run across a number of clients who have this question of, "Is my website tied

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to my email?"

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That comes up way more than I would expect.

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It's like, "Well, yes and no.

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I'm going to sit here and explain how a DNS and a domain name structure works now, simply

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so that you understand how this whole thing works and you don't think I'm going to break

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your email whenever I change your website."

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It sounds like a fun conversation to have.

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Oh, yes.

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I have it more often than I care to.

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I kind of failed on my follow up this time, Mike.

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Uh-oh.

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Okay, so one of them, so I have three things that ended up on the list for follow up on

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my end.

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One is the daily rule of three, so choosing the three major things I want to do in that

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day.

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That one I'm fine on.

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That one I'm good and the only reason I think I'm good on that one is because I was doing

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it before I read the productivity project somewhat.

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I'd formalized it after reading that but not, ultimately it's one that I kind of had started

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beforehand.

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It's kind of cheating to say that one.

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The other two, one was to take longer lunch breaks and do a daily walk.

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I haven't done it once.

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I continue to put it on my daily schedule but it continues to not happen.

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The only reason I have for that is I feel like I need to get my butt to work and I feel

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like I'm slacking and I think that's part of what he was getting at is don't fall into

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that.

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Right.

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But you've succumbed despite your best efforts.

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Does that what you're saying?

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I continue writing it down at least.

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I think so.

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So that one has failed.

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I've been trying to do the meditation piece again.

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I'd say I'm about 25% successful doing that one daily which is the same as saying I stink

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at this.

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So I'm going to continue working at that one but for the sake of follow up it's not looking

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good right now.

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I guess you've got some extra credit homework to do this time I guess.

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I guess which is probably okay because I think I only have, yeah I've got one action.

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I've got an item for them today's book but before we get there how are yours going because

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I noticed you have four down here from the last time around.

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Right.

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Next year before we get to mine I'll cut you a little bit of a break about taking longer

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lunch breaks because you did take a pretty long breakfast break with me earlier this

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week.

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True.

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I was in Minnesota.

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Does that count?

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I think it counts.

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I think it counts.

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It was an extended break over a meal so I think a case could be made.

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So that's a nice thing about us living just one state away.

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Mike came and visited the Twin Cities a couple days ago so Mike and I got to sit down and

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enjoy coffee and breakfast together.

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It was glorious.

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Thank you for that.

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For sure.

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Thanks for picking me up.

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All right so my follow up items.

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Implementing the rule of three and adding it to my journaling template was the first one.

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I did do this and I pasted the link to the journaling action in the show notes.

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Maybe it was for the last one so I'm not sure if we posted that yet when this one goes

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live but if we haven't we can go ahead and share that.

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So in order for this to work though you're going to need to have Launch Center Pro on

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your iOS device and you're also going to need to have day one installed because what

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it's going to do is it'll ask you a bunch of prompts including what are your top three

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accomplishments throughout the day and then it's going to format it all into a markdown

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table which day one because it supports markdown will display very prettily.

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I don't know.

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It looks nice in day one.

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It looks pretty.

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Right.

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So that one is done structuring downtime at weekends.

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This is kind of done.

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This requires buy-in from the other half of the Schmidt's family management team.

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So we're working on this.

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We're doing really well structuring our entire weeks and we have a family meeting every Sunday

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night and we sit down and compare our calendars throughout the entire week and I have proposed

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that we do this for the weekends as well and I think that we have agreement on this that

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it would actually be valuable but it's going to take a little bit of time for us to really

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just create that momentum and that habit of actually planning out our Saturdays and our

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Sundays as well because we have not done that.

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I don't think ever.

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I think there's this is one of those that on the surface it sounds like a horrific idea.

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Okay.

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I have free time.

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Let me make a plan for how I'm going to spend that time.

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That just sounds like the worst thing ever.

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It does sound like the worst thing ever but what's even worse is getting to a Saturday

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and then everybody is stressed because you haven't taken the time to think things to

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and you both have independent expectations of how your family time is supposed to go

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and you're at odds with each other because you're both chasing your own vision and you're

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pulling in opposite directions.

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Yes.

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I think that it on the surface it maybe sounds like more effort than it's worth but I believe

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wholeheartedly that it is worth the effort to implement this.

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I don't think I would argue with that.

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I just know that so you and I are very detailed with how are we going to spend our time and

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we plan out our whole day.

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We do this stuff all the time and the expectation the should behind this to me seems like, oh

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well you have the weekend or you have the evenings since you worked on your day so hard.

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Don't do that again in the evening.

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You need a break from that.

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That's at least how I perceive what you should do but like we're saying and like what was

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the author Chris Bailey who was writing about this in the productivity project shows that

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even though it feels like you should give that time absolutely no intentions so that

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you can do whatever.

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To me I guess I understand that that's way more stressful of not knowing what's going

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to go on whereas if you plan to you know in our case there's lakes everywhere.

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Well let's go hang out by the lake and go walk along the beach or just look at all the

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you know it's fall so the gorgeous leaves that are across the lake.

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If you plan to go do something like that it's a lot more relieving stress relieving than

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it is to just leave it wide open and just see what happens.

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It doesn't seem to actually relieve stress when you leave it open ended.

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I would agree with that completely and I think also kids are the wild card here.

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Yes.

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If you don't have kids you probably can get away with just going with the flow on a Saturday

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but when you do have kids you will quickly find yourself being pulled too many directions

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for you to possibly even follow a conscious train of thought so you do have to be intentional

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about what you're going to say.

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Especially when they start asking you what are we going to do now dad what are we going

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to do what are we going to do next what are we going to do after lunch what.

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Stop asking me.

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Yeah actually I just a couple hours ago met my family at the children's museum in downtown

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Appleton and my two year old like daddy day let's go in the fire truck and then like

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two minutes later let's go in the water room let's go play in the balls like it just from

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one that we went all the way around the entire museum I think in about five to ten minutes

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because if you get to one thing and he loved it he was so engaged with it and then just

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like snap your fingers all of a sudden his focus is somewhere else so yes but I digress

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so that is a structuring down time and weekends is in progress the maintenance day ritual this

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is also in progress I have not officially picked a maintenance day yet but I also have

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a couple weeks of vacation coming up so I feel like I've been head down so long on the

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email product and all the other projects that I've had going that starting Monday I'll be

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going to the Sean West conference actually well by the time this airs that'll be that'll

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be over but I'm really looking forward to getting down there and meeting some some of

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my internet heroes like Sean Blanc I believe is going to be speaking Nathan Barry from ConvertKit

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people like that so my wife is going to be with me so I'm going to have a couple weeks

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actually where I'm going to be traveling I'll be down in Texas again later for another faith-based

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men's conference so during that extended period I am first of all going to just let

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my brain have a little bit of space to unwind and then I've got a couple things that I want

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to figure out so that is that is one of them to figure out that maintenance day ritual what

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day that is actually going to take place on I have been collecting things in my omnifocus

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with the maintenance day context so to speak and then the other thing is the limiting the

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amount of time that you spend each week in meeting so I also have some initial thoughts

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on how I'm going to implement this but I have not taken the time to set up the system for

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this so this is another task that is going to be part of a larger life maintenance project

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over the next couple weeks where I just take a step back and finally have some time to

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think about things and breathe and since it'll be basically just me and my wife for a couple

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of those weeks then I can get her perspective as well so those are my follow up items are

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you able to control your meetings like for me I work on my own so I can for the large

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part of things control exactly what meetings I say yes to and which ones I say no to are

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you able to do that with Asian efficiency or do they kind of have a set number of meetings

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and you really kind of have to be there well Asian efficiency does have set meetings but

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they are also flexible so it's not like hey we are going to have a meeting at this time

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and you're expected to be there it's always whenever we're going to institute a new meeting

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for example like we have a bi-weekly strategy meeting and before that actually appeared

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on the calendar tan would make sure that what time works for everybody so it's very very

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accommodating and that's one of the reasons I really enjoy working with Asian efficiency

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they are very respectful of my time and now if I could just get everybody else in my life

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to operate the same way we'd be in business but a big part of that in all of the other

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areas of responsibility that I have is managing expectations I know we've talked about that

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a lot throughout this podcast not this specific podcast but bookworm and it's hard a lot of

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times initially to say no to things and you can see the disappointment in people's eyes

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when they have like trusted you to pick up this ball and run with it even if it's not

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your turn to carry it but if you set if you start saying no they will start respecting

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you and then you can basically steer the conversation and steer the terms of the terms of engagement

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I guess is the best way I can describe it in your favor so just because everybody I don't

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know I'll just use my church as an example like there's a bunch of people involved in

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a lot of the ministries that I'm in that are of a lot of different work situations and

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the difficult job of the ministry coordinator for any of those things is to try and coordinate

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this volunteer army I don't envy that position at all okay but I especially in that specific

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scenario it can be really easy to just say oh yeah I'll do whatever works for everybody

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else I've got a flexible schedule yes and no but what I've learned is that if you are

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very forthright not like aggressive but just very transparent you know this is what will

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work for me this it would be great if we could work this way you know let me know 24 hours

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in advance that sort of thing like if you dictate the terms then most often people will

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look at that and be like oh yeah that makes sense I guess we can do it that way so got

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it to get to that position though what I've had to do is I've kind of had to toe the line

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a couple times and sometimes you know there's things that will come up and I've got something

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else planned and I have to say no can't do that because we didn't follow like this format

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I've got something else scheduled there and it's not flexible so sorry but I can't I can't

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react to the urgency of your particular matter and it may maybe sounds mean when I say it

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like that on the podcast here but I have found that when you when you are uncompromising

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to a certain degree the the standards that you're going to uphold and how you're going

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to live your life how you're going to manage your time then people will respect your convictions

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and they will agree to to work your way more often than not at least in my experience and

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you can also tell because I've learned this working with a number of clients you can tell

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a lot of the details on how people are going to how they're going to interact with you

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in the future based on some really small things because for me I know that if I'm trying

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to set up a meeting I'm trying to understand you know what kind of website are you after

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what kind of consulting are you looking for if I'm trying to get a time figured out with

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them and the first time we meet they're like 15 minutes late or they cancel a couple times

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and try to reschedule if things like that start to happen early like first meeting level

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I usually sometimes like I will typically fire them before they ever become a client

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just because I know those are very strong indicators that me trying to get something

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from you or get something to you is going to be an extremely painful process right I

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just don't want to go through that and even if you don't fire your clients so maybe like

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I'm not going to fire the people who I work with at my church I don't have the ability

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to do that even if I wanted to but they those warning signs do indicate to me that if this

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is going to work this is going to take a little bit of extra effort on your part and

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that that's okay like I can do that but I if I know that I had a time I can plan for

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that I can the thing that really gets me and throws me for a loop is when something lands

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in my lap at the last second and I have to drop whatever I'm doing in order to accommodate

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this but most of the stuff that happens in my life in my life anyways seems to be pretty

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regular obviously there's still the unexpected emergencies like my two-year-old deciding to

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dive down the basement stairs you know take the ER that does actually happen and when

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that happens you just got a role with it but there are a lot of things that we just roll

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with we don't ever take a step back and think about like well why are we in this situation

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and what could we have done to avoid this and if you can develop that mindset you can

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put out a lot of those fires before they're even there but this is a lot of talking about

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how you manage everybody else that you work with and the topic of this book was managing

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oneself so I'll let you introduce Mr. Peter Drucker and why you chose this.

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Yeah and I think a lot of what we've been just talking about applies to this specific

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book here because so much of the interactions that I know especially with me with clients

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and you and how you interact with folks at church and such so much of that is dependent

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on how you yourself operate and understanding some of that and that's what Peter Drucker

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gets into with this particular book managing oneself and like I mentioned last time this

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is a pretty short book I think I calculated it out it comes to from a normal book size

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it's about 20 pages even though I think it's 60 in this book but it's small enough that

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each page is roughly a third the size of a normal page but I picked this one because

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one it's Peter Drucker and Drucker comes up a lot and I'm one that hasn't read anything

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by Drucker technically in the past and I've wanted to and this one being short I figured

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it was easy to jump in and I also was trying to find something that was easy for folks

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who are listeners who haven't had a chance to read along or read ahead of one and so

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I wanted an easy one for them to get in so I don't have some deep philosophical reason

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on this one Mike there you go hey I think that's a first so what one of the first things

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that Drucker gets into in this book is why should you manage yourself and I guess to define

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that just going through the whole thing and just seeing what he talks about in the book

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I would say that in this case when he says manage yourself it's really just knowing yourself

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and then doing something with that is that fair Mike I think that's probably pretty fair

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I really like the whole idea of managing yourself and I really like the way that he outlines

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it in this book as well but really the argument for managing yourself is that your life is

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going to happen you've got a set amount of years and it can either happen by default

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or it can happen by determination and you can be intentional about what you're going

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to do what you're going to accomplish and the sort of legacy and impact that you're

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going to leave and I think if you frame it that way it's a no brainer everybody wants

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to make an impact everybody wants their life to mean something and if you don't choose

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to manage yourself then essentially like you're just floating and you're not going to be nearly

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as effective as if you had been if you'd make in the conscious decision to point your life

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in a specific direction I think it's interesting that he makes the correlation in here between

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the knowledge worker and the manual labor worker and to me it's always fascinating to

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see the correlations that people make and how you come from one to the other coming from

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a farm so I've worked with pigs I've worked with cattle I've run tractors I've run plows

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like I've done all that and typically when you're in that scenario it's pretty simple

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to see here's something that needs done I need to go run I need to tell up the ground

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like I need to go do that I need to run the planner like it's easier to go do that and

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then it's a manual process whereas so much of what we do is knowledge it's all about

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the information and what we know what's the ideas that are in our minds and when we do

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work there's not something physical and it's not something that you're most of the time

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it's not something that you're coming up with out of your own thought processes it's something

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that you see externally that dictates what it is you're going to do so there's no point

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in I shouldn't say there's no point most cases it's something outside of you in the manual

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labor world it's managing you so I know that the cows need fed okay well I'm gonna feed

00:21:05

the cows like that's the cows managing me it's just the way it works in the knowledge

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world I have to decide one what needs done to how it needs to be done and three when

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it needs to be done like I have to make all of those decisions and work my way into doing

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those so in in our world in our society today when everything is based on ideas and everything's

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based on the knowledge and what you know you have to be the one that controls it and it's

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getting to where just about everybody is falling into that category which means that everyone

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should be reading this and going through it and understanding it yeah definitely it's

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not just for knowledge workers and I think even the term knowledge worker like a lot of

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the circles that you and I run in that term is understood and a lot of people would fall

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into that category maybe that doesn't apply to the average listener though and I think

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that it's easy to write that off if you are not a knowledge worker and you are responding

00:22:07

to things that do actually physically need to get done and because because I think I've

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been there to a certain degree where it's like oh it'd be great to just sit at a coffee

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shop all day and write words for a living oh it sounds real hard you know it actually

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is once you sit down and try to do it but compared to some of the physical work like

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a coal miner for example just the idea of a job that I would not have wanted to do hearing

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stories about people who have done that sort of work in the past and even today it's easy

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when you're in that position to kind of look down on the whole idea of knowledge work I

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think but the next point I have in here is transitions and one of the things that Peter

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Drucker says you need to know how and when to change the work that you do so this ties

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in I think really well with what we were talking about in the innovators dilemma it's

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like when do you jump ship when do you decide that the new thing is the thing for you and

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then how do you do that I think that managing yourself is what will take you from where

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you are currently to where you want to be and I'm not saying that everybody wants to

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be a knowledge worker but if you are going to make that transition whatever that looks

00:23:23

like you do have to apply these principles and manage yourself well because if you do

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not especially when you are when you're in your job is determined by your responding

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to physical needs and mental emotional needs you know if you're a nurse for example you're

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responding to especially like an emergency room people you're responding to emergencies

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all the time you're responding to fires you're living like a firefighter according to David

00:23:50

Allen the author of getting things done how do you get out of that mode and no matter

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what industry you happen to be in there are going to be certain things that you can do

00:24:01

to make sure that you don't have to live your life to the to that level where you're constantly

00:24:06

under that stress of not knowing what's coming like like I said some of those jobs that comes

00:24:11

with the job and there are people that have to fill those roles and that's fine but the

00:24:15

rest of the time when you don't have somebody that's bleeding out on the table in front

00:24:18

of you how do you live your life do you live it responding to the next fire do you just

00:24:23

sit there and wait for that next fire do you sit there and wait for that next person with

00:24:27

a healthy emergency to walk through the door so that you can get to work again and the whole

00:24:31

time that you're sitting there like are you stressed and are you on edge because if you

00:24:35

live your life like that all the time you're gonna burn out you're gonna wear out and if

00:24:40

you manage yourself well you can manage it really comes back to you a lot of the things

00:24:44

that we talked about think about the powerful engagement managing your energy managing your

00:24:48

attention managing your focus being able to dial down and then when it's appropriate

00:24:54

become actively engaged again dial back up be intense put out the fire move on to the

00:24:59

next thing but if you don't have the skills to manage yourself then that's never going

00:25:05

to work you're never going to be able to progress you're never going to be able to get from

00:25:09

point A to point B you're going to be stuck going around the mountain you're going to

00:25:13

be stuck chasing your tail if you don't recognize that these principles are in play and I think

00:25:18

that's the first step is just recognizing the sort of things that you need to do and

00:25:22

the steps you need to take in order to manage yourself because if you don't even recognize

00:25:27

it it's really easy just put your head down and go through the grind go day to day you

00:25:32

know I get up early I go to work I come back I'm tired I start I go to sleep I do the same

00:25:36

thing over again the next day like that's how a lot of people live and I think that that's

00:25:41

why this book is so great and I think that probably everybody should read it it's so

00:25:45

short it's so direct it's so actionable I would argue that if you invest probably an

00:25:51

hour you can get through the whole thing and it's I thought I thought it was great I think

00:25:57

that this applies to anybody in any situation who is looking to improve yeah I think there's

00:26:03

a lot of there's a lot of value in it for sure especially for people who make decisions

00:26:09

about the work that they're going to do before they do it so that you have to make the decision

00:26:13

about what task am I going to take on and then I'm going to step into it I think there's

00:26:19

a lot of value in it for them because so much of those decisions like so many of those

00:26:25

decisions I mean look at people who first go to work from home the first time people

00:26:29

go work in a virtual company or something along those lines it's usually culture shock

00:26:35

it's usually a bit of a challenge because you have to start to make decisions about

00:26:41

when you're going to go to work you have to start to make decisions about where you're

00:26:46

going to work and what are your methods of working you have to understand yourself really

00:26:51

well in order to really thrive from a home environment it's not simple I don't know how

00:26:56

many times I run across people and what do you do you know it's always the question

00:27:00

people ask what do you do and whenever you say you know you're working online or I talk

00:27:05

about some of these other ventures that I'm in every one of them is me working from home

00:27:09

like it's just the way that I do things and like nine times out of ten the response oh

00:27:15

that's awesome I'd love to do that well yes I understand what you're saying it's not that

00:27:21

simple like it's not necessarily a dream come true I have a couple friends who did it for

00:27:27

about six months and had to quit and go back to work for somebody or rent an office space

00:27:31

to go work there because working from home simply didn't work they weren't able to control

00:27:36

so many of their impulses and they just weren't getting anything done yeah the process in

00:27:41

my opinion usually looks something like you're in an office environment and you're like

00:27:44

oh man it'd be sweet to work from home and then you start working from home and you say

00:27:49

oh man this is awesome I love that I can work from home and then after a while you're like

00:27:54

oh this is really getting old I wish I had somewhere that I could go and I've caught

00:28:01

myself in the same situation where I'll leave home and I'll go before I had this particular

00:28:08

office where I'm recording right now I would leave home and I would literally hop from

00:28:14

coffee shop to coffee shop and I would find myself like getting on the road on the way

00:28:18

to one and then halfway there being like I don't really want to go there today and change

00:28:23

my mind which is so ridiculous I mean this is hashtag first world problems I completely

00:28:29

understand but you do have to be able to manage that and the grass is always greener on the

00:28:35

other side of the fence oh you're in an office there's a lot of positives about being in

00:28:39

an office environment in fact I joined a co-working space recently that I go to a couple times

00:28:44

a week just because I like the interaction I like the energy that comes from being around

00:28:48

other people like that who are creating and making things but and when you're in the office

00:28:53

environment you're surrounded by people maybe who are already fitting that mold at the time

00:28:57

you're just like oh I want to get away from these people and then once you get away from

00:29:00

them you're like oh actually that wasn't so bad this is a lot of about how gray CGP gray

00:29:08

on cortex a lot of that podcast is understanding yourself like that's so much of what he he's

00:29:15

very good at understanding how he does things and I think there's a lot that people could

00:29:20

learn from him just in because it sounds like he's absolutely crazy sometimes until he starts

00:29:26

to explain the details around why he did something and once you understand why he's done something

00:29:32

then it's like well huh I think I could do that too like that makes perfect sense I want

00:29:37

to try that but you don't have that like it's hard for most people to see at that depth that

00:29:44

he's able to see within himself he's very self-aware and under able to understand how he gets

00:29:50

work done and that's so much of how Peter Drucker comes at this because he has a number

00:29:56

of questions that he poses to prompt you to understand yourself he's prompting you to ask

00:30:03

yourself certain questions and then based on the answers to those this is what that could

00:30:08

mean and the thing that I found interesting is that he doesn't he doesn't dwell on a topic

00:30:15

right because it's so short he poses something he makes the point and then he moves on there

00:30:21

is absolutely you know how many times if I had gotten in the authors for you know say

00:30:26

a topic and then repeat it like six times like I always get on to him for that and this

00:30:31

is not a case of that by any means because Peter goes through topics exactly once and

00:30:36

never brings him up again and it's almost I'm gonna sound ridiculous now it's almost

00:30:44

hard to catch everything because it's never ever repeated in here so now I sound like a

00:30:50

crazy guy no I completely understand what you're saying because there are no like chapter

00:30:55

breaks I don't think not that I can remember anyways where it's a real clear delineation

00:31:00

we're leaving this topic and we're going into another topic yep he's got a list of questions

00:31:05

that you need to ask yourself and he doesn't even have numbers or bullet points for them

00:31:10

they're not bold it's reads like a big long essay and it's very easy to miss first second

00:31:16

third because he jumps between them so quickly yeah I think one of them and one of these questions

00:31:24

that he he asked that I thought was kind of interesting is how do I perform and there

00:31:29

were two two things that came up on that I'm gonna pull it up just so I do this the right

00:31:35

way but he underneath how do I perform he poses the question are you a reader or a listener

00:31:43

and I think what he's ultimately getting at within that section is what's the best way

00:31:47

that you understand the topic that's coming into your mind like what's the best way that

00:31:54

you understand something that's coming to you and some people love to listen to you know

00:32:00

in this case listen to a podcast to understand something some people want to read a book in

00:32:04

order to comprehend something I don't know that I fully understand my own self in this

00:32:10

but I would tend to venture that I'm a reader simply because we read books all the time so

00:32:17

I think that it's probably where I'm gonna land on that but I think understanding that

00:32:22

that's the best way to gather information for yourself can be extremely valuable yeah definitely

00:32:29

there are I think six questions and I wrote them down and answered them because I was curious

00:32:37

how do I actually perform so the first one you hit on is am I a reader or a listener and

00:32:42

I don't have the book in front of me at the moment but I the way that he phrased it because

00:32:47

I thought for sure yeah I'm a reader I read lots of books I have a podcast called book

00:32:50

or like I must be a reader of course but the way that he phrased it wasn't just like what

00:32:56

you did but when presented information how did you synthesize it more more easily I guess

00:33:08

and so even though I read a lot of books I find that if I want to really take something

00:33:12

away from them I have to take notes and so when it comes to absorbing information I

00:33:18

think that I'm actually a listener the next question he asked was how do I learn and he

00:33:25

give a couple different examples and for me I put that I learned by writing which I think

00:33:33

is evidenced by the fact that I can go and I can read a book for this podcast but I will

00:33:37

not take anything away unless I actually take notes and write write things down next question

00:33:44

is do I work well with people or am I a loner and I'd be interested to find out what your

00:33:51

yours is here well let me so the how do I learn piece before I get into that one for

00:33:59

me I've got kind of a hybrid I'm I'm weird on this one and I know this because for me

00:34:05

I learned one of two ways either reading about it or in some cases in our world watching

00:34:11

it in like say on YouTube so consuming it in some form like that or doing it so there's

00:34:18

so many times that I'm trying to figure out how to like take a website for example how

00:34:23

do I actually build this particular piece of a website I just jump in and do it like

00:34:28

I'll figure it out along the way so that's just how I know that I pick things up as far

00:34:33

as working with other people I know that it really depends if it's something where it's

00:34:42

definitely my forte and it's definitely something that I need to do I'm better off just let

00:34:46

me go do it but so much of you know the the client especially the client side of having

00:34:52

that relationship with someone or you know I've played around with some other roles right

00:34:57

now I so much of that is dependent on other people and I do fine with that I'm perfectly

00:35:05

content working with other people on things I think for me it just kind of depends on what

00:35:10

the on what the particular project is is that a cop out maybe I agree though I think that

00:35:18

applies to me as well I definitely enjoy working as part of a team especially with the Asian

00:35:23

efficiency team for example you know I've talked I believe on this podcast for sure on

00:35:29

the productivity show with Zach about how we're kind of polar opposites when it comes

00:35:34

to our personality so it's taken a little bit of time to figure out how to work together

00:35:38

but because we've invested the time to make it work we know how each other are wired we

00:35:43

can work really well together so I see myself being able to function in that arena but I

00:35:48

also think that if I had a choice I would rather just get my work go into monk mode and get

00:35:54

it done so sadly I think I am a loner but that's okay I think I do pretty well with

00:36:03

both of them especially if someone else works the same way I do which is why you and I work

00:36:07

so well together I think so maybe we're social loners maybe that's it that's odd yeah but

00:36:14

one of the other ways that he brought up that I thought was really interesting was some

00:36:17

people learn by hearing themselves talk I thought that was kind of interesting because

00:36:21

I never really thought about that until I'd read this and once I'd read it it made all

00:36:27

kinds of bells and whistles go off my brain because I think I'm like that Mike which is

00:36:32

why I like this show and it's why I drive my wife absolutely crazy sometimes because I

00:36:39

have something I want to talk to you about I don't know what I think about it but by

00:36:43

the time I'm done explaining it I'll know exactly how I feel about it but I won't know

00:36:49

until I explain it to you that makes sense I know people who are like that I don't think

00:36:54

I am personally like that maybe I go ramble on some rants on this podcast as I tend to

00:37:01

think things through while I'm talking but for the most part I think I like to collect

00:37:05

all the facts I'm a high-fak finder on the Colby's Colby score and then then I'll I'll

00:37:12

state my case but next question was do I produce results as a decision maker or an advisor

00:37:20

so I know that I have the ability to produce results as a decision maker I think that's

00:37:26

one of the biggest benefits of reading all of these books in fact I shared with you at

00:37:31

one point a link to an article that showed that like the really successful CEOs they are

00:37:38

the ones who read at least 24 books a year like there's very concrete evidence that that

00:37:46

gives them basically a bigger toolbox to make better informed decisions from so I think

00:37:52

that if you held my feet to the fire and said you have to pick what are you going to do

00:37:56

this or that I could make a pretty good decision most of the time because I do like to to

00:38:02

learn and improve myself and I feel like I've expanded my toolbox quite a bit in the

00:38:06

last several years but given my preference I think I would rather have a meeting and

00:38:14

share the options and talk things through and let somebody else put their neck on the

00:38:18

whole line and actually implement it yeah so I would say that I am an advisor what would

00:38:24

you say you are I am pretty certain I'm a decision maker and the reason I say that is

00:38:30

because I've been in some other companies in the past where I butt heads with people pretty

00:38:36

strongly simply because I have a strong feeling as to the way that things should be done based

00:38:43

on what I know about the market and based on what I know about how things operate in

00:38:47

a certain sector I know how a website works I know how it should be built trying to get

00:38:53

me off of the best way to do it is going to be pretty tough because I know what that

00:38:57

decision needs to be so I honestly like I think this is why I work for myself because

00:39:04

I struggle so much to work with an entire team that's telling me what I need to be doing

00:39:11

or that shuts down something that should be done differently in my opinion you know take

00:39:16

for example like email newsletters I know there are very specific ways that you have

00:39:20

to collect email addresses some of that's legal like some of that is this is a major

00:39:28

fine if you don't do it a certain way and I've had people fight me on that in the past

00:39:33

it's like no this is not right so I have some stuff like that and I if there's a decision

00:39:39

that I feel like should be made a certain way I tend to put my stake in the ground and

00:39:42

that's tough to get me off of it I tend to do that also but usually when there's a team

00:39:49

or a group of people who are making the decision I find myself if I really have the authority

00:39:55

to just say okay we're going to take the entire organization or this entire group in a certain

00:39:59

direction that is somewhat paralyzing to me so that's why I say that my preference is

00:40:04

probably advisor but I get what you're what you're saying as well yeah I think I would

00:40:09

rather be the one at the front I would rather be the one that has a bunch of folks around

00:40:16

me helping pull all the information together and then based on all the information I'll

00:40:21

make the I'll pull the trigger so I that's kind of how I feel that makes sense I have

00:40:27

two more questions second last one says do I perform well under stress or do I need a

00:40:32

structured predictable environment now I work for a time management and productivity

00:40:39

company I have given talks on Omni focus at max.conference I on the surface should totally

00:40:49

be in the structured and predictable environment crowd yep however if I am really honest with

00:40:55

myself and I look at how I actually get work done I have to admit that at least a little

00:41:02

bit I perform well under stress now that doesn't mean I like to manufacture that stress all

00:41:09

the time I would prefer to avoid that if possible but I think I kind of land in the middle here

00:41:15

where I'll get a project and I'll plan it all out but I won't jump in and take action

00:41:20

on it right away I will usually let it sit for a little bit I'm not gonna wait till the

00:41:23

last minute and then scramble to get things done but I'm also generally not super methodical

00:41:32

just do five minutes every day and then you've read your book every two weeks usually I'll

00:41:37

take a couple days off and then think to myself I should probably get started on that book so

00:41:41

I think I have to confess that I perform well under stress what about you?

00:41:50

Well as much as I want to be in the structured category for everything it doesn't work that

00:42:01

way if it's something that I enjoy doing say take reading books for example I can say I'm

00:42:07

a sit down I'm read 25 pages a day I can do that but the reason I do that is because

00:42:11

I know there's a deadline coming and I know that if I wait I will have a hard time catching

00:42:19

up and I'm aware of that so on the surface it looks like I'm operating underneath of

00:42:26

that structure but the only reason I put the structure in place is because of the stress

00:42:30

of the deadline that makes sense so I'm I'm when I know there's a deadline coming and

00:42:38

when I know that there's the stressor of something that needs to be accomplished within a certain

00:42:43

time frame or in a certain way I'll put the structures in place to make it happen in that

00:42:50

within those bounds but if I don't have a bound that I'm I'm tied to so take take working

00:43:00

with Alfred for example so this is the next video course that I'm trying to work on and

00:43:04

I say I'm trying to work on very intentionally because on the surface I've put all the structure

00:43:10

in place to do it but there is no deadline there is no stressor behind it which means

00:43:15

that that particular project is one that if there's going to be something bumped it immediately

00:43:19

gets bumped even though that's a very important project for me in my business I still bump

00:43:24

it yep so there is no there's no stressor to get me to do it so as my friend I'm going

00:43:29

to do it as much as I love the structure and as much as that gives me I guess peace is

00:43:35

weird as that sounds I I have to have something that pushes yep no it totally makes sense

00:43:43

last question I think this one will be pretty easy it says do I work best in a big organization

00:43:48

or a small one I cannot picture how anyone can work better in a big organization but I'm

00:43:56

sure that there are people out there that that is true but that just illustrates to me that

00:44:01

100 percent thousand percent I fall into the work best in a small organization camp I struggled

00:44:11

with this question I did and the reason I say that is because I've worked in a pretty

00:44:18

big corporation I've worked on some pretty big teams and I've worked as I don't even know

00:44:26

what to call it I more like a technology assistant like someone who just does a hodgepodge of

00:44:32

things in order to make stuff that shouldn't happen happen I've done a lot of that and worked

00:44:37

specifically for some higher up executives and seeing them and how they operate I don't

00:44:46

know that they would work well in a smaller organization because they require a pretty

00:44:54

large team underneath of them to make their ideas and their decisions happen and they

00:44:58

know that so I think there are some there are definitely some people who need a larger

00:45:04

team underneath of them in order to accomplish what it is that they're setting out to do

00:45:10

I guess I guess it makes sense I just have such a strong connection to what I want to

00:45:17

be able to see what I do actually produce the results I don't want to see the decisions

00:45:22

that I make trickle down through a hundred different other people who will then produce

00:45:26

the results although maybe that's just because I've never been a particular situation it

00:45:31

could be the the decision maker advisor thing like the the difference between those two

00:45:37

because those people most certainly their decision makers they're not the ones that

00:45:40

are going to go out and actually build a website they're going to make all the decisions around

00:45:44

it that's that's what they'll do they don't actually want to be the ones who write the

00:45:49

code that they don't want anything to do with that they'd rather put a team around it to

00:45:53

make it happen I think that's what Drucker is getting at here maybe I'm wrong but that's

00:45:57

that's kind of how I took it some people need to be able to have a larger group underneath

00:46:02

of them or work with a lot of people to accomplish something and some people really struggle

00:46:08

with that and part of my issue that I run into is I really like to work on larger teams I

00:46:16

think I like to be in those scenarios not necessarily because I want to be part of the

00:46:22

group putting together a big report or something like that but I'd like to be the one that

00:46:26

leads it that's helping pull the whole thing together but honestly a lot of the places

00:46:32

where I feel like I'm better suited I don't have the experience or the age honestly to

00:46:39

do that as much as that sounds horrible this is kind of the way it works out it's just

00:46:43

the way you know a lot of these organizations want to operate they don't want to hire a

00:46:47

young kid in order to come in and you know lead a whole team of 50 people it just doesn't

00:46:51

work that way sure so there's a bit of a disconnects in some cases you can you can get around it

00:46:58

but I think this is a lot of the reason that I work for myself is I'm working to build

00:47:03

up kind of my own business to where I can eventually start to lead a group of people

00:47:07

like that's ultimately what I'm shooting for a longer term is to get to that point so I've

00:47:12

been coming at it from a lot of different angles to get to that level but I digress let's

00:47:17

just kind of how kind of how I see things because I think some people need to have a

00:47:20

team around them in order to accomplish something and it typically and some for some folks

00:47:26

you know take a CEO for example they need a lot of people underneath of them to achieve

00:47:31

what it is that they want to do.

00:47:33

Am I off my rocker on all this?

00:47:34

Nope, makes perfect sense and I think there's a really important thing in detail in what

00:47:40

you just said where you mentioned basically that this is how I see things I think a lot

00:47:45

of people don't ever take the time to figure out exactly what they're seeing and then interpret

00:47:51

what that actually means and that's really at the heart of this whole section and why

00:47:57

I wanted to go through that question by question the big thing that I got out of this is you

00:48:02

need to know your strengths in fact he has a couple quotes which I liked one of them said

00:48:06

most people think they know what they are good at they are usually wrong.

00:48:12

So I as one of my takeaways I put I want to figure out what specifically my strengths

00:48:17

are and every time he presented a list of questions like that I wanted to identify that

00:48:22

and it kind of ties back into the I have this on the outline here the feedback analysis

00:48:27

method where there's three steps to this one is to concentrate on your strengths to work

00:48:34

on improving your strengths and then three discover where your intellectual arrogance

00:48:37

is causing disabling arrogance and overcome it and most people I think well I shouldn't

00:48:44

say most people but I do know that this approach is out there I've seen people who have had

00:48:48

this mindset and it makes total sense to me after reading this book that this is not the

00:48:52

way that you should approach things is I want to I want to become better at the things that

00:48:57

I'm not that good at and Peter Drucker is basically saying that that is a complete waste of time

00:49:02

you should be just don't do it on your strengths.

00:49:05

In fact he says one should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low

00:49:12

competence which makes total sense especially when you read it in the context of this this

00:49:16

book if you really want to leave a dent in the universe as Steve Jobs would say then you

00:49:24

need to do the things that you are best at that is a force multiplier of whatever focus

00:49:30

attention effort that you put forth why would you choose to do something that is going to

00:49:35

diminish the effort that you're that you're putting out there and I think a lot of people

00:49:40

get stuck working in ways where they're not utilizing their strengths and they don't

00:49:47

ever stop to consider whether there actually should be a better way.

00:49:53

One of the other quotes I really liked in this book is too many people work in ways that

00:49:56

are not their ways and that almost guarantees non-performance so that's really what was

00:50:02

at the heart of all of those questions that we just went through is how do you actually

00:50:06

perform if you can figure out how you actually perform then all you have to do is follow

00:50:12

that script and the squirrel take care of itself.

00:50:18

One of the things that he talks about with the feedback analysis because you brought that

00:50:21

up was the process of writing down what you expect out of something so that you can create

00:50:27

that feedback and I thought this was interesting this is the I have one major action item that

00:50:31

I wrote down for this and this is it is that whenever you make a commitment to do something

00:50:37

say a big project you're going to do something big in your life like say you want to lose

00:50:41

weight or some cases you want to gain weight if you're going through that process you need

00:50:46

to write down what you expect is going to happen when it's done and then when it's completed

00:50:52

compare what actually happened to your expectations on it and if you do that that's where you

00:51:00

can generate that analysis of did it like did I accomplish what I thought I would was it

00:51:05

better was it worse do I understand myself well enough to in order to accurately write

00:51:10

down what I expect out of something and that process of understanding the difference between

00:51:15

what you expected and what actually happened can generate that feedback for your for you

00:51:21

to understand yourself and I think that's one thing that I've never even tried I never

00:51:26

even occurred to me that this is something that you could do so I I want to try doing

00:51:31

this I'm going to start writing down whenever I take on a project what do I expect out of

00:51:35

it by the time it's done because I'm curious what the difference is between what actually

00:51:40

comes of it and what I thought was going to come of it at the very beginning so now I've

00:51:44

he's got this curiosity in me growing yeah I read that too and I think that that would

00:51:49

be a little difficult for me to implement because unless I actually created like a reminder

00:51:55

or a task anomaly focus to say go back and look at what you wrote down then I don't think

00:52:03

I would ever just come across that in my everyday work I tend to be really focused on what I'm

00:52:11

doing at the moment I have no problem looking ahead go week or even 12 weeks plug for an

00:52:18

upcoming book but yeah I have I have a little bit of a hard time just naturally looking back

00:52:25

well you want to know here's here's my tactical process for that whenever I create a new project

00:52:31

an Omni focus which hopefully is not super frequent if I'm not saying yes to frequent

00:52:38

whenever I create a new project what I'm trying to do and I started doing it I think yesterday

00:52:44

of whenever I create a new project in the notes field inside Omni focus I'm I leverage those

00:52:51

pretty heavily I will write down what I expect out of that project when it's done

00:52:57

and then before I know I haven't done this yet so this is a theoretical whenever I'm done with

00:53:05

that project before I hit the spacebar to mark the project complete I review what's in those

00:53:10

note field in that note field for that project does that make sense so you have this process you

00:53:16

end up creating a habit around when you enter and create a new project and then you have another

00:53:21

habit that's on the back end of it for whenever it's done and those two take care of it that's

00:53:27

my process anyway my thought it sounds doable but I don't think that I would actually follow

00:53:34

through with it I will probably forget a few times just confess there well I will I will hold

00:53:39

you accountable to that since you said this one of your action items anyways so

00:53:43

do you want to talk a little bit about options

00:53:48

yeah I uh I wrote down a few quotes that uh that Drucker had in here that I thought were

00:54:00

really interesting and one of them that he had towards the back of the book was and this is the

00:54:06

quote in a society in which success has become so terribly important having options will become

00:54:13

increasingly vital and what he's getting at here is the second half of our lives and so many of us

00:54:19

we work on building a career we work at it we get better and better and better at it and then at

00:54:23

some point you know we have this midlife crisis and part of the rationale behind that that he poses

00:54:30

is that when you hit mid 40 roughly in that area you've learned and grown so much in a specific

00:54:39

career that you become bored with it and you go out and try to do something new and that's where a

00:54:47

lot of that comes from that's his that's what he's getting at and he poses that one this is a

00:54:52

very good thing because you can continue to grow yourself and continue to understand yourself in

00:54:56

the future so I think there's a lot of value in and continue to work at things in the second half

00:55:01

of our lives granted you and I both are nowhere near that right now so that's just something that's

00:55:07

up there in the future however he does point out that don't wait until you get there before you

00:55:15

start to do something right you start keeping things open right now and that's what that quotes

00:55:19

about is making sure that you have a lot of things going right now so that in the future if you want

00:55:25

to make a change you can and it's not that difficult this is part of the reason that I seem very

00:55:31

chaotic with the businesses and the processes that I take on because I take on all kinds of weird

00:55:37

diversified methods for businesses seems yeah so I completely agree and I've pretty much gone

00:55:47

through this process recently so this I wrote down the same the same quote and I definitely that that

00:55:56

hit me he talks in the book about those three ways to develop a second career and I'll just go

00:56:04

through these real quickly and then I'll kind of talk briefly about okay how this uh how this played

00:56:09

out in in my own life because I'm sure that there are a lot of people listening to this right now

00:56:13

who are in the situation that I was in so if you are in a job in a career right now and you're

00:56:20

listening to this and you don't want to wait until you're 45 to realize that I need to start

00:56:25

investing in another area because that's going to be more fulfilling which is what Peter Drucker

00:56:30

is arguing here there's three ways to develop that second career he calls it one is to actually

00:56:35

start one so that's where you're just gonna quit what you're doing you're gonna go chase

00:56:41

something else and I think that's what most people think of when they think when they hear that

00:56:46

develop a second career it's all or nothing A or B not both but the second option second way to

00:56:53

develop a second career is to develop a parallel career this is what I would argue I did because

00:57:00

while I was working full-time for the family business I had this idea that I wanted to write

00:57:06

this book and I decided because I'm really really smart that I better learn how to write so I created

00:57:13

the space by getting up at 5 a.m. in the morning I would I would go to a coffee shop and I would

00:57:19

write for an hour before I went into the office that process of getting up and writing just for an

00:57:27

hour every day in six to eight months resulted in my first book and it also resulted in me getting

00:57:35

connected with Asian efficiency and the career that I now have but it didn't it wasn't just like

00:57:42

okay I'm gonna on this date stop working with the family business and I am now going to switch

00:57:49

careers and go work for this other company and in fact if I had taken that approach Asian efficiency

00:57:55

would not have looked at me at all because I would have had nothing to show them in fact when I had

00:58:01

the call with tan when he put out on twitter that they were hiring at the time that I approached

00:58:06

them I wasn't interested in a second in in going full-time with Asian efficiency and I was just

00:58:12

starting to blog every day and said any opportunities for guest posting and he said well it's not

00:58:18

something we typically do but if you have anything send it my way so I just started my blog like I

00:58:23

had done two weeks worth of blog posts that's about it so you were a pro yeah I knew nothing but I

00:58:30

was putting myself out there I was doing this in parallel and I sent send them the link to my

00:58:36

blog and say hey yeah there's a lot of synergy here we can tell a lot of the same mindsets read

00:58:39

a lot of the same books we should give this a shot and one thing has led to another where I am now

00:58:44

full-time with Asian efficiency but if I had never taken this approach of developing that parallel

00:58:48

career there is no way that those dots connect to where I am now in the position that I'm in

00:58:57

and the third way to develop a second career I think this might be you is the social entrepreneur

00:59:03

and that to me kind of means that you've got a lot of different things going on

00:59:09

you're doing this thing then you're doing that thing then you're doing that thing and you can

00:59:12

just make those jumps like you were just talking about seamlessly where when someone on the outside

00:59:19

is looking at it they're like there is no method to this madness so maybe you can

00:59:24

talk a little bit about what it means to be a social entrepreneur I just have ideas and

00:59:30

I can't help myself that's the way I see it is that I tend to see gaps in what is currently

00:59:38

available in I'm just going to use the term marketplace because I don't know what else to call it but

00:59:42

I tend to see gaps and then I pursue them and a lot of times for me it doesn't seem to matter

00:59:51

what sector it's in because I am just fascinated by all a bunch of different areas and just random

00:59:58

technology and that can range from how to railroads work to you know how to SpaceX actually

01:00:06

accomplish its rockets like I go all over the place and I just know that for me I tend to look at

01:00:14

different things that seem interesting and look for opportunities and then I'll go for them like

01:00:21

it's just kind of how I go for it and it doesn't seem to matter like I don't I have a general

01:00:28

purpose like we've talked about vision and mission a lot in the past I understand that but if you

01:00:33

pay attention to what I tend to come up with for visions it's usually very vague and very like I

01:00:41

have a general direction I shoot for but I'm not going to narrow it down like I keep it a pretty

01:00:47

broad pretty broad shot out there and that's why is because I know the general direction but I

01:00:54

don't have a specific sector that I like to focus on yeah and I'd say that I'd argue that that is

01:01:01

completely fine Peter Drucker talks in the book about the mirror test and I think this is the

01:01:07

mirror test is answering the question what kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the

01:01:11

morning and I don't think you need to have a redetail figured out in order to answer that question

01:01:16

you have a general idea of of the why and maybe even have some specifics but you don't need to

01:01:22

have it all figured out in order for yourself to take action I think that's the the key thing there

01:01:29

the other thing is that you want to you want to create things that are that are contributing so

01:01:40

one of the questions that Peter Drucker asks is what should I contribute and there were a couple

01:01:44

questions underneath that number one what does the situation require number two given my strengths

01:01:51

my way of performing how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done and then

01:01:56

number three what results have to be achieved to make a difference and I think as long as you are

01:02:03

producing results you can kind of look at those results and you can using the salary test from

01:02:09

start with why you can have a pretty good idea of yes I am moving in the right direction even if

01:02:15

you don't have all the details filled in yet in fact he talks about results and specifically what

01:02:22

they should look like he says results should be hard to hard to achieve so they should require

01:02:27

some stretching and they should be meaningful so they should make a difference and I think if you

01:02:32

can check those boxes then you're moving in the right direction so much of that has to do with

01:02:39

I think of the boardrooms I've been in and when there's a CEO in the room I think that if you look

01:02:45

at how most chief executives run their businesses and run the companies it has a lot to do with

01:02:53

this whole book because they are very good at noticing who is good at what they're very

01:03:00

in tune with the inner workings of their teams they're very good at understanding what all the

01:03:07

details should or could be and whenever they notice and they pay attention to how the business

01:03:14

operates and they know how to push and pull levers and push the right buttons and maybe not push

01:03:20

the right buttons but they know how to move things around in order to accomplish something

01:03:25

successful and that's what so much of this is about in order to drive success in the long term

01:03:33

you have to understand how all the different pieces work together I think Drucker does an

01:03:39

excellent job of pulling together all these questions in order to drive you to that so that

01:03:44

you can understand you know how does a CEO actually pull all this off and how do I think like him

01:03:48

in order to do and accomplish the bigger projects and the bigger tasks that I want to

01:03:55

accomplish right and thinking like a CEO is if you were to sum up this entire book that's what it is

01:04:03

is he makes the argument that managing one yourself managing oneself demands that each

01:04:08

knowledge worker think and behave like a CEO and it's really like when you think of a CEO

01:04:14

they are directing the ship they are in charge of the organization or the business

01:04:19

and a lot of times we don't even want to take responsibility for ourselves we don't even want

01:04:24

to take responsibility for our own outcomes and that's really what he's saying here is that you

01:04:29

have to take responsibility for your own outcomes you have to steer your ship you can't control

01:04:35

everything else that's going on around you at an organizational level maybe but you can control

01:04:39

yourself and if you can dot your eyes and cross your T's and you put yourself in a much better

01:04:44

chance to be successful is a really great quote that I wrote down at the end this is for a great

01:04:50

many people there is at best an absence of failure wherever there is success there has to be failure

01:04:57

and then it is vitally important for the individual and equally important for the individual's family

01:05:02

to have an area in which he or she can contribute make a difference and be somebody that means

01:05:07

finding a second area whether in a second career a parallel career or a social venture that offers

01:05:12

an opportunity for being a leader for being respected for being a success and the key part

01:05:18

there for me is that you cannot have the success without the failure so many people will go day

01:05:24

to day because they don't want to put themselves out there and have somebody say that podcast that

01:05:30

you just recorded that was garbage or that course that you created Joe that was crap

01:05:34

you know right they see and people see that and they get scared by that they don't want to put

01:05:41

their heart on their line they don't want to wear their heart on their sleeve they don't want to

01:05:44

be criticized and so they don't actually do anything but if you are scared of the failure then you

01:05:49

will never be able to get the success because you can't separate those two you have to be willing to

01:05:55

mess up and you have to be willing to look at it and deconstruct it and say what was wrong with

01:06:00

this where did I miss this make adjustments and then eventually you do the enough iterations of that

01:06:07

and you end up with something great so to recap some of the because we talked about I think we

01:06:13

talked about all of our action items in the midst of this one the one that I have down is to do the

01:06:20

expectations piece so that I can create that feedback analysis with all of my projects so whenever I

01:06:27

put together a in some cases I'm doing this with goals as well so if I write down a goal I write

01:06:32

down a project I'm going to take this on I'm going to make a commitment to doing something

01:06:36

what is it that I expect out of it and whenever I complete that goal or that

01:06:41

project I want to review that and go through it and I talked about how I'm going to do it not

01:06:46

let me focus but that's the one thing that I'm taking away from this there's so many things I

01:06:49

could take away from this a lot of them are just be aware pay attention and notice like there's a

01:06:56

lot of that I don't know how to write that into an action item other than I'm hoping to just start

01:07:01

paying attention more but as far as something physical that you can hold me accountable to I'm

01:07:07

planning to write down expectations on commitments all right sounds good I had two of them one I

01:07:15

talked about and that is know your know your strengths so specifically what I intend to do

01:07:21

is I intend to take the strengths finder assessment whichever Michael Hyatt talk about

01:07:26

and he actually talked about how he takes that or he's taken that with his wife and they've

01:07:32

identified their strengths and that's helped their family dynamic so my wife and I are actually both

01:07:38

going to take the strengths finder assessment the other one that I wrote down and this one I don't

01:07:44

know how you hold me accountable to this but this is something that I recognize in myself he had a

01:07:48

phrase in there that kind of hit me it said take responsibility for relationships it really wasn't

01:07:53

a major point which is why we didn't really unpack it when we're doing the podcast but it hit me because

01:08:01

I tend to try to go through go through my day get my stuff done I mentioned I'm a loner and then

01:08:08

when there's friction with other people I tend to drawback and say well I just can't work with this

01:08:13

person and so what this meant to me is that I have to accept the fact that other people are as much

01:08:20

into much as an individual as I am and I have to take responsibility for successful communication

01:08:28

between us so there are some people that I have regular interaction with where naturally we just

01:08:35

don't work together well and like I mentioned Zach and I in Asian efficiency we were able to

01:08:39

overcome that but in some other areas of my life I have not put forth the effort to make that as

01:08:45

smooth as it could be and I don't know what exactly this outcome looks like and I don't know what

01:08:51

specifically I need to do I think the first step is to recognize and identify those relationships

01:08:57

and then instead of trusting that the other person's gonna change to take the steps to try to

01:09:04

move their direction if that makes sense this has probably been about a year and a half maybe

01:09:11

it's been two years ago I read a book called boundaries and I can't think of the author's name I'll put

01:09:17

it in the show notes but in that book he he made the comment that I can't I can't change what other

01:09:26

people do but I can change how I react to it and that has stuck with me for a long time because so

01:09:33

much if they just wouldn't have done this one thing I'd be okay like I get rather upset sometimes I

01:09:39

can internally over something that someone did and it's not simple to just say okay they did this thing

01:09:48

I can't change that but here's what I'm gonna do in response right but that's I'm terrible at it

01:09:57

but but it's something I try to do fairly regularly and I think that's kind of what you're getting

01:10:02

at is trying to just own your side of that relationship is that fair yeah and ultimately

01:10:08

the relationships where that is the case where there is some of that friction like

01:10:13

success is determined not by whether I do my part but whether the organization or the group

01:10:23

accomplishes the goal so if I'm just gonna sit on the sideline and pout and say well I did my part

01:10:31

they got to do theirs that's not going to help anything I'm going to fail if I take that approach

01:10:36

right so I got to figure out how to make it work and I guess the the real application of this is

01:10:46

just recognizing that the the buck stops with me fair enough I think whenever we sat down

01:10:57

for breakfast on Wednesday I said something about I was gonna read this either that afternoon and

01:11:02

put the notes together for it Wednesday and then I didn't do it until fully this morning the reason

01:11:08

why is because Peter Drucker is such a good writer and it was so easy to read and there was so much

01:11:15

in it that I started reading it on Wednesday but it was so dense and salt like there was

01:11:20

dense is probably the wrong word there was so much information in such a small space

01:11:25

that I had to put it down not because I couldn't keep reading but because I was just trying to

01:11:30

digest it because it was so much here so I put it down Wednesday I picked it up Thursday

01:11:35

finished it I guess that would be yesterday so I finished it yesterday and

01:11:41

I I was gonna put the notes together for it was like man I don't even know

01:11:47

man what do I write down I struggled with it a little bit not because I didn't have anything

01:11:53

to write down but I just needed some time to digest it right and so I for author's style here I wrote

01:11:59

down that this is an easy and quick read but the chances of you being able to sit down and read it

01:12:05

just in one sitting like what I try to do I think you can but I think you'll get more out of it if

01:12:10

you break it up into a few settings at least that was my perspective because it felt like I had so

01:12:14

much coming through my head and I had so many ideas and thoughts about it that I just needed

01:12:18

a break to digest and and can fully understand everything that I was consuming yeah I I can

01:12:27

definitely see you where that that approach would make sense I the way I read books I usually read

01:12:33

it and then I'll take notes in an iOS app which I believe is it's free it's called shelf so maybe

01:12:38

we can put the link to that in the the show notes right but with this book I read it in one sitting

01:12:43

but it was kind of funny because I've got the book in one hand and there were so many things

01:12:47

that I wanted to write down that pretty much every 20 or 30 seconds I was taking a note on my phone

01:12:55

and my wife is sitting on like how she next to me and she see me jump back and forth from the book

01:12:59

to the phone the book to the phone the book to the phone and she's like what are you doing are

01:13:03

you reading the book or not so yeah and that's just my own personal style but yeah I think that if

01:13:12

you're really if you're the kind of person who just needs to think about some of these things and

01:13:15

solidify them in your head then yeah don't try to read it all in one sitting because there is a lot

01:13:18

here but it is very easy to read and it is very short and the information that is in it is really

01:13:24

really good so I guess I can give my my rating for this book I am gonna give it five stars

01:13:33

not because it is one of the best books that I have ever read but I think for the average listener

01:13:41

or the person who is looking to to pick up something to read that they want

01:13:47

quick results they want quick actionable things that they can do this is the perfect book for that

01:13:54

person and even if you are somebody who reads a lot of books even a lot of really long books

01:13:59

even somebody like myself who is immersed in the productivity time management world there is still

01:14:04

a lot in this book that you can take away from it so I think this applies to just about anybody

01:14:11

and it's very easy to read so definitely five stars so my question is can you get away with

01:14:17

giving Peter Drucker something less than five stars probably not because I I had a lot of the same

01:14:24

reactions to this is there's a lot here you can take away a lot from it and there's a lot that

01:14:31

you can learn from it and I honestly I sat down and I was trying to figure out okay what are the

01:14:37

negatives of this book what are the downsides of it and outside of maybe needing to take time to

01:14:45

understand it and fully comprehend it I really had a hard time coming up with anything on it so

01:14:51

I have to follow you here Mike and go with the five so you know this is one of those books that

01:14:56

gets the rare double five star rating from us right and I would say though the one thing I would

01:15:03

say that would make this book maybe even better and I don't think it was really intended to be

01:15:08

a book per se it seems almost like it was an essay that was republished by it was Harvard

01:15:14

business business review that that published this one as well so completely different than the

01:15:19

previous Harvard business book that we were kidding but uh if if you were gonna write a book with

01:15:26

these things it would probably be a good idea to make clear distinctions when you're moving from

01:15:32

one section to another like the main points that you're hitting I think even adding just like some

01:15:37

bold text at the top of some of the pages to indicate that okay we are now talking about this

01:15:41

specific thing would kind of compartmentalize some of the ideas a little bit better so maybe

01:15:46

they're a little bit easier to implement because it's very very concise very dense it's very easy

01:15:51

to move from one thing to the next to not even realize that you've left you know what you were

01:15:55

talking about previously right yeah I found that I was asking myself a new question when I wasn't

01:16:01

sure if I'd answered the one previous so it was it's fast moving for sure

01:16:06

so I'm looking at upcoming books Mike and the next one up is your choice yep the the 12 week year

01:16:18

and I forget who this one is but I don't have it in front of me but uh I found out about this book

01:16:24

through Asian efficiency there's a bunch of people in the dojo who post their 12 week year status

01:16:31

so that people can hold them accountable to their plans for the quarter and I just really like the

01:16:37

idea so I am excited to jump in and figure out exactly how to implement that but this makes total

01:16:43

sense to me that instead of planning for a whole year at a time you you plan 12 weeks at a time

01:16:48

yeah I've struggled with the yearly planning thing in the past I always felt like something's

01:16:53

really wrong with it and I've I've started in on this book and he explains why so I'm excited to

01:17:00

talk about that one that'll be a good one sweet uh following that the one I've picked is one that

01:17:05

we've had recommended a number of times uh brain chains so this one has been on the list for a while

01:17:11

and it's finally coming to the top of that list uh that's a longer one so you may want to if you're

01:17:19

reading along with us you might want to pick that one up sooner that one will take a little while

01:17:24

to get through it might take more in a couple weeks to get through that one nice yeah and if

01:17:29

you wanted to recommend a book uh like I don't know who did uh recommend brain chains but that

01:17:34

was a recommendation that they came in and we've got a couple other ones that are recommended here

01:17:38

uh you can actually go to bookworm.fm and there's a button on the sidebar to recommend a book if

01:17:45

you want to see a list of all the books that we've covered as well as the recommended books and the

01:17:50

upcoming books there's a page for that as well I believe it's bookworm.fm/list and something that

01:17:59

I've noticed and it's kind of strange to me it makes perfect sense but I don't always realize

01:18:05

uh how it happens but every once while I have someone that jumps into one of my other endeavors

01:18:12

that comes from a different so I had uh we had a uh a guy that jumped into the bookworm and he

01:18:19

left us on iTunes review uh Wilson Ng I think is how it's pronounced but Wilson uh comes from a lot

01:18:26

of the omni-focused stuff that I've done in the past or he gets involved with a lot of the omni group

01:18:30

forums and such so I run into him quite a bit and then I saw he left us a review on iTunes which

01:18:36

was awesome thank you Wilson uh but I think it's really interesting how people can cross

01:18:41

some of those different worlds but we don't always find out about it until we see

01:18:45

someone leave a comment on something so if you're like that and you've you've jumped from one of

01:18:49

these other endeavors that Mike and I do and you're on uh and you're now on bookworm I'd love to see

01:18:55

you know where you came from but a great way to do that is to leave us a review so if you get a

01:19:00

chance I'll drop a link to how you can do that in uh in the show notes and you can go over to iTunes

01:19:06

and review us over there excellent well Mr. Bueleg it has been a pleasure and as always thank you

01:19:14

everyone for tuning in and we will catch you next time