Bookworm Transcripts

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You're gonna be very disappointed in me today, Mike. Why is that I have a chat app on my computer now

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Microsoft Teams for the way what?

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Church using

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We have we've been on office 365 for five years now four years something like that

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That was a move I helped us get into because so much of our

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staff is big on

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office products so

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Made sense for the organization

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however a couple of my

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teammates have figured out that Microsoft Teams lets them just get quick answers to things and I didn't

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adopt this right away so

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They've now pressured me into Joe you got to get this on your computer

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It's like that's fine, but I'm gonna be unavailable a lot of the time just a heads up. So there's that

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I'll install it correct. Yes

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So it is on there it's currently a do not disturb mode and

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I have the sign on the door all the things because we're recording at an odd time

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so

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Yes, and no the hyperactive hive mind has not captured Joe Blake

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At least I don't hope I hope not anyway

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We'll see we'll see

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So yes, I'm sorry to say I've I've gone down that road at the moment

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But I do know there are many many ways that I can control how much time I spend with stuff like that

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So getting breaks from it is something. I'm capable of doing I'm aware of that

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So yes, anybody can break free from the evil clutches of Microsoft Teams. It is Joe Bealegg

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I know how to hit command queue. I can make it happen

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So super fun. Anyway chat apps not why we're here

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It just came to mind because we're gonna be diving into a Cal Newport book today thus

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That came to mind, but we have some follow-up first

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So I've got a couple points to follow up from our last

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Last book looks like you've got a few here as well. One of those that I have is

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practicing the

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the concept of phone narration

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Specifically in my case, it's for when I'm at

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Home with my family not so much like whenever I'm in meetings and such, but I just want to make sure that like my kids

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Specifically know what I'm doing on my phone when I'm on it around them

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like that's that's the piece that I'm trying to make sure is very very clear and

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I've learned that there are some cases when I'm on my phone and I'm

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Realizing I need to tell them what I'm doing and I really don't want to tell them what I'm doing

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so

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Hey dad, what are you doing right now?

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Seeing what's on Instagram. Sorry. Let's let's stop doing that. Okay. All right now moving on now. Now. I'm checking the weather

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So

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Yes, that that is quite the accountability telling your kids what you're doing on your phone when you're around them. That's

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Highly recommended and a bit terrifying at the same time. So there's that

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So I've been doing this as much as I can don't get it done all the time, but it's something I do recommend for folks

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So real quickly on the uh the phone narration

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I feel like because I was one of mine too. I feel like we should just make a pact us and the bookworm listeners

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To publicly shame anyone that we see using a device that's not practicing this just walk up to them real awkwardly and be like, hey

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What you doing?

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I just wait for him to answer

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Deal

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I I will totally do this totally will

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Okay, all right

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I may put the caveat on it that I need to at least know the person somewhat because I could at least pass it off as

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Joe being the tech nerd who was trying to get you off your phone like I can at least pass it off that way if it's a complete stranger

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That's just weird

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Just totally weird

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So we were up in dork county this last weekend and

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We have a teenage son. We were there with

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Rachel's sister and brother-in-law who also have kids that are very close to

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our kids in age and at one point

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Toby was using his iPad sitting in a chair and next to him was quin who was sitting in a chair looking at his phone

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And I was like hey screen agers. What you doing?

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Screen agers

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They didn't appreciate that a whole lot. I don't think

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I have not heard that term screen agers is this something you just made up?

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I think so, but probably not

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All right, it's a new one to me. So I'll definitely steal it. That's for sure

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Yes, I'm game for the shaming. Uh, the other follow-up that I had

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is to

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Work on my end-of-day email habit or as in create one and

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I've done it a couple times over the last couple weeks

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I've not been good about making sure that that's the time frame that happens

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And I need to keep working on that one. So the goal here is that around

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330 about 30 minutes before the end of my day. I would take some time to

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Uh, just run through my email and make sure I'm getting replies out because I'm terrible at responding to emails if you've sent me an email

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Over the last

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Five years and you got a response right away. You are the anomaly

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So it doesn't happen very often

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Unless it's somebody that I'm actively working on a project with like if Mike were to send me

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An email about something important with bookworm. You would get a response from me pretty quick. However, that's not typical

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Just gonna say that. So anyway, that's what I got. You Mike. All right. Yeah, I got a couple

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uh

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Phone narration was one of mine as well and I feel like I have

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Done this. I've caught myself at least a couple of times

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Actually doing this

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Part of the reason why I want to point this out is I hope it gets reciprocated to me because I'm sure there's points where I just am

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Surfing twitter and I'm not really realizing it

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But uh, I I think this is a oh worthy cause

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So, uh, I'm gonna continue to try to do this as often as I I can

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If I'm in a group of people and I pull my phone out. I'm going to verbalize why I am

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I'm doing that. I'm not gonna. I'm sure hide anything, you know

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I'm also going to uh, I had create yellow lists to process my thoughts in obsidian

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I've done this but it's not

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Typical mic fashion, I guess. Uh, it's not done like there's more yellow lists to be processed

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There's more notes to be created to help me think through things

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But uh, I am in the middle of this right now and it has been very helpful in a decision that I've been

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brewing on so definitely

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See value in this and I I really just want to make this a practice not a

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Not a pass just so people understand what you're talking about. What is the yellow list? It's

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I don't even remember what the

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official definition of the yellow list was I'm

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Using it as a as like a capture point for my thoughts and I and ideas around a specific topic

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Specifically around a decision I have to make when we talk last time I mentioned this is kind of what

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One of those mocs or map of content is designed to do you have this

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Mental squeeze point where you're like, I just need to figure out

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What do I really think about this thing?

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But I am applying it specifically to decisions that need to be made

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I think originally it was talking about

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A list of things like next time I see this person I need to

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Ask these things and get some answers so I can move on with with the rest of my work

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But I'm kind of applying this more personally

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All right, and then the last one be cautious about committing to future dates. I

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Have done this

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David and I

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Recorded an episode of focused on revisiting hyper scheduling and this came up where we discount

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The the time we have in the future and well, I can't do that right now. I'm too busy

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I don't really want to stop the things that I'm doing but six weeks from now. Absolutely. I could squeeze that in

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And then you get six weeks out and you why did I say yes to this thing?

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So I feel like I've done a pretty good job of of this. However, I have noticed there's a shadow side to this as well

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in that

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I find that I want to say yes to things that are presented to me

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Further in the future than I do when they're presented. Hey, can you do this right now?

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If for no other reason than I want to train the people who are making these requests not to throw stuff at me last minute

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Okay, sure

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So I think there's a difference here where it's like I don't want to do this ever

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Then yeah, I shouldn't just say yes to kick the can down the road

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But if I'm going to be working with people anyways and I'm going to be doing things anyways

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And I have even a little bit of control in the situation to say no

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To things that are last minute, but yes to things that are further out. I will say yes to those

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Just so that we can play by my terms

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That makes any sense. Yeah, no it does make sense because I know I do a lot of

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People management when it comes to tech issues

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Like the one that made us put off bookworm recording last friday is not one I could have put an off

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But there's a lot of cases where someone says hey, my email is not doing xy and z

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Can you come look at it? My default answer is yes in a minute

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I'll be over when I get a second like it's something along those lines that I'm going to say

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Unless it's a couple people that I know have spent a lot of time working on things

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But the reason I do that is because

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One, I don't want people to assume I'm just going to jump up and go fix things immediately every time you have

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a problem and two

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In the world of it making people wait about 10 minutes

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Usually resolves the problem because they can't do what they want to do

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So they're going to spend some time trying to fix it themselves

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And for whatever reason 10 15 minutes tends to solve most it problems

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Without me doing anything. So

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If we wait that long

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It's pretty common for me to get a text or an email or they stop back by saying hey, no big deal

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It it took care of itself or I got it fixed or something like okay great and then I never got it from my desk

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So

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There's that as well, but yes that whole training people thing it totally with you

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There is a an article that I published on the suite set up a while back

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I'll put the link in the the show notes for people and it was something along the lines of email habits from Napoleon Bonaparte

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Because he had this habit of having his secretary collect his mail and then delivering it to him like every couple of weeks

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And as he opened up the mail he was giddy with joy at all of the things that had resolved themselves by the time he even looked at them

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Yes

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I think there's a lesson to be in the polling and had it figured out. Yeah

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Well, that all said let's let's jump into

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Today's book because I feel like we're both itching to get to this especially since we thought we were going to get a chance to do this last

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Friday and we're not

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But today's book is so good. They can't ignore you by cal Newport

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which is basically a debunking of the concept follow your passion and

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Find work you love and that whole concept. This is

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borderline a manifesto just a long one

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Saying hey, don't do that

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so

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I I have to admit that this

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Concept of find your passion find work you love and you'll never work a day in your life like that whole concept is one

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I went down this path very deep at one point and

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came up wanting on the other end of that journey and

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That's a lot of the reason that I wanted to cover this also

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It's a cal Newport book that we haven't covered yet. So we really needed to cover it. I think

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Um, but I have to ask Mike if you ever been down this whole find your passion and follow it concepts

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Have you ever gone deep on this before have you always been a naysayer on this this whole topic?

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Ooh, that's interesting as you were saying did you ever chase this?

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I was like well, yeah, of course I did because it sounds awesome

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But then when you say did you ever go deep on it? I'm not sure that I have

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Because my career path the thing that got me into this space was starting the process of writing my book

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I'm not going to tell that whole story again

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But one of the things that I discovered in that process was the

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root of the word passion is the latin word petit

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Which literally means to suffer and that clicked with me early on

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Okay, so passion isn't just doing what you love. It's um, it's finding something

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That's so worthwhile you're willing to endure some hardship in order to see it come to pass

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Which is a very different definition and I don't think I've I don't know that I don't really want to reclaim the word passion

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The passion mindset means what it means

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Uh, so I spoiler alert. I completely agree with uh with kel new port on on this one

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But I do think this is an easy trap to fall into because we spend so much of our

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Life working why would you not want to do something meaningful?

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Do something that makes a difference and impacts people's lives

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That part is

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I I think a very pure true desire that

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Everybody has it's not just I want to make a bunch of money

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I don't know. There's a lot to unpack there too because money's not necessarily bad. I'm not saying

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Especially in the christian circles. I think there's that

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That verse that gets thrown around the the love of money is the the road of all evil and and

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We kind of think we're holier if we just

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live

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In in poverty almost, uh, I personally don't believe that but I think it's it's easy for people to to believe that is like

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Oh, well, look, I've just become content with with not having a lot and I think that's that's a mistake too

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I think there is a desire placed inside of every human to do something bigger than themselves

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And so the the short version of this this rambling

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my lug here

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Is that it's complicated?

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But yes, I feel like I have

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Walked into this just like probably every other person who is listening to this podcast at one point in their life or another

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Yes, because I think whenever I did this I was in the midst of

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working at a job where my boss was less than helpful and

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Created problems that he then blamed on me

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So wasn't exactly a healthy situation

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And I was trying to nail down

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Like, okay. Well, this is in the agriculture space

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Maybe that's not where I need to be and

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Where are the places that I want to be?

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And what are the things that I love doing? So maybe I should find work in that and

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went through a whole process thought I had a a career in mind

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that I wanted to dive into

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tried to explore

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joining a place

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To pursue that and it just completely fell on its face

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So then I stayed in agriculture because I could get a job there

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and

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I I've never gone back to that concept of find your calling and

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Find a job in that space like I've not gone back to that because it's just never made sense to me since that point and

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Going through specifically the introduction in this book that cal Newport lays out

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like it's been one that I guess put some meat to that

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Anced that I've had in the past and just kind of helps me understand that oh, maybe I'm not completely crazy for thinking

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This is a ridiculous concept and you can see that in

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Let's just go ahead and jump in here. So the the introduction of this he follows the story of

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a guy by the name of Thomas who

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at some point

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decided that

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His calling in life the passion that he wanted to pursue was to be a zen monk

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And that was the ultimate life that you could live

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that was that was his pursuit and

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Over the period of a few years he manages to get accepted into a monastery that's difficult to get into

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He becomes a zen monk. He has a bunch of the revelations and then he breaks down crying

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at one point because he

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achieves the end goal that he was after and realizes

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It's not all it's cracked out to be

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And

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Doesn't know what to do

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after that point he he finally achieves the thing he thought was

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where he needed to be in life and

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It turned out to be a failure. Not I shouldn't say a failure. It turns out to be not

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as fulfilling as he

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Expected it to be so then the question is what what do you do with that?

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You know if someone's

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Able to name what their passion is name their

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pinnacle achieve it and it's not

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What you thought it would be

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Now what do you do right? What's the next step?

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That part reminded me a lot of the second mountain by david brooks

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and that's why I said

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in the previous section

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The part about how I believe everybody has this desire to do something that is bigger than just create a good life for themselves

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The whole idea behind the second mountain go listen to that whole episode

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I'm not going to rehash it here, but you climb the first mountain

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It's all about you you you you get to the top you're you go through this existential crisis and you're like is this it

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And that's immediately what I thought of when thomas was going to that monastery. He had achieved his personal goal of enlightenment

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He had climbed that mountain there was nowhere else to go and then he looks around and he's like oh my gosh

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It was all pointless and it sounded to me in that moment when he was going through his identity crisis that he couldn't find that second mountain that david brooks

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Was talking about?

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This is another plug for the uh, what's it called?

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Centopical reading that uh mornamer adler yep talks about I

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Every single time I have one of these

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Inspirations where I see how a book we are currently reading connects to the previous book. I am grateful that we have gone through that one

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It's the book that keeps on giving despite us not liking it

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Yeah, but that that's a that concept, you know as meta as it is

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Helps significantly like we suffered through that book. We did not like it

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We didn't care for how to read a book by mornamer adlers the one we're referring to and

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We didn't care for it and yet

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To this day ever since we've finished that one to this day

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The way that I read a book has changed the way that I see

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connections between books has been greatly altered and

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I can't help but notice

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If I get one solid point out of a book that book was a successful read

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that whole thing comes from

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Mortimer adler

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Yep, it was we rated it like what a three and three five or something like it wasn't one that got very high marks from us

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And yet i'll tell you you need to read it

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Absolutely, that's one of those vegetable books that uh

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You do it because it's going to pay off in the long run which

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kind of a tangent, but

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I think that's part of the reason why I

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enjoy reading

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purely nonfiction. I know you and josh specifically ribbed me about that

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How I should read fiction books

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I have never had that sort of feeling after a fiction book. So in my mind, it's

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It's not even possible. Maybe it is. I kind of don't think it is though. Just because it's it's a made-up story

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and uh

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Just the fact that that could happen when you pick up a nonfiction book

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Provides at least for me a ton of motivation to keep going with it

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Because I might get done with it and think that book was terrible

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But it's almost like that's just the beginning of the the story

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You have no idea how these dots that you've collected nonfiction dots anyways

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For me in my mind

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Fobsidian is the in the graph. That's the picture of all the dots that i've collected

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There's a nonfiction section, which is basically everything in my life

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And then there would be a fiction section, which would be all the other stuff and it's kind of like why even go there

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and uh

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I feel for the the nonfiction stuff

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You collect these dots and it you may not have a connection until five years after you've read that book

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And then it may be totally life-changing. I just want to argue quickly

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Because I have to right. I can't just let you make these concepts go for it make these points

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but

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The thing that I noticed whenever I read fiction

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Isn't an explicit oh that point is something I can take take home

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That it's like a whole bunch of micro points that are unconscious

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That don't come to reality in at least in my mind until later

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For example, there's a character in a tale of two cities

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I'm not going to go into the detail of the whole background

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But he makes some choices in a courtroom that

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Are fascinating to me and how he handled himself and yet

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When I was reading the story like I was totally engrossed on what was going on, but it didn't really connect with me

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That I could really make a correlation from that

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until

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Much much later after I'd finished reading that story

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And was talking to someone who was recently in a court case

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And was working through

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You know, what was the judge thinking at a certain time? Why did he decide to do x y and z?

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And for whatever reason that story in a tale of two cities came to mind

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And it's like oh well

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This is how people think about things when they're in a courtroom because you were able to see into the mind of a character in that fiction story

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for whatever reason that came up

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in my ridiculous race car brain and

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It helped me in that conversation. So

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I feel like it's not as explicit, but it does come up regularly at least for me

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Maybe i'm an oddball in that. No, I think i'm the oddball here. I understand

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You can learn about somebody's philosophy through fictional characters

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You're getting a glimpse into the mind of the how the author thinks

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Because they're creating this scenario and they're trying to make a point

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And there's some brilliant fiction authors that

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You could absolutely learn a ton from but for whatever reason my brain just doesn't connect to those

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It just discards those afterwards

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Even if I really enjoy the story

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It's like those don't even make it into the database

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So i'm the weird one, I guess but uh, yeah, that's just the way my brain was

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Well, let's keep going on a book here. So the way that cal Newport laid this one out

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Keep in mind. This was his first one, right? I don't think he had one prior to this

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This book so cal Newport has an interesting

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literary journey

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I think his first book was something along the lines of study hacks

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And like how to get straight as in college

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So he had written some things prior to this. I feel like this is the first

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Substantially mainstream, maybe that's the wrong term, but the other one seemed very niche to me and this one seemed more

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general

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I career advice sort of a like thing. Blake's got us

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So how to win at college how to win at high school and how to be a straight a student

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Those are the three he wrote prior to this. Okay

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Which is what he was writing as he was in college

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Applying to different universities and at the end of this book actually he talks about his own story

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How he applied these principles to get his position at George town is it? Yep

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I think that's where he's a professor now. Yeah, the youngest professor to ever get tenure or something like that

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So he's he's very successful and I kind of appreciate this

00:24:42

about cal feels a lot like he is just

00:24:46

Teaching what he knows like he's figuring this stuff out and sharing it publicly

00:24:49

But not in a way where he's saying I am the guru listen to me

00:24:54

Yeah, and that's that's totally fair

00:24:57

in my head this was

00:24:59

One of his first if not the first that he wrote

00:25:02

but at the same time I know that this is

00:25:05

Even looking at this list of books. He's written prior to this one. This is the first mainstream

00:25:12

Not geared towards students book

00:25:15

I would say because this is and I think this is one of them that put him on the map as far as

00:25:20

A potential big-time nonfiction author

00:25:23

It might also explain like there are some quirks with this book

00:25:28

I'll talk about when we get to style and rating some things I didn't care for

00:25:32

In the style side of it, but I'll get there. But anyway, let's let's jump through he's got four rules

00:25:40

That he lays out here. I'm not really sure maybe I missed it

00:25:44

I'm not sure why he chose to make it rules to live by I guess something along those lines like I don't know why he chose to do it that way

00:25:51

Uh to me they're just parts in the book. They seem to go together. I'm sure why they had to be called rules

00:25:57

Uh, but anyway, he's got four rules

00:26:00

The first of those is don't follow your passion

00:26:03

Which totally makes sense as a starting point. So in this particular part or rule

00:26:09

Uh, he he kind of dives into where this concept of follow your passion

00:26:14

comes from and

00:26:17

There's and I'm going to draw a blank on what the book was or the paper was but there was a specific paper or a book of

00:26:23

essay something that came out and

00:26:26

Kind of created this concept at least that's his theory, but it really gained some validity in the

00:26:33

legendary

00:26:37

Address that Steve Jobs gave at a graduation

00:26:41

and

00:26:43

in that Steve Jobs made a lot of comments that basically put some

00:26:47

legs underneath this concept of

00:26:50

You know find the work that you love and you'll never work a day in your life like that concept is one that he helps solidify

00:26:57

and

00:26:58

Basically justified that that's a valid path

00:27:02

forward and people have grasped onto that and latched onto that and

00:27:07

I think if you finish the rest of this part

00:27:11

and

00:27:13

Realize

00:27:15

What Cal Newport is saying here's like you have to be super careful with

00:27:18

This whole I don't even know what to call it this maxim. What's what's the term for it? Mike like it's a

00:27:23

I don't know. It's not a virtue, but it's a a thing that people want to live by

00:27:29

I don't know the the term, but yeah, the follow your passion. That's the the key phrase here

00:27:35

The it spiked in popularity by the way. This is in the mind node file for me

00:27:39

in

00:27:40

1970 following the publication of what color is your parachute by Richard bowls and

00:27:45

The Steve Jobs thing this kind of bugged me too, but I never really realized why interestingly

00:27:51

I forgot all about this part of the book. I have read this before

00:27:55

This is one of my

00:27:58

Favorite books. It was interesting to reread it and see how

00:28:02

Things are a little bit different for me just different stage of life

00:28:05

But when we did episode 50 and we did the draft this was I think number four on my top five books of all time. Yeah

00:28:12

So I've thought very highly of of this book for a long time and I completely forgot about this Steve Jobs graduation speech at Stanford

00:28:21

If you ever watch this it's on youtube. It's solid. Yeah, it's it's solid and it's interesting

00:28:28

Because I think he's giving this speech after he was diagnosed with cancer

00:28:33

So he's kind of got a glimpse of

00:28:35

The end he's coming to grips with his own mortality

00:28:40

but uh, I think if you watch that as I watch that now I look back and I see

00:28:48

a confirmation bias evidence in the words that he's

00:28:52

He's he's speaking

00:28:54

the same bias

00:28:56

Where if you interview somebody on a championship sports team right after they win the title

00:29:04

They talk about oh, it was no surprise that we got here

00:29:08

We set a goal at the beginning of the year and we worked really hard and we knew we were going to be here

00:29:13

You didn't

00:29:15

You didn't know you were going to be here. That's a story that you tell yourself because it sounds nice and you feel good about the accomplishment

00:29:22

But the truth is that all of the other teams had the same goal

00:29:26

And so the goal wasn't the thing that got you there

00:29:30

But that's kind of what people latch on to is oh, well

00:29:33

You just set a goal and then you work hard to achieve it and of course you're going to achieve it

00:29:37

The problem is in that specific sense where there is a goal where there's a limited amount of success to be had

00:29:43

Only one team can be the NBA champions, you know, it happens to be my Milwaukee Bucks. So there you go

00:29:50

but uh

00:29:53

So there's different ways that this can apply, but this is a

00:29:56

A zero-sum game. It doesn't necessarily apply in a non-zero-sum game. I think there's there's there's benefit to goal setting

00:30:03

I just want to get that out there right away

00:30:05

But that's the evidence that he builds this whole passion mindset around is

00:30:12

Just do what I did essentially and he deconstructs what Steve Jobs did and kind of shows how

00:30:18

He kind of didn't follow his own advice, which was fascinating to me

00:30:22

I'll just share some of the details here

00:30:25

He had this

00:30:27

scheme him and was where they were trying to sell 50 of these I think there were apple two boards to somebody

00:30:35

And they wanted to sell them for $50 each

00:30:38

Because they thought that was a lot of money and they the person that they went to Paul Terrell

00:30:43

Said I don't want your board for $50 each, but I'll buy 50 computers for $500 each

00:30:49

and

00:30:51

That to me as I read that story Paul Terrell is the key

00:30:54

Player here in Steve Jobs success

00:30:58

Now you can argue that Steve Jobs would have encountered a different opportunity and he would have taken advantage of it later

00:31:02

But this is the tipping point for him

00:31:06

Because Paul is basically saying hey, you're thinking 10 times too small

00:31:10

And throws a deal in his lap that ends up launching apple computer

00:31:15

So there's a lot of luck that goes into this

00:31:18

A lot of being in the right place at the right time

00:31:20

And I we just got done reading courage is calling I fully understand, you know the harder you work the more courageous you are

00:31:26

The luckier you get

00:31:29

So just putting yourself out there you drastically increase your your chances

00:31:34

But I feel like that story is a very good one to use to make the point that you can't just follow what Steve

00:31:41

Jobs said in that youtube video

00:31:43

Yeah, and I some of this might have to do with like how you define some of the terms that Steve Jobs

00:31:48

Is using we've we've read enough books that have talked about Steve Jobs and apple and it seems like it's one of these

00:31:55

Stories that you have to include in a nonfiction book in order for it to be published

00:32:00

I don't know if that's a requirement, but it feels like it sometimes

00:32:04

But if you read so here's here's a verbatim quote from

00:32:07

That address

00:32:09

You've got to find what you love

00:32:11

The only way to do great work is to love what you do

00:32:14

If you haven't found it yet keep looking and don't settle like this is one of the phrases in that address that

00:32:20

this whole passion mindset comes from but

00:32:24

if you

00:32:27

Pay attention to Steve Jobs. He was very

00:32:29

intentional with each word that he

00:32:32

Used when he was on stage watch any of his apple keynotes and

00:32:36

He was very particular

00:32:40

With how he worded things so I can't help but think that he was the same in this address

00:32:45

He didn't just think about it that morning and then get up there and wing it

00:32:49

I highly doubt that Steve Jobs did that yeah, I agree

00:32:52

if you

00:32:55

Look at what he's saying here's like you've got to find what you love the only way to do great work

00:33:00

Is to love what you do

00:33:02

But he's specifically calling out great work there

00:33:04

Yeah, and see that part right there I agree with there's so much new one it is in this this whole chapter

00:33:11

You know where this whole section don't follow your passion that reminded me of uh mike roe the dirty jobs guy

00:33:18

Something he said don't follow your passion but always bring it with you if you bring your passion with you according to mike roe

00:33:24

You will

00:33:25

Do great work that you love but you can't

00:33:30

Attached to the enjoying it first and I think you know

00:33:33

There's a difference between what I think Steve Jobs was saying and what he intended and

00:33:39

The interpretation that people had of the address

00:33:43

Because I think that the interpretation of the address as cal Newport explains it is spot-on like we absolutely took it as

00:33:50

Find what you love and go with it, you know quit your job and go like that

00:33:55

That is the idea that people took from the address. I'm not 100 certain that that's what Steve Jobs intended

00:34:02

I highly suspect, you know as he's saying, you know do

00:34:06

Like to do great work

00:34:09

I suspect that there's a big big caveat in that that you have to make sure that that's marketable

00:34:15

Like there has to be someone that wants it like just knowing his background. I am very suspicious

00:34:24

of the way that we interpreted that address so

00:34:26

Maybe he was having an end of life

00:34:29

Thing maybe he was intending it to be that way. I'm not sure I'm sold on that

00:34:34

Regardless that point set aside

00:34:37

Our interpretation and the media interpretation of what he said

00:34:41

Absolutely follows what cal Newport is using as a basis of his argument here

00:34:46

But he doesn't stop here like he doesn't put all of this on Steve Jobs

00:34:51

of course you mentioned the the book that came out in the 70s

00:34:54

that that kind of started this but

00:34:57

The whole issue here and and he he starts to lay out some of the groundwork for why

00:35:04

This is a bad idea and a lot of that is on

00:35:08

It sits on top of the concept around

00:35:13

Is it really going to make you any money like it seems like that's a big part of it

00:35:19

It he doesn't specifically call it out in that way, but it seems like that's a big chunk here because

00:35:24

Whenever you see some of what people say are their passions a lot of times they're hobbies that don't drive incomes like

00:35:31

I love kayaking like

00:35:33

Some of mine like I love woodworking. You know, I love working on my house

00:35:37

Like I love that sort of like but making money off of that to drive an income so that I can pay for said house

00:35:43

There are ways to do that today kind of but in order for that to work

00:35:47

I've got to be a top-notch video editor and I don't really want to be a top-notch video editor

00:35:54

And when we're gonna house like

00:35:57

That's the way it goes. So you had to be careful with it. It's it's dangerous as cal Newport puts it

00:36:02

It is

00:36:03

You know, he mentions Derek Sivers later on in this book and I just got done reading a Derek Sivers book as one of my get books

00:36:09

heck. Yes or no

00:36:11

And there's a chapter in there which is very appropriate for this particular section

00:36:17

Where Derek Sivers is saying that you should not try to become a professional at your art

00:36:25

You should have your job which is going to provide for your needs and you should have your art

00:36:31

Which is the thing that you do for fun

00:36:33

And I feel like there is this

00:36:36

inherent pressure with the passion mindset specifically but for any creator

00:36:43

It's like you're not doing it well enough unless it's your full-time job

00:36:47

And I think that's false

00:36:50

I think there are certain things that you should not try to turn into a

00:36:54

A full-time thing because the minute that you do it's it's not going to be the thing anymore that

00:37:00

You enjoyed doing just by the very nature of trying to monetize it

00:37:06

You're having to change

00:37:08

The message behind it or what it looks like what it sounds like in a way that's more appealing to other people and in doing that

00:37:15

It's no longer appealing to you

00:37:17

So that is something that was bouncing around in my brain as I read this particular section

00:37:22

And the other thing I want to address

00:37:24

You mentioned that Steve Jobs maybe didn't mean it the way that it was interpreted, but that's the problem

00:37:31

Is that people will say things and they will be interpreted out of context

00:37:37

And there will be a whole big this is essentially a doctrine this passion mindset

00:37:42

This is a doctrine that has gained a bunch of a bunch of motivation

00:37:45

And there are people all over the place who are like, yeah, man, I'm just gonna follow my passion

00:37:50

I'm gonna just do what I love

00:37:52

And it's going to ruin their lives if they

00:37:54

If they follow that that's what cal's trying to say

00:37:57

And even if it's only a small handful of people who heard that wrong from

00:38:03

The YouTube clip, I mean, that's just one specific clip

00:38:06

There are people all over the place who are saying things all the time

00:38:09

Myself included where if you were to sit down and and ask me this

00:38:13

So what did you really mean when you said that?

00:38:15

You know, it didn't come across as clearly as I thought it did

00:38:18

So I'll explain it, but you don't always have the opportunity to do that

00:38:21

You just hear these things and you're like, oh, that was really good

00:38:24

I think I'll build my whole life around this one thing that somebody said

00:38:27

Which is why you need to read lots of books

00:38:29

It's in topical repeating collect a whole bunch of things

00:38:32

Not just attached to one and you know, see where this goes

00:38:35

But see the picture between all of these and how they connect

00:38:39

So I feel like number the big benefit of this book existing

00:38:46

Is that it kind of course corrects for some of that stuff

00:38:50

But if you exist in a I mean specifically in the culture we have today

00:38:55

Where people are focused on the headlines and social media

00:38:58

And just the little sound bites

00:39:00

No one's going to read the whole thing

00:39:02

No one's going to listen to the whole thing

00:39:03

They're going to attach to one thing that that somebody says

00:39:05

There has never been a time where this message has been more dangerous. I would argue

00:39:10

Yeah, especially if you think about like the the rise of YouTube stars

00:39:16

I mean think about that

00:39:17

It's a thing that technically speaking

00:39:20

The ability for you to record a video

00:39:23

And edit said video

00:39:25

Technically speaking is crazy easy

00:39:28

Most everybody's phone can do that very simply

00:39:31

And can do a pretty good job of it honestly

00:39:35

and

00:39:37

Because that is so easy

00:39:39

And because we see so many YouTube stars rising and quickly

00:39:43

A lot of kids have that as an aspiration like they want to be a big youtuber

00:39:48

Like that is their dream

00:39:49

There are a lot of kids that have that dream

00:39:52

And

00:39:53

That's a very big ocean for that little tiny fish to start swimming in

00:39:57

Like that is ginormous

00:39:59

But if you think about some of those top youtubers like they've been doing this

00:40:04

For so long and they've or they've learned skills to be good marketers or video editors

00:40:10

Professionally before they became

00:40:13

The big timers like

00:40:15

It's so easy to get into it that we think we want that

00:40:19

And you think that you want to be a big time youtube star

00:40:23

because

00:40:25

You get to make it and set your own schedule and you can do whatever you want

00:40:28

Whenever you want and all you got to do is post a video

00:40:31

You know once a day and you'll make millions of dollars like that's the concept, right?

00:40:36

But that couldn't be further from the truth like it's just

00:40:39

A mess to get into if you really really want to do

00:40:43

Well at it one of the

00:40:45

So one of the instances here or one of the quotes in this book

00:40:50

Because I want to go on to the next one here because we're going to spend way too long on this book if we're not careful

00:40:55

but

00:40:56

The the thing here is that

00:40:58

We do see people who

00:41:00

Do this like they they have a passion they quit their job

00:41:04

They

00:41:05

Follow through on it and it's successful like we hear that story. We love that story. It's one that's in the movies

00:41:10

Like it's the thing that we love to to grasp onto

00:41:13

But the trick here is as cal Newport puts it

00:41:15

Observing a few instances of a strategy working does not make it universally effective

00:41:21

So even if you see a few people who do this it does not mean it works for everyone talk to any

00:41:27

Pro athlete how many of them have been a prodigy been good at basketball their entire lives and never deviated

00:41:35

How many of them have been you know a top tennis star from the day they were for

00:41:39

And never left tennis and now they're at the top of their game fetter or never did that like he

00:41:44

Was on all sorts of different sports teams and played a bunch of different sports before

00:41:50

Before we dived into it as blake says talk to any pilot like it's just not it's not the norm

00:41:55

It's far and away not the norm and it's not the whole story

00:41:59

I think it's easy to latch on to that and say oh, this is what I did

00:42:05

But cal Newport's whole point is that finding a meaningful

00:42:11

Career that is actually pretty complicated

00:42:16

And you can kind of stumble into it maybe because all the the right ingredients are there

00:42:21

And if you're trying to dissect how did I get here? It's easy to credit the wrong source of your success

00:42:30

Absolutely. So let's go on to rule number two since these aren't called parts

00:42:34

Uh and rule number two is titled after the book be so good they can't ignore you

00:42:41

and

00:42:43

the

00:42:44

I gotta find it now, but the the story here of why

00:42:47

Or where that that name comes from the be so good. They can't ignore you is actually from a steve martin

00:42:55

interview the

00:42:57

the 2007 charlie rose show so

00:42:59

this is

00:43:02

Where's it at here?

00:43:03

I got it in my outline if you want me to to share the the quotes. Yeah, so

00:43:07

This is charlie rose

00:43:10

interviewing steve martin and

00:43:12

steve martin says nobody ever takes note of my advice because it's

00:43:15

Not the answer they want to hear what they want to hear is here's how you get an agent

00:43:20

Here's how you write a script, but I always say be so good

00:43:23

They can't ignore you if somebody's thinking how can I be really good people are going to come to you?

00:43:27

And I love that advice. I think that's yep golden and it's it's one that he

00:43:32

took on because he wasn't

00:43:35

Having many many people hunt him down. So he started honing his comedy craft

00:43:42

and becoming top-notch doing things that people didn't normally do trying to you know

00:43:46

Lay out stories punch lines in such in a way that

00:43:50

You know really drew you in which wasn't always typical at the time people like to do the one-liners

00:43:56

For comedy at the time. So he kind of helped pioneer

00:44:00

a new age of comedy because of this mindset and

00:44:04

it's that basis that cal Newport then sets up as the craftsman mindset and

00:44:11

Instead of adopting finding the thing you love to do and then go do that it's

00:44:15

Find something you're good at and get really really really good at it to the point where people can't just skip by you anymore

00:44:24

They have to stop and pay attention

00:44:26

But that's the part nobody wants to hear what they attach to is the fact that Jim kerry wrote a

00:44:32

$10 million check and carried around in his wallet till he was worth enough that he could cash it

00:44:38

But every single day he was

00:44:41

Embracing this craftsman mindset and trying to develop skills that were valuable enough that he could land a $10 million gig

00:44:48

He didn't just fall into that because it was the thing that he loved to do the universe owes you nothing

00:44:54

You have to go make it happen. You have all the tools to make it happen. You have all the opportunity to make it happen

00:45:01

but it doesn't just

00:45:04

automatically happen and

00:45:08

I

00:45:09

Even in that example, you know, he uses that one later on in in the book

00:45:12

It's kind of shocking. I found myself even attaching to that story. It's like, oh, that's cool story

00:45:17

I should hang on to that. I could use it. No, no that

00:45:20

Completely contrary to all the advice that he is giving we don't want to hear just put in the reps

00:45:28

Because that's hard work and we like shortcuts

00:45:32

We don't want to have to spend 10 years working on something and you don't want to have to

00:45:37

Write a million words that are published before you become a good author

00:45:43

You want to be able to just sit down and write a bestseller like that that doesn't happen overnight

00:45:47

That's that's not something that you

00:45:50

Can do

00:45:51

Some people are better at it and can pick it up faster than others some people, you know to use the video editing things

00:45:57

Some people can grasp concepts around editing videos much quicker than other people and can pick up the tools to do so a lot faster

00:46:05

But if you pay attention to what we're saying

00:46:08

That all comes back to this craftsman mindset where you're focusing on becoming better at your craft

00:46:15

In some way this any this is this section is where he starts talking about the 10,000 hour rule as well

00:46:22

That whole thing that was popularized by malcom gladwell

00:46:26

So that concept comes up here

00:46:28

He doesn't really say he doesn't like it. I know we've had some books where they say that's a myth like it shouldn't be a thing

00:46:36

But the idea is still there, right?

00:46:38

Like you're not going to be the best violinist in the world unless you spend thousands of hours practicing and getting better at it

00:46:44

So he does

00:46:46

Lend some credence to that that topic. So anyway, all i'm saying is

00:46:52

This is what he's proposing as an alternative to the passion mindset, which is this craftsman mindset and

00:46:58

As much as I agree with him, I also have to admit like this is hard

00:47:03

And not one I really want to like adopt and say hey, yeah, that's that's the way I do things because

00:47:10

You have to commit to being

00:47:13

Someone who's going to practice at things and make a lot of mistakes in the process and that's not pleasant. It's not a fun experience

00:47:21

He talks about the 10,000 hour thing he says that deliberate practice is the key there

00:47:27

And the unfortunate thing about deliberate practice is that it's not obvious in a lot of disciplines

00:47:35

Two things that are required for deliberate practice strain and then feedback

00:47:41

so

00:47:42

I think that's a nugget that can be helpful for people

00:47:45

but I do want to

00:47:49

go back to the

00:47:51

The advice and no one wants to hear just work hard

00:47:54

And I want to ask why don't we want to hear that because that should be terrific news

00:48:01

That should mean that in most disciplines not basketball because i'm not tall

00:48:06

Not not athletic enough

00:48:09

So that one's out, but pretty much anything else that you can name

00:48:14

I have the opportunity to become great at it

00:48:18

I just need to put in the effort just like anybody else who has done it exceptionally well writing

00:48:24

I think is a great example of this

00:48:26

At

00:48:27

Hesitate to say this but I kind of think it's true that anybody can become a great writer

00:48:31

You just got to put in the the reps

00:48:34

That should be great news for somebody who wants to be a writer

00:48:38

They don't have to just land in the right situation. It kind of reminds me of mindset by kyrl duak

00:48:44

You're not just born with this ability and you're trying to figure out what is the thing that

00:48:49

I was put on this earth to do. I do think there

00:48:53

Are some things and some desires that are clues to that not desires like oh, this is fun

00:48:58

But getting back to that original meaning of passion things that are so meaningful that you're willing to

00:49:03

Suffer to see them come about those should be

00:49:07

indications of of things that

00:49:09

Are maybe things that you should lean into

00:49:13

Ryan holiday again, you know, if something is scary you should lean into it

00:49:17

That sort of thing but the playing field is level for a lot of people

00:49:22

And so it doesn't matter where you started what matters is how you finish what you are going to do

00:49:28

I mean all of this stuff kind of connects together, but

00:49:30

Blake was talking about James clear earlier in the chat writing the book that you you need to read

00:49:37

His book atomic habits, you know habits are an essential piece to this if you want to write

00:49:42

Become a writer you need to write you just show up every day and and write and every single time that you

00:49:46

Sit down at the keyboard and you actually do it

00:49:49

You're developing this career capital which is a key idea from this section that you can

00:49:55

Leverage then to

00:49:58

Get a career that you want not just something you enjoy to do

00:50:01

But something that is meaningful something that you are skilled at something that the marketplace is willing to

00:50:06

Reciprocate and say yes, this is valuable to us

00:50:10

I mean everybody needs to hear this why is nobody talking about this?

00:50:13

I feel like we want to

00:50:16

We like to have an excuse for not doing something because then

00:50:20

The onus isn't on me

00:50:23

Like that whole personal responsibility thing that we talk about I feel like it comes up

00:50:27

Regularly we don't like it like it's a thing that

00:50:32

We see people who are successful in life and honestly social media makes it even easier to find

00:50:39

Thousands upon thousands of people who are more successful than we are

00:50:43

No matter where you're at on that scale

00:50:46

Depending on how you define the scale, but because of that it means that we feel like we're not

00:50:53

Living up to the potential that we have

00:50:56

ourselves, but obviously at somebody else's fault not mine. I'm not a millionaire because

00:51:03

Somebody else didn't give me the skills or somebody else

00:51:08

Something I mean you know what I'm saying like we want that excuse

00:51:12

And when you tell somebody that

00:51:14

You could be top-notch

00:51:17

At writing all you have to do is this one little habit and do it every day and it only takes

00:51:23

20 minutes

00:51:25

People don't want to hear that

00:51:27

So, you know, it's it's not something that we want to

00:51:30

Admit because then the onus is put on ourselves and it's not something I can put on somebody else

00:51:37

Sure makes a lot of sense

00:51:39

I'll just reiterate this idea of career capital though for anybody who wants to

00:51:44

Change their work situation. This is a phenomenal idea. This can change your life

00:51:51

The basic idea is that you continue to develop yourself

00:51:56

And develop the skills that are valuable in whatever marketplace you want to enter

00:52:03

And if you do that if you select and study and deliberately practice

00:52:08

The skills that the marketplace is looking for

00:52:12

Then you can demand a higher price when you enter that market

00:52:18

one example I think would be

00:52:20

Coding skills. I use that because it's a an example that is relatively recent but not brand new

00:52:27

But everybody has probably seen those job offerings where

00:52:32

We're hiring a

00:52:34

Ruby developer and you need this many years of experience to be able to do these sorts of things as long as you meet those requirements

00:52:39

You can make a pretty nice pretty nice salary, right?

00:52:44

So it's the skills that you develop that qualify you for that type of position

00:52:49

It's not how bad you want a coding job

00:52:52

But that's a you know one cherry picked example writing was another one we talked about you can apply this to any sort of discipline. Don't

00:53:00

Discredit the idea. I don't know how that could work in in my situation

00:53:03

You focus on collecting the career capital and pretty soon you can write your own ticket. Absolutely

00:53:09

I want to define two things because I feel like we mentioned the terms

00:53:14

But we didn't actually explain what they were but the concept of career capital

00:53:17

Which I think you were talking about is that just that concept of

00:53:21

building up your skill set to the point where you're

00:53:25

Highly valuable to someone else

00:53:28

Whether that's as an entrepreneur or to a company

00:53:31

So building up the capital you have in your skill set is what we're talking about there

00:53:35

But then he also does talk about this deliberate practice

00:53:38

Which I think we've talked about in past episodes where yes, you can put in your 10,000 hours

00:53:43

but

00:53:44

Unless you're being intentional with trying to improve yourself with those 10,000 hours. You're still not going to be

00:53:50

Expert in the field. So just be aware of those which

00:53:54

That said that brings us

00:53:56

Hold on. There's one more very important fact we need to discuss here

00:54:01

Chapter seven becoming a craftsman the whole section where he's talking about deliberate practice

00:54:05

Cal mentions that he was in a rock band called rocking chair

00:54:09

Yep, I did not know he was a musician at all. So I don't know if that's brilliant or

00:54:19

Terrible. Yeah, I forgot about that. That seems like a very Cal Newport

00:54:25

Banding chair

00:54:27

Okay, so rule number three

00:54:31

So we got rule one don't follow your passion rule number two be so good they can't ignore you rule number three turn down a promotion

00:54:37

and the he does have a subtitle on this one or

00:54:41

the importance of control and

00:54:43

the idea here is that

00:54:45

A lot of times we get promoted, you know, if you're if you're good at your job you get promoted

00:54:50

What is that promotion typically?

00:54:53

It changes what you're doing day to day. So let's take you know, you brought up development

00:54:59

If you're a coder if you're really good at coding for whatever reason in our

00:55:03

Crazy, you know made up business minds we realized that if someone's really good at coding

00:55:09

Obviously they're good at managing coders because those skills are perfectly translated from one to the other

00:55:15

I don't know why we think this but if you get really good at development work

00:55:20

they can promote you to senior developer or project manager and

00:55:25

When you get into those roles, you're now overseeing other developers not necessarily from a technical stance

00:55:31

But as far as like work management stance

00:55:33

So it doesn't actually translate your skills anymore

00:55:38

Thus the promotion actually causes problems and you lose some of that ability to control what you're doing day to day because you're now

00:55:46

Stepping backwards in the scheme of career capital

00:55:49

So turn down a promotion. What he's referring to is don't take that promotion instead use your skills and go to a different area where

00:55:56

Your skills are worth more as opposed to

00:56:00

Going up the chain if you follow me there. Yeah, I think the easy example you mentioned already and that is you get into a technical job

00:56:09

You excel at it you get promoted now you have to manage people which you have no training for and you don't like it

00:56:16

I know several people who have found themselves in that particular situation

00:56:19

and i'm always kind of shocked

00:56:22

When they get in that situation and then they find out that they don't like it and they end up leaving

00:56:29

I'm always like well. What did you think it was?

00:56:32

Why did you do that? I mean you're managing people people suck so

00:56:37

You either deal with it or

00:56:42

You don't but you should know that I think before you even get into it

00:56:45

I'm always kind of shocked like you you thought this was going to be easy

00:56:48

You thought that the people on the schedule were not going to act like children

00:56:53

This this was a given in my mind

00:56:57

So I don't have a I guess maybe I don't have a ton of empathy there

00:57:01

Because it just seems so so obvious to me but at his point is is well taken

00:57:08

it

00:57:09

Recognize that the the things that you like about your current situation

00:57:15

Are going to change anytime?

00:57:18

Not necessarily I guess but there's a possibility that they're going to change drastically

00:57:22

As you ascend the ladder

00:57:25

So ascending the ladder is not necessarily the thing that we are

00:57:29

Looking for here the thing that we are looking for is the control that you mentioned

00:57:34

Control to say this is the way I want to work

00:57:38

On my terms, you know going back to a previous section

00:57:43

I think maybe it was the first section he talked about the self-determination theory

00:57:46

And three basic psychological needs to feel motivated at work

00:57:50

autonomy competence and

00:57:53

relatedness

00:57:54

I think this is the the section where you should start thinking about if you're a massing career capital

00:58:00

And you're starting to figure out what is the situation I want to put myself into

00:58:03

How can I make sure that those buckets are full for me?

00:58:08

And you should know yourself well enough to be able to determine

00:58:14

What that looks like if you don't then that's the place to start

00:58:19

But once you do

00:58:21

I mean just the fact that something is scary is not a reason not to do something

00:58:26

He mentioned Derek Sivers in this section the Derek Sivers rule something is scary

00:58:30

You should you should do it and I mentioned earlier that also echoes with a book

00:58:34

We just read by Ryan Holliday, which was was great

00:58:38

Think about how to

00:58:40

Create the situation that you want not just the ones that are available in the job boards that you're you're looking at

00:58:48

I think you can see some of this in

00:58:50

current job markets, especially in the US with the

00:58:55

access and prevalence of

00:58:58

Vaccines to go to the covid world

00:59:01

A lot of employers are starting to request their workers to come back to the office

00:59:08

Which means we're sacrificing

00:59:10

control over our schedule

00:59:13

To go to the office and people are leaving left and right like it's a mass exodus it feels like

00:59:19

from going to the office and it's going to force the acceleration of

00:59:25

some of the knowledge work

00:59:27

Mechanisms, I guess as far as like how we work

00:59:31

Those conversations, I think you're being accelerated right now, which I feel like it's probably about time that happened

00:59:38

in the same manner though

00:59:39

It's to me. It's interesting especially having read this

00:59:42

Because you have to give up that control over your daily schedule now

00:59:45

Because so many people have figured out how to

00:59:48

Run and get groceries midday or they've got the kids at home doing schoolwork while they're

00:59:55

at their day job

00:59:57

That all goes out the window

00:59:59

When you have to go to the office for the day and it makes it quite difficult now

01:00:05

You have the career capital, you know, if you put this whole thing together

01:00:08

You're working to build up your career capital

01:00:10

Once you have enough of that you can exchange it for control

01:00:14

And you know if you take like your role or my role like we've built up enough of this career capital in each of our roles that

01:00:22

We can pretty much set our schedule throughout the day

01:00:25

Like yes, I'm at the office

01:00:26

But if I need to run to the big box store to pick up screws for a project at home like

01:00:31

I could do that at 11 o'clock in the morning

01:00:35

And come back and it's not a big deal. No one even really like is Joe in the office today like it's not

01:00:40

a

01:00:42

Where is Joe? He's supposed to be here. That's not a conversation that happens

01:00:45

It's you know, Joe's car's gone is he out for a little bit or is he out for the day like that's the

01:00:50

Conversation that happens, but it's not just me like that's our whole office

01:00:54

Let's get on microsoft teams and ask him. Oh, right. We won't get it. It's not even there. So, okay. Well, where's Joe's boss? He can text him

01:01:01

So

01:01:03

That's what happens, right? But it's a thing that people are

01:01:07

After is this control piece and that's the part that I think you know cal Newport is saying is

01:01:13

vital in this

01:01:15

If you're working towards becoming a craftsman in your skill

01:01:18

And you gain control over your work and the way that you work

01:01:23

That's the part that makes it

01:01:25

Quote-unquote dream job

01:01:28

Because you're able to utilize your skills as you feel

01:01:32

Is best. Hopefully I summarize that well. I agree with that

01:01:35

I do think there is a little bit of a false sense of control in the current

01:01:41

Environment though. There are so many people

01:01:45

Leaving their jobs because they don't want to go into the office

01:01:49

And that's not the only reason but that's the one you use so let's just latch onto that one for this

01:01:54

thought experiment

01:01:56

So many people don't want to go into the office

01:01:58

Your organization has 50 people that they want to bring back into the office 20 of them quit

01:02:03

The company is going to feel that they are going to

01:02:07

Give away more control to those employees to get them to stay because it would be very expensive

01:02:15

To fill those positions with somebody else if they could even find them

01:02:19

I mean right now where I am there are fast food restaurants that are paying

01:02:27

$17 an hour

01:02:29

Because they have to close the dining room and go drive through only because they can't find enough adult workers to show up

01:02:37

Not kids

01:02:38

specifically adults

01:02:40

So

01:02:42

If you're in that situation, you can kind of have this sense of oh, this is great. I can dictate the terms

01:02:48

I have control

01:02:49

For now you do but control that's acquired without career capital. He says in chapter nine is unsustainable

01:02:56

And I feel like we're going to get to that point where things are going to settle down

01:02:59

And there's going to be a bunch of people who got themselves into a position because they thought they had control they thought

01:03:06

Maybe they don't I think maybe if you understand the idea of career capital you you don't fall into this this trap

01:03:12

But all of a sudden the company is like no, we're not going to pay

01:03:15

$17 an hour for

01:03:17

Someone to run the drive-through anymore. So

01:03:21

Then what do you do you get let go you get your feet knocked out from under you now you got to start all over

01:03:27

Uh, he makes the point here again in chapter nine lifestyle design without this career capital is dangerous

01:03:33

So let's go back to the office example and i'll get away from the fast food thing

01:03:36

You've dictated the terms you said I am going to work from home. Well, that's great as long as it's

01:03:43

harder for them to replace you

01:03:47

With somebody who's willing to work from the office then it is to give you what you want

01:03:51

But career capital is the thing that's going to give you the the power to put your thumb on the scale

01:03:57

It's going to give you the the leverage that you need

01:04:00

To control that situation if you don't have the career capital market conditions change you lose the leverage

01:04:06

And I guess you could say that's a a risk with career capital

01:04:11

But I feel like if you are in the business of collecting career capital and you're paying attention to the market

01:04:17

You easily just shift a little bit and you collect some career capital in a

01:04:21

In an area that's related to what you're currently doing but not exactly the same

01:04:26

I I that's my whole career path is I was doing one thing and then I found a thing that was kind of ancillary to that

01:04:31

And it did that thing and then something related to that did that thing

01:04:34

And eventually you you land in a spot where you're really good at this thing and this is the thing that's that's valuable

01:04:40

We're gonna compensate you for that

01:04:42

So if you are constantly looking at the horizon and you're asking yourself what's next

01:04:47

What's the next thing for me to develop? How can I get better?

01:04:50

I feel you don't you don't

01:04:53

Fall into this this trap, but I feel like this there's a lot of people who are going to

01:04:57

Because enthusiasm alone is not rare and valuable just because you're excited about this thing doesn't mean that

01:05:03

It's going to be sustainable and you're going to be there for a long time

01:05:06

in the midst of all of our house remodel stuff. I got a chance to talk to

01:05:11

a handful of subcontractors that work in

01:05:14

sectors that very few people seem to want to go into and

01:05:18

one of those was in

01:05:21

The world of like hVAC, you know furnaces water heaters, you know that world duck work

01:05:28

and

01:05:29

Talking to the guy who came in to put our new furnace in and he was saying like hey

01:05:33

Well, if you know of anybody that's interested in getting into you know hVAC

01:05:38

Let me know it's like okay. Well, how much experience are you looking for? He's like none. I'll pay him $28 an hour. Okay, so

01:05:45

It's like nobody wants to do it, but it pays well

01:05:49

So like okay, so he was looking for absolutely zero experience and paying $28 an hour

01:05:56

And he couldn't get anybody to take him up on it. So

01:05:59

To me, I can't get my head around that whole thing, but anyway, that's there's that

01:06:05

Uh, you got anything else? We go on rule number four

01:06:08

Uh, just to kind of summarize this

01:06:11

in chapter 11 talks about do what people are willing to pay for and uh,

01:06:17

I think that maybe sounds on the surface a little bit contrary to everything that I I just said

01:06:22

I just think that what people are willing to pay for

01:06:24

We're seeing some false positives at the moment. I don't think the hVAC thing

01:06:29

That is something people will be willing to pay for just like plumbers are

01:06:34

Traditionally one of those things that people can make a lot of money in that field, but nobody

01:06:38

thinks about that in the career fairs because

01:06:41

It's not it's not sexy. It's not appealing

01:06:45

It's not something you go around breaking about. Oh, look what I get to do

01:06:49

But it's a great example of the type of job that

01:06:53

If you're gonna get awesome at it

01:06:55

People are gonna pay you a lot of money to solve problems that they they have it. They don't want to deal with themselves

01:07:01

And you could apply passion to that particular area. You could take a lot of pride have a very fulfilling career being

01:07:08

an expert plumber. We actually bought our current house from a

01:07:12

What's the term master plumber? Yeah, I forget

01:07:16

Yeah, so he was a master plumber from Chicago and all of the different things that are

01:07:21

In here you can see like the care and the attention to detail that that he he had

01:07:27

There's a in our backyard. We have a walkout basement

01:07:30

And we have this large concrete slab and we put a basketball hoop up and the people who were pouring the extra concrete to extend that slab

01:07:37

They had to level it and there's this drain down there and there

01:07:40

Like oh man, this is really flat. You must have

01:07:43

Water in your basement every single year. You must just like pile up back here

01:07:47

We're like no, we've actually never had water down here and like what but it's so flat

01:07:53

And it was just so precise

01:07:55

He had all of these systems and all these pipes that funnel it, you know away from our house and all the other houses around us

01:08:01

Have had water in their basement at some point

01:08:03

But we don't because he knew what what he was doing and I love stuff like that

01:08:10

I love seeing people who have embraced that craft and mindset and they're just something as simple as how the pipes are

01:08:16

Are laid underground?

01:08:19

It's like they really put a lot of thought

01:08:21

Into how they crafted this

01:08:24

I think that's that's beautiful and you could do that with hvac

01:08:28

You could do that with with anything. It doesn't have to be something that we think of as

01:08:33

Naturally artistic or beautiful. It doesn't have to be a youtube video

01:08:39

It doesn't have to be a podcast episode. You can find your own avenue for expressing that

01:08:45

Well said that's that's tough to beat

01:08:50

So let's let's go into rule number four, which is think small act big

01:08:54

and this

01:08:57

Title I feel like doesn't necessarily fit super well. I get what he's saying, but

01:09:01

This this whole section is about missions and

01:09:07

setting a mission that

01:09:09

You can then work towards with your craftsman mindset in developing your career capital to put all the buzzwords here together

01:09:19

and

01:09:20

he he does dive into like certain

01:09:23

profiles of

01:09:26

You know specific individuals talking about how they've got a mission and how they're using that as a drive

01:09:30

for their development of skills and putting together a meaningful life and

01:09:37

You know I

01:09:39

This whole part is one that I feel like is important

01:09:42

Like what is your mission in life?

01:09:44

But to me the most important piece of this

01:09:47

Is that he calls out specifically that

01:09:51

Trying to put together your mission first is a bad idea

01:09:55

And that in order to put together your mission

01:09:58

You first need to develop that career capital your skill capital

01:10:03

Yes

01:10:04

Before you put that mission together

01:10:06

And I had so many things come in my head when he started to

01:10:10

Lay this all out like the the concept of don'ts, you know in the world of content marketing and content creators like

01:10:18

Don't try to sell a product until after you've written

01:10:20

I don't even know how many blog posts I recommend now like don't try to put it together product until after you've written so many things

01:10:27

And garnered enough feedback from those products to decide or from those posts to decide what that product should be

01:10:33

Like it's that concept right don't try to put together the mission

01:10:37

That you're gonna work towards until after you've worked on honing your skills and becoming good at what you're doing

01:10:43

Yeah, he has a idea here. I think it's chapter 13

01:10:46

Of the adjacent possible mentions that big ideas are almost always discovered

01:10:52

There so you're doing something and it's not quite hitting the mark

01:10:59

And I don't want to say it's not quite hitting the mark, but it's you may think 100% this is the thing

01:11:05

And then you look up

01:11:07

You look to the left or to the right and you see another possibility

01:11:11

Which is just a slight deviation from what you're currently doing

01:11:13

And then you're like, oh

01:11:16

That looks cool

01:11:18

And then you try that and that's where the mission comes. That's where you discover

01:11:23

This is really the thing

01:11:26

And I think that even evolves over time

01:11:28

So you could be doing the the right thing at the right time

01:11:32

You're totally in alignment with the mission for you right now

01:11:37

And it may change a little bit as your career progresses, but this is the the key

01:11:41

Assuming you do everything that cal has fought has laid out up until this point

01:11:47

You've developed the career capital. You've gotten a pretty good

01:11:51

Job because of the capital that you have collected

01:11:55

This is really the thing that's gonna

01:11:58

Take it to that next level and this next level. I don't think it's close

01:12:03

I don't think it's like on a scale of one to ten ones of four ones of five

01:12:07

This is like going from three to ten in my opinion. This is significantly higher significantly better

01:12:15

It's hard to describe

01:12:17

How it feels when things click

01:12:20

But there's a reason to your point that this is at the end of the book

01:12:25

Because you don't have any idea what this is going to look like

01:12:29

And I feel like the passion mindset in a nutshell is trying to start with this mission and then

01:12:35

Create

01:12:37

a job

01:12:39

For how you're going to spend your time that is going to feel fulfilling if you take the opposite approach though

01:12:44

And you develop this career capital. This is a lot easier than it. It sounds

01:12:49

Absolutely. Yeah, this is this is kind of flipping the passion mindset backwards

01:12:54

Because we like to jump to the end and

01:12:57

I like the way you just put this because it makes me think

01:13:00

You know as I was reading it it occurred to me that we oftentimes want to jump to the end

01:13:05

This this is also coming back to the we don't want to put in the work

01:13:09

We just want to get the end results like we don't want the personal responsibility on us that

01:13:13

You know, we don't want to want to admit that we could become an excellent

01:13:17

You know top-notch author

01:13:19

If we just do these little things and get really good at what we're doing

01:13:23

We're really good at writing like we don't want to admit that

01:13:27

Because we like to jump to the end we like to you know shortcut things like we love those rags to riches stories where somebody

01:13:34

Accelerates all the way at the top in the span of just a month like we love those stories, right?

01:13:38

But that's not the norm and it's not universally possible

01:13:43

Right. So that's where we like that and yet we have to admit that that's

01:13:50

not the path for us because it's not likely to happen and

01:13:56

When it comes to a mission versus a passion

01:13:58

We oftentimes want to figure out what that mission is first

01:14:01

Which might be the same as trying to figure out what your passion is in a lot of cases

01:14:05

Like you're going through probably a lot of the same steps

01:14:08

But you're doing it backwards because we're jumping to the end when you shouldn't do that

01:14:12

so

01:14:14

So yes, and as Blake says those stories where you jump from the beginning to the end very quickly often aren't the full story

01:14:20

Take the steve jobs concept

01:14:22

Like we've talked about like that's not you know find your passion and live it like that's not his story

01:14:28

He he definitely worked at things over a period. So yes one point inside this part

01:14:35

This rule that he calls out is that missions require little bets

01:14:40

and

01:14:42

those little bets are

01:14:44

Like you're taking a small chance on something to find out if it's going to fit a bigger picture and

01:14:51

Doing that in theory is super simple

01:14:54

But this is a piece that like when we've talked about things recently

01:14:59

Mike we've often talked about like taking time back a minute to think

01:15:02

Taking a break giving yourself margin going on walks like I feel like that concept has come up a lot lately

01:15:06

Maybe this is because that's my life. I don't know that

01:15:09

development of ideas

01:15:12

Process requires these little

01:15:15

Chances that you're going to take these little bets as he's calling them to figure out what this mission is going to be

01:15:20

And working towards that mission, but that requires these breaks and that requires that concept

01:15:26

So I appreciate that it's in this because this is written back in 2012. This is not a recent right

01:15:32

So it's to me it's fascinating that even back then like he was noticing it at that point

01:15:38

So maybe he's far and away ahead of us and we need to pay attention to him more or

01:15:42

That's just a thing that we've been slowly working our way towards or fastly working our way towards and need to stop

01:15:50

and put the breaks on I would love to

01:15:52

Buy Cal Newport coffee and talk to him about hustle

01:15:57

Yeah, sure because my definition of hustle not just one I created

01:16:02

But the one that I like is to force to move hardly or unceremoniously in a specified direction

01:16:08

And I break that down into three parts

01:16:10

starting with the vision or purpose or mission Cal would call it which is

01:16:18

Kind of the destination which way we're going to go and then

01:16:21

You break that down you give the the unceremoniously part. That's kind of the route that you're going to take

01:16:28

That's the career capital that he's talking about

01:16:31

That's going to get you to the destination and then lastly is the the work part

01:16:37

But you kind of have to do it backwards

01:16:39

You have to start with the destination then you plan your route and then you get in the car and go

01:16:44

And the passion mindset I feel is just like well, let's get in the car

01:16:49

But you can't steer a parked car which is very

01:16:54

That analogy just really clicks with me in this section on mission. That's kind of how I feel

01:17:00

You if you are going to start with the mission and you're not going to start with the career capital

01:17:04

That's kind of what you're doing is you're just picking a point in the horizon. Is it over there?

01:17:09

Is it over there? Is it that way? Is it behind me? You have no idea and you're just grasping at straws

01:17:16

But that statement about the the little bets and constantly kind of course correcting you once you gain some

01:17:23

Momentum and you start moving and you start collecting that career capital

01:17:29

It is very easy to make an adjustment and go around a a detour

01:17:33

But when you're starting from zero

01:17:36

Any sort of obstacle between you and the destination

01:17:40

Feels insurmountable because you can't see a way around it

01:17:46

But the moment that you have some action associated with it, you realize oh, it's really not that big a deal

01:17:52

I just you know go over here a little bit and then eventually I can get back over there

01:17:56

Or maybe once I make that turn I realize that

01:17:58

Actually this thing over here looks even better. So I'm gonna modify my my destination

01:18:04

but uh until you

01:18:06

take that first step of

01:18:09

Starting to do the work. This is not even a conversation worth having totally fair totally fair

01:18:15

Uh anything else on rule four for I want to talk about the conclusion here quick

01:18:20

I really like the law of

01:18:22

Remarkability

01:18:23

Which says that for a mission driven project to succeed?

01:18:25

It should be remarkable in two different ways

01:18:27

It must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to others

01:18:30

It must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking. I feel uh this

01:18:35

encapsulates

01:18:38

very well

01:18:39

Why some things

01:18:41

Go viral some things don't and that's not just like a particular post

01:18:46

Like i'm thinking specifically of uh Federico Vitticci was quoted in the New York times for

01:18:51

A couple tweets about the apple polishing cloth

01:18:53

He was talking i connected yep

01:18:56

But how it kind of annoyed him like of all the stuff that i've written that's the one that you're gonna

01:19:00

Let's not do it really that's the thing

01:19:03

Yeah, so i'm not talking about that specifically but if you take a step back like max stories in general

01:19:08

That's something that uh a lot of people will remark about and it's because it is remarkable

01:19:14

And he's created this thing, you know where people will talk about it to other people

01:19:20

And launch it in a venue where it supports such such remarking

01:19:23

Uh, I feel on a smaller scale maybe bookworm falls into this category

01:19:26

But uh the the formula

01:19:29

For creators, I feel like

01:19:33

We want to find ourselves in this place where we are worth remarking about

01:19:38

but you can't really

01:19:41

manufacture that like catching lightning in a bottle like a lot of people I feel that's their approach to

01:19:47

Trying to go viral i'd never real that's never really appealed to me. I just tend to focus on

01:19:53

Making the best thing that I can and hopefully people like it and over time, you know, it's a slow burn

01:19:59

But more and more people end up reading what I write listening to the podcast that that sort of thing

01:20:04

And I feel like uh this explains

01:20:07

perfectly

01:20:09

How you could get to that point so I mean just we've never had a bookworm episode that's like a hundred x the

01:20:17

downloads

01:20:19

That we normally get no one has

01:20:21

Groobered

01:20:23

Anything that i've ever written where you know he shares a link and the site shuts down because so many people

01:20:29

Are are there but if that is a goal of yours

01:20:33

I feel this is the way to approach it because these two questions will influence the way that you create the thing

01:20:41

Not in a way where you're trying to

01:20:44

Catch lightning in a bottle like I said, but you're creating something that is more valuable

01:20:50

And then kind of the fallback is even if it doesn't go viral even if it doesn't blow up

01:20:55

It's still adding value and it's still going to help grow your thing in the the long run

01:21:02

I think a good way to summarize a lot of what we've talked about here this whole process from

01:21:08

Don't follow your passion all the way through. What is your mission?

01:21:11

Is very well summarized in the conclusion of this book

01:21:16

I think because he tells his own story and how

01:21:20

He's in the process of becoming a professor at george town and how he got

01:21:25

to that point

01:21:27

And there's not really anything I want to call out specifically from that just as a high level overview of that

01:21:35

section of the conclusion here

01:21:37

It's encouraging to me whenever an author takes

01:21:41

Their recommendations and then shows how they followed their own advice

01:21:46

It adds a little bit of credence to the whole process that he's laid out here

01:21:52

And it's very obvious to me that this is it's not a system per se

01:21:56

But it's definitely a process he wants you to walk through

01:21:58

And he doesn't say like you need to do these in his order and this is how you need to do it

01:22:03

He just takes like here's my story. Here's how I've applied these four rules

01:22:07

He does do them in order

01:22:09

But he doesn't ever say like you need to do this that doesn't come out. It's definitely an implied

01:22:14

Uh call to action there, but I just wanted to say like I appreciate him laying out his story and how it applies

01:22:22

Here and it's interesting because he wrote this book and he's telling his story about how he's applied this stuff

01:22:29

To get the position at Georgetown

01:22:31

Which at the time that he was applying for it everybody was saying all you're gonna have to apply it to 300 places

01:22:36

And it's gonna be really really hard

01:22:38

And uh, it wasn't for him

01:22:40

He got a pretty great

01:22:43

Job right at the beginning of it and he wrote that conclusion

01:22:47

Kind of right before he took that that job when I read that again

01:22:52

I remembered the first time that I read this book which

01:22:55

Probably was pretty close to when it was published

01:23:00

And it reminded me of the exact spot that I was because we were actually celebrating

01:23:06

Christmas with my wife's family at this big

01:23:09

Airbnb in wah toma just like this giant house

01:23:14

That uh, we all just went to for a couple of days

01:23:16

And I brought this book to read and I was it was one of those like old victorian

01:23:22

Homes and so it had this great big like reading room right by the

01:23:27

front door

01:23:29

With a great big christmas tree in it and a chair and I was sitting in that chair and I was reading this and I thought to myself

01:23:34

Oh, I guess that's all we'll hear of cal Newport

01:23:37

Because he's going on to bigger and better things now

01:23:42

But turns out he still writes books. So I'm glad that that happens. Yep. It's still a writer

01:23:47

Still does it well, what else mike? I've I've got myself to a spot where I'm ready to jump into action items

01:23:53

That's all I got okay. Well as far as action items go

01:23:57

I have the one that you gave me at the very beginning of shaming people who were on their phones and saying hey

01:24:03

What are you doing?

01:24:04

So we got that one so bookworm club members like you need to do this

01:24:07

shame people

01:24:11

Force them to narrate what they're doing on their phone. Anyway, uh unrelated. However, uh for me. I've got one main

01:24:17

action item here and

01:24:19

That is to simply process what the

01:24:23

Skills are that I want to spend time honing because I have a ton of

01:24:29

things that I do

01:24:31

And I've never formally nailed it down as to like what are the ones that I

01:24:37

Want to spend time developing career capital within because it's quite varied

01:24:42

So that's that's the one thing I want to spend some time on and it's probably going to happen on nature walks

01:24:48

But that's forever the story with me. So anyway, that's the one thing I want to try to

01:24:54

To nail down like what is that skill set that I'm trying to hone nice

01:24:59

I don't have any official action items other than the one that I got when I read this book

01:25:04

Almost 10 years ago, which was continue to collect and develop career capital

01:25:11

I feel like this is a lifelong pursuit. It is never going to be finished

01:25:15

But just that whole idea

01:25:18

I feel that has been very transformational for me up until this point

01:25:21

And I believe that it will continue to provide value for me in the future

01:25:25

So it's not something that I'm going to check off as done

01:25:29

But it is something that I am going to continue to do sure as for style and rating

01:25:34

I talked earlier about like there's some stuff. I didn't like with the way he set this up

01:25:38

one of those is that

01:25:41

at the beginning of

01:25:43

The chapters he like spoils it for you and says, you know

01:25:47

He has the title of the chapter and then underneath of it's like in which I argue that

01:25:53

x y and z and

01:25:55

It kind of bugged me like the first couple times like oh, that's kind of interesting and then like third fourth fifth

01:26:01

10th times like okay, dude, you got to stop like

01:26:03

Please quit doing this

01:26:07

and it was

01:26:09

Obnoxious to me time I got done. I'm sure it's probably a positive thing overall, but

01:26:15

I did not care for it at all

01:26:18

Uh, so I wish he hadn't done that

01:26:20

Uh, he was good at storytelling at this point

01:26:23

You know, I I know that some of his later books. He's very good about using stories to tell

01:26:28

Uh to make the point that he's trying to make I don't know what his earlier three books are like

01:26:33

but this one seems like he's got that somewhat figured out

01:26:36

And he's definitely improved as a writer. I would say you know, this is this is an odd case where

01:26:42

We've read some of an authors later books and then we're going back to see where they started

01:26:47

Not started, but where they were previous. So it's a little odd

01:26:51

from a style stance

01:26:53

To see that because I feel like he's definitely gotten better. So I find myself comparing

01:26:58

present day cow to earlier day cow and

01:27:01

It's different

01:27:04

Definitely different

01:27:05

So there's some stuff. I don't like uh, just in the way he had that all laid out

01:27:10

As far as like rating and and what I think about it overall

01:27:13

I think this is definitely a lot something a lot of people need to read

01:27:16

It's one that I know many many folks subscribe to this, you know, find work you love

01:27:23

concept it seems like that's the prevalent mindset

01:27:26

And I wish it wasn't

01:27:29

And this feels like a good slap in the face that a lot of people need

01:27:32

So if you subscribe to that like I don't like my job like you need to read this

01:27:38

First before you make any career decisions. So please do that. That said like as far as a bookworm book goes

01:27:45

Uh, and how to rate it. I think I've got to put it at a 4.0

01:27:51

Like I don't think it's anywhere near the five territory to me

01:27:54

It has a number of like wait, you're using Steve jobs there

01:27:58

But I'm not sure that's what he meant, but you never called that out

01:28:01

Like there's some stories like that that I feel like there's more to the story

01:28:04

And you're leaving it out to make your point

01:28:06

Like there's some of that. It just kind of makes me like wait. Hold on

01:28:09

How truthful is this not sure?

01:28:12

Uh, maybe that's just me being skeptical. I don't know what that is

01:28:16

But it doesn't feel like it should go

01:28:19

Above a 4.0. So I'm going off a feeling on this one mic. So 4.0. All right. Well, I'm going to go off of

01:28:25

evidence

01:28:27

And say this is a life-changing book and easily five stars

01:28:31

I feel this book is

01:28:35

Maybe there's a couple more that have

01:28:38

impacted

01:28:41

Me professionally more than this one, but I can't think of them

01:28:44

I

01:28:45

Really think this whole idea of career capital. I had not heard this before

01:28:50

But if that's the only thing you get from this book

01:28:54

This has the potential to completely change your life

01:28:58

and I think that's

01:29:01

Justifiable of a 5.0 rating. I don't think that

01:29:04

It's longer than it needs to be

01:29:08

Which maybe is the way i'm describing it

01:29:11

A concern

01:29:13

I feel he does a great job very concise getting to the point

01:29:17

I agree the beginning chapters were

01:29:19

Kind of weird where he writes it more like an academic than he does like a writer

01:29:24

So I do think that he's grown in that area over time

01:29:28

But I was able to look past that pretty easily at that that really throw me off even rereading it this time

01:29:33

I feel like the

01:29:36

Stories that he shares here

01:29:38

These are the most effective ones out of any of the other books that he's written

01:29:42

I feel this is easily his best book to be honest

01:29:44

I do think you can nitpick specific things and he's become a better storyteller over time

01:29:50

And so like when he's talking about digital minimalism and the

01:29:52

Server is going down and things like that that actual story from a writing perspective is better than some of the things that he shares here

01:30:00

But I feel like the collection of stories to support the point that he's making

01:30:03

This is his best work

01:30:06

It's almost like you have your your life's message

01:30:10

And then you want to keep writing so you're finding other things to do

01:30:15

But I kind of feel like this is the one you know, he nailed it

01:30:18

On this one and maybe that's wrong. Maybe 10 years from now

01:30:22

There'll be something else that we're just like oh my gosh

01:30:25

That was actually the thing for cal Newport is he continues to develop his own career capital

01:30:29

But uh, yeah, this this book is great. I would recommend this to anybody. I've gifted this one to many people

01:30:36

I can't really think of anything

01:30:38

Negative that I would say about it. I think this is for everybody

01:30:42

I don't think it's just for people who are looking to change their situation

01:30:44

I feel like this is something you need to be aware of you may not realize

01:30:49

You may think your situation is pretty good

01:30:51

And then you read this and you're like oh, but actually I've kind of always wanted to do this thing

01:30:55

And this kind of gives you a path to get there

01:30:57

So you don't have to just settle for wherever you find yourself

01:31:00

This is a very empowering book

01:31:02

For just about anybody and I feel like even if you're not trying to switch jobs even if you're trying to just

01:31:07

Master a skill

01:31:09

Improve things with your your home life your family. I mean there's lots of different

01:31:13

Ways to apply the advice that's that's in this book. It's not just how to get a better job

01:31:18

So absolutely everybody should read this one just like absolutely everybody should practice

01:31:24

Shaming people who are staring at their phones and not narrating what they're doing

01:31:31

Well, here's here's hoping that as time goes on, maybe I'll join you and and want to re-rate this one

01:31:37

We'll see but yes, I can see how this could be one that sticks around for quite a while. I do

01:31:42

All right, mike. Let's shelf this one. What's next?

01:31:45

Next is soundtracks by john a cuff. I mentioned this last time

01:31:52

We have not read a john a cuff book, which is kind of surprising to me

01:31:56

So we're going to read this one. The subtitle is the surprisingly simple solution to overthinking or something along those lines

01:32:02

Uh spoiler alert. I have already read this one

01:32:05

So I am looking forward to discussing it with you and it has also influenced a gap book that I am currently reading

01:32:14

Fascinating well following soundtracks, you know, we we read a book here by cal Newport from 2012

01:32:21

But this one might be the oldest

01:32:24

We've had on bookworm you'll have to correct me if i'm wrong on this, but it's called self-control

01:32:28

It's king shipped in matt king ship and majesty by william george jordan

01:32:34

This was originally published in 1907 and it's technically a religious book from what I can tell

01:32:42

But it's considered as it's considered one of the main precursors to today's self-help book category

01:32:50

And I'm very curious to see like how that translates to

01:32:55

The type of books that we do on bookworm

01:32:59

So this one might require a little bit of translation on your part and mine mic to get some of the religious pieces

01:33:06

covered well here, but

01:33:08

I feel like this could be very interesting to go back because i was trying to find like what are some of the books that were like the

01:33:12

beginnings of the self-help world and

01:33:16

This came up quite a bit. So that's why I wanted to cover it. So we'll see how that

01:33:21

See how that episode goes, but i'm fascinated by it. That's for sure. Cool. So yes, there's that what so what's the gap book?

01:33:29

What's what's the thing you're gonna do?

01:33:31

Uh, the gap book actually fits that category description as well. This is an older book that I did not realize was a

01:33:39

religious book, but kind of seems like it is and that is the power of positive thinking by norm and Vincent peal

01:33:47

This is one of those books that gets thrown out there along with seven habits like

01:33:52

Everyone should read this. It's sold something like 15 million copies

01:33:56

and uh, i'm going through this one because this is a topic that was

01:34:02

Kind of touched on a little bit inside of soundtracks

01:34:05

So we're going to unpack that one next time, but it's an interesting idea to me

01:34:12

And so I uh grabbed a book that kind of continued to pull on that thread in my brain

01:34:19

Cool. I'm in the middle of picking a gap book. I finished this one a little bit early

01:34:24

So i'm getting to that point where I need to put a gap book in so

01:34:27

Somebody tweeted me good gap books

01:34:30

I've got a list of course, but i'm always fascinated with what other people are recommending at this point

01:34:35

So send me a message or tweet me on twitter. Let me know what you're reading. I need to pick one

01:34:41

So there's that uh that said super grateful for

01:34:44

The folks who have been in the chat today like you guys it's been super cool to see some folks

01:34:50

Messaging us as we're recording this it's always

01:34:53

It does inform what we're talking about and sometimes it helps me understand my own thoughts a little bit better

01:34:58

So thank you for those of you who have been willing to type in that chat box

01:35:02

As we're recording here today, but if you're interested in watching us live and joining us when we record these

01:35:09

You know follow bookworm on twitter because I always post those

01:35:12

Uh links for when we're recording

01:35:15

Day of at least if not the day before so pay attention to that

01:35:19

Also, if you haven't already you need to go to bookworm.fm/membership

01:35:25

And sign up because you can join the club

01:35:28

And get some special perks if you're a part of the bookworm club

01:35:32

You get some special wallpaper that mike put together you get his mind node files, especially in pdfs

01:35:38

I think that's probably the one I look at I do look at your mind node files by the way

01:35:41

Usually after because I don't get them ahead of time

01:35:44

It's probably good that I don't get them ahead of time mike

01:35:46

Uh, but yes, you get access to some of those things so definitely go to bookworm.fm/membership join the club

01:35:53

We'd love to have you on board

01:35:55

Indeed

01:35:56

And if you are reading along with us pick up soundtracks by john a cuff and we will walk through that one in a couple of weeks